Apparently somewhere in the registration process I entered my real phone number, and today I had the pleasure of speaking with a young man in the employee of this empire. We had a nice chat, and I waited to see what it was I was going to be sold. Turns out it’s mentoring, a perfectly reasonable pitch as a continuation of the free information I was getting. I explained that I understand how valuable mentoring could be, but that I’m not ready to make a financial commitment right now.

That’s when the conversation went a little sideways. This nice young man asked if I knew the concept of OPM. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do understand the concept of Other People’s Money. However, my understanding of it and his understanding of it don’t quite jibe. He seemed to be under the impression that using a credit card constituted using somebody else’s money.

Ummm, no it doesn’t. And I do hope he and the rest of that organization truly are just confused about the concept and not trying to con folks into feeling safe about using their credit cards/credit lines to pay for their mentoring.

You see, you can call your credit card company and ask them if, once you authorize that charge, they consider the obligation yours or theirs. Go ahead, ask. Just don’t tell them who you are or what your account is, because I’m sure they’ll have some pretty serious questions about your ability to understand the terms of your agreement with them.

Once you authorize a charge, the money is yours, as is the debt, the requirement that you pay it back with interest. This is no way constitutes using anybody’s money but your own. It’s the very basis of credit and borrowing, no matter how a sales person may try to change the wording to make it seem something it isn’t.

Now, I would have been okay with the fellow suggesting that if I had credit available, investing in myself and my education might be a good use of those funds. That’s fair and true. But trying to turn that expenditure into something that it clearly is not is distressing.

I will be canceling my participation in the training. Even if it was giving me new and great information, rather than reinforcing concepts I already know about, I just don’t want to have any association with a program that either doesn’t understand money (best case) or that is purposefully trying to fool me with misrepresentations.

Be well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

I started my quest for niche information at Google Trends, then moved to Yahoo Buzz. In a few days, when the political news calms down again - or I develop a little more self-discipline, I’ll go back there to do some serious research. The top stories are generally current news or celebrity silliness, but by digging a bit, you’ll find both sites very useful tools to see what information folks are actually looking for online. You then want to use your favorite keyword tool for more ideas and to get started on your quest for more information.

There are useful free keyword tools (i.e., wordtracker), but for a tool that does some real digging, I’m totally in love with Micro Niche Finder. It helps you dig deeply into a niche, shows not only the searches but also the competition. It even gives a green, yellow, or red light to show you whether it’s a good niche to get into. The developer has some great videos on just what this product can do. Click here to check things out. Oh, and there is an option with the tool to check google trends, which I’m doing my best to stay away from!

Be well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

This system is all about selling affiliate products through your blog, something the author has been doing with good result for a number of years. He explains the hows and whys of research quite plainly, and it’s enough to get you started.

This third version in the Blogging To The Bank series was updated to include more information about generating traffic from social networking. As you probably know, that aspect of online marketing seems to change every hour or so, with new networks and new strategies. In that, I think he’s done a good job in explaining the concepts and pointing you in the right direction.

Benwell recommends using Google’s Blogger rather than Wordpress blogs and shows how to get everything set up clearly, with a number of screen shots, and including the steps you need to take to make the blog search engine friendly. He talks about putting ads on your site, how to find them, and how to get them placed. There are tips for search engine optimisation, and he spends a lot of time on getting traffic with traditional methods, as well as Web 2.0 tactics.

This is a good place to start if you’re just getting into money blogging, but there are a few things in the book for folks who have some knowledge or who have started their own blog empire. I have some new SEO things to do and a few new ideas about generating traffic to put to use.

I also picked up some nice bonuses: more reports, some blog templates, and a couple of tools that I think will be useful.

The book is priced at $37 on the sales page, but as I write this you can get $10 off that. You have to try to click away from the site, so that one of those “wait, don’t go” boxes pop up, where you’ll be offered the discount.

The $27 is reasonable, I think, for all that is included. It got me thinking about another avenue of income for that all important diversity I’ve talked about before, and I’m certain that if I use the plan, I’ll more than make up the cost of the book with new income. You should at least take a look.

View the sales page and see the bonuses here.

Be well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

I kind of thought information products about getting started on internet selling might become more popular, but it isn’t so. I’ll just keep plugging away.

Being in the information product niche, I’m still fumbling around with how to do any substantive research on what folks are buying. Besides checking on the completed listings of folks I know are selling ebooks, I’ll often do an advanced search for completed listings for “ebay business” or “how to make money.” This also can add to the list of buyers I keep track of.

I’m continuing to add books to Kindle, but they’re taking an incredibly long time to get the listings added. Perhaps the book I recommended last time, Kindle Profits Exposed, sold so well and got so many people listing that we’ve gummed up the works.

I am experimenting with formatting for the Kindle listings. One format that’s accepted for uploading at the site is html. I use Nvu as my html editor and have found it to be very easy to insert a table of contents with only the chapter headings and sub-headings, as oppposed to having the page number included, which is pretty useless in the Kindle format. You need to designate the headings from the drop-down menu on the tool bar - heading 1, heading 2, etc., if you go that deep. Then simply insert your cursor above the beginning of your book, use the “insert” drop down and select table of contents. It’s pretty nifty, and I hope the Kindle formatting picks up the linkability. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have a Kindle myself to check it. Maybe at Christmas!

I bought Rob Benwell’s Blogging To The Bank 3.0 today. It would be nice to find ways to monetize this site. I’m going through it tonight and will give you my thoughts tomorrow.

Be well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

Want to know how I did it? I discovered Kindle, the mobile reader that Amazon has been marketing. I don’t own one myself yet, but I am listing books for others to buy and download from Amazon. Then Amazon will pay me.

Pretty nifty! And now I’m diversified.

I learned about this process because I’m on James Jones’ mailing list, and he sent me a video about how he’s making recurring income from Amazon, a video you can watch by clicking here. (James is a very creative and successful eBay seller.)

The program is called Kindle Profits Exposed, and I give it my highest recommendation. It’s from a woman named Rebecca Cooper, and she really knows her stuff. The package includes a clearly-written manual and 6 excellent videos, plus she’s included another book about listing with Mobi (which I haven’t even looked at yet).

So, I read the book, watched the videos, and started listing books! Once you get this information, you’ll be amazed at how simple Rebecca’s made the whole process. I really don’t think I could have figured it out very easily from Amazon’s own information; in fact, I tried navigating their information for a question I had and ended up frustrated.

I’ve talked before about all the books stored on my hard drive, many that I sell on eBay. However, I also have a goodly number of really good products that explicitly prohibit selling on auction sites. Now I’ve found a way to sell them without the need to put up hundreds of sales pages and trying to figure out how to drive traffic to them. Amazon’s traffic, after all, is mind boggling.

Adding Kindle listings to your business plan makes good sense, and now is a great time to do it. The holidays are right around the corner, and Kindles are going to be on a lot of folks’ gift lists. And it doesn’t hurt that Oprah recently announced Kindle is her new favorite thing!

Take a look at James’ video, look over the sales page, and see what you think. If you’re like me and just haven’t happened on that extra thing to add to your business, I think you’ll like this.

Stay well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

Have been adding new listings to eBay, so the time is not completely lost. Sales continue to grow - slowly, but growth just the same. However, I’m back to spending waaaay to much time with email instead of with business building. Can’t explain; even as I open the mail, telling myself not to, well, there it is.

One reason, I think, for the growth in sales is that I’ve implemented a free shipping option for sales to US addresses, with an increase in price. It’s a policy that eBay is soon to implement, the demand that CD sales are offered with free shipping. They are also offering special listing rates for fixed price until the end of the year.

The prohibition on digital delivery of products that was implemented in April understandably left a lot of folks struggling to figure out a new business model; it also apparently tossed most of the ebook vendors out of the business altogether. Although the transition to physical product delivery is not really that difficult, it looks like the majority of those ebook sellers have been unwilling to make the change.

I have found that my listing inventory is quite a bit different from that offered with a digital download. Selling an ebook for $1.99 didn’t require quite the offer of quality that I’m feeling for a $4.99 ebook on CD. I don’t think it’s ethical to offer a 10 page report for that amount, even if that 10 page is jam-packed with information. Just doesn’t seem right to me, so I’m feeling it necessary to insure a good value for that listing. I’m spending a lot more time making sure each offering has a value; that it’s something I would spend $4.99 on for the information included. Actually, I want to be sure it over delivers.

A new avenue I’m exploring is that of eBay classified ads. I’d read some stuff about ads before the digital delivery ban, but couldn’t see the particular value, especially since I didn’t have goods I thought could justify the expense of ads. That’s all changed, though.

I found a product today that has me very excited about finally being able to use eBay classified ads to grow my list and to sell higher ticket items. It’s Auction Classified Cash, and it’s brilliant!

It has the most current information on what eBay is allowing (a moveable target for several months now), with great ideas on how to use ads to generate subscribers and to make sales. If you’ve been curious about using eBay ads, but unsure how to make them work for you, you really should take a look.

I’m also trying to figure out Twitter. The tweet and follow me stuff should be easier than it seems.

On that note, I’m trying to schedule more learning time, especially for the social networking avenues. I’ve been avoiding that, but no more!

Enough for now. Be well and prosper.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

A trend I’ve seen growing is that of the marketer who’s giving away his stuff on CD for a measly $7.95 or so to cover the postage for the big box of stuff he’s going to send you. There’s probably a “trial” subscription to their expensive newsletter that you need to agree to in order to get the big box of stuff. No objections from me on doing that, as long as it’s very, very clear on the sales page.

What leads me to write today are a few emails I’ve received about the latest greatest launch where the marketer tells me how he’s gotten this very special deal for me. One even hinted that he’d spent his own money to secure this incredible offer for his subscribers. Huh? I’ve already had a jillion emails telling me about this offer, including one from the guru himself, and I know it’s an affiliate attempt at sales. Why lie to me?

I know I’m not the only person who subscribes to lots of IM mail lists. In fact, many of the big marketers tell newbies to do exactly that so we can see what the big guys are up to and learn from their methods. Not one of them, however, says to lie to your list members.

The marketers who lie to me lose me as a member. Even if they have previously provided value in their information or products, it just brings me up short that they’d lie over something so inconsequential. Is this just a lack of good judgment or is it habitual behavior? Don’t know, don’t care. Either way, I just don’t trust them anymore. I’m outta here!

Harsh? Probably. Particularly for such a minor infraction. But my time is too valuable to me to spend it reading their stuff and wondering what little deception of half-truth or inappropriate advice I might be getting.

And here’s another thing. I’ve been looking at and researching and doing internet marketing for a couple of years now. I also have a lot of life/business experience that gives me a perspective on how I want to run things in an ethical way. How about the young newbie who looks at this kind of behavior as a role model? How does that help him? How does that help the world of internet marketing, already looked at by some as scammy?

If you take a close look at the really big, hugely successful marketers, both online and off, the folks who have been around for a long time, you see that they’ve built their businesses honestly and ethically. You don’t need to scam someone - or shade the truth a bit - to make massive amounts of money. The less than honest folks are eventually found out and their businesses crash - or in extreme cases are closed by the government.

Is it worth it to make a few bucks now and jeopardize your future?

Stay well, stay honest, make some money!

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

For me, it’s an “oh my” time as I see I’ve managed to fritter away a bunch of time. It’s going to be really hard to hit my goals for this year. Then again, maybe this is finally the push in the behind to put on that full court press to GET STUFF DONE. We’ll see.

Although I’m behind in the number of books listed at eBay, that pace is starting to pick up. And I had enough listed and sold to do a bit better each month - and that in July and August, slow months for any marketer.

One thing, finally, is that I’m working hard at monetizing my sales. I’m trying to focus more on digging through all the private label rights products I have, branding them, and adding affiliate products that I think enhance the material. I’ve also changed around the offer on my delivered CD product, offering inexpensive PLR and MRR packages. Roughly half of my customers buy books related to eBay or internet marketing, so I think they may want access to these digital products, either to sell themselves or to learn from. Since I just figured this out (a DOH moment), we’ll see.

If you’re interested in inexpensive rights packages, check my offers here.

Speaking of PLR, I found a product today that I’m very excited about. It’s just a little software program that’s very inexpensive, but I think using it is going to be very helpful in managing some of the stuff collecting digital dust - and to make me some money.

I’ve talked before about all the ebooks I’ve managed to collect. Just going through them is a major pain (self-inflicted, of course, since I am the one who let them just sit there for so long). One frustration is finding a great product with private label rights, but that has been given to me in pdf format without the source doc file. Now what? I can either sell it as is, without being able to take advantage of the plr aspect of the product, or I can retype it into a word program myself. Depending on my mood, some were put into a “get back to it later” file, and some of them were just tossed.

Today, I found my solution. It’s a little program called Tiger PDF Convertor, and that’s exactly what it does. You open it, click on the convertor button to load the pdf you want changed, click another button, wait a couple seconds for it to do its thing, then save the generated text file. Sure, you still have some work to do with the text file, but that’s sooo much easier than typing everything just so you can begin the format! Take a look here. The suggested price for it is $17.00, but I’m passing along my good deal and only charging $5. It’s also a resale product, so it comes with images and a sales page. You have to do your own thankyou/download page, and truthfully the sales page can use some work, but it’s a great product at a great price.

And another note about rights. If you get this tool, please remember that you can’t just start tearing apart all the pdfs you have and redoing them. Check the rights of the product before you start mucking around. If you don’t have rights that specifically state you can remake the product or tear it apart for articles, etc., or that you can claim ownership, don’t do it. You might think you won’t be found out because there’s so much out there on the web. And maybe you won’t. Then again, you might. I recently read a post by a fellow who found out the hard way. His mistake was inadvertent, but the original author decided to be a jerk about the whole thing. Some lawyers made a lot of money; the fellow who made the mistake lost a lot of time and money and lived a very stressful life for awhile.

eBay Cheater Update: After a couple more seemingly nowhere messages from eBay, I checked on the seller I’d found doing a booming digital delivery ebook business, and he’s not there anymore. Finally! I have seen other listings that are suspect, but until eBay works out their reporting systems for this, I don’t think I’m going to wade in any more. I did have an interesting exchange with one seller, though. She blatently listed a cookbook as being delivered by email, and she was charging a $.25 delivery fee. I asked why. She told me it was to cover paypal fees and that since she was selling her book for $.99, what with eBay fees, she really wasn’t making any money. Huh? Her sales are mainly hard goods, so I don’t understand why she’d jeopardize her account for this. Funny world. I’m not going to try to report her, but someone else might…

I think that’s enough for today. Be well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

http://JohnTheGeek.com/WPUpgrade/Refer.asp

If you’re like me, you’ve been hearing from the gurus that you have to be very, very careful when you upgrade your wordpress blog - that is, unless you buy their book. While I am learning a lot of techy stuff, I was sufficiently intimidated that I figured I didn’t really need to bother with an upgrade… Well, wrong. The upgrades have security aspects that really shouldn’t be ignored. Even if your old version blog works just fine, you should upgrade. And with John’s guide, it will take only a few minutes. So pick it up, then stay subscribed for a while, check out his blog, and see if this isn’t just a tremendous resource. Oh, and did I tell you it’s free??

I have another eBay update, too. Well, actually, two of them. First, if you haven’t seen it talked about, eBay has done a 180 on their previous announcement that they’d absolutely, positively not be allowing links off your pages anymore. They’ve decided to leave everything as is for the time being. So, if you have an opt-in on your About Me page, it’s apparently still okay.

And on my saga with them to try to get just one non-complying seller to play by the rules, well, not such good news. I did get another email from some support person who actually, at least for the first paragraph, seemed to have read my email. Then we got lost again. I was told I should visit the support center (and given the generic link, so I had to click around there for awhile.) They wanted to have a specific complaint about a specific item, but then won’t accept a complaint relating to the item because it’s not an active item. It’s been sold. Well, DUH! That’s my point. I bought it, I was given a download link, and that’s why I’m complaining. HELLO?? Bad enough that none of the complaint categories really fits the digital delivery ban, but I’m supposed to complain about a listing that I can’t prove is non-complying. It’s just nuts! And further proof that their interest in dealing with folks at my level is miniscule, at best.

So, that’s all the energy I’m putting into that mess. I’ll just keep posting my little CDs, keep encouraging folks to visit my website through the CD delivery, and work on growing a many-faceted web biz. Which is what we’re all supposed to be doing anyway.

Stay well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.

Specific case this time is an email I sent asking that they take a look at an ebook seller who is delivering his goods digitally, although his auctions say they’re on CD.

I know I’m kind of reverting to that 12 year old: “you can’t do that, it’s against the rules!” But it’s frustrating to have gone through all the changes, working hard to comply, and then see someone breaking those rules.

Anyway, I bought a couple of items to make sure, and then I asked eBay to look into it and do something. The first email included dispute resolution policies, suggesting I contact the seller to work things out. Um, no, not going to happen. The last one quoted the digital delivery rules. Hello? I know the rules, that’s why I wrote, and I did explain exactly - again - what the problem is. Don’t know how they’re ever going to take action when they can’t take a minute to read the entire email. Oh well.

On another note, business is picking up for my ebooks on CD business. The beginning of July was dismal, but there seem to be more buyers lately. And I’ve had some lovely emails from happy customers. Always helps keep me motivated!

This isn’t a leaps and bounds growth by any means. My sales are only about $20 more this month than last, but I haven’t listed as many new titles as I’d hoped, either. It does mean that I’m paying all my fees out of earnings, so definitely life is good! And it’s pretty cool how a few sales can motivate me to get more done.

I’m going back to my listings now. Just wanted to share the latest bit of eBay nonsense.

Be well.

©2008 eBay eBook Diaries. All Rights Reserved.