Newbie

[Elizabeth100]

Have to clarify re my last post...
willing to do the work...willing to research material...whatever it takes....want to put a website together to at least get started....but just feel so "blank"......have to have some degree of orginality don't we? I feel like I would just be copying everyone elses "research" for my website.......
If I had anything to say about anything at the moment, it would simply be about how much knowledge I have acquired from Rosalinds book...if I never do anything with it, I have just learned so much......

[Dinger]

I think that you just need to jump in - I am in the same boat that you are and I think though that I also have found a niche (time will tell) but even if you don't I would just build a site on a topic that interests you and then add content - even if it is not your own at first (bought not stolen ) and then over time update and change the site to become your own - I am going to do this as well and I have my fingers crossed that it will work but I don't expect any over night success although that would be awesome! I know that it takes work and I am willing to put in the time and effort. So good luck to us both

[Elizabeth100]

Hi Dinger...you are right...just jump in....nothing ventured, nothing gained. Should look at it really as just a good hobby to begin with and slowly apply the techniques to hopefully see results. I agree..that would be awesome. I think maybe we feel general pressure to get it all up and running immediately ...and of course they say not to do that at all. So...havent had a site for this long...whats another month or so, right? In the meantime, lots of studying to do. I do know I can't just put a website out there and not have the first clue of how it all works..that makes no sense to me..this is taking up alot of time too, but I think its necessary.
Thankyou Dinger for the pep talk..it helped alot, and I wish you lots of luck as well!

[mtnest]

Before you just jump in you need to do a little research in your area of interest. Let's say you want to market women's cloths, but what catagory do you market to? Just to name a few examples: Maternity, Big and Tall, Petite. Your research would let you find your niche. You cannot cover the entire spectrum of womens cloths. Just think about it your website would be very large (many pages). Once you have done your research you will need to develop your site based on that niche. Then use your marketing skills to get traffic to your site. There is a great book about marketing and getting traffic to your site. You can get it for FREE at my site.

[Elizabeth100]

Hi Michael....there are a few areas of interest actually, and I am trying to imagine how they would expand in the future. I have to think in those terms of course, or the site would be pretty blah eventually. Its settling on one of these interests is where I am stumped....
so, yes I have to do some research. Thankyou for the offer of the book...I will take a look.

[Reeder]

Michael, was able to download the free book, however in attempting to open the book I keep getting this error message "Invalid Menu Handle". ??? My windows XP automatically unzips any file when I double click on a ziped file. So I don't believe that to be the problem.

Would like to access this information but am not sure how to do so.

Any help would be appreciated

Respectfully

Reeder Lyons

[mtnest]

I just tried it. I clicked on the link "Ultimate Super Tip" and it brings up a landing page. At the bottom of the landing page I RIGHT click and "Save Target As". Once saved I am able to unzip and read the pdf. I am also using Windows XP. You may want to try and download it to a different place and try again. Let me know if it works. If not I will e-mail the pdf to you.

Michael

[Reeder]

Michael,

Thanks for your timely response. The problem, I’ve discovered, was something wrong with my adobe program.

I have since opened the file and read the information.

It is quite interesting and probably I will give this a try. Not unlike many of the people on this forum I've tried many things that to this day still sit on my shelf not having made me any money.

At age 61, and in business for myself since the early 70's as a carpenter with no retirement and virtually no savings, I really need to find something like you are talking about.

I would love to be able to write about how to actually make money on the internet for folks in my age bracket / situation. I've been searching for something that is not a scam and something that would actually generate an income from the internet without having to make an initial sizeable investment of dollars.

I really like your “down to earth” style of writing and appreciate the quality advice I've seen you give thus far.

Any advice or inspiration would be appreciated. I'm probably not unlike many of the folks on this forum. I would like to make a living, a good living from working on the internet.

I've been reading on this froum with great interest trying to figure out what exactly I could produce as my own product then looking at your free information it strikes me that I don't necessaryly have to write about things I know a lot about or am passionate about, but can use other peoples information and sell that.

Thanks again

Reeder Lyons

[catherinel]

Do your research and plan, before jumping in. Research your topic, then find good key phrases on wordtracker. When you are putting your site together think in terms of webpages, not website, as this will help you to get more organic traffic to your site.

For example, if you have a site on Backpacking in Europe - you could choose a different keyphrase for each page. A 100 page site, with 100 less competitive keyphrases would bring you far more traffic than a 100 page site with the same, more competitive keyphrases throughout the site.

Hope this makes sense.

[Roy Carter]

Good advice Catherine.

I'd suggest putting your content into your own ebook and marketing that. But then, I would say that wouldn't I?!

Seriously though Reeder, my life has completely changed since I got into marketing my own ebook products.

Don't worry at all about your age, you're never too old to start. I started quite late in life myself.

Stay focussed and determined and nothing can stop you!

regards
Roy

[catherinel]

Thanks Roy. I've been writing for years, but I've never published a book yet. I've written novels, but I didn't read the stage where they were good enough to send to a publisher. My last one wasn't bad, but my ex husband wiped the disc before he left.

I have been working on a non-fiction book. But, I'm starting to come to the conclusion that it should really be two seperate books. And I don't know whether I want to publish it as an ebook, or traditional print.

Maybe it would be worth doing both I suppose.

I just can't seem to find anywhere that tells you how many copies of the bestselling ebooks sell each year, so I really don't have a clue how well they do in comparison to traditional print. You don't happen to know where I could find this out do you?

[Roy Carter]

Hi Catherine,

I don't know of anywhere that tells you how many copies of the top ebooks are sold each year. However, the beauty about ebooks is that the percieved value seems to be far greater than for a book in print. So, whereas a book in print may sell for say $20, the same information in ebook format can sell for $47, $67, or even $97 etc.

The life of a book in print would tend to be less as the publisher would (if at all) only promote it initially, whereas you can drive traffic to a website sales page continuously for years.

It's notoriously difficult to get a publisher to accept work, whereas your ebook can be on sale and earning for you in a very short space of time.

regards
Roy

[catherinel]

Hi Roy - I know the royalties are much lower for a book in print. But there is the credibility factor to take into account. There's some good ebooks out there, and there's also some rubbish.

I think the fact that anyone can write an ebook, and put it up for sale online, takes a bit of the shine out of writing one. And, I know for a fact that many of the authors have more chance of being crushed to death by a purple cow than they have of being published by a traditional publisher.

It would be nice to do both print and ebook. I'm sure Roz's Super Affiliate handbook is also available in print, because I've seen it on Amazon.

[Reeder]

Roy, you seem an intelligent sort of person and your writing is encouraging.

If you were just getting started and had little understanding of where to begin or who to ask advice of, where would you go to get "a beginning"?

It seems one can spend exorbitant amounts of time and energy reading "everything" and still have nothing. Certainly one can spend two fortunes and still have little to show for the investment.

I wish there were someone that could be trusted to give the “straight story”, and then teach you how this is all supposed to work.

One of my great passions and enjoyments is taking a document and reading it critically, finding errors, misplaced words, misspelled words, attempting to show the author how if this phrase, or that phrase were said in a different way it would have greater appeal or make better use of the words, or make more sense.

I've no idea how to turn that interest / passion into profit.

I've been to and joined eLance; have discovered to my dismay that a grammatical proof reader I am not.

BUT one does not have to be an English major to know if a phrase is turned correctly or to the author's disadvantage.

Out of curiosity it would be interesting to know many folks even on this forum have taken Rosalind's information; following its advice and are actually making a living on line?

I've been reading with interest her in depth "Affiliate Handbook". The more I look at click bank the more I am convinced there certainly is no shortage of products to sell.

This post is more an appeal to anyone willing to share how this old carpenter can get started. I need something that can be focused on so I'm not so scattered. I feel I've read “everything” on the net, obviously this is an exaggeration, but it feels that everyone has the same product, or the product is so outrageously expensive it make little difference anyway.

I’d appreciate any insight or suggestion.

Respectfully

Reeder

[Griff Grumbein]

Hello Reeder!

The best thing I can suggest is this:

Having read Ros's book, look through it again and pick ONE model that you feel you would be comfortable trying and enthusiastic about applying yourself to. Then use every method you know of to make that model work for you. Think outside the box and add your own unique style / viewpoint / personality to it to make it rise above the herd.

Keep working on that ONE model, tweaking and modifying until it works for you. (Please note that it will probably not happen overnight.) As you apply various methods to that ONE model, you will learn a LOT about how things work (or don't work, lol) which will enhance your efforts further.

Once you have got your model working in the black (regardless of how marginally), continue to test and experiment with it until you feel it is doing it's best, then tweak & test some more.

When you are confident of your success with that model, rinse & repeat the same, now-working model, only for different niches.

After you have one model down successfully, continue to build on that model and start dabbling with another model you feel comfortable with and repeat the sequence.

We all must strive to make it around that learning curve so just keep driving. . .that curve will straighten out, and when it does you will have your own road map to success that you can follow (and market) over & over again!

I know I seem to have over-emphasized ONE model. The reason I do is because most people do not stay with one model long enough to reap the fruits of their labors and perseverance. Keep at it and be ready to accept some failures (read: lessons to be learned) along the way because they are the flat tires you will inevitably encounter on the road to success.

Nobody knows everything there is to know about IM, and nobody that is a success does anything exactly like someone else. What works for one may not work verbatim for another. Keep at it and success will come!

Best wishes for your success, and keep us posted how it goes for you!

~(G)Q