Category: Rants

Categories
Online Business Rants

Taking A Big Leap – From Online Income to Online Business

Neither of us had the nerve to take the picture in mid-flight!
Neither of us had the nerve to take the picture in mid-flight!

Big U-turn ahead! I started this blog in April 2008, actually it was probably a couple of months later and backdated the first few posts. I’d started working full-time online in the previous October. I didn’t have a clue. I was full-time because I didn’t have a job, not because I was making any money! I was going to be a success by Xmas. Maybe this Xmas?

At the time I called this blog “Passive Income” – because that’s what I wanted, and because I thought “passive income” would be a good term to rank for in the search rankings (it wasn’t – but I got to page 1 before a specific Google penalty knocked me off).

Niche Websites – Rise and Fall 

My best ever Adsense month was January 2011 – I made $1383 dollars. I made the same again in a range of affiliates which ranged from Amazon to The Keyword Academy. In April 2012 the Penguin update by Google which penalized sites which had built links with insufficiently varied anchor text. The next month my Adsense was down to $700.

In August 2013 I made about NZ$46 (say US$38) from Adsense. The penalised sites haven’t recovered, and I haven’t bothered building any others.  I could, and contrary to  what Google would have you believe, you can still get them to rank. But they are vulnerable. And I don’t like having my business being controlled by Google – they  employ more PhD’s than me – they will win.

The view from the top of Waiheke EcoZip towards Auckland, NZ
The view from the top of Waiheke EcoZip towards Auckland, NZ

eBooks Rise and Rise

eBooks on the other hand are the same, but different. I repeated history and started with writing my passion – travel. I make a hundred or two from my books – but the market is small and the competition tough.

If Amazon changes their policies around indie authors, I’ll feel the pain. But not so much. You see the secret to eBooks – for me anyway – came with the success of my quick guide on how to format Kindle books. I wrote the book in frustration – not as a strategy.

On the back of it I launched BookFormatter.com. I started making regular money freelancing – my doing for people what I explained how to do in the book! Never, ever think that giving away technical “secrets” is a bad thing, many people, having acquired the knowledge will happily outsource to a person they trust to do a good job – you know like the author of the book!

I’ve been in this game – mostly full-time – since 2007. In that time everything has changed. Hubpages and been and gone, Niche websites have been and gone (for me). I’ve been a writer and a book formatter, A website designer and an  email marketing consultant. When I started  social media didn’t really matter. The controversies and flame wars happened on blogs not facebook! Search traffic were the committed buyers – now  more and more people buy through social media recommendations.

Working for Passive Online Income

Until this year most of my effort has been basically on building passive income. Ultimately I’ve failed at that. Google changed the rules, my attempts at manipulating the search results failed, and I didn’t have the heart to re-build.  I couldn’t see it working for a many more years anyways. Google is becoming less and less important to informing how people make buying decisions.

Working Online – How Did I Do It?

  • I got paid on shared-revenue sites: Hubpages to BubbleWS
  • you get paid for your skills by others needing your skills i.e. freelancing
  • you get paid for recommending other people’s products (affiliate sales)
  • you don’t control your income because you don’t control the terms of service of the sites that pay you

Advantages

  • takes little skill to get started
  • the rewards can be quick
  • you can learn a lot and make a lot of connections
  • it’s perfect if all you want to do is work online and not deal with hard-core “selling” (raises hand)
  • when it works you really do make money in your sleep – I came back from a 2-month overseas trip with more money in my bank than when I left!

Disadvantages

  • it’s not long-term recurring income regardless of what the third-party promises
  • your income is controlled by terms of service you don’t control
  • as an affiliate you ride the wave up and down of the service or company you’re promoting
  • for mainstream products e.g. Amazon, eBay – affiliate marketing is basically dead because of the way Google now prefers it’s own brands  in the search results
  • unless you’re very, very clever you are building someone else’s brand and not yours

Examples

  • writing for revenue share on sites like HubPages, Squidoo, BubbleWS etc
  • publishing books on Amazon and other sites
  • developing websites which are designed for ranking in Google and getting visitors from search traffic only
  • making money from Adsense and affiliate sales from websites which rank in the search results
  • freelancing via third-party sites such as odesk and eLance

Developing An Online  Business

How Does It Work

  • you offer something that people want, that you can deliver and that people will pay for
  • you develop website, social media etc – with the purpose of getting people on an email list
  • you may use third-party sites like Amazon to get your message/name/brand out there – but the ultimate purpose is to push people to sign-up for your email list
  • you develop a website and an email list that you control. Traffic comes from a variety of sources which include social  media and Google

Advantages

  • control – you control your product and you have access to your customers, if Amazon suddenly decides to offer only a 40% royalty you can decide to move your customers elsewhere
  • you can leverage customers and offer more expensive services and products to a smaller group – you can ultimately make more money with less effort, and it is sustainable
  • developing an online, or mainly online business, costs very little money

Disadvantages

  • it takes far more self-belief and confidence than just  developing an online income
  • it takes some more technical skills
  • it takes more business skills
  • you have to develop some basic ability to explain why your offering may be useful to someone (“marketing”)
Neither of us had the nerve to take the picture in mid-flight!
Neither of us had the nerve to take the picture in mid-flight!

Exciting Times

The last few months I’ve done a fair bit of freelancing – it pays the bills – but it’s also done something much more important than that – as a direct result

Freelancing made it obvious to me that there was a gap in the market, and realise that I could help fill that gap.

I’m currently buzzing with a new business venture a business partner and I will launch before the end of the year. We  know there’s market demand. We believe we can fill the gap. We have the skills to make it happen and have identified a launch platform.  Plus it will pretty much use all the skills I’ve learned in the last 6 years – plus a few new ones 🙂

You might want to sign up for the newsletter – in the box that will appear below in a second… There may be a special deal in the offing for subscribers…  Can’t say much else – after all I’m trying to build excitement and buzz. Oh and we are still  making it up!

I’ve gotta say – if I can find the skills to start a business – than anyone can! Seriously.

Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans – may your turkey and shopping go well. And the family thing if you approach it the traditional way!

Categories
Indie Publishing Business Rants Self Publishing

Self Publishers of New Zealand – Indie Authors Doing It For Themselves

View from the top of Mt Maunganui across the beaches - I didn't take this photo - I was sat on my butt in one of the buildings!

I went to Tauranga on the weekend – but I didn’t take these pictures. While my partner gallivanted around the beaches and cafes of the pretty Bay of Plenty town, I sat in a conference room at the Kickstart conference organized by OceanBooks and TheStoryBridge. 

Yeah I know – I’m never at home! Last month Sydney, this month Tauranga – and in both cases I got the prize (which BOTH conference organisers have forgotten to deposit in my bank account), for “attendee from furthest  away”.  It’s a deliberate strategy though. I feel that  I straddle the world of writers and marketers. Although I’ve never really considered myself a writer I’ve probably earned more from my writing than many self-titled authors. Even though in general my grammar  sucks  my spelling is worse, and my proof-reading random. (I installed the AfterTheDeadline plugin, have you grammar-Nazis seen an improvement?). So I’m trying to learn more about this weird author world, particularly the off-line part.

View from the top of Mt Maunganui across the beaches - I didn't take this photo - I was sat on my butt in one of the buildings!
View from the top of Mt Maunganui across the beaches – I didn’t take this photo – I was sat on my butt in a Self Publishing conference one of the buildings!

Marketers Need To Understand The Value of Good Books

The fatuous nonsense spouted by the pedlars of programs like Fast Kindle Cash don’t just scam the naive, lazy and gullible who join them, they also  devalue the  authenticity of the written narrative (oops the writer thing is rubbing off).  

The marketing crowd is lazy – and scared of writing, and too cheap to pay for good writing 

NEWSFLASH: Books require decent writing – End. Of. Story. Do it or hire the talent. 

Authors Need To Grow Up Too

On the other hand I am quite simply stunned that authors have been happy to turn over all control for not just their career but even their creativity (did you know that traditional publishers control a book’s cover, title and blurb???) to publishers in return for what? Ten percent? Glory? Dunno about you –  I can’t live on glory. All on top of being treated as demanding scum by publishers, just because they  ask a publisher to read their book within a time frame of weeks not months (and while it’s with one publisher you can’t give it to another!). Who has the resources to put their business on hold for 6 months for someone else’s timetable?

 Some authors have a book be accepted, only to have the publisher go bust before publication, and then have no other publisher willing to buy the rights because the book is “tainted” by having been previously contracted to someone else!!! 

Well writer types, there, as they say, some good news and some bad new. 

The good news is – that the gatekeepers are gone – indeed your chances of being published in New Zealand with a traditional publisher is now ZERO (rather than almost zero in 2012) – James George 

The bad news: you need to take control of your work, your career, and your business.  If you “just want to write”, that’s cool – just don’t expect to sell books. 

You’ll need to finish your book, get your book edited, get your book formatted, and get your book in both print and electronic formats. You will then need to introduce your book to your potential buyers (aka marketing).  

New Zealand Writers: The Future Is Here, and It’s Awesome

A few weeks ago I  received the first 2013 edition of the New Zealand Author a paper(!) newsletter of NZSA. On the last page there was a long opinion piece titled: “Less Choice for Authors” by Geoff Walker (if Geoff had a website I’d link to it).  It ended with: 

Less choice for authors, less publisher diversity – for writers this isn’t good news. 

In my opinion he couldn’t be more wrong – indeed this is singularly the BEST time to be a writer since the invention of the printing press.  It is however a terrible time to rely on traditional publishers for a job. I think that New Zealand authors and writers actually have the best opportunity to get their books “out there” to their audience, because the gatekeepers have gone away.  

Geoff posed the questions “my friend is a first-time novelist…[that] is now ready to be submitted to a publisher. So who should she go to?” 

The answer is simple. No one. She should get a cover design for around US$50-US$200, she should  get the book formatted  for print and eBook (under US$200), she should publish via Createspace, Amazon and Smashwords. She should promote her book. If she starts to get traction and is in future approached by a publisher – she should be very careful considering, what, if anything, a publisher can do better than she can do herself. 

Sounds far-fetched and outrageous? It has already happened – Hugh Howey indie self-publisher who already makes 5 figures ((US) a month, has recently signed with Simon & Schuster for the print only rights (Howey’s story here). 

The future is amazing for writers. The future is amazing for books. But the future is different from the past, thank God. 

Categories
Rants

Fast Kindle Cash – How Sales Letters Deceive

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I get a bit of spam in the Self-Publishing Community I started over on G+.  This one looked familiar though – I’d already seen it before. So before I review Fast Kindle Cash – and point out how much of a scam it is, let’s cut to chase. So you want to:

Rank Your  Book #1 in Amazon?

Here’s the secret three steps: 

  1. write a good book; 
  2. include the keywords you want to rank for in the book’s title when you upload it to Amazon 
  3. sell some copies or give them away using Kindle Select’s free giveaway days

Really, you say – that easy? Yes: here’s my proof: check “vacation packing tips” or “Kindle NonFiction Formatting – yeah that’s me #1 – wow it was hard though! Not – seriously 3 steps – that’s it. Why does step 1 matter – because I want my books to keep earning me money long-term. 

However what I really want to talk about is the anatomy of a scam – because this sales page is really quite clever. The image above is pretty much what you’d see above the fold on most screens.  Do you have the impression that you can produce books just like the one’s pictured  in less than a week – you know books like these: 

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Windows 8: Out Of The Box #11 for User Interface section of computing at the moment – I suspect it was #1 when it published though be cause it was published by O’Reilly’s – one of the biggest technical book publishers on the planet to coincide with the release of Windows 8

Super Easy Slow Cooker Recipes for Busy Moms – don’t ranking in any category at the moment #170,000 over-all – which is probably less that a book sold every week or so – so I think his claim of a $99,600 royalty may be a little out there. Wonder if this author used the system, but didn’t actually write a decent book – so the book’s sales has now collapsed because of bad reviews? 

Act Like a Lady Thin Like A Man #1 in Mate Seeking, #877 overall in the Kindle Store  – I can believe the royalty claimed on this one except of course the author won’t ever see it – this is a traditionally published book by Harper Collins – I wonder if they like having their name associated with Fast Kindle Cash

Know Your Bible – ranking well at #319 over in Kindle store at #2 in Bible/reference – this book is published by Barbour Books which appears to be a small Christian imprint. Again – I wonder if they know they are a shining example to Adrian’s fans – with the implication that they are associated with them in some form?  

So on the above evidence – it seems like one title has collapsed it’s sales, another is on the way done and the other two are doing OK – woops one might say! Oh and some books are seasonal (slow cookers) and some will have a moment of popularity and drop off (e.g. Windows 8 is not new anymore). 

Now notice how our copywriter is now a hero he’s found a truly easy way to make money online and decided to share it with you. 

Think about that for a moment: he’s found an easy way to make money online, passive income no less and he’s telling the world about it? Like if you found a way to print money – you’d tell everyone else how to do the same? Wouldn’t that devalue the money until it was worthless? Why would he need to even teach you this – because he obviously can already make as much money as he’d ever need. 

But hey – maybe he’s just a nice guy… Who uses the juxtaposition of other people’s books to sell his own product while denigrating their intellectual property  (any one can write a book in a week…) 

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Okay, so Kindle’s are popular – hmm that was sorta last year, at the moment it seems that more people are actually buying eBooks to read on tablets, iPads and smartphones. But I’m not arguing eBooks are huge. Let’s face it the market didn’t exist to 2007, and the takeup has been phenomenal – we can I think, agree on one thing – there is a demand for eBooks. 

I would however, qualify that by saying there is demand for good eBooks. 

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Now the other thing that some of you may have noticed – is that Amazon is not the only bookstore selling eBooks – others do too – some you may have heard of: Barnes&Noble, Apple, Kobo. But no, our friend Adrian “KIndle” Duante (no I couldn’t find him when I googled him or looked on Amazon either) doesn’t want to mention any of them – just Amazon. But seriously do you want to tie your books up with just one retailer? Maybe, there are advantages, but there are also disadvantages too – like a lot less crap floating around on the other retailer sites because these types of scam schemes haven’t targeting them, yet. 

Most of my books are at the $2.99 price point – they are about 22,000-30,000 words – that’s an awful lot more than 15-20 pages. Which means absolutely nothing on an eReader- but if we say 250 words/page – that’s 3750 words – perhaps I should slap a cover on it and call this blog post a book? 

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Now let’s be clear – again these three author’s aren’t anything to do with Fast Kindle Cash – they are just having their name and image associated with it – presumably without prior permission. Both E.L.James and Amanda Hocking are now traditionally published after becoming successful as Indies in the early days e.g. 2009 as far as I know  John Locke is still self-published – and his promotional activities owe nothing to Duante.

Oh and their genres: erotica, vampires and westerns. Yup not a non-fiction book between them (except for a single book by Locke on how he sold a million books (paying for reviews was part of the answer) ). Weren’t we talking about non-fiction books at the start. Oh and I’d lay good money on the fact all of these author’s books took a little longer than a week to write! In fact their success is indisputable – and also utterly irrelevant to the sales pitch at hand. 

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So now we are actually getting the OFFER – it’s pretty fine print but you may miss that you are signing up for a 39-page PDF – I’m kinda guessing those are small pages and large font, but that’s okay because you will get the video (saying the same thing) and the Powerpoint slides (adding value there!) Oh and checklist – as you can so get lost in 39 pages  and cover template – say what I need a cover for my book? Of course full psd templates will only work with Photoshop – you do have that rather expensive bit of software don’t you? But hey a template is cool – will make it so much easier for the guys at Amazon to weed out the “me too” books that will soon be flooding the market for Windows 8, slow cooking, getting a date, and Bible studies.  Bonuses too – that’ like extra value – a Word template to fix your formatting – (you already know why I think Word sucks as a formatting tool so I won’t go into it here) ,and a couple of other random reports which he hasn’t decided on which PLR to use yet for so can’t name. AWESOME. 

But wait there’s more … 

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I’ll try to keep this shorter than his actual sales page so here goes. Remembering of course that if you sell some copies of your book, mention the keywords in the title and blurb and don’t have a totally offensive cover and start to the book that the reader can preview, you will be on page 1 anyways. 

Guaranteed Page #1 Amazon Kindle Rankings

Title: you need to have your main keywords in your title. It’s pretty easy – which bit didn’t you get. No you don’t need anyone to work with you – you just need to do it! 

Description SEO:. Having your keywords in your description is handy for your readers but there is no evidence that Amazon’s search algorithms use the description to rank books. Unfortunately Duante restricts himself to only doing an SEO review of the description – if he was offering a copywriting review I’d probably sign up – because, if he wrote this page, he’s a brilliant copywriter. 

Description Formatting: Yes you can use HTML for the description. If you actually want a detailed description of how to do this plus some excellent copywriting  tips check out Unlimited Books Sales Machine – How To Sell More Books   (it’s got a crap title, the grammar is dodgy,but it’s actually pretty good for basic copywriting  tips – and costs $2.99 – probably took him more than a week to write!) 

KDP Publishing Setup:  If you exclusively publish your eBook for 90 days with Amazon you can set your book to free.  I speculate that then everyone else who’s signed up for the program downloads each others books. May work, for now, until Amazon gets bored with being gamed … 

Amazon Likes: Fiverrr gig  – you pay $5 – they like your page. 

Tweets: Fiverr gig tweets from people who have no followers (if they are even people not bots) who have no interest in your book. Yeah that will work 

Backlinks: Backlinks have no part in the Amazon ranking of books. Oh and hundreds of backlinks from crappy sites will sink a page, even on Amazon, as fast as Google will catch you. 

Indexing of Backlinks: hasn’t been required since 2008 – no wonder this guy failed at Internet Marketing! 

Author Central Optimization: Pen-names are fine – using someone else’s model picture and passing it off as yourself is not. Authorcentral is important – it’s not hard – fill in the fields on authorcentral.com and again on every other authorcentral. 

Professional Cover: I agree important – suggest that for the price of admission to this service you could get a pretty bloody good cover done! 

 Facebooks likes: see Twitter 

But wait there’s still more …

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Amazon Reviews: Yes important to have a few before you go free – even free is a hard sell if there is no feedback. Not that hard to do if you give people a copy of the book, contact reviewers who review books in the field or similar. 

Personal Support:  This is his USP (unique selling point) – he’s your friend, he’ll help you PERSONALLY. It’s possible he may even do so until the money back guarantee has expired. – I mean do the maths – this is a lot of money  because now finally we see the special offer of $297 Actually when I went to the site and clicked back off the page the price dropped to $47 – yup prices are truly what the market will pay when there is little to no intrinsic value on offer. Plus there always has to be scarcity – limited time offer.. 

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Now again copywriting 101 – and a good trick to use in your own book blurbs – think of every objection and answer it, then of course we have that offer again, because usually you have to ask repeatedly to get people to sign up – after all they are still reading – so what do we do now?

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Now this is probably where you’d expect the page to end – but no – what’s he’s done now is sorta told you what he’s offering, but now he needs to go back to selling the dream. Who couldn’t use $5,000/month – I could, you could, let’s face it if you weren’t interested in the money you wouldn’t be reading this ad in the first place! Sell the sexy girl, not the car – oldest trick in the book. 

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This is a clever coda.  Yes you can outsource your book for peanuts – and yes it will be generic, bland rubbish. That said you outsource to a decent writer, but frankly if you are just starting out, I’d suggest you don’t pay $500+ to outsource the book, instead write it yourself, learn the business, learn what works, what does not. Writing isn’t a gift, it’s a skill anyone can learn.  

Now if you are worried about this being a “get rich quick scheme” – you’d be totally right. The subtle part is that – if you do self publishing right – then I think it’s an exciting sustainable, fairly passive income business. That’s why I’ve moved into it. I think it’s more stable than trying to fight Google to rank websites. That’s why suggesting that I’m partnering with Amazon is very powerful for Internet Marketers who have had a rough 12 months from Google. 

The twist  of course, is that sooner, rather than later, Amazon will have to clean up the crap books. How it will do it I have no idea, but I am also supremely confident that my books will pass whatever tests are applied. Because you see they weren’t written for peanuts and promoted using dubious fake social media and reviews. 

fast-kindle-cash-14  Notice the juxtaposition of Kindle/Amazon known trusted brands and Adrian who? But he’s giving you a guarantee that’s worth something isn’t it? Yeah right. Under this name there is no such author on Amazon – funny that. 

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Urgent  – stop over-analysing it and just ACT NOW okay! Otherwise you’ll end up with an over 2000-word blog post pointing out the copywriting techniques being used. 

Categories
Indie Publishing Business Rants Self Publishing

Ryan Deiss’s Number One Book System: Scam Or Just Incompetent?

Now – fair disclosure – I haven’t seen Ryan Deiss’s Number One Book System, that’s because it’s not live yet. But I’ve seen his pre-launch hype machine in action all over Facebook – so I took a longer look. 

Who’s Ryan Deiss?

His name rang vague bells in my head, I don’t think I’ve lost any money to him in the past, but it appears that he managed to annoy Aaron Wall (SEO Book) and of course the robot was not impressed either: the ‘Droid calls Ryan Deiss a Scammer. 

But hey maybe he’s found his calling, maybe he’s got really good at e-book publishing – or as he likes to call it the Kindle Publishing Revolution So I bought his book, it’s free on Amazon for 5 days,  and read it. The book is being promoted free to his list, and some VERY keen affiliates as a 5-day give away – during the 5 days before the Number One Book System going live. Clever idea – it means the book can give a very, very clear idea to potential customers about what they are going to get in the course. The book, is free, the course will not be, price not yet disclosed but I bet it’s four figures and ends in a “7”. 

Kindle Publishing Revolution Review

Unfortunately, by any objective measure, i.e. from someone who is not an affiliate looking for 40% or so of the price for signing you up on their review, the Kindle Publishing Revolution  fails at so many levels it’s hard to keep it short, but we could start with – the book doesn’t deliver on the title, subtitle or blurb. Deiss  points out that eBooks, particularly erotic fiction has exploded, and then spends a long time suggesting that writing a book is the perfect way to launch your public speaking or coaching career (what this has to do with the Kindle Revolution is beyond me – you’d be much better off with printed books to give away at live gigs).

However if you want to know how to use a free book on Kindle to promote an over-priced product costing a lot and probably under-delivering then I suggest you sign up for all his lists and watch what he DOES rather than listen to what he SAYS. 

In the Kindle Publishing Revolution we have a step by step how to upload your book via KDP without actually discussing formatting or cover design. Some of the information is plain wrong (cover image size, implying that uploaded public domain books is a good idea, suggesting that  DRM  is difficult to understand) 

The worst part is actually the section on marketing. There’s nothing new here: use keywords in your title/blurb, use authorcentral get a blog and start a facebook page (and this guy is supposed to be a marketer!).  He talks about free Kindle book sites without actually ever mentioning the decision of putting your book in Select or not! Never mind whether you should only use Amazon for distribution or whether you should go broader. 

And no point does he actually talk about finding your audience or connecting to them.  Nor does he mention that the best way to sell books is the have multiple books in a niche, nor, and this did surprise me, did he mention books as a way to grow your customer list. Maybe he’s leaving that for the Number One Book System course – after all you can’t give away the good ideas for free can you!  Particularly as you are not showing much evidence of having any. 

Number One Book System – Review Deiss’s Books Before You Buy 

The scary part though is the book is just part of a launch, a hook into his soon to be launched Number One Book System.  The other part of the hook is that Deiss is publicly disclosing how, he hopes, to give away 10,000 copies of another book. Now to me it’s obvious if you flash a book all over the Internet Marketing forums as a case study, plus prime all your affiliates, plus you’re a “name” in Internet Marketing, then obviously a lot of IMers are going to download your book out of curiosity. But maybe I need to say it, because it does seem that some people are fairly naive. 

So I’m not directly linking to the example book here, but you can find if you take 2 seconds, I’m just saying, think before you download. 

So let’s review this show-case book – this book which is supposed to persuade me that Ryan knows how to create a GOOD BOOK i.e good cover, well-written, good formatting.  – a point he emphasizes a lot. Because you know we wouldn’t want to spam Amazon – like an evil Internet Marketer would! 

So this is supposed to be the show case part that will make you really impressed by the guy’s track record and ability with eBook publishing. 

Let’s take a closer look. 

Cover Design 

So let’s talk about what  goes to make a great book, at least on Amazon. First you need an eye-catching cover – something that can be read as a tiny thumbnail . In fact his Kindle Publishing Revolution book has a great cover, the book he’s using as a case study – not so much. Hard to read, title doesn’t stand out, sub-title illegible, doesn’t stand out in the category listing at all. 

A Good Book 

What is a good book? Most marketers seem to think that a good book is a “long” book and most of those define long as 10,000 words. Most author’s would call a long book at 150,000 plus, a normal novel runs to around 80,000. A 10,000 word piece of fiction is called a short story. 

I actually don’t think the length is the issue – though if it’s less than about 50k words you better be making that clear to purchasers in the blurb. 

What’s critical though – is that you need to deliver on the promises made in the title/sub-title and blurb. In this book’s case something called: Vertical Gardening and Container Gardening Ideas for Growing Vegetables and Herbs in Small Vertical Places Outdoors and Indoors should provide the following: 

  • specific information on vertical gardening
  • specific information on container gardening
  • information on growing vegetables and herbs in those settings 
  • information about both outdoor and indoor growing of vegetables and herbs in containers and vertical areas. 

What I don’t expect from a book delivering on those promises is: 

  • a long discussion about why home-grown vegetables are better than shop-bought
  • how to hoe (I’m no expert but you can’t hoe containers!) 
  • a discussion on general gardening techniques except where they pertain to verticals or containers and how.
  • absolutely nothing about container gardening or indoor gardening 
  • general introduction to garden gear which has nothing to do with vertical and container gardening including general soil testing.

Formatting Of The Book 

Okay, I have a simple check list to look for when I check a book’s formatting: table of contents available on menu bar? indents? bullets? 

Is there any formatting used that doesn’t work well on eBook readers – like tables? All of those are fails in this Ryan Deiss’s book as you can see below. 

Why the newspaper displaying today’s date- 23 August – you may ask? Well because Deiss claimed that my review of his book was a jack up or paid, nope you don’t need to pay me to get my honest opinion! He also says he’s corrected all the formatting issues. Well he hasn’t, and if there were even more formatting issues than this originally he needs to hire some better staff, or hell, learn how to do it himself! 

Is the Table of Contents live on the Kinde’s menu bar?

 

Are there inadvertent indents throughout the book making the sub-title look odd?

 

Are the bullets incorrectly indented?

 

Tables are illegible in Kindles- this is at maximum magnification, and there are pages of it

Summary Why I’m Ranting Again

Because I see every hallmark off an over-hyped launch of an over-priced light-weight product, which will do well for Deiss and his main affiliates because a lot of people are still looking for short-cuts and for for the moment, the mood is that Kindle books are that short cut.

 They are not. Can you make money with them, yes you can. Will the Number One Book System teach you how to – I sincerely doubt it. How can I possibly say that? How can I review a product and call it a scam without having seen it? Because some people’s track records speak for themselves.

Categories
Lis Recommmends Rants

Self Help Guru Scams Revealed! Really

Secrets Lies and Manifestations

Are you looking for a way to improve your life, make money, or get your ex-back? Then I really think that you should immediately buy Secrets, Lies and Manifestations The Truth About Self Help by Katharine Kershaw!

Seriously I mean it.

Secrets Lies and Manifestations If you are reading this blog you are possibly looking for the simple answer to how to make money. And I’ve always tried to tell the truth – tell you I don’t have the answers, that I’m just bumbling along like the rest of you. Secrets, Lies and Manifestations does much more than that, it explains why you keep buying into books and online products. Buy the book.

I’ve evolved this blog over the years ago. When it started I seriously believed that I could make Passive Income Online. Over the years I’ve come to realise that the truth is much more complex, and getting more so. Many in my little corner of “make money online” Internet, have gone quiet, taken down their blogs, and moved on.

Some of us are focusing more on building our own products and less on ranking sites. Its tricky out there, and getting more and more difficult. One of the things I’m doing is writing more of my Indie Non-Fiction books, and to get into the spirit of things, knowing I would be asking for some reviews soon, I thought I’d get my kharma points up by doing some Amazon reviews on other books while I had quite a number of hours to kill in airports. (In case you are not familiar with how Amazon works, for Indie authors, its really important to get reviews, it helps hugely with sales, so please if you read a self-published book on Amazon, do leave a review, it doesn’t have to be glowing, just honest).

This book appealed because of the title, but I didn’t really expect to be so inspired by it that I would be furiously writing up a review in transit so I could publish it at midnight when I get home for a few hours. I was too brain dead – so here it is several weeks later! 

Katharine ruthlessly exposes the whole rotten core of the entire self help industry. From The Bible, to The Secret, Katherine uses her rather vicious wit, combined with a firm grasp on reality, to explain just why you keep buying and buying more and more products, self-help guides, and why, rather than giving you the key as promised, they doom you to repeat the cycle of failure. Her message is direct. She points out that self-help screws you, dreams aren’t enough, and how ever many times you manifest the desire to win Wimbledon or make a million dollars, your time, money and effort would be much better focused on actually taking some tennis lessons, or developing a product to serve a market that people will pay for. Which is of course the book’s failing. Katharine tells it as it is, and in doing so shatters the illusion.

There is no simple way to make money in your sleep, or to lose weight, and in so doing so she, removes the market for her follow up sequel. I hope not, because personally I’d buy it, just for her writing style and her clear-eyed worldview. So do your self a favour – buy the bloody book.

What’s not to like? Nothing really, her editing is pretty good, and she covered all the pain sacred cows in the industry. I’d probably have liked to learn more about the author, because she’s certainly one I’d buy another book from. And the final joke? The automated list of “customers who bought this book also bought …” Total Law of Attraction: Unleash Your Secret Creative Power To Get What You Want! Dr David Che Please don’t be one of those people – stop buying self-help guides/books/courses about how to live your life. Just. Live. It. Really – it is that simple!  

Although I’m pleasantly pleased to have read Katharine’s book – I’ve got to say, that she’s not going to make a fortune promoting it. Calling “scam” on self-deluded cons such as Empower Network, or Site Build It!, doesn’t exactly rake in the millions. It does, however, make some of us feel good inside.

Katharine should feel very proud of this book. So do her a favour and if you read the book and like it – write her a review on Amazon, and tell your friends.

Categories
Authority Site Rants Websites

Pick Myself Up, Dust Myself Off, Start All Over Again

Tent on Display, Greytown, New Zealand
Nothing at all to do with the post - I just though it looked cute

Thank you. The last email I sent out to the list was rather long, and had bad words in it. Frankly, I was not sure how it would go down. Given the choice I’d rather have put it on the blog, but there are some conversations I’m not prepared to have “out in the open” any more. If you want to know WTF I’m talking about – sign up for the list (under this post). Its the only truly G-monster proof place I have to chat. (No I don’t believe that Facebook pages are secure either, whatever their privacy settings).  

What I got was a ton of replies – some from people I’m pretty sure have never actually commented here.  Thank you. Its nice to hear that I am sometimes useful. 

A few days after I wrote my last post my premier travel site got damaged by the rampaging bird aka Google’s Penguin update – maybe. Its weird – its going up and down in the SERPS like front page, not in the top 100, and repeat. Not just for one search term – for ALL of them! There used to be a sandbox when Google wouldn’t  rank a site for anything for the first 6 months, maybe 12. That gradually faded over the last few years – maybe its been replaced by this ping pong effect? Making me dizzy anyways – was always crap at table tennis.  

Tent on Display, Greytown, New Zealand
No I am not sleeping in it - I just though it looked cute

For the record I hadn’t used BMR on this site, but I’ve done some guest posts plus some good quality articles on relevant sites with key word anchored in-content text links. I’m seeing “phuket or koh samui” go between zero and 8 visitors a day. It was back to 3 yesterday. And when I check Google via proxy I’m sitting at #4 behind Frommers, Lonely Planet (legit publishing houses) and phuket.com – none of which I’d argue with. The page is better than it was yesterday where a bunch of hotel results were showing (not consolidators actual properties) which had both terms in their address, i.e. they had a hotel on each island – that’s not the answer to a query which is really the searcher asking which place has the better weather, or the better nightlife, or easier to get to. 

BTW the very best information I’ve seen to date on Penguin was  on a blog I’d never heard of before, Microsite Masters – who actually analysed the data they collect for clients and reported the results of Penguin here The only thing I object to is the word “easy”  in their title. None are particular “easy” – but some are actionable so I will be implementing some. 

Which brings me back to the point of this post – yeah this post has a point. 

A New Business Direction – I’m Out of Diversifying Niche Sites 

Yeah – Google all those sites you just slammed – you can have them. But I will be getting my travel site back thank you very much. 

But I do think its time for a bit of a change of direction. My 2012 internet marketing business plan just went out the window.  I’m not looking for new niches, and I’m not creating pure Adsense or Amazon affiliate sites anymore. I think its the high road to nothing.  

Yes I have a cash flow problem – I guess some of you do to.  If I hit payout with Adsense this month I’ll be surprised.  I’m hurting financially. Let’s be honest here, I have partner who earns good money, and who can more than afford to support me, I won’t be in a tent any time soon. But I want him to retire.  I could cash in some investments, but we’re not looking at losing our home, and I forever thankful that I live in a socialist paradise that considers cheap medical care one of the basics of a civilized society.  And the frigging US$ keeps collapsing against the NZ$, thanks a lot forex markets. 

I can’t afford to wait 12 months, or even 6 months to replace my income. I want to be earning $5000 month by the end of the year. This year. 2012

But the game just changed – and its adapt or die time. So I’m adapting. 

I will be focussing on two niches – this one and travel.  

This site just changed – its not about making hundreds of niche sites and ranking in Google and making money. 

Its about what I’m going to do to rank  in the travel vertical (I think that’s the marketing jargon).  I’m turning around some of the stuff that I’ve been adamantly against for years. I am going to try to be “branded” and a leader in the travel niche. I am going to be chasing social media traffic. But not exclusively. I’m taking what I know about SEO and I’m applying it to this business.  I figure the general approach will work in any niche that you know well, certainly doesn’t have to be travel. 

Do I have a blue print? No not really.  I’m pretty much doing what I described in my making money with a travel blog post. 

This site? Well its now about building a G-monster proof authority website that makes money. Without the cult of personality bullshit which seems to accompany so much of this.  

I’m going to achieve this while remaining an introvert, who doesn’t want to go on a speaking tour, become the go-to authority for daytime TV in the niche, and frankly isn’t interested in getting out of their PJs before midday.  

Its about taking the stuff that the blogging crowd has been talking about for years: “write and they will come”, “social media matters”, “the money is in the list”, blah, blah, taking the good bits – yes there are some good bits, and combining those with the best of SEO. 

After all how hard can it be?

You might want to stick around for the ride. 

You see I figure if I can make this work anyone bloody can! 

So hang around – and sign up for the sodding list – because there is definitely going to be stuff I don’t want to talk about in front of the G-monster. 

The passive income dream ain’t dead – but I think we just saw the end of the beginning. 

Categories
Back Links Rants Search Engines

Google Bullshit aka Penguin Debacle on the 24 April 2012

"penguinizied" SERPS 28 Apr 12

Due to the fun of time zones mostly when its the 24th April in the US its the 25th April in New Zealand. In New Zealand and Australia the 25th April is ANZAC day. ANZAC Day is the day Australasians respect our war dead – so I personally think its pretty fucking ironic that’s also the day that Google decided to DISrespect the right of small business to exist on the Internet.  By the 26th there were an awful lot casualties including askthebuilder.com – apparently being the poster child for the Adsense team and providing huge amounts of unique and original content is no guarantee that Google might rank you in the search engines. So much for the content is King argument. The winners, fairly universally, appear to be large corporations as domain authority and, quite possibly, large Adwords budgets, trump everything else. 

Full disclosure: my niche sites got slaughtered. As in every ranking gone from the top 100. My larger sites are generally OK with some oddities like losing the ranking for “passive income” for this one.  However I do not think this is a result of the deindexing of Build My Rank, I saw the drop of a few pages that was the result of that. This was the wholesale disappearance of every ranking for each site. 

Most of those affected where niche sites, which, frankly repeat the same keyword variations a little too much both on-page and in the backlinks –  I’ll ignore them for a while before I decide what to do with them. 

But there is one I’m, frankly, annoyed about, the book site I set up last August.  I set  this site up to promote my Vacation Packing List book. Before 24 April it was bouncing around page 2 for some related long-tails – but now its gone, entirely, it doesn’t even rank for the site’s domain. Instead we have: 

I mean that terms is hardly a very competitive one – in fact, as witnessed by the SERPS – Google has hardly anything that matches! It has good links and about 20 links from Build My Rank – if that’s what sunk it – then the very scary world of negative SEO is alive and well. 

My gut feel is that this one is a huge win for Google – but not for its stated reason of “removing spam for the search results” – it clearly hasn’t – just Google some of your favourite queries using a proxy such as pagewash.com – to see the rubbish that is ranking. 

No this is a winner for Google – because of the number of small time SEOs I see claiming that they be quitting the game. In fact if I was looking for an investment then I’d be buying shares in any company which provides email services such as mailchimp or AWeber. 

Because although I’m not quitting the game – I am focussing more on social traffic and building email lists. And those are easier to do with larger sites. Are niche sites dead? I don’t think so – unless every specialist site – like my one above, and every small business’s website, are doomed to rank nowhere. Which may be what Google wants – but how long before the general public start switching to a better search engine? Because at the moment if you search Google isn’t providing the answers – they are giving you a list of big brands, and sites which are way out of date. 

Other views on the update: 

Costas: Doesn’t Like Penguins Very Much 

SY: Penguin Musings 

Leo: Organic/Inorganic Links and Penguins

Dorsi – is usually a lovely sunny character – but she seems more than a little pissed as Penguin Hits Hubpages Online Writer

Categories
Rants

Sorry – Its Been A While

Wairarapa, near Wellington, New Zealand

Bad, bad blogger. What can  I say – as soon as I get some traction going on this site – I don’t update it for 6 weeks, and don’t even manage to get an income report out for my email list! I guess this is why I need to have too many blogs – so I can ignore them on a rotational basis! Why am I ignoring this one? Well, really, because I have nothing new to say.  Mum did say, if you’ve got nothing nice to say, say nothing! 

Nothings much changed. Wizzley is doing OK, but not spectacularly. It would probably do better if I’d manged to get more than under 80 articles up there though! And yes that is my entire output for the year pretty much.  

Wairarapa, near Wellington, New Zealand

Far from surging ahead my income is stalling and slowly declining (thanks HubPages). I will need to pull money out for the flexiloan to pay tax next month – upsetting that. 

I feel like I am flying blind without Market Samurai. Traffic Travis – is the best of a poor set of choices for monitoring sites. It does OK, its a bit slow, and you will probably need to pay for proxies to keep it running.  I leave it running on a back screen and its doing the job. 

Looking For a Rank Tracker For Web 2.0 Sites

I was using Keyword Strategy to track Wizzley articles – but Fraser has just dropped a whole lot of his functionality – so I now have no way to track Wizzley articles – anyone got any ideas on that one people? I find it very useful to see where articles bounce too on initial release – if they show up on page 5 or 6 or higher I know its going to be easy to rank them. Its a far more reliable, in my experience than worrying about competition metrics. 

I am so tired of Google killing good tools! (Oh yes I really sure that the only reason Fraser has dropped this functionality is from pressure from Google.com), I mean is it a bloody crime to want to know which articles are worth promoting and which aren’t? Apparently! 

Build My Rank is still working just fine, despite rumours to the contrary. And also despite me redirecting my contractors efforts away from them for over a month, the ranking I have are holding just fine. It just seems that Adsense is not paying as well these days. 

No, I still haven’t done anything with my main travel site or my eBook site. I haven’t done any promotion, and I haven’t written any more eBooks. 

Where To Next

Well now I am flying blind with Wizzley – I think  I will switch my attention for the moment. I’ve noticed one of my sites I last posted on nearly 6 months ago, and last built a link to 3 months ago – is suddenly getting some traction. Watch this space – and no you won’t have to wait another 6 weeks for the next article 🙂 

Categories
beginners Rants

Empower Network Scam or Legit?

I was introduced to the Empower Network by an acquaintance at a rare blogging meetup in my home town.  I have said that I’ve sworn off scams – but this one came looking for me – its not just a scam, its a pyramid scheme – so illegal in most decent countries (including New Zealand). I’ve written my review on the blog they so kindly set-up for me for my $25/month.  I’m curious to see if it will rank for the appropriate terms before I get terminated!  Anyways here’s my review on the Empower Network Scam  Looks like they noticed it! 

Lets take them one at a time :

  1. Wow a blogging system how cool is that? Very not cool – its just a WordPress install on their domain – you aren’t developing  your own blog – you are providing content – for them. That’s why the original review got removed – because they could. Interesting aside – when I put the original review on my very own blog on their system –  I thought it would outrank this review in the search results, it never did. In other words their own domain called “EmpowerNetwork.com” couldn’t rank for a term like “empower network scam”. For once Google and I agree – the domain has no authority at all 🙂 
  2. High converting lead capture page. That sounds cool doesn’t it! Its the ugly form that shows up when you arrive on their site. I have one to – its called the email form on my sidebar or sometimes pops up (I change it around). I do it using a service known as Aweber – it costs about $20/month for the entire email management system – not just for the form! 
  3. 8-Part Video training. Yeah right – nice if you want to see the lifestyles of the “rich and famous” – rich on other suckers money of course. These are very brief teaser videos  each is only about 10 minutes long. The real content of course is in the upsell- oh you’re surprised there is an upsell?  Also the only detailed information they give you is how to set up a merchant account – so you can get paid you know? I’ve been paid for years online and I’ve never had a merchant account: paypal, checks, bank accounts, they all work just fine. Unless you are running something somewhat illegal… 
  4. Yeah website hosting etc. Like I said above – all you have is a blog on their site. If you want someone to host your blog for free then use wordpress.com – its free, or blogspot.com or blogs.com or tumblr.com – yes there are heaps of them. If you actually want your OWN blog – buy a domain name ($10/year) and some hosting ($7/month). I don’t know what “sales phycology” is – maybe they should spend all that money on a proof-reader? Anyways they sales are slick – look at what they are doing, not what they are offering. 
  5. The right to resell to others – yeah that makes not just a scam but a pyramid scheme

So they are selling what exactly? Precisely – they are in fact not just offering an over-priced scam. They are offering a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme is when what you  buy has no value at all. You buy in because you want others to buy in on your “down line” and you get their payments. 

It works for those at the top. The other 95% of members generally lose money. 

That’s why pyramid schemes are illegal in most countries including the US, Canada, UK, Australia and most others. 

Oh and the $25/month that’s the start of it – you’ll need to pay considerably more to get to the “inner circle” where they might actually teach something about making money online. 

Really its the old, old story – if it sounds too good to be true, it is. 

Categories
Rants

NZ Electoral Law is an Ass – I Will Comment Today!

Mt Egmont, Taranaki, New Zealand

Yeah this is my first and probably last political post on this blog! Yeah I don’t mean the politics of A-List and Z-List bloggers I mean genuine NZ politics. Yeah NZ is having an election and from middnight to 7pm on 26 November 2011 – I am supposed not to:

to publish any statement intended or likely to influence any elector’s candidate, party or referendum vote.

So WTF you might say? Yeah me too. This is a particularly stupid piece of legislation which was last updated in 1993 which was put in place to stop candidates and parties trying to influence voters on the day of voting. All very reasonable you might say. But now they’ve extended it to social media. And it covers everyone – well all NZers anyways – like who the else would care about NZ politics after all! According to The Aucklander–

The current New Zealand Electoral Act (which prohibits any form of campaigning on polling day) means that if you type, text, televise or tweet your support for a party or person, on any public online platform (be it a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or any of the other thousands of social media platforms available), before 7pm on Saturday 26th November, you could face a fine of up to $20,000.

Yeah well this is up there with the stupid law of the year award as far as I can see. In fact I think its just about as dumb as the Australian law that says as an Australian citizen I am REQUIRED to vote in every local, state and Federal election – of course I’ve never got around to registering so still waiting for the summons on that one too! 

So here for the record is my views on current NZ politicians: 

my local clown MP is one Peter Dunne who has fallen out with both Labour and National and had to form his own party – he takes the electrate for granted – and on hearing he’d won, by a 1000 odd votes last time said, said words to the effect of, “of course”.  He’s been in parliament for 24 years – time to get a real job mate – bye-bye! 

I’ll be voting for the Labour guy Charles Chauvel – who came a very close second, seems to be able to string coherent sentences together and is a gay.  On the other hand, for the first time in my life, I’m not voting Labour party vote – they don’t seem to be able to figure out an economic policy that doesn’t involve more debt, and really lack any concept about how to make this country more productive, which is hardly surprising because most of their leadership are ex-teachers, or public servants who have never really worked for a day in their lives. 

So yeah I am going to vote for National – sorry mum! Most of the policies make at least some sense. 

So feel free to leave a comment about the NZ elections – just be aware that you are breaking NZ law if you do it before 7pm 26 November NZDT! 

Oh yeah the referendum – might as well cover all illegalities in one post – we are voting on whether to keep the current system -the mainly proportional MMP system. The people behind this read like a bunch of old fogies from the 1980’s e.g. Ruth Richardson – they obvously want first-past-the-post again. But those of us who lived through the “excitement” of radical shifts of policy from one parliament to the next aren’t quite dead or all suffering from alzheimers yet – so I don’t think MMP will be going anywhere! 

Mt Egmont, Taranaki, New Zealand
Categories
Rants

I Am A Z-List Blogger!

Z-List Blogging Launch (canoe free courtesy of the "resort"), hat by SunSmart, top by no-name @ under $3, lake courtesy of Khao Sak National Park, Thailand

Jeesus – two non-keyword optimized posts in a row – what’s this blog coming to!  

Some History 

For you old timers – you can skip this bit. 

A long-long time ago – there was a girl who wanted to just stay at home and make money in her sleep. She wanted to do keyword research, set up niche blogs, make money.  She didn’t want to sell shit because she felt she had nothing to sell – but worse than that she HATED sales. 

She feared the pushy salesman – she had walked away from cars and houses she genuinely interested in buying – because of she didn’t like being manipulated and pushed by the salesperson. 

She just about failed a  business marketing course because she had huge arguments with the course organiser. 

She absolutely and definitely knew that: 

  1. She couldn’t sell anything; 
  2. She didn’t want to sell anything. 

The interesting thing was she found she wasn’t the only one.  In fact, it seems that most people agree, if they are being honest. Its just the ones that don’t are noisy, very, very noisy – particularly on the Internet, when you are trying to make money…..

A-Listers are what I do not like about the “noisy face” of blogging. 

What the A-Listers taught me  was particuarly ugly. I discovered that you had to develop a following and promote to them. I discovered it was important to write something on my blog (what like a schedule shite…), and that I although I should first attract followers I should really being looking at joint ventures with the others and getting out my own products as soon as possible. 

There was however a major, major issue, that was always glossed over :

But I was a beginner, I didn’t have anything to offer – I was a student, not a teacher. 

No problem – says the A-Listers: fake it until you make it, get some nice business cards and a pretty blog design. Act like you know what you are doing. Have a Plan! 

That’s why I adopted Search Engine Optimisation and niche websites: joined The Keyword Academy and fled screaming from the A-List blogging shit. 

But this blog didn’t die – and it made me money, without very much effort from me. 

I’m a bit slow – but bugger it – maybe its time to launch: 

Z-List Blogging Launch (canoe free courtesy of the "resort"), hat by SunSmart, top by no-name @ under $3, lake courtesy of Khao Sak National Park, Thailand

The Z-List Bloggers – Blogging For the Rest Of Us (with a New Zealand accent)

Z-Bloggers – those of us who think you should actually only sell what you use and believe in.  

For those of us who  actually think you can just be real and sell – you don’t need need develop a bloody persona to do so. 

Maybe its a New Zealand thing? We tend not to be too pushy, and we don’t like pushy.   As a culture we are a mix of English reticience and Pacifica laid-backness:

Classic New Zealand clip (1971 I think) featuring John Clarke as a used car salesman and Temuera Morrison, before Star Wars, and a car that was old even in 1971.  

So because I couldn’t be bothered doing any real work this week, I pleased to announce the launch of: 

THE Z-LIST BLOGGERS MANIFESTO