A customer service tale.

It's nice when you get more than you paid for. It's even better if you find an "aha" moment, and connect with someone. I was poking around eBay in the eBook category, and found a listing for 9 recipes for 1 cent. I duly made my purchase, only to find that the "eBook" was actually a list of links to the seller's Guides for recipes. I was a bit taken aback, then intrigued. This seller had just monetized his Guides. See my post below, "2007 - I'm ready".

After a bit of messaging back and forth, the seller gave me a 99 cent refund! That's 98 more penny eBooks I can buy! I also contacted eBay about the listing, wondering if it's okay to auction off your own Guide. The thought never occurred to me. I hope he PUTS THOSE GUIDES BACK UP, PRONTO! The Guides weren't any kind of violation.

It turns out the seller is a young guy in the Netherlands, who is addicted to eBay, generally buys and has a Chinese eBay store. I don't think he's Chinese - offering an eBay store in Chinese is free for a year! Plus, he's a bit NUTS! I like him a lot. Anybody who has an animated .GIF of Einstein can't be all bad!

If it turns out that auctioning off your own Guides is legitimate, I may have found a self-funding income stream. I just won't call them eBooks. That's neither here nor there, really.

The real value of this whole experience is the connection. The world really is flat.