A Mighty Force of Slow Growth

A simple acorn isn’t much to look at, really. I used to find tons of them as a kid. The wonder that this little “nothing” could become the giant tree that produced it really didn’t hit me until I was at least 10. By then, I had my own garden, and knew full well how long it took a carrot seed to become a little carrot.
    Over the years, I’ve been involved in businesses and hobbies that proceeded much the same way. Progress is painfully slow at first, with bursts of activity and growth, followed by what appear to be plateaus. I say, “appear to be”, because underneath, things are happening which are not visible to the eye. Much like a plant sends down roots, seeking water and nourishment, ideas and endeavors need to dive down into the subconscious, the “Matrix”, the whatever-the-hell-it-is that comprises our reality.
    It’s that might force of slow growth that moves mountains. There’s this mushroom called an Ink Cap. It’s very delicate, doesn’t last more than half a day, wilting in the noonday sun. Yet the underground body of this evanescent growth can crack concrete.
    It’s the same for new ideas, businesses, creations. On the surface, they may appear to be nothing special. Underneath, they’re changing the foundations of the World as we will perceive it. Day by day, bit by bit, they grow strong enough to rock those foundations.

The Seduction Files

For a while now, I've wondered if telling people I'm part of that community that knows how to effectively seduce women was a good idea. The feedback I've gotten has been overwhelmingly positive, even from middle-aged housewives. Once I explain the participatory methods I use, folks just want to hear more.
    Naturally, "How to Pick Up Hot Girls and Get Laid Fast" is not exactly a PC headline, but that's what I know how to do. Sugar coating the message just might make someone feel mislead when I reveal all the secrets, tips, pitfalls and methods for bypassing the whole "dating" dynamic and getting to the really fun part. The women who participate invariably say they wished more guys knew this way of interacting effectively, without fumbling or misleading. Hey, hot girls need sex, too!
    I have another blog on this subject -- mature audiences only, please. This is the real thing, not just a "dating tips for lonely hearts" checklist. No guesswork, no locker-room tales -- just the resources for finding and using field tested and proven tactics, techniques and strategies for getting results. Enjoy.

Writers Who've Starved Long Enough Learn to Adapt

One of the advantages of age over youth is having no shame in learning from the mistakes of others. I certainly made plenty of 'em (and will continue to do so), but I'm much better at "course correction" now. You might like me to give you all the dish on what and where I've screwed up, but that ain't gonna happen!
    In my previous post, I mentioned Desperate Buyers Only, a publication by Alexis Dawes. I found it (and her) at the Warrior's Forum, a resource for Private Label Rights publications, Marketing, Joint Ventures, etc. Anybody interested in producing, selling, marketing (as a primary or affiliate) or learning more about Information Products needs to go there. Not this instant! Soon...
    The funny thing to me is how many writers haven't asked themselves the question: Have I starved long enough? They keep running through the same steps they've done before, with no results. They keep writing about general topics, "hot" niche markets or, worst of all, follow the advice to "Do what you love and the money will follow.” Unfortunately, they resist noticing that the money has not followed. If we lived forever, perhaps that method might work. We don't.
    By targeting products for desperate buyers only, you put yourself in the enviable position of having people standing in line with their wallets out, ready to buy. In fact, the greater the urgency, the more of a premium they'll pay. It's essential to provide full value for what you're offering, or you'll not only eat a lot of refunds, you'll have an angry mob chasing you with torches and pitchforks!
    These folks come online to search for the answer to their urgent, burning questions. That means they believe there's an answer "out there". If YOU are there, you can become the answer. If their problem is as urgent as a painful toothache, these desperate buyers will not only pay, they'll pay your top-dollar price and, perhaps, ask you for more!
    If you want to get run over by a fast-moving vehicle, wander on the Freeway, the Autobahn or the Interstate. If you want to get run over by people with too much money and not enough answers, supply those answers! Target desperate buyers ONLY. Or, perhaps, you're not hungry enough, yet.

A Desperate Need -- and a Solution that Pays

Today marks a turning point in my marketing focus. Until today, I really didn’t have a methodology for getting my profitable (more than 99 cents US) items listed and presented in a way that would motivate buyers to buy. Sure, those items are worth the price I charge (In My Not So Humble Opinion), but only a select few were eligible for top dollar. Those items have one thing in common: they fill a need, not a want.
    Ironically, my “bestseller” is a recipe book for Fruit Smoothies. That’s not exactly a burning need, and promoting it would have distracted me from focussing on selling the items that can help pay the bills for listing, store fees, etc. Fortunately, I found a resource that explained, explicitly, what gets people to spend.
    Desperation creates a desire for action. It also creates an emotional reaction that is reliable, predictable and dependable. That emotional reaction is a sense of urgency: either to move closer to something good or away from something bad. You MUST get to a dentist to have that tooth pulled. You MUST find out if you can learn to attract that one, special person you’ve been pining over. You MUST find a way to get rid of the smelly foot odor problem you have. You MUST increase your income SOON.
    I had been wondering what to create in the way of how-to information that would be profitable. Looks like that question is answered: target desperate buyers. Now I must produce genuine value, not just sucker people into buying by playing on that sense of urgency.

Web 2.SLOW?

[As his Squidoo page loads, Vince mumbles, “Bloated code crap! Why am I ‘waiting for Squidoo' to download its stuff?!!! It's a freakin' machine! Shouldn’t *IT* wait for me?!!! I'll give ya a freakin' "drumroll"!]
    Obviously, dealing with these “feature rich” environments means a certain amount of aggravation. Just because you *can* do something doesn’t mean you should.
    As I’m editing this post in Word, because typing it into the blogger interface is jumpy, kludgy and annoying, I can’t just type a *, then a word, then another * without Word deleting both *’s. So, I have to type the word, add the * then move back to the beginning of the word and insert the second *.
    Undoubtedly, some genius (who passed up a promising career path in packaging technology) decided that little function was useful, just like the genius who decided that jumpy JAVA inputs were a good idea.
    I wonder if those two met the genius who makes me insert “nbsp’s” so I can indent my paragraphs, instead of hit the freakin’ TAB key and have it WORK?!!!
    Going to either Squidoo or Wordpress to even log into my dashboard is a waste of time, as all the “feature rich” crap loads without even the courtesy of showing a splash screen. Attempting to modify or update either one is boring: I can go make coffee waiting for the new screen to load, stop back to enter [YES] to tell the thing to stop running a script that’s broken, go shave, then come back and try to do something useful.
    This is clearly a case of reach exceeding grasp. The only question is: will we live long enought to see the time when all this “feature rich” crap will actually work in something resembling real time?

Feeding at the same trough - Google

My sister is an employee of Google, working on the "plumbing", as she calls it. Her work involves the machinery and codes to run it, from the BIOS on up. Next time you "Google" something, it's the work of her, her team and many others that make that search happen in a gazillionth of a second and return umpteen million "hits". Never mind weeding through all that stuff for the answer you really want.
    She's a supporter of my efforts at publishing - even bought my DEVIL'S DICTIONARY for quotes she can foist on others! Here's her current favorite:

QUOTATION: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another.

While I'm still new to this whole business of monetizing myself, my blog, my RSS feeds, etc., I still had the dumb luck to put up Google AdSense advertising here. It's not a roaring success yet, but I'm learning every day.
    Furthermore, I've invested a bit in eBooks on using AdSense in an effective manner. They're actually helpful, as opposed to all the fluff pieces out there that cover general information and have TONS of links to other products the author insists one must have.
    AdSense for Beginners, The Google Adsense Empire Handbook and AdSense Revenue Exposed will be offered separately and as a "bundle" for a bit of a discount. Even though they're intended to boost the income of the publishers, they all offer real value, simple explanations and useful links that aren't going to make the publishers any real money.
    Now that I'm getting store traffic, it's time to put up products that'll get me some real income, not just pay for their fees and expenses incurred by opening a store!

The Book of the Day Club

Now that I’m a publisher, I can actually fulfill an idea I had years ago: use my knowledge of typesetting and layout to produce sellable information at a very low cost. Not only am I producing self-help material based on my research and experience, I’m getting out Literature that’s in the Public Domain! I can bang out a well-edited book, complete with cover art, in about two hours. That includes listing it on eBay!
         Current titles include THE ART OF WAR, THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY, DRACULA and A STUDY IN SCARLET, the very first Sherlock Holmes adventure. I’m already working on a list of authors like Edgar Allen Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.G. Wells, Charles Dickens, Herman Melville and Jane Austen to start (in no particular order), along with more by Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
         Any suggestions are welcome as to classics you’d like to see made available as finely wrought .PDF files. Yeah, I forgot – FANNY HILL is on the to-do list, too~!