They have an ambitious goal: each will try to earn over 100,000 dollars in one year from writing or editing work.

You can follow their progress on their website: www.sixfigurewriters.com

This is no insignificant challenge. Many writers face a bleak market that suffers from a glut of “talent” that is willing to work for a poverty wage of 0.01 – 0.03 cents a word.

Even respected writers are struggling. Well known author, Bob Bly, recently announced his retirement from book writing saying:

The shelves are too crowded, and it’s harder for worthy titles to stand out. Advanced for midlist and backlist authors, meanwhile, have declined to a new level of poverty. And publishers are having authors turn out formula books like machines.

A major publisher recently asked me to write a complex 120,000-word book — in 3 months — and for a lousy $10,000!

So while it isn’t an easy market, this group is out to prove what can be done with some dedication and hard work.

If you are at all curious about making money from freelance writing, this is one site you will not want to miss.

]]> http://www.nextebizguy.com/2006/11/17/learn-how-to-make-money-as-a-writer/feed/ 0 http://www.nextebizguy.com/2006/11/03/selling-an-ebook-on-ebay/ http://www.nextebizguy.com/2006/11/03/selling-an-ebook-on-ebay/#comments Fri, 03 Nov 2006 03:18:27 +0000 Nextebizguy http://nextebizguy.com/2006/11/03/selling-an-ebook-on-ebay/ Information Products > Other The listing had [...]]]> Always one for adventure in ebiz ideas, I recently have tried selling an ebook on eBay. Admittedly, ebooks are a dime a dozen on eBay, but this ebook is a quality product and I think has great value to aspiring webmasters.

I first tried the suggested category: Everything Else > Information Products > Other

The listing had sales copy but no pictures. All listings in this area failed to sell. Ebook priced at $9.99.

I then tried listing it in: Business & Industrial > Other Industries > Websites & Businesses for Sale > Internet Businesses, Websites > Other Internet Businesses

The first listing had text only sales copy and again no sales. I had someone make me an ebook cover and relisted the ad. This time the ebook cover version sold (same ad copy and still priced at $9.99). The amount of interest judged by page views is quite low (< 20 views).

I am still going to try experiments with sales copy to see if I can boost page views. Overall, I think that eBay is saturated with ebooks. I can also try pricing changes but I don’t have much interest in selling ebooks for 99 cents.

As a side note, when I do research on completed auctions, the only ebooks that are selling well and for lots of money are the ebooks for police auctions that say things like “Xbox 360 90% Off Police Auction Ebook”. It appears people aren’t paying attention and somehow think they are buying an Xbox 360 at 90% off. Some of those ebooks are selling upwards of 100 dollars! Scratching my head on that one.

Setting up an account is easy enough and posting an item for sale is a snap. One particular challenge with Craiglist is that you have to set your price. This is not an auction system like eBay. In the beginning you’ll need to decide a reasonable selling price and be prepared to revise it if you don’t get any buyer interest.

From experience selling seven items, Craigslist should definitely be on your list of ways to make money online. So where does the futon come in? I had nice wood futon with an eight inch mattress I wanted to sell. I listed the futon at a reasonable price and my phone wouldn’t stop ringing. I was getting calls for the futon from people 120 miles away. It was almost enough to make me want to start a futon business! I had one guy almost cry when I told him it was already sold.

Tips for selling on Craiglist:

1. Research your price
Look at other listings and check completed auctions at eBay for similar items. Also factor in “haggling”. Leave a little room for people to suggest a lower price. It makes them happy.

2. Always use pictures
A lot of people don’t include pictures! You will stand way above those people, especially if your item is in good shape. You will also save a lot of phone and E-mail time since you won’t have to answer tons of questions about color, size, etc. A picture is definitely worth a thousand words. Craigslist gives you the ability to upload four free pictures with each listing.

3. Include a telephone number in your listing.
People want to talk to you and will need directions to come pick stuff up.

4. Be willing to lower your price
If you don’t receive any interested inquiries within the first two days, consider revising your listing and lowering the price. I had one item that would not sell at 40 dollars but did sell when lowered to 35 dollars.

5. Be a salesman
When someone does call, even if they decide they aren’t interested, try and sell them some other item. I suggested other items in a friendly manner, and it was well received.

6. Always be on the lookout for bargains
My experience with Craigslist showed me there are a lot of buyers out there. Keep an eye out for bargain items that you can resell easily. There are NO listing fees with Craigslist so don’t sweat trying to sell there. Try different copy and different prices. You have nothing to lose.

Now where can I import futons for dirt cheap…

Ask yourself this question: What do I want people to do when they view my website? 

That “something” that bothers you is a common mistake aspiring web-entrepreneurs often make. In the rush to get on the Net, the basic question hasn’t been asked. What do you want people to do on your site? Do you want them to click on pay per click links? Do you want them to purchase a product? Do you want them to sign-up for a mailing list? Do you want them to join your forum? Do you want them to make a donation?

Are you getting the idea now? Answering the “what action” question allows you to optimize your site toward that goal. Your site should have a call for action and be designed to make taking that action easy and unavoidable.

Go back to your site(s) and ask the question. What did you come up with? Is your site designed to make it easy for that to happen or is it buried underneath mounds of distraction? Avoiding this common error is a key to making your site a success.

(I should also note that I’ve received some criticism about the viability of the concept from DP forum members and some others. Essentially, many people are used to “free” wallpapers and don’t think there will be a market for what I’m trying to do. The point is noted and if the concept does bust, I have nobody to blame but myself…)

Now I had to decide how I was going to sell these items on a website. I purchased a domain name (to be disclosed later) and starting wrestling over exactly “how” I was going to do this. My initial thoughts were:

1. Static HTML site with paypal cart
2. Packaged PHP site like http://www.ktools.net/photostore/
3. Open source ecommerce site

The static HTML site seemed easy enough but it didn’t offer me much in the way of out of the box functionality. I quickly abandoned that idea. The packaged PHP site seemed like a winner, but I balked at the price. This left me with exploring ecommerce sites.

My hosting package has a few shopping carts ready for install via fantastico so I started researching. I finally decided on Zen Cart to power my site. Because my ISP didn’t have the latest version, I had to install it manually. Let me warn you now that you need to have a certain level of technical savvy before trying that.

I got it up and running in about an hour. I hated the green template it uses so I’ve spent a number of hours modifying the site to my tastes. You get a ton of admin features on a separate admin panel. One nice thing is that Zen Cart is designed to let you override the template or PHP files. You can make a separate folder for your mods so that you won’t lose everything when you need to upgrade to the next version. Great thinking on their part.

It’s been a week so far of non-stop effort to get the site up. I would say that it’s been 60% reading forums and 40% working PHP and CSS. It’s kinda like building a plastic model of a B-17. Lots of time, effort, and attention to detail.

In future blogs, I’ll discuss going live and promotions.

1. Research a niche term
2. Start a “blogger” blog (free)
3. Post articles relating to this niche term
4. Slap some adsense on the page or other affiliate links

Sounds “easy” enough eh?

Some concerns raised are:
1. Blogger “could” delete your blog on a whim (unlikely but possible).
2. You’re writing on topics you don’t “care” about and thus it’s just a “job”.

Philosophically, each person has to decide what’s their end goal. If it’s job “satisfaction” then yes, you might not want to create multiple blogs on topics you don’t care about. For me, if you are successful at it, you could outsource the blog writing for a minimal amount of cash. People are writing on topics for 0.02 to 0.03 cents a word on Digital Point. You could turn this into a blogging empire.

The gist is that you either buy or create for cheap a website and then resell that website for a profit. The concept is easy; the success will be in the execution.

Looking at eBay sales, established sites typically are selling at 1000 – 3000 dollars. It’s hard to define what “established” means but if it’s getting traffic and some advertising revenue, you’re in good shape.

New sites appear to go for less than 300 bucks. If you’re efficient and can generate a good looking site with content for less than 100 dollars, you might be able to flip for a profit. Keep looking around for great ideas; the next one might be staring you right in the face.