Where I started didn’t predict where I ended up.
What you find here are the simple truth’s I’ve been able to eke out of studying all sorts and kinds of commerce – so that I could make a living out here in the middle of nowhere, with just my few nearby friends, relatives, and farm critters to share it with.
My story is that I got fed up with the West Coast rat-race and moved back to the family farm to help my aging parents. With a background in graphic arts and web design, I thought to make a living with those skills – but it would again take moving away from the farm and it’s peaceful surrounds.
So I worked to figure out an online presence which would help me earn the income I need to make my living costs – and maybe a fortune. This is the old trick of finding a legitimate work from home business so I could make money online. Lots searched for, but seldom successful.
Of course, the first ego-trap I fell into was that you aren’t a success unless you make a lot of money. So the first incarnation of this was “An Online Millionaire Plan” – which of course didn’t go anywhere.
But I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
And stumbling around in the dark ultimately led me out of it again.
That then brought us this book and this lesson-series, mainly so you don’t have to bark your shins on living room furniture on your way to the light switch – like I did.
Along this journey, I ran into several sets of Internet rip-off artists. It took those scams to show me exactly what was valuable in life, and what the real basis of ecommerce (and regular commerce) was.
I found out that I had no need for this stuff, as it wasn’t a passion of mine. I was only trying to figure out how to get from here to there – and these accumulated notes were just a description of the journey. More like a road-map so others could follow and not fall into the same potholes along the way that I did. (Saves a lot of repair costs and delays.)
I’ve got other blogs which have detailed my day-to-day work along this line. And you can peruse these if you want either the technical or personal aspects to my journey.
Right now, I’m just at the point of simply wrapping everything up so you can find this and use it to improve your own life (and online commerce).
It’s not perfect. There are some gaps. But I prefer not to travel backwards when there is so much to see ahead.
So this is a Creative Commons license – you can use whatever you want for whatever you want (except commercial applications without my permission).
And where you hear from me along this line, it will be to tell you something else I just discovered about this scene – and how you can use it to speed up your own travels.
Good Hunting!
Disclaimer
I don’t follow my own advice. And I told you at the front of the book that 97% of what I write here is bunk. You are going to have to check all this stuff out to see how much (if any) you can use to improve your life with.
The reason I don’t follow a lot of this stuff, is because this particular blog is here to simply be an outpost. It’s not intended to compete with all these other “Internet Marketers” for their precious search engine placement. I’ve got a lot of better things to do with my life.
What I will tell you here is what I’ve found out that works (or can be made to work) – where other people have made an income using certain techniques. And as I understand them, I’ll relate the practical principles which underlie these working methods.
And this site isn’t being promoted like I recommend, simply because I don’t have time to deal with that traffic. I’ve got another passion to follow and fill. That's the whole point of this - have your success and then keep following your passion.
This site will hopefully age gracefully, since a lot of the data here will be outmoded in a year or so – but I’m trying to keep to the same over-used, neglected principles of commerce. And tell you these as best I can.
How to learn this stuff
As best you can. I set this up in a sequence of steps, but don’t figure you have to stick to it.
Like all of life – this is a buffet. As I can, I’ve dressed it up so it’s amusing and cute – to keep it entertaining as well. And in some spots, it’s downright enlightening. But that’s in the eye of the beholder.
I learned it by searching and trying stuff. And I hope I’ve left it far better organized than I found it.
The idea is to help you all learn to make yourselves into successes through online promotion, marketing, and sales. We’ve all been duped by fast-talking Internet rip-off artist and learned what doesn’t work. Now I hope to give you all a way where you can learn what does work – and more importantly, to learn how to figure what does and doesn’t work almost by just looking at it.
So skip around and read what’s interesting to you. If something doesn’t make sense, you can always backtrack to the point where I explain it – and there’s a working search function for this site that you are encouraged to use.
Note: these lessons are simply a guide to get through my book (which you can buy from my online storefront). They won't do you much good without it. Otherwise, I posted some parts of this book over at Storeblogs.com