Chapter One

  Welcome To The Renaissance Of The Individual

Who could have imagined in 1969, when mankind first landed on the moon, that an obscure government project would eventually lead to the Internet?  Originally created by the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the early ARPA network evolved from connecting a few universities to the present day Internet that connects hundreds of millions of users. 

The decade of the 90s began with the demolition of the Berlin Wall and ended with the birth of the Internet.  In retrospect, what occurred in the final decade of the 20th century could only be called miraculous.  Individual freedom and opportunity triumphed over previously insurmountable odds.  Are we in the early stages of a societal renaissance for the individual?  At the very least, we are witnessing the birth of enormous business opportunities for individuals willing to take action.  With a few keystrokes and almost no money, you can sell products or services to anyone in the world without physical offices, shipping and handling, regulations, or supporting personnel.  Equally important, at your fingertips and free of charge on the Internet is the library of knowledge for the entire world.  Time travelers from history would think they had won the world lottery if they had the opportunities that are available to virtually everyone today.    

In retrospect, the huge interest in the Internet that resulted in a speculative stock market bubble was not wrong.  It was just too early.  Almost every great period in societal advancement was preceded by a giant amount of financial investment in ideas that both succeeded and failed.  The periods of boom and bust following the introduction of railroads, cars, airplanes and computers are well documented.  However, the real money was always made after the initial boom/ bust period was over and the technology was finally advanced to the point that profitable business models could be consistently developed.

For the Internet, this time is now.  While everyone fearfully waits for the Internet recovery to occur, savvy entrepreneurs are seizing the moment and utilizing profitable business models with the new Internet tools that are available.  They realize that contrary to popular opinion, the sky is not falling.  Instead, the number of daily Internet users is still increasing rapidly and potential competition is much lower than just a few years ago.  If you wait until the path is well traveled, it will be too late.

So what is working on the Internet?  After billions of dollars have been spent on Internet business models, often unsuccessfully, the few success stories have a familiar ring.

First, current and unique information sells! 

The entire Internet was built on the principle of sharing information.  Nothing has changed.  Society increasingly relies on the Internet as the information source for the world.  Internet customers continue to need and demand highly current information that they can’t easily get anywhere else and that helps them in some way.  Other products and services that they can obtain from physical stores or local businesses usually do not sell well over the Internet.  Why would you buy a product over the Internet when you can physically examine the same product at a store with a real salesperson to answer questions?  Why would you hire someone over the Internet to perform a service that you can get from a local business owner?  Guess what?  In most cases you wouldn’t.  If most Internet companies had seriously asked themselves the same question, they probably would have created different business models.  

Second, the most profitable way to sell information on the Internet is electronically. 

The associated infrastructure, personnel and costs required in shipping traditional products are big profit drains many dot-com businesses failed to consider.  Without physical stores you may be able to cut prices, but any savings companies may realize from the reduction in physical locations are often more than offset by headaches and costs associated with shipping and handling to anyone in the world.  Another huge problem that still has not been worked out satisfactorily is how to return physical products to Internet companies.  Based on consumer surveys, this problem alone has caused a large number of people to avoid Internet purchases.  Selling electronic media (i.e., ebooks) solves all of these problems.  Because the Internet is an electronic medium, it is perfectly set up to handle ebooks and other electronic media.  Focus on creating and selling electronic media (e.g., books, music, videos, and software) and you are following a proven and consistently profitable Internet business model.

Third, you must cost-effectively locate customers interested in your product. 

This was the big failure of the dot-com era.  Most of the billions of dollars that were wasted on Internet companies were spent on highly ineffective and extremely costly marketing efforts.  More than enough money has been spent on television advertising, radio advertising, magazine advertising and just about any other form of traditional media advertising to prove that it is very difficult, if not in most cases impossible, to profitably create Internet customers using traditional advertising.  Expecting customers to see an Internet commercial on TV or in a magazine and run to their computers to type in the web address is ridiculous.  Again, dot-com personnel were expecting customers to do something they would not do themselves.  Until recently, locating Internet customers using Internet advertising sources also was ineffective.  Pay-per-click search engines and pay search engine listings now make Internet advertising simple, predictable and cost effective.

Here’s the verdict:

Create an information product (ebook) that you can sell electronically to a targeted Internet audience using the the Internet Marketing Tools described in Supercharge Your eBook Profits and you have a proven and highly profitable business model that is easy to set up and duplicate and that costs very little.

The rest of this ebook explains how to make this happen.