My online job progress

[pokeplayer984]

So, it's been a few weeks since I revealed what I've been up to and some of you are probably wondering how I'm doing right now.  Well, not as well as I had hoped.

There's a lot of stuff delaying me and I seriously have to stop with my procrastinating problem.  It's just not helping.  Yet, I can't help it.  I'm totally addicted to some things for crying out loud. -_- (Including watching vids on YouTube, surfing the web generally, reading fanfiction, playing video games and so forth.) I really need to get my head in the game.

I've completely dropped the idea of affiliates.  Sure, it's a nice idea and I've seen proof of it, (Seriously, one person actually makes over 1.2 million dollars a year from affiliates alone. (Then again, he has 24,000 to work with so it's not too surprising.)) and as good as I have become at advertising, (Yes, that's the whole trick to it.) I just feel something bad about it.  I don't know how to explain it.  Something just feels wrong about it to me.  I really can't explain the feeling I have for it.

I have actually gotten started on all the ideas for my eBooks.  Here they are and tell me if any of them interest you:

Computer Saving: How to Save and Protect your Windows Computer

Gingi-Killing: How to Beat Gingivitis

The Truth of Wal*Mart Associates

The Lion and the Lamb (A love story)


That's all for now.  I'll tell you if I come up with more ideas.

The rest I just haven't even started on.  Yet, I hope to get it all going one day.

And that's it for my progress so far.  Yeah, not as great as I hoped it would be or even could be.

Feel free to talk about this if you like.

Well, see ya later!

[Kor]

Good luck on your endeavors.  Hopefully some of those will be of interest to others so you can know which ones to focus on.

[landbeforetimelover]

To be honest, ebooks aren't all that they're hyped up to be.  If someone is knowledgeable enough to download an ebook and use their credit card online, they're probably just as able to download a torrent of your book.  To be perfectly honest, it's easier to pirate software and books than it is to buy them.  Add to that the fact that it's free and the prospect of making a living on ebooks doesn't seem very realistic.  The only one who's making the real money are people who set up partnerships with ignorant writers.  What do they care if you sell 1 book or 1 million?  They got a piece of the pie for doing nothing but having their website and when millions of people are doing that, that's when they get their money.

Just like paid surveys and paid emails pay you one cent for reading an email or ten cents for doing a survey, these ebook companies will pay you somewhere in the range of 20% and give you little or nothing in return.  If they make a dollar or one million dollars, it's all the same to them because THEY DIDN'T DO THE WORK.  What do they care if you don't make enough money?  By the time you realize that, they've already got everything they need from you and they're just waiting for the next poor sap to spend months or years on a story that they can make a few bucks on.

And don't even get started on the encrypted PDF or whatever they frickin' say they'll do to protect your work.  It's only to deter the everyday user.  Once a hacker with any sort of experience acquires the encrypted file, you can say bye bye to your story being a money-making thing.  

Tell me, what's easier....downloading utorrent and clicking on a link on a torrent website or going to the website of those leeching son of a b******, reading a summary, entering your credit card number and all personal information, and then finally downloading it only to find that it's in some sort of encrypted crap format that you need some special program to open?  Pirating isn't only cheaper, it's a million times easier than buying a program (or book in this case).

[pokeplayer984]

LBTlover, I'll just say this:

I want to be a writer.  It's my dream.  End of story.

Also, don't get me started with doing real books, I don't have the money or the means, plus, if there was a way to stop the cutting down of trees to make books, I would support it.  I actually prefer digital information over real books.  Many others do too.  End of story there.

So basically, I want to be a writer and I'm somewhat of an environmentalist, so that's why I'm doing eBooks.

So, seeing as it's my dream, could you at least be supportive?  If so, thank you.

[landbeforetimelover]

I'll be supportive, but I won't be unrealistic either.  If you want to make money on your work, you'll have to promote it BY YOURSELF on your own website.  Don't go through any other companies.  And you'll have to find a way to encrypt it yourself.  Making your own flash program that disallows downloads but allows viewing might work, but as to how you're going to accept credit card payments and prevent the hacking of your server.......I don't know.  I'm quite the avid writer myself, but I haven't pursued it because I don't have any way to protect my work (yet).  

And of course if you have it in a flash application, a hacker can always just download the flash even if you have encryption on it (flash encryption isn't very good).  My point is, you can't just write an ebook and make money off of it.  You have to find some way to protect it as well.  Don't go through any companies because they don't care if someone pirates your work or not.  I'm sure I could invent some sort of encryption algorithm for you, but NO encryption is 100% hack proof and no matter how you look at it, there will always be a better hacker out there who'll be able to get into it.  

If you don't want to make any money off of it, then you don't have to worry.  Go ahead and write away.  But if you want to make something off of your work, you have to invent some sort of encryption because no one is going to provide that for you.

I'm not saying that written work is 100% safe either.  Sure it'd be a lot of work to re-type the whole book or scan EVERY SINGLE PAGE, but if it's good enough people will do it.  Especially with times as tough as they are right now with the economy and all.

[Malte279]

So, seeing as it's my dream, could you at least be supportive? If so, thank you.

You sound a bit like any suggestion or advice was not supportive John. I don't think anybody wants to bash your dreams, but you pointed out some of the difficulties yourself. If others therefore make further suggestions, point out problems (sometimes perhaps with advice on how to overcome those) it is no good idea to turn all this down with "end of story" kind of statements.
A book published on paper needn't be harmful to the environment (recycling paper is an option). There is a high risk of books published only to be spread for free before long and one has to write something that will find a sufficiently large readership if one tries to build an existence upon it.
Listening to people telling constantly that "you can't do it" may spoil endeavors but they may be equally doomed by taking the end of story stand of not taking anything but 100% supportive statements into account.

[Petrie.]

I'm with Austin...the digital domain is full of piracy, and if writing is going to be your means of living, ebooks is not a good answer.  Physical publishing on paper is your best bet, even if the road to publishing is tough.  Even if you can't see it as help, Malte and Austin have helped you a lot in those posts.  You can be a writer, and we'll support that, but sometimes you have to go with the flow than try to swim upstream when it isn't worth the journey.

[Cancerian Tiger]

If you'd like a list of real publishers, I could dig up the list my creative writing instructor gave me  .

[pokeplayer984]

The only problem with the big time publishers is that many of them give you a deadline.  I don't want to be controlled by something like that.  You guys know I like to take my time.  Plus, let's not forget the writer's block problems I've had before.

Unless they can handle a person who likes to see his own quality work come out, forget it.

[Malte279]

I thought you would aim to be a free author which in any case would require you to finish a book (in what ever time you need / your financial situation permits) and then offer it to publishing houses. To be an author one does not necessarily have to sign some kind of contract to deliver a set number of pages within a set amount of time.
Both has it's pros and cons, but so far I never thought that in any case you were thinking of author as a contract job at all.