Most successful bloggers dream of writing a best selling book one day.

A book that will impact the lives of MILLIONS!

In this article best selling author Jerry Gillies reveals his own personal secrets on how to write a best selling book.

Jerry wrote the 2 Million selling best seller MONEYLOVE back in 1978 – in the days before the Internet and Amazon.

At a time when you could not fake your book into a “best seller”.

How I Raised Myself from Poverty to Prosperity With a Bestselling Book, plus 7 Secrets That Will Help You Do The Same

By Jerry Gillies

I am not declaring that I am smarter, or even a better writer than you.

In fact, I’d be willing to bet you are in better financial shape right now than I was then.

Two things, however, that led to my success:

1. An overwhelming belief that I had something valuable to say.
2. The willingness to drop everything else in my life, including an income, and focus all my energy and attention on writing.

I was barely getting by after quitting my job as a broadcast journalist in New York and moving to Miami. Then, Moneylove came out and hundreds of thousands of dollars started pouring in. This is not a unique or unusual story. Many writers have seen their fortunes dramatically improve following their first bestselling book.

In fact, there are few single events in life that can produce the results in cash, widespread recognition, and building a legacy than having a book hit the NY Times bestseller list. Being able to call yourself a bestselling author is just as prestigious, though not nearly as difficult to attain, as being able to call yourself an Academy Award-winning actor, or Nobel Prize winner.

In the process of moving from poverty to prosperity, I discovered some truths gathered during thirty years of being a bestselling author and knowing many authors even more successful than me. So, here are the seven secrets, the concepts, the strategies that produced two million sales for Moneylove.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #1:

The Company You Keep

Most of us have heard this or a variation of it ‘You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.’

Well before Moneylove, I wrote a book called FRIENDS–The Power and Potential of The Company You Keep.

In that book, I focused on the importance to a happy and successful life of having what I termed a “supportive interpersonal environment.”

Since all writers need encouragement and praise, it is vital that the people around you can provide these benefits. Particularly, you need to include writers in your circle of friends. And specifically, if possible, writers who are published and more successful than you.

This is a big one you don’t hear about too much. Instead, you hear about how writers are mostly loners and isolated, therefore not available to you for mentoring and support. This is basically a Big Lie.

It is true that a majority of writers keep to themselves a lot, otherwise they wouldn’t get much writing done. But I luckily stumbled upon the fact that there are bestselling authors hanging out at a lot of specific places, and they are very friendly and approachable at those places. The advantage of getting to know some bestselling authors is that you will discover we are ordinary folk, and you fit in very well when we get together.

A bestselling millionaire author would much rather hang out with a beginning writer earning minimum wage as a waiter (while writing his or her book) than a banking tycoon or multimillionaire builder.

Best Selling Writers – Where Are They? How Do You Reach Them?

When I was doing interviews at NBC Radio in New York, I got to talk to a number of bestselling writers, but it wasn’t until I joined and became active in the Association for Humanistic Psychology that I had the opportunity to be in the company of lots of them. One amazing thing I discovered was that I was treated with the same welcoming energy and respect before I had written my first book as I was when sales of Moneylove started approaching their first million copies. And the lectures and workshops at AHP conventions were fascinating and gave me a lot of material for future books.

Next, I joined The National Speakers Association, thanks to Mark Victor Hansen, who invited me to my first NSA convention. Then, the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where I got to know people like Ray Bradbury and Rita Mae Brown.

Finally, The Inside Edge, the famed leadership support group [Mastermind] that Jack Canfield, Louise Hay, Wayne Dyer, Norman Cousins, myself and Susan Jeffers helped found, and most of the board of advisors had written successful books.

There’s not enough room in this article to list all the advantages of hanging out with other authors.

A strategy you might explore is to get in touch with some successful authors and find out whether they attend any of the writers conferences or other professional associations, and, if so, whether they would be willing to meet with you for a chat.

Of course, if you have any bestselling authors in your city, you can contact them and ask for a personal interview. As a former newsman, I sometimes used this ploy and just asked a favorite author if I could interview them for a possible article or newsletter. Now we have blogs to serve that purpose. No matter how rich, famous, and busy a bestselling author is, they will rarely turn down a new writer who wants to spend a few minutes with them.

A perfect example of this comes from two of the bestselling authors in human history. They are also two longtime friends of mine, going back over thirty years, before they ever wrote or even thought of the first book in the bestselling series
of the 20th century, the Chicken Soup for The Soul series.

I first met Jack Canfield when I interviewed him for NBC. Mark Victor Hansen and I became friends after he wrote me a wonderful note telling me how much Moneylove had meant to him and had helped him become a prosperity teacher. They were both impressed with how successful Moneylove was.

The Chicken Soup for the Soul books, over 225 of them, which have sold half a billion copies in 47 languages, are collections of short true stories from teachers, workshop leaders, and ordinary people. Some of them are funny. Some are sad. But they all have an uplifting message. I’ve written five of the stories myself for three of the books over the years.

I think Jack and Mark would have been astonished, to know two things when we first talked about this first Chicken Soup book: One, how very very successful it would be, making them both millionaires many times over. Two, and maybe even a bigger surprise–they did not start out planning exactly this kind of book, of tales from mostly ordinary people out there.

Here’s a Chicken Soup for the Soul story, which I don’t think has ever been told anywhere before, but I was there.

Shortly after meeting Mark Victor Hansen, he invited me as his guest to the annual convention of The National Speakers Association, being held that year in New Orleans. I didn’t know any of the professional speakers in the group, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover how many knew me through Moneylove. These included people like Zig Ziglar and Denis Waitley and Og Mandino. I became a member, and I then told Jack Canfield about the group and that I thought he’d enjoy it and gain some real value from being a member.

One of the great benefits of seeing all those great speakers in one place, seeing and hearing their best talks, one after the other over several days, was that we got to hear their best stories. Jack and Mark and I talked about the fact that every speaker had at least one killer story he or she told at the end of their talk.

It was either a funny or inspiring or poignantly moving story, sometimes all three.

I don’t know which of us thought of the idea first, but we began to discuss going to all these top speakers and collecting their killer stories for a book.

Jack and Mark took off with this idea as I got involved in other things, mostly traveling and doing workshops overseas. A problem came up that provides a valuable lesson for all authors.

That lesson is:

Since many of the most famous and successful speakers had just one powerful closing story they used for audiences all over, year after year, they were reluctant to allow them to be circulated more widely in a book. Also, some of them were the types of stories that had to be heard with an audience to be most effective. Their power and impact might be diminished by appearing in print.

So, Jack and Mark dramatically changed their focus. They realized that lots of people had great, moving, funny, inspiring stories. Stories from their own lives. And Chicken Soup for The Soul was born. They also deserve a lot of credit for their persistence and commitment (two more qualities any author needs), since that first Chicken Soup book was turned down by about 150 different publishers in the course of a year or so. Finally, the small Florida-based company, Health Communications, took it on. The rest is truly publishing history.

Some valuable lessons for all writers and potential bestselling authors in the experiences of Jack and Mark. But I think the most valuable one of all was that they were ready to turn on a dime when circumstances changed. They changed the criteria for the stories in the book itself, and they kept going when many another author would have given up after the first 10 or 50 or 100 rejections.

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer.
– Ray Bradbury

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #2:

Happy Talk About What You Do

Many writers giving advice say an author shouldn’t talk about what he or she is writing. It’s true that talking too much to too many people about your forthcoming book, article, or blog post can suck the energy out of any creative project. I agree with that premise, but do want accentuate the positive truth that you should be talking about what you are doing in your own life. Especially the stuff you plan to include in your book.

“You better make them care about what you think. It had better be quirky or perverse or thoughtful enough so that you hit some chord in them. Otherwise it doesn’t work. I mean we’ve all read pieces where we thought, ‘Oh, who gives a damn.’ ”
—Nora Ephron

My Own Happy Talk Experience

A lot of the success for me in writing and promoting Moneylove came from the fact that I was already talking about prosperity consciousness before I even pitched the book to a publisher. I had listened to some tapes of a man named Leonard Orr, who had an unusual concept. He said your attitudes about money itself dictated your financial results.

This excited and stimulated my creativity and I went to one of his evening seminars. I started to come up with strategies of my own to put his ideas into action. I had been doing lectures and workshops on communication and relationships. Now I threw in little tidbits about prosperity consciousness, and how I was using it in my own life.

People got enthusiastic, got results, and asked for more and the rest is all about the momentum that energy generated.

I love the song Happy Talk in the musical, South Pacific. Especially the opening:

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk,
Talk about things you’d like to do,

I would change the second line to: “Talk about things you do.” If you are passionate and excited about the subject of your book, or whatever you are writing, and have found the ideas are making a difference in your life, or the lives of anyone else, then talk about that–not the specifics of your actual book.

One great strategy to put this concept into practice is to prepare, before you even start writing your book, an actual thirty minute talk on the subject. This will also enable you to introduce your ideas and focus on the most important theme. You can even approach local organizations that book speakers about having you do your talk. Even if you do some free talks for charitable groups, churches and such, it’s a great marketing research tool.

This also helps with something all aspiring authors need to do. In today’s publishing world, an author needs to do a lot of the marketing and promotion himself. It is vital that you not only provide a great proposal or manuscript to a publisher, but also tell what audiences will buy the book and how you intend to reach them

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #3:

Start Immediately

“My advice is not to wait to be struck by an idea. If you’re a writer, you sit down and damn well decide to have an idea. That’s the way to get an idea.”
~ Andy Rooney

One of the first pieces of prosperity advice I put in Moneylove was from pioneering psychologist William James. He said that in order to change your life, you had to start immediately. So, let us consider this: you are probably not a bestselling author right now, or you wouldn’t be reading this article. What you want to therefore change is to become a bestseller author, at least to begin that process. Start immediately. Start writing, even if you’re not sure what you want to say.

If you are serious, begin to write at least one page a day. It doesn’t have to have a purpose or specific goal, but you have to do it with energy and without exception. Julia Cameron says in, The Artist’s Way, that you should wake up every morning and immediately write three pages. Some folks might find that too daunting. Do it if you can, but at the very least–one page. Once you have done this for a month, check out your first pages versus your latest pages and you will find the practice has made a difference. This will change your results whether you are wanting to write a book, a blog, persuasive emails, or clever Tweets.

Here are several starting immediately strategies I’ve given in my Writing A Bestseller workshops along with personal coaching clients:

Write a simple and clear sentence that explains what your book is about.

If you have such a clear command of your purpose in writing a book (or anything) that you can convey its essence in a single sentence, you are starting out way ahead of most authors.

Write the copy for your book’s jacket.

For the research necessary to do this, you will have to go to the library or a bookstore and check out the jacket copy on hardcover books, particularly the side flaps. Writing your own version of this for your own book can provide momentum, even if what you write now won’t accurately describe your finished manuscript.

Start doing what I call Sampling Your Future Success.

I did this by cutting out a copy of the NY Times bestseller list, and typing Moneylove on the list before putting it on my bulletin board.

In addition to a proposal or manuscript, you need to have a clear idea of who your audience is and how they can be reached If you have a blog with thousands of hits, that’s an easy one.

I also always visualize myself appearing on a major talk show and imagine what questions the host (I use Oprah a lot, since I actually was a guest on her show) will ask, and how I would respond.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #4:

Capture the readers attention with your opening lines

One way to always guarantee you will intrigue, attract, interest, and capture the attention of a reader is to become a master of the opening line, or even the opening several lines.

Even before you fully write your book (or even a blog post) getting the opening clarified and clear in your head is essential.

I don’t know about you, but when I am browsing through books in a bookstore, the library, or online, I always check out the beginning sentences. The first words either trigger a desire in me to read more, or they don’t. In Moneylove, my opening lines in the Introduction were:

“You deserve to be rich, and you can be rich. MONEYLOVE can help you have a life of abundance, filled with love and creativity and, incidentally, all the cash you want.”

I call this, beginning the begin!

Business experts doing a lot of market research and psychologists doing a lot of studies, have both reached the same conclusion, that first minute of contact is vital. It’s that minute that determines the progress of any interaction–personal or professional.

Widely considered the best opening line in literature is Jane Austen’s for Pride and Prejudice:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

This sentence lets the reader know what kind of a book he or she has chosen. It sets a tone.

And here’s a shocking truth about being a bestselling author: you can learn as much or more about good writing from reading really great opening lines from books, as you can from almost any college course on writing. And this is the best time in history to do this, because you can find those openings online without having to go to a library or bookstore. If you put into your search engine a request such as “great opening lines in books,” or: “the best literary opening lines,” you will gain access to an unlimited stream of the best ones out there.

In nonfiction, look at the opening line of the foreword to Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich:

“The Thirteen Steps to Riches described in this book offer the shortest dependable philosophy of individual achievement ever presented for the benefit of the man or woman who is searching for a definite goal,”

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #5:

The Short and Sweet of It

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.
– Henry David Thoreau

Short words and short sentences are pretty much norm now in most writing courses, but when I first started talking about this in the 1970s, the standard was flowery language and complex sentences, except for a few brilliant writers who knew this secret. That it is no longer a secret is pretty much due to one man, Rudolf Flesch (see Secret Seven below for more on him).

As you can see by my opening for this article, I do not always follow the popular advice to keep sentences short. Sometimes long is more expressive. Sometimes a few long sentences interspersed with a lot of short ones can create a pleasing rhythm. Back and forth. A master of this quality in her writing is Harper Lee. Her opening for, To Kill a Mockingbird, is a brilliant example of mixing short sentences and long flowing ones. She didn’t go for flash or shock, but simply started with the kind of statement a child might make,

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.”

Look at how simply Harper Lee conveys the life of a sleepy old Southern town in very few words. “There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and nothing to buy it with.”

To Kill a Mocking Bird, one of my very favorite books, is the epitomé of clear and simple writing. As the best books in fiction or nonfiction always do, an author should create a dialogue with the reader that resembles a good friend telling a good story.

In terms of cutting down on wordage, I have had any number of successful nonfiction and fiction writers tell me that one of the most important disciplines any writer can master is to take a paragraph or sentence, or even a page, that you really are in love with, and cut it from your manuscript.

I had a whole chapter left out of Moneylove when I got the final galleys prior to it going to the printing presses. The book originally had seven chapters, and my editor, Herb Katz, without telling me, cut a whole chapter out because he felt it didn’t fit with the other chapters. After a while, I was forced to agree with him, but not until I had ranted and raved for a week or two.

Writing can be like music. There are high notes. There are low notes. And once in a while, there are no notes, as you pause to let the mind breathe between paragraphs.

A Warning Note:

If most of the writing you have done has been of an academic sort while taking college courses, you will be at a disadvantage in writing for a larger mainstream audience. Most readers today are most comfortable with a 5th grade level of vocabulary, and anything more may go right over their heads.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #6:

Become a One Trick Pony

This cliché phrase is often used in a pejorative way, to describe someone who has only one talent or skill and nothing more to offer once that is displayed or presented. However, for a writer starting out, it can be a valuable strategy, No matter how many subjects you have mastered and how many tricks you possess, It’s useful to appear as if you are a supreme master, a real expert about one important subject.

One of the bestselling authors I had some impact on was Spencer Johnson. Spencer has been kind enough to tell me my two hour seminar on writing a bestseller at the National Speakers Association really made a difference in his approach to writing. What he was doing with corporate clients was teaching them the value of praising employees, in a very short amount of time. This one minute praise technique led to the huge bestseller he wrote with management expert Kenneth Blanchard, The One-Minute Manager, which has sold over thirteen million copies. Spencer Johnson went on to write the bestselling, Who Moved My Cheese, as well as the ValueTales series of children’s books.

Spencer Johnson is obviously a very creative writer who has lots of ideas for books, but his first effort was so successful because rather than just come up with a book he thought would sell, he focused on what he was already doing. And once he became a master of that one idea, he and his co-author, Ken Blanchard, came up with the add-ons of One Minute Goals and One Minute Reprimands. They thus became three-trick ponies and much more.

Louise Hay is another multi-million copy bestselling author who started out with one trick, which led to You Can Heal Your Life — over 50 million sold and counting.

I remember back in the early 1980s, Louise, her assistant, Julie, and I sitting in a hot tub in the backyard of her rented house in Santa Monica. She had produced a cult classic, You Can Heal Your Body. A small booklet, it was beloved by the holistic health community. But Louise had delayed turning this material into a full-length book, even though she had a publishing contract to do so. A lot of our conversation focused on trying to motivate Louise to finish the book. I can assure you that, at that moment, Louise did not have a clue, or even a dream, about being a bestselling author. And she certainly could not have foreseen that she would create a large publishing empire (Hay House) and influence and help millions of people around the world. And it all grew out of her original idea that certain emotions trigger certain illnesses and symptoms. For a one trick pony, Louise Hay certainly picked the right trick.

We were friends, so I wouldn’t have even thought about charging her for the coaching I did in and out of that hot tub. I earned a lot more money than any coaching fees would have produced, however, as she mentions Moneylove very favorably in You Can Heal Your Life. This led to thousands of sales for me.

Often, when you want to be focusing on an upcoming book project, no matter how multi-dimensional you are–no matter how many tricks you have up your sleeve–it is best to focus on a single strong subject or theme. For an aspiring bestselling author, multitasking can be a mental vampire, sucking the energy out of the big idea you have.

How To Write A Best Selling Book Secret #7:

Bookworm Your Way to Success

A simple truth: your success as a writer of books is affected by your reading habits.

Ask any successful author…

“If you stuff yourself full of poems, essays, plays, stories, novels, films, comic strips, magazines, you automatically explode every morning like Old Faithful. I have never had a dry spell in my life, mainly because I feed myself well, to the point of bursting. I wake early and hear my morning voices leaping around in my head like jumping beans. I get out of bed quickly, to trap them before they escape.”
—Ray Bradbury

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” Stephen King

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”
Samuel Johnson

I don’t know any good and successful writers who don’t surround themselves with books, both fiction and nonfiction.

I have long asserted that fiction is important to read, especially for those who have limited themselves to nonfiction. I have had a number of professional speakers and motivational teachers say they only read nonfiction because that’s information they need for their careers. Wrong!

Fiction is important because novelists are some of the great thinkers and philosophers about the human condition. I have learned more about life and people from novels than from any nonfiction books on the subject. There are parts of the brain that are stimulated and enriched by reading fiction that no other method seems to duplicate.

I also have never met a successful author who didn’t have a few favorite books on writing.

So, here are my seven favorites on being a better writer:

1. The Elements of Style…by Strunk and White. This is the classic on writing style that almost every writer of note has a copy of. It is an enduring masterpiece whether you are writing a nonfiction book, a novel, an article or blog post.

2. The Artist’s Way…by Julia Cameron. A book not just about writing but an instruction manual on training your mind to be more creatively productive.

3. On Writing Well—by William Zinsser –This addresses directly the problem most beginning writers have with too many words, sentences and paragraphs that are just too long. And Zinsser demonstrates how it should be done by his own crisp,clear, simple writing style.

4. The Art of Readable Writing—by Rudolf Flesch. You might as well start with this classic from 1949, though almost any of Flesch’s books on speaking and writing plainly and clearly are well worth reading. This was the very first book I read on writing, as a high school student. It may just be the single book that most influenced my writing style. Flesch was also the author of the iconic bestseller, Why Johnny Can’t Read.

5. Bird by Bird—by Anne Lamott. One of the most outrageous and down-to-earth and funny books you’ll find on the subject of writing. She is one of my very favorite writers, and unusual in that she has had bestsellers both on the fiction and nonfiction lists.

6. Zen in the Art of Writing – by Ray Bradbury. The late genius created this collection of essays on writing and creativity. A lot of the material was introduced during his annual opening night lecture at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, where we were both on the faculty. I was proud to be his friend and for him to be my generous mentor. Those of you familiar with my Moneylove philosophy will understand why I love this book. While many writers talk and write about how difficult and lonely writing is, Ray thought writing was more fun than anything else. He said, “If you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer.”

7. Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writer’s Manual – by Rita Mae Brown. While still in her twenties, she wrote Rubyfruit Jungle, a novel about growing up as a lesbian in the South. Rita Mae is also one of my all-time favorite authors, and listening to her erudite lectures at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference was a delight and powerful learning experience.

You may choose your own favorite books about writing, there certainly are hundreds, perhaps thousands, to select from, and maybe a friend or teacher or writer you know has recommended one or more. For me, these seven books contain the essential information I want and need to practice my craft, though I have read and collected many others over the years.

How To Write A Best Selling Book – Bonus:

It always astonishes me how many writers don’t know what a tremendous resource the magazine, Publishers Weekly, can be. It’s the trade publication for the publishing industry and aimed at publishers, editors, bookstores, and literary agents. If you are serious about writing a bestseller, it is a must-read. Or I should say it’s a must-browse. With hundreds of pages every week, actually reading the whole thing would be overwhelming.

Publishers Weekly will help you keep up with what books are coming out, which authors just got a big advance, how social media is promoting book sales, and whether an editor you were thinking of sending your book proposal to has just left and gone to another publishing house. For me, however, the best part of PW is the review section, with nonfiction as a separate category. In those mini-reviews, you will find books you wouldn’t know about otherwise, books that aren’t to be found in your local bookstore or library. I’ve lost count of how many books I’ve ordered after first reading about them in Publishers Weekly.
It is more than worth your while to check out this little-known publication (among the public, including writers). Your local library probably has a copy, and most bookstores do. You can therefore check it out at no cost.

I cannot imagine any writer who follows all seven secrets will have any difficulty in creating at least one huge bestseller. Go forth and prove me right!

About Jerry Gillies

Jerry Gillies passed away late 2015.

Jerry was one of the first prosperity teachers of modern times – writing International Best seller: MONEYLOVE in 1978 –  His reach and influence was considerable. Although Jerry is no longer here in body, he will always remain in the hearts & souls of the people whose lives he’s touched over his 75 years on this earth.

IncomeDiary is honored to feature a number of posts and an interview with Jerry.

The post 7 Secrets To Writing A Best Selling Book That Sold 2 Million Copies! appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Stanley Tang is a devout entrepreneur who’s been creating businesses since he was a kid.

We first interviewed him when he became a best selling author at 16. His latest project, DoorDash is a tech startup doing restaurant food delivery.

A Stanford graduate, he and three other students founded DoorDash because they wanted food delivery in areas where it wasn’t previously available. Their mission is to empower small business owners to offer delivery in an affordable and convenient way.

Currently restaurants from more than 30 cities in the San Francisco Bay Area are taking advantage of DoorDash. Not only are they creating a better customer service experience for patrons, but DoorDash adds additional income for restaurants and puts money in the pocket of it’s drivers, who currently make up to 20/hr.

Here’s why you should listen to Stanley:

• At age 14 he became an Amazon best selling author with his book eMillions.
• He’s pulled over $57 million in seed funding for DoorDash at the age of 22.
• Leverages the internet to help offline small business owners increase
  sales by offering a better customer experience.

Stanley Tang Interview – Founder of DoorDash

We interviewed you when you were 16 years old, having just released your first published book called eMillions. This was ambitious for a 16 year old. Now you are 22 and run DoorDash and have raised over $57,000,000 in funding. What gives you the courage, determination, ambition, faith, belief in yourself to be able to go from 1 ambitious project, to another?

I’ve been working on side projects my entire life – it’s just what I love doing as a hobby. Since eMillions, there’s been many side projects I worked on throughout college that didn’t pan out, including an online news reader, calendar app, group messaging app etc. 

Every endeavor I’ve undertaken, I’ve made a ton of mistakes and learned something new. The hope is that you don’t repeat the same mistakes and take those learnings onto your next project.

Digital vs Physical. Explain the transition, is physical as easy as possible? 

We’ve actually taken a lot of the learnings from software and brought it into the physical world.

At DoorDash, we’re building the on-demand delivery infrastructure for local cities. DoorDash is very much a software, technology company. We don’t actually own any physical infrastructure, such as cars, warehouses, gps etc. Instead, we build software and use mobile to create a platform that connects drivers who have excess time with merchants that want to offer deliveries.

Was it worth going to University? Looking back, would you still go?

Absolutely! That’s how I met my future co-founders of DoorDash, Andy and Tony. Especially Stanford, where I got exposed to so many different areas of the tech industry.

How do your friends react to your success? I remember when you were 16 telling us how you class mates were impressed that you were publishing a book. 6 years on, how do people react?

It’s not something that I bring up too much these days – that’s in the past. The only thing that matters is what I’m working on right now. In this case, it’s DoorDash.

Why would anyone give you $17 million in funding? 

We’ve proven that our model worked in the Bay Area and we were looking to bring on additional funding to fuel our next stage of growth. Since our Series A, we’ve expanded from one to six cities now.

How many people did you have to ask for funding before Sequoia Capital invested in DoorDash?

We went through Y-Combinator in the summer of 2013 and raised a small seed round right afterwards. It wasn’t until April 2014 when we raised our Series A led by Sequoia.

What advice would you give other entrepreneurs trying to decide between getting funding and going it alone?

It’s more of a personal choice. You end up building two very different types of businesses. Going it alone gives you more of a “lifestyle” business. You have more freedom but it would also be difficult and slower to scale. On the other hand, if you raise funding (especially venture capital), all of a sudden, you have investors, board, employees and you’re forced to go big – that’s the only way investors are going to get a return. You raise funding if you want to accelerate growth.

How did you prove the concept of DoorDash could work? 

The idea actually originated from an experiment to see if there was consumer demand for delivery. We created a simple landing page that consisted of a few PDF menus, a phone number, and a title across the top that said: “Call this number if you want to order deliveries from these restaurants.” 

Obviously, when you called that number, nothing happened – it was just our personal cellphone number. At the time, all we wanted to see was if people would call this number. If we got enough phone calls, then maybe this was a project worth pursuing. That very night, we got a phone call from somebody who wanted delivery. We decided to fulfill that delivery ourselves. The next day, we got a few more phone calls. The day after that, we got even more phone calls. And it just snowballed from there.

It was only after we’ve proven that there’s demand did we actually build out the different functions properly. But in the beginning, it was all about doing things that don’t scale.

In a world where every great idea is copied, how do you stay ahead of your competition?

There’s so much stuff we need to fix internally – the last thing we’re worried about is competition.

What has been your biggest set back and what did you learn from it?

As a startup, we’re always resource constrained. There would be 100 important things to work on, but we only had the resources to pick one or two. I wouldn’t say there were any major setbacks, but more a series of tradeoffs we had to constantly make. And we had to live with the consequences. For example, working on driver products meant the consumer experience suffered.

6 Years ago you told us that the best advice you have ever received was to take action. This is the biggest thing that holds people back. All we hear is people with ideas and dreams, but very few take the action required to make their dreams a reality. How come you are different? Why do you think you take action and others don’t? 

I don’t think I’m that different. It’s just my passion for taking on side projects – most of them fail, but some will takeoff, like DoorDash. It’s something I would have done, even if I didn’t get paid.

The post Stanley Tang Interview – From Best Selling Author At 16 To A $57 Million Investment At 22 appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

As a writer, I’m naturally curious about the publishing industry. Since we published that first book, I’ve talked with three other publishers and dozens of authors. I’ve learned a lot about publishing a book, including a few dirty little secrets.

#1 Publishers Look for Audiences not Authors

When publishers look for new authors, the number one thing they’re looking for is somebody with an audience.

Publishers don’t dump a lot of money into marketing a book unless it’s already selling. Whether or not the book sells is dependent upon the author’s ability to sell it.

If you want to get published but don’t have an audience, the best thing you can do is start blogging. It’ll build your audience and validate whether or not you’re a good writer.

#2 Big Names Use Ghost Writers

I used to struggle with the fact that most big-time authors don’t write their own books.  It seems sleazy, but it’s not. Here’s why:

• People with big audiences don’t have a lot of time. One way to save time is to outsource the creation of your book. It’s not like Steve Jobs assembled iPhones, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was his product.
• Big-time authors aren’t necessarily good writers. They have influential ideas and can communicate those ideas as speakers, but they struggle to put those ideas in writing.

Oftentimes, a ghost writer can write and communicate those ideas better than the author, which results in a higher-quality book.

#3 Know How to Sell It Before You Write It

Just like with any product, you need to know how to sell it before you create it. Thomas Edison:

“I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

Yet, most authors write about what they think is interesting and hope that other people find it interesting.

Before you write a single word, figure out:

1. Who you’re going to sell it to.
2. Who the end user is (sometimes the buyer and reader are different).
3. What price point you’re going to set it at.
4. How you’re going to distribute it.
5. What you’re going to do to promote it.

The answers to these questions will help you write a book that people want to read. If it’s not marketable, it won’t sell. And if it doesn’t sell, what’s the point?

#4 Amazon Best Seller Status is a Crock

You ever notice how many people claim to be best-selling authors? Like, pretty much everyone who’s written a book, right? Doesn’t that seem fishy?

You only need to sell about 300 books to become an Amazon Best-Seller. If all of those sales come on the same day, you’ll be bumped to the top of your sub-sub-sub-sub-category. In turn, your book is a best-seller for a few hours.

Since people figured this out, they pre-sell their book on their site months before it’s launched. Then on launch day, they manually submit those orders to Amazon so it appears as though lots of people are buying it.

Not all Amazon Best Sellers do this, but many of them do. When someone claims to be a best selling author, ask them how long they were at the top of the list.

#5 Traditional Publishing is Dead

A few weeks ago I pitched a book idea to Mark Victor Hansen, who has sold over 500 million books, and he replied with, “Publishing is dead.”

For the first time in history, publishers need authors more than authors need publishers. That doesn’t mean publishers accept any dead-beat book off the street. It just means that if you’re a good writer, you have a better chance selling it yourself.

Instead of taking 10% royalties from the traditional publishing route, self-publish your book through a service like CreateSpace and pay someone to put your book on Kindle and iBooks.

#6 70% of Books Don’t Make a Profit

According to Jenkins Group, a premier publishing firm, 70% of books don’t make a profit. When people joke about the cover designer making more than the author, it’s often the case.

There are lots of upfront costs with creating a book. Some of ours where:

• Promotional copies. We printed and shipped 30, 100-page promotional copies to get blurbs.
• First running of print books. We bought 250 copies for our initial running.
• Shipping and materials. We fulfilled the first couple hundred orders ourselves. We didn’t get paid, however, until months later because the money had to run through the publisher.
• Traveling expenses. We were invited to Chicago to give a break-out session at the CEO National Conference and we paid our way.

All told, we spent over $8 grand on our book. And, yes, we did make it into that 30%.

#7 Nobody Gets Rich as an Author

If a book sells 10,000 copies, it’s considered successful. The average royalty through a traditional publisher is 10%. So even if you sell 10,000 copies of $10 book, you’re only walking away with $10 grand.

If it’s not profitable, why do so many people write books?

Because being an author opens the door for other opportunities like speaking, training programs, and consulting. Plus, it makes your parents proud.

Now is the Time

If you’re an aspiring author, I want to encourage you to move forward with writing your book despite some of these stats. Working on that book with Nick was one of the most fulfilling projects I’ve ever been a part of.

Start with a blog. Then write a book for your audience. Sell the book on your blog. If it’s good, you’ll find other ways to sell it.

Read more: ‘How To Become a Best Selling Author’ »

The post 7 Things I Learned from Publishing a Book appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Not only does this make both of you money, but it sends traffic to your website, helping to build a following. eBooks can be used to make yourself a lot of money, or as incentives for readers to join your mailing list. Whatever you do with them, it’s important to know how to write them.

How To Create an eBook to Sell

Planning

I’ve always stressed planning when it comes to writing content online, and writing for a book that you wish to sell is no different, in fact it requires a lot more careful consideration – you can’t just get started and hope for the best. The first thing you’ll want to do is to come up with a title, and although this may sound obvious, it actually has a big effect of how you write your book. My latest eBook is called “Site Traffic Domination – How To Get 100,000 Visitors in Your First 3 Months”, but it was originally just going to be a case study of my website. Soon after starting, I found it hard to find a focus and direction, so I came up with a much clearer title.

Once you’ve settled on a title, it then becomes a lot simpler to come up with what you want to write about. For me, I didn’t want to go into more than about five different sections as it’s a good number to work within and I could cover everything in enough details through subheadings. The headings which I chose all had ‘Section’ written in front, followed by a number and then a title. The titles were clearly laid out in the table of contents and they were ‘How I Got My Start’, ‘Where My Traffic Comes From’, ‘Content’, ‘Promoting Your Content’ and ‘Making Money’, followed by a final ‘Summary’ section, but we’ll get to that.

I’ve studied my posts in the past to find out which were the most popular (something which I recommend you do), and I found that aside from the top lists, my post popular posts were the ones that would cover the basics and break them down into small and easy to manage sections. Because I structured the eBook the way I have, it’s clearly a lot easier for people to understand and to track their progress. With all my heading laid out, I knew what I want to include under those headings, so all I had to do is write it all down on a piece of paper and get to work. I always plan on paper, and I’ve filled up many notepads in doing so, but it’s much better as you have something to look back on and you can quickly write down new ideas so that you don’t forget them.

What To Write & How To Write It

The main differences between something that I write on this website, and something I include in an eBook comes down to the length and quality. If you’re expecting someone to pay for what you’re writing about, when usually, they get it for free, you have to make sure that your content is up to scratch or they won’t be coming back for more. When I’m writing an eBook, I forget the word targets that I usually try to set myself and just write the best that I can over all the sections and subheadings that I’ve laid out in my plan. My latest eBook is 39 pages long including the contents, but after my first draft it was only 25 pages long. This is because I went back and added more that I had thought up as I was going along and tried to improve on what I’d already written. Remember, if you want to make a living off the Internet, you need repeat customers who are satisfied with your content.

Most importantly, you should try to set yourself apart from all the other writing on the Internet by writing better than anyone else. If your content is the best that the customer can buy, the more likely they will be to buy it, and the more referrals you’ll make from other sellers. Your first eBook may not make a lot of money to begin with, but as your following and reputation grows, the sales of older books will start to pick up, similar to how old posts full of Amazon Associates links still makes you money.

Whatever you choose to write about, make sure that you choose something that couldn’t be covered in a couple thousand words in a blog post. Take a complete overview of a subject and explore as many different elements as you can. The fact of the matter is that you could possibly break all of this down into a series of blog posts, but you won’t earn nearly as much money from that. My next book is going to be on night photography, and I’ve started to explore some ideas that I’ve come up with that I don’t think have been covered in detail before, meaning that I can offer something a little bit different to my competitors.

Content

Let’s start at the beginning. You always want to include an introduction to your subject, as well as a few personal anecdotes. I try to include at least one anecdote about something that I’ve experienced in each section of the book and your first one should be in the introduction, telling people what makes you different from the rest. My eBook is based around my website and how it’s grown over the past few months, so I thought I’d share with readers how that came to be. This first section is entitled ‘How I Got My Start’ as shares what I did differently to other people in my niche, and explains to my reader why I’m qualified to be writing the book. Some people like to include a disclaimer at the beginning of their book telling the reader that it’s illegal to share, but I personally didn’t as I don’t think it go very far in stopping anyone from doing so.

To help stay ahead, include content which you wouldn’t ordinarily include, such as assignments, as well putting more time into graphs. For my blog posts, I usually use a screen capture of a Google Analytic page if I want to show my results, but for my eBook, I took some time, exported the results and made an original annotated diagram. This looks a lot better and makes the reader see the separation from website to book, which gives them a reason to pay more. Below is a comparison between the sorts of graph that I use online and the graph that I use in my eBook – the difference is clear.

It is okay at times to include content that you’ve already shared on your blog, just so long as it’s relevant and not just being used to bulk up the book. If I do this, I tend to remove certain parts that aren’t entirely relevant as well as replace images which are no longer in keeping with my book. In my most recent book, I used ‘6 Types Of Blog Posts That Drive Traffic‘ but I took out the last two on the list as they weren’t as relevant to getting lots of traffic. Just because I’ve used it elsewhere, doesn’t mean that it’s not still really great information.

If you’ve done your planning properly then it should be no trouble to write all your content in order, covering all your key points. This also helps to keep the content organized and mapped out in a contents page. I used headings throughout my book to show importance and relevance, and then when you insert a table of content at the beginning, all of your titles come together in order. Have a look at part of my contents below, and you’ll see that because I was able to follow my plan in order and use headings to show their importance, I was able make my book much easier to follow. What’s more is that all of the headings in the contents page will link to the headings further down in the book, even after I turn it into a pdf.

It’s one thing to write an eBook, but if you want to build on your reputation and sell many future ebooks then you need to start producing results. The best way to do this is to start writing assignments within your book that the reader has to follow, which in turn, will provide them with results. I wrote assignments such as ‘Open an Amazon Associates account and start using it today’ and ‘Claim your facebook profile name by getting 25 friends to like your page’. These little calls to action have a great effect and walk the reader through exactly what they have to do if they want to start seeing results.

Finishing Your eBook

When you’ve completed your book, it helps to read through it again so that it’s fresh in your memory and then summarize it so that anyone who was having trouble following will understand better. There is always going to be some readers that you have to spell it out for, so it can’t hurt to share it with everyone by creating an easy to read summary. I usually start with a couple paragraphs summarizing how I feel about what I’ve written and perhaps a personal anecdote about my learning process. Then what I do, which separates me from a lot of writers, is go back through my whole book and pick out all the important lessons that were learned and list them on one easy to read list. This really doesn’t take much time as I do it while I’m proof reading it; I just jot it down on a piece of paper and compile the list in order when I’m done.

I won’t share the list I’ve used in my latest eBook because that would just be giving it away for free, so instead, here’s a list for this blog post which you can learn from.

• eBooks are a great way to make money and can also be used as incentives to get people to join your list.
• Come up with a clear title before you start writing as it will shape the content that you produce.
• Properly structured eBooks are much easier to read.
• The quality and length has to be noticeably better than what you write online.
• Only sell content that you’re happy with because if you customer isn’t happy, they’re unlikely to ever buy from you again, and the same goes with affiliates.
• Anecdotes make the reader connect with you on a more personal level and trust the content more.
• A working table of contents is a great way to help the reader navigate their way through your book.
• Assignments act as calls to action, to help your reader produce the results they’re looking for.
• Summaries at the end will leave the reader feeling satisfied, knowing that they’ve learned something.

Finally, as you’re signing off, this is a great time to promote your own material to the readers, whether it’s links to your website and Facebook page, or links to other books that you’ve written that they might be interested in buying. If they’ve made it all the way to the end then they’re in a pretty good position to want to buy some more from you so don’t waste this opportunity.

Read more: ‘7 Things I Learned from Publishing a Book’

The post How to Plan and Write an eBook For Sale appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Could you describe what you do and how you earn your living Penelope?

I’m CEO of Brazen Careerist.

Tell us about your main startup Brazen Careerist and where do you want to go with it?

Main startup? That’s hilarious. It’s like ten full time jobs. I don’t think I could have any not-main startups. I want it to be a community where people can control their online brand and build their lives and their careerst through conversations.

I understand that back in 2007 you sold equity in your blog to start Brazen Careerist, this is something I haven’t heard of before. Why did you decide to do this and looking back do you think it was a good decision?

I sold equity so that I could build something bigger than just my blog by leveraging the brand name Brazen Careerist. I saw that I was able to use the name to build traffic and community for other bloggers and I wanted to do that on a larger scale.

Your career advice has appeared in more than 200 newspapers and magazines including Time magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and Boston Globe what’s your secret to getting lots of press coverage?

It’s not press coverag  per se, but a weekly column that has been running for eight years. It’s nearly impossible to get a column in newspapers, and I don’t recommend that anyone try. I wrote for about four years without pay, and even with a widely published column, it’s not that much income: flipping burgers at McDonald’s would probably be more reliable.

As well as having three startups you also run a very successful blog with over 30,000 subscribers, what would you say was the key to your success?

The key to getting 30,000 subscribers is to write good content and care a lot about community. The key to having three startups is being insane. Venture-backed companies are very high-risk and very stressful and if you can handle working for someone else’s company, you should do that. Your life will be more stable. I have the fortune and misfortune of a nonstop stream of ideas for companies and an insatiable excitement for trying them out to see what happens. It makes for a very exciting but unstable life.

So many people in our industry are two faced and for lack of a better word, scam artists. I recently read a post you did on your blog where you called out an A list Internet entrepreneur which I enjoyed reading. Do you think its important to be honest with your readers and when you see something bad happening, to call people out on it?

Bad stuff happens every day. I think mostly we should concentrate on ourselves and try to be our best selves. I mean, I lie all the time. Last month I lied to someone about my past sexual history so that I wouldn’t have to have a drawn out conversation about it. I bet you have scammed people, too. So for the most part I try to just be honest about myself, and that’s hard enough.

I wrote the post aobut Tim Ferriss because I’m so incredibly sick of how he interacts with me. In general, though, I don’t mind people being scammers — I just stay away.

Please Note: I am a huge believer in Karma and so I haven’t scammed any of you

Typically we see a lot more men become a success with online business, what would you say to the women out their who want to give Internet business a go?

Find true meaning in using SEO tricks to sell guitar lessons to people who don’t need them.

HAHAHAHAHA

Really, though. Most of the people who make money online are doing things that don’t interest women. So what? Women are making a ton of money as mommy bloggers, and men are not making a lot of money wriiting about parenting. So fine. Men and women make money online doing different stuff. It’s true offline, too: Men aren’t strippers.

Running a Internet Business gives you choices and freedom to do what you want, when you want. What would you say the Internet Lifestyle is for you?

That is total bullshit. If you are really running an Internet business then you are running a startup — I mean, if you are really supporting yourself and a family. And if you are not doing that then you are doing something else that you’re tied to, right? So if you are running a startup, then you are in the most high-risk category of any profession for divorce. Because the life is so stressful.

Working with the end in mind is something I think about every day, where do you see yourself in a few years time? Do you have an exit plan in mind?

Sleep. I would like to sleep more. And I’d like enough money to take a private pilates class twice a day so that I have perfect spine alignment all day and abs that make people reach out and touch.

What would you say is the biggest single reason for your success?

Hard work. I work way more than most people. I’m not sure if this is good or not, but it’s true.

If you could go back in a time machine to the time when you were just getting started, what advice would you give yourself regarding making money online?

I never set out to make money online. I try to figure out what I’m great at and what I can get paid for, and if I happen to need the Intenet to meet my life goals, I use the Internet. Find your true best self before you decide you need to be making money online.

What is the best advice you have ever been given?

Trust yourself.

Check out Penelope’s blog here if you want to learn more about her.

The post Penelope Trunk Interview – Author and Founder of Brazen Careerist appeared first on How To Make Money Online.

Hello Everyone,

Today I’m here with the super successful Internet entrepreneur; Joel Comm. Joel has been online making money for over a decade now from all sorts of business ventures including a gaming website, which was sold to Yahoo!, a best selling book, a best selling iPhone application. And now, he’s showing us how to create a powerful following on Twitter with his recent book, “Twitter Power.”

If you would like to learn more about Joel Comm then you can check out his personal blog out here!

Let us know a bit more about you. What makes you tick? Have you got a family?

Yes. Married 20 years, got children, live in northern Colorado, which is on the front range of the Rocky Mountains, and absolutely love it.

As I mentioned in your introduction, you’ve got a new book called “Twitter Power.” Do you want to tell us about your book?

You know, social media is really changing the way that people interact online. In the past, for interaction you would have to go to live chat rooms or message board forums. They were great for networking with people, but social media and Web 2.0 have brought along a more immediate sense of interaction, and, especially, none have reflected this more than Twitter. In 140 characters or less, you are able to put a message out that’s visible by everybody who’s following you, and it’s amazing how quickly you can get people to respond to your tweets. Of course, the larger your network, the more responses you have.

For example, just this morning, I put out a tweet asking for small businesses that are using Twitter. I’m getting ready to film for a national TV network here in the States, and they wanted some screenshots of some small businesses that have recently gotten on Twitter.

I put a tweet out there, and dozens and dozens of responses came back from people. It’s just such a great way to get information. What we’re discovering is that Twitter is definitely social, but social is the basis for all businesses, and all successful business are built on relationships.

So the book, “Twitter Power,” really focuses on how businesses of all sizes, from small to the megacorporations, can leverage the power of Twitter to build relationships, to enhance their brand, and to grow their bottom line.

So what should business owners and website owners be doing when they come on to Twitter?

Well, the first thing they want to do is to sign up with a user name that accurately reflects their brand. For me, it was a no brainer to select joelcomm, because that is my brand. But for some companies, they might want to have their company name and the brand. For example, Comcast, a cable company here in the US, goes by comcastcares. That’s their brand online. The megashoe store, Zappos, their brand is zappos. So, depending upon what your brand is, you want to pick an appropriate name.

Then you want to upload a profile picture. I like bright, happy, smiling faces. I think that we like to see smiling faces. It connects us even more with the person on the other side of the account.

Since Twitter is all about relationships, I think it’s a good idea. It’s not a must. You know, there are very few things that are mustdos on Twitter. There’s a lot of flexibility, which is why they let you upload whatever picture you want to.

But I like smiling faces, and I like to create a custom background. Twitter’s got a dozen standard backgrounds that you can select from, but that’s all they are is standard. They give you that real estate on the screen to be able to put up more information your company logo, your blog address, any other social media sites you’re using.

Basically, you can design your background any way you want to, and I recommend that businesses do that.

Then, once you’ve got that done, you’re ready to jump in and start using Twitter. The way that I recommend people do that is by using the most valuable part of Twitter, and that is their search tool. Interestingly enough, as of this call, the search box does not exist on the main page of Twitter.

You have to scroll down to the bottom and click search, and then put in your keyword which relates to whatever your niche is. Then you’re going to see the most recent tweets that have been broadcast on Twitter that have your keywords.

Well, these are the people that you want to begin interacting with and engaging with. You do that by simply replying to one of the tweets that have been put out there, maybe follow that person. If you bring value to the conversation or say something interesting, they’re more likely to follow you back. That is how you begin to widen your circle of influence on Twitter.

Then you simply rinse and repeat. Do the same type of activity again and again and begin building relationships with people who are interested in whatever your main focus is. You’ll start building those relationships.

Is that how you were able to build a following of nearly 50, 000 people on Twitter?

Yes, it really is. One by one, because you can’t follow people in chunks. I try to put value out there. I try to be somewhat transparent in my tweets and give people valuable content they can use. I try to post interesting links. I try to retweet when I see other people posting something interesting and pointing out other people that should be followed. When I run across an interesting news story, I’ll post those. Something I’ll post inspirational quotes. My tweets really run the gamut, the full spectrum, of personal information all the way to business. I just try to seamlessly blend it together without much planning, because Twitter is just another thing that you do during the day that becomes a part of your life.

I want to take us back a couple more months. I want to talk to you about your iPhone application that you developed called iFart.  How did that all come about?

Well, we have a special research and development department down the hall in our office. It’s called the men’s room. No, no. I’m teasing.

When the first iPhone came out, I was immediately hooked. I knew I had to have one, and I said, “This is the future, and this is ‘Game Over’ for the rest of the cell phone industry because Apple’s going to dominate now.”

My employees that work with me, they agreed. When Apple announced that they were coming out with the software development kit for the iPhone, we knew that we had to develop applications. We knew we wanted to, and it was a great opportunity to get in on the beginning of something we thought was going to be huge.

So we pulled into the conference room, and we began whiteboarding a number of ideas. We just filled that whiteboard in no time. So many ideas for applications, way more than we can accomplish with our limited resources and talent that we have on board.

But one of us, and I cannot recall which one of us it was, came up with the idea for a digital fart machine, and we thought it was funny. We realized that it wouldn’t take that much to develop it, and if we were to combine the app with some clever marketing, that we could get attention. Boy, did we ever get attention…

You sure did. What was the success like? How many people downloaded it?

I don’t have the exact numbers, but I think we’re somewhere in the range of 450, 000 right now. Michael. Wow! And how much did that make you?

Well, it’s $0.99 per unit, a buck a unit. Apple keeps $0.30, so you can do the math there.

I’m going to take you back even further now, and go back to your Google AdSense days. You’ve got a book out called “AdSense Secrets.”

The actual book, there’s an ebook called “AdSense Secrets, ” but the physical book that’s been in the stores for the last few years is called the “AdSense Code.”

Joel Signing His New Book

Brilliant. You’ve made a whole load of money with Google AdSense. I mean, should people still be using Google AdSense?

Absolutely. I still am. I may have made a bunch of money with AdSense, but what really excites me is the fact that I’ve helped a lot of other people make a lot of money with AdSense. It’s been very rewarding because I still get testimonials on a regular basis from people who are reading my book. We actually put the ebook, which is the most current version, out available for free on my website, at AdSenseSecrets.com. I certainly invite anybody who would like to give that a read to go ahead and download a copy.

Brilliant. I’ll make sure to include that in the interview writeup. What is your top tip for making money with Google AdSense then?

Well, it comes down to content, right? You want to make sure you’re putting up quality content and building a website that people will actually want to visit. If you’re creating content, then there’s always going to ways that you can monetize that content. Google AdSense is just the easybutton thing to do. It’s the easiest thing to put up, but there’s many ad networks and banner networks and affiliate programs, intext links. There’s a lot of ways to make money.

So the main thing to focus on is, don’t think, “I want to build a site that makes money with AdSense.” Think, “I want to build a site that people are going to want to visit and come back to and bookmark and tell their friends, et cetera, et cetera.”

If you do that and you focus on building quality content, the revenue’s going to take care of itself.

Exactly. I mean, I always tell all my readers, “Blog about your passion, and the money just comes.”

You mentioned you have a book and an ebook. Which one have you found more beneficial to yourself? Which one is more profitable? What are the benefits of both?

Well, they’re different. You know, the ebook has sold a lot of copies, and just most recently, we’ve started giving it away and we have some other offers for people when they download that. You don’t write a physical book to make a lot of money with it. Creating a physical book is really all about branding yourself. There’s certainly a demand for the topic, and there’s nothing wrong with selling books, but, really, the credibility that having a published book lends to you is phenomenal.

I sold thousands and thousands of copies of the AdSense ebook, and I got some attention for that. But when I had a physically published book, all of a sudden, the media begins paying more attention to you.

I would recommend people, whatever their field everybody’s got a book in them. I recommend they do a book, and that becomes a leveraging tool which enhances your credibility, remarkably so.

Of course, now I’m on my third book. It’s no longer as much credibility as branding and increasing visibility. But it still does help.

Thanks for that. Last year, I actually got the opportunity to meet you at Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar event in Los Angeles. We got a chance to play a bit of blackjack and chill out. I want to know, really, more about what makes you tick. What are the benefits of living your life over getting a nine to five job?

Well, there are no benefits with a nine to five job, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve never been great with working for other people. You know, I think that’s by default. When you’re entrepreneurial, it’s hard to When you work for other people; you tend to point out better ways of doing things. When you’re in a more corporate environment, well, people don’t like being told better ways to do things.

That’s actually very frightening to them. So I found that, for me, it’s always been best to work for myself. I’ve got the entrepreneurial bug. I can’t imagine ever working for anybody again. I love the freedom of being able to go to the office if I want to. I love being able to have a big vision and build a team. We’ve got 28 people that work in my office, right now.

I love to pull in talented people that are passionate about what they’re doing, and build a team that works together and does so much more than we could ever dream of, if it was just a handful of us. That’s what we’ve got right now.

I figure if we’re creating quality products, and we’ve got a happy staff, then we know that that’s going to spill out to the customers. We’re going to bring value to people’s lives. That’s the bottom line. We want to create content and products and services that are actually going to make a difference for people.

Especially now, with the recession taking place and people need answers. We’ve figured out how to do this thing, so if people will pay attention to the material that we put out there, I think that they’re going to be a step ahead of those that are really struggling.

Brilliant. You just mentioned a recession. A lot of people are losing their jobs. A lot of people want to earn a second income. What’s the best thing to do when you come online for the first time to make money online? What’s the number one thing you should learn to do?

Well, you kind of answer it a little sooner. If you just look at doing something, then you might be coming at it a little backwards. You’ve got to figure out what it is you’re passionate about first, because that’s going to dictate more what you should do than just looking at what opportunity exists out there. There are dozens and hundreds of opportunities, but you’ve got to make sure that what you’re doing is the right fit for you. You’ve got to make sure that this is something that you could really throw yourself into, and that you’re going to go all the way with it.

Because if you try to pick up something that’s just a moneymaking opportunity and you get frustrated because it might not be happening as quickly as you want it to, you’re more likely to give up if it’s not something that’s near and dear to your heart.

But if you’re passionate about it, those obstacles, you’re just going to bowl them over and keep moving straight ahead, because you’re heading towards a goal.

So, depending upon what that passion is, that’s really your starting point. Depending on the answer to that, my answer could be, “Start a blog. Put out content.” It could be, “Write an ebook.” It could be, “Create an information product or video.” It could be, “Jump into social media with both feet.”

It could be, “Create a physical product.” It could be to create a service or a members site. It just totally depends upon which direction you want to go.

All of those are legitimate opportunities. In fact, I’ve worked in all of those areas and have found success.

So, you’ve been online for a long time now. When did you first come online?

That’s the World Wide Web, but technically I’ve been online If by online, you mean dialing in to a remote location, I’ve been online since 1980 when I bought my first computer, which was a TRS90 Model I, and I bought a modem…

Yes, I know. It’s probably before you were born, right?

It had a 300baud dialup modem. I remember calling in to BBSes, Bulletin Board Services, even back then. I was on America Online in version one. I was probably in the first quartermillion people that were on. I was on Prodigy, CompuServe, Delphi, GEnie, services you probably haven’t heard of, and way, way back. So, theoretically, I’ve been online for 29 years.

When you started making money online, when was that?

The first year that I launched my website, really, was when I got entrepreneurial using the Internet. That would have been 1995. Michael. Brilliant. You’ve been online for quite a long time now. Do you see yourself being online for a long time more, or do you want to retire someday? What are your plans?

I think retirement is a myth. I have heard of some people that go in and out of retirement. I don’t want to be one of those people that just sits on a beach or plays. I want to produce. I want to do something that actually makes a difference. I think that the idea of just taking your money and going and having fun, unless you’re doing something philanthropic with your money, I think you’re wasting your life. You’re wasting opportunity. You’re missing chances to change lives and to make a difference.

So I don’t know that I’ll ever retire. As for, will I be online 20 years from now? Well, I would imagine we’re all going to be online, but will that be my core business? I really have no idea. I find myself reinventing myself every couple of years, maybe even every year.

I like to do things that I haven’t done before. Building websites, I’ve done that. I’ve sold websites. I’ve done the ebooks, and I’ve conquered the information marketing genre. I’ve built member sites. I’ve done iPhone applications. I’ve written books. I’ve spoken from the stage. I’ve filmed a reality show.

I’m not bragging. I’m just saying, I’ve done all these different things, and I want to keep coming up with new things to do that are going to interest me, that I can be passionate about, and that are going to meet the goals.

Basically, the way I sign my emails, I don’t know if you’ve seen them, Michael, I sign my emails, “Do good stuff.” That’s kind of my motto. I want to make sure that what we’re putting out there is good stuff for people.

I couldn’t agree with you any more. Someone once told me, “You’re not a true entrepreneur if you look to retire. Any true entrepreneur is going to be at it until they die.” My next question is, do you model yourself on anyone? Who do you look up to?

Who do I look up to? That’s a really good question. I’ve been asked it several times, lately. You’d think that I would actually have a really good answer. I think I pick up bits and pieces from people. I don’t really have, on earth, heroes, so to speak. I think I see people as just people. I don’t put people on pedestals, and I can respect things that they’ve done.

But what I really look for in people is character, is a person that is honorable, that’s honest, that really seeks to do good things, make a difference in people’s lives.

I’m not impressed by celebrity. I mean, it’s cool when you get a chance to meet somebody that maybe you’ve seen on TV or listen to their music. But what I’ve come to realize is that people are just people.

I don’t like when people treat me like a celebrity. If I’m at a conference or something, and I walk by, and I hear somebody whisper, “There’s Joel Comm!”

I’m like, “Well, yes.” I’m just a guy. I’m living my life. I’m trying to do good stuff. Because I’ve had some success in the public eye, people tend to put you up on a pedestal, and I don’t like that. I don’t belong on one. The success I’ve had, I feel blessed to have attained it.

I think it’s there for anybody if they’re willing to pursue their passion. If they’re doing what they were made to do, it’s hard to not succeed at it, because it’s what they were made to do.

You mentioned that you’re just an average guy. Do you think most of the successful Internet entrepreneurs are just normal guys [that] like a pizza, have a few beers?

Well, yes. I know most of those guys. Definitely, the second book I wrote, “Click Here to Order, ” I’m not sure if you’ve read it or not, but the whole idea behind writing that book was to show that regular people, who have had struggles just like the rest of us, have gone on to do really great things on the Internet and with their lives.

I mean, Armin Morin was a vacuum cleaner salesman. John Reese was deep, deep, deep in debt before he found success. I sold encyclopedias, and was a former disc jockey. We’re all just regular folks.

Even the big stars that we see out there, the Hollywood actors and the Grammy awardwinning musicians, everybody is just people. Some people have gotten out in front of the rest of the crowd and get a lot of attention for it, but they’re no more valuable or no less valuable than John Q. Public, who hasn’t gotten the attention and is more anonymous.

We all have the potential to effect a positive change and make a difference. Whatever our lot in life is, that difference can be significant, if we just apply ourselves to doing the things that we are really good at doing and that we’re passionate in.

I couldn’t agree with you any more. I’ve got a quick five questions for you, just to finish up the interview. What is the best advice you’ve been…

Probably the best advice I’ve been given is to pray often.

If the Internet had not existed, what do you think you would be doing?

Oh, man. I’d probably be a radio DJ or talk show guy, something like that. Because I had done radio before. But that would be really sad. Don’t depress me.

What do you like best about the Internet?

I love the way that there’s just so much opportunity to connect with the whole world. It used to be, if we wanted to have a business, we would think very local. Run an Internet business to mow lawns, to be a DJ at wedding receptions in the area. You know, it’s all very local. Now, we reach the entire world with our business. What an opportunity.

Exactly. What do you like least about the Internet?

I don’t like the infiltration of pornography via the Internet into our families, into our homes. I think that our children are losing their innocence at a much, much younger age, because they’re being exposed to so much more. It’s a crime. It’s very sad.

Thanks very much, Joel, for the interview. Are there any personal or business plans you’d like to share with us before you go?

You know, we’re actually getting ready to ramp up our next service. We’ve spent the last 18 months building a mobile messaging service for businesses called TextCastLive and getting ready to roll that out here in the States. I’m pretty excited because, again, it’s a whole new arena, and we’re doing something we’ve not done before.

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