How ebooks saved my life, and can possibly save yours

This is actually from the blog that I host myself:
http://tmharris.net/blog/2008/03/true-story-about-how-ebooks-saved-my-life-and-can-save-yours/

I just felt the need to share it with everyone who reads this blog of mine, too. Enjoy!
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Hey there readers!

I hope you were one of the hundreds who downloaded my ebook "30 Tips for Ebook Authors" that I started to give away yesterday by Jimmy D Brown. I hope it inspired you to at least get into the ebook game.

The reason why I want you to download this book so bad, is because people keep asking me about getting ONE thing right online. And honestly, if you have your own ebook, you can't go wrong at all.

So, what can you do with an ebook of your own? Check it out:

* Bribe people to sign up to your list
* Sell it and make some profit (and build a list of paying customers)
* Use it as a bonus for other people's product packages and launches
* Build credibility for yourself or your business
* Pre-sell another product that you're an affiliate for

Seriously, every internet marketer especially in the 'internet marketing' and/or network marketing niche uses ebooks to leverage themselves to either build their list, build their reputation, or just build a bigger bank account. Think ebooks won't work for the average Joe like you and me?

Hmmmm....OK time for a case study!

Look at my ebook Ebay Profit Loophole ...

Do you know how much it cost me to create that ebook? NOTHING

An ebook is nothing more than a document...preferrably converted to PDF.

By having that ebook, I was able to do a lot. Crazy enough, that simple 20-page report of mine has done everything I mentioned earlier...

* I use it to bribe people to sign up to my list. If someone orders from one of my affiliate links, and they weren't on my mailing list before, I use it to get them to sign up to my list afterwards.

* I sell it to make profit (of course! look at the website!) and it helps me build my mailing list (which of course YOU are on)

* I've used it as a bonus for two of my friend's product launches last year and pulled an extra 150 subscribers as a result

* It's definitely built my credibility as now I get more requests for consultations and other freelance services I provide...as well as now I get more people wanting me to promote their stuff. Now, I'm no longer the hunter, but the hunted (ooooo so macho sounding!)

* It presells another product or 2 that I truly recommend. If you didn't notice, read the book.

So, from one simple 20-page report, I was able to do so many things, and mind you...it wasn't that hard of an ordeal. Think I'm one heck of a writer? Well, on my SATs in high school, I got a 1250 on my SATs. Mind you, my verbal score was only 530...I really excelled in math, though.

So, according to the SATs (and my high school teachers) I'm horrible at English grammar and writing. I always suffered in my English classes, and almost took a remedial course in English in school...whereas, I was in Advanced Placement Calculus, yet my writing skills SUCKED! I believe I squeeked by high school with a D average in English, because I hated writing book reports and it definitely showed back then.

I even went on to Rutgers University here in the U.S. and did exceptional in my Calculus and marketing classes...but since there were freshman pre-requisites that required writing classes in my curriculum, that held me back, and eventually I had lost a scholarship over it, and ended up pulling myself out of school (since I couldn't afford it anymore).

So, all in all, you don't have to be a Ph.D or some Nobel prize writer to come up with an ebook that'll boost your business and skyrocket your profit.

Interesting fact, there have been over 1600 customers for Ebay Profit Loophole, which translates into over $16,000 in gross (noticed I said GROSS) sales for me, my affiliates and my partners. My cut of that was $4000, but honestly, I had it as a $7 product using that infamous script...so I wasn't collecting sales off it anyway. I only switched to clickbank because the script was giving my webhost problems. But in the end, since switching, it put an extra $4K in my pocket over a few months, as well as a list of people I can truly call FRIENDS.

Mind you, this all started from a simple 20-page report that I (the writing expert) wrote up one day. I wrote it while I was actually on the job, bored out of my mind. And the only reason I did it was everyone that I was talking to stressed to me the importance of having my own actual book to help me boost my own business.

Think you can't do it? Think again! You have all the tools you'll ever need to write up an ebook and convert it to a PDF.

You have a computer, right? (DUH!)

You have a word processor. Even old versions of Windows come with Wordpad, the oldest of the old.

If not, just remember that you can easily go to Google Documents and not only type up your book, but also convert it to PDF right there.

Seriously, it's not that hard my friend! It doesn't matter what niche you wanna enter, or how much money you have...you can do it.

Hey, if I could do it while working for Wal-Mart, living in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment in a neighborhood taken over by Bloods, crackheads and hookers, anyone can do it.

And I'm not lying about that either. Now I have a 4-BR apartment for me and my family, where I turned one room into my private office.

I used to live right across the street from a crackhouse ran by members of the Bloods gang. I saw crack cocaine sales right outside my window, and even noticed a crackhead sleeping right in front of my place once. I had my old car broken into, vandalized, kicked and dented by bad a$$ kids, and couldn't go to sleep 'til 3AM in the morning every night.

Not because of my internet marketing, but because of the fights over money and drugs, loud music and the heavy police activity with their loud blaring sirens and such all night long. And you have to throw in the EMTs too, since five people died on that same street that year. One was right in front of a elementary school during school hours, which really depressed the area.

Now, I don't live in that section anymore, as I live in a much better part of town with peaceful people, a bigger place where I've had no problems, and more comfort for me and the family.

Crazy enough, it all started changing once I wrote up that ebook, Ebay Profit Loophole. The sales that came in helped me out. The leads I acquired helped too. The boost for my business' reputation brought more customers, prospects and even new partners.

Seriously, if I had not have written ebooks, I'd still be trying to raise both my children out of a tiny cramped 1BR apartment in the middle of the ghetto. And probably, I would've been locked up for having to do the unthinkable again to make ends meet. Yes, I used to do my dirt back then, and I'm not proud of it. But I turned over a new leaf once I saw my oldest, my daughter, being brought into this world. That made me change up the game plan, so thank God for ebooks.

With all that being said, I want to introduce you to an ebook that I purchased and read last year that really helped me out when it came to writing my first ebooks. Now, the author is actually one of internet marketing's most elite, as SHE is a ghostwriter for many of the so-called 'gurus' that you've drained your bank account over. Yes, she was responsible for that, since he wrote their ebooks and even some of their sales letters.

Her name is Tiffany Dow, and her book is called "Building an Ebook Empire". All jokes aside, after I read this and released Ebay Profit Loophole (with success), I emailed her back and thanked her. Now, there's only a few people that I have personally emailed my thanks and regards to. She was one. When you teach me something that has a significant life-changing effect on you, I'm not only going to thank you, but I'm also going to tell the world about what you did for me.

Can it do something for you? Well, I know so. Look at my story above. It's 100% real...I can't make that stuff up, and who would want to? You know what type of situation you're in. You know you want it to change. You just think..."it's never going to happen to me". You think you're in such peril that it prevents you from doing what you know you have to do to make some coin online.

I was that person. You don't know how many times I've thrown my keyboard, mouse, cell phone in frustration. Trust me, I can show you the patches in the wall at my old place where my cell phone used to play tag with the wall. LOL I hated days when I logged into Clickbank to see a big phat ZERO. I dreaded days where my Paypal account would read $0.00.

And in all honesty, it didn't start working until I wrote up my first ebook and just sold it! I will admit that my first ebooks I used to sell on Ebay w/ a $20 featured listing. But even at that...ebay didn't charge me that $20 until the end of the auction. So for 7 days, I would be out there hitting people when they were outbidded on similar auctions, and get them to buy my ebooks for a cheaper price. That started building my list. I had a nice 30 people on my list from Ebay.

But in the end, the money, the notoriety, the success, it wouldn't have been possible without God (first and foremost), my own ebook...and Tiffany Dow's "Building an Ebook Empire". This was the book that I read that got me making my own ebooks to leverage my business.

So, I'm going to stop ranting and raving about my 'rags to riches' story, and simply show you the step-by-step guide that got me going with all of my online ventures...

Building an Ebook Empire

Don't sell yourself short. Anyone who has a right mind, and has something to say, teach or pass on can write an ebook and build an online business from nothing (like I did). So do me a favor and build your own ebook empire, will ya?

T.M.