User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars I got my start with this book!
I love books and wanted to investigate selling them on Amazon, so I bought this book. It basically gave me everything I needed to know to get started, and the incentive to try. Although I am still very small, just selling a few books a week, I am in the process of building my inventory and have found that Ms. Miller is right - this is a do-able and profitable business and this book was absolutely invaluable in helping me to get started, and I am going to re-read it again as a continuing reference.

5 Stars Must Read for a would-be bookseller or experienced bookseller
Concise and to-the-point. Easy read. Great real-life examples of seller success stories. Chock full of helpful tips and advice to increase your sales and maintain motivation. If you want to be successful selling books, then read this book first. In fact, read it a few times just to be sure the information hits home. You can easily read it in just over an hour or so. Five-star effort all the way! Thanks Christine!

3 Stars Okay Info for beginers
I have been selling books on Amazon for several months now and was looking for a book that could give me a little more expertise and tips on how to be more effective at buying and selling books. I found this book to be mostly information I have read many times before in other places, with very little new useful info for anyone who has been selling for more than a few months. This book has some good information for new book sellers, but you can get 99% of this info by reading the Amazon.com guidelines on selling and reading Michael E. Moulds’ blog, both of which are free. If you don’t want to spend 30 minutes on Google to get this information for yourself, then this is the book for you. If not, don’t waste your money.

5 Stars This book is now bound in a sturdy glued binding.
No more spiral binding. Reading the book is, as others have mentioned, like getting advice from your best friend. Ms. Miller shows herself to be a conscientious and warm person throughout the book and in her email communications when the book is ordered. She aims to help the reader avoid the mistakes she made while establishing her online book selling business. The book is detailed and thorough, although I thought it to be a bit repetitive. There is a vast amount of information contained in the book, and the author is frank in discussing her limitations as a mentor in the world of book selling. Ms. Miller’s honesty and generosity are refreshing. If you are considering starting an online business selling used books, be sure to read this. If you are looking for a really nice, sincere, giving, friendly, person, you can get to know one by reading this book.

5 Stars Getting this guide is like hiring a personal trainer and mentor.
Yes, it’s true that Amazon itself does a good job of being user-friendly for sellers, but for new-to-the-business folks like me, this is a terrific guide. It’s like hiring a personal trainer who’s at your side when you want her. It’s like exercise–yes, you can do it all by yourself, but it does help to have that one-on-one expertise.

Miller is organized, clear and concise and, she’s got a cheeky sense of humor to relieve tension and remind you that, yes, you can do this and it’s going to be fine and it’s going to be fun! The format is actually easier to use than a paperback book because I can prop it open on the desk to refresh my memory as I work and for whatever step I’m at: creating an accurate listing, contacting customers, finding tools and services to take it to the next level, and so on. In addition, her insider tips from her years in the business are quite helpful and easy to follow.

This is a particularly helpful first guide and then you can graduate and move onto the more sophisticated and involved stuff. Great investment.

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Many of the best brands today are of geek pedigree, powered by the technologies, traits and trends of the ascendant digital channel. Amidst the decline of mass marketing, push marketing tactics have been superseded by new forms of influence. These include the creating, sharing and influencing behaviors of an online population no longer content merely to consume, and the potent pairing of digital notoriety and network effects, which has given rise to the icitizenry.

From these sociocultural forces emerges a radical business imperative: to open up to consumer involvement in a brand’s messages and offerings. Published under Peachpit’s New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA Design Press, The Open Brand illuminates both the risks and immense rewards of doing so, and describes the essential consumer experiences that are requisite for cultural relevance—On-demand, Personal, Engaging, and Networked experiences, representing the chief values of the web-made world.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Strategies to create a decisive competitive advantage in a Web-made world
As I read this slender but remarkably thought-provoking volume, I was reminded of Henry Chesbrough’s breakthrough insights about what he calls “the open business model” and the open mindset it requires. “A business model performs two important functions: it creates value and it captures a portion of that value. It creates value by defining a series of activities from raw materials through to the final consumer that will yield a new product or service with value being added throughout the various activities. The business model captures value by establishing a unique resource, asset, or position within that series of activities, where the firm enjoys a competitive advantage.”

Having thus established a frame-of-reference, Chesbrough continues: “An open business model uses this new division of innovation labor - both in the creation of value and in the capture of a portion of that value. Open models create value by leveraging many more ideas, due to their inclusion of a variety of external concepts. Open models can also enable greater value capture, by using a key asset, resource, or position not only in the company’s own business model but also in other companies businesses.”

This is precisely what Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins have in mind when explain when charting the same trajectory of consumer empowerment discussed in Mooney’s first book, The Ten Demandments: Rules to Live By in the Age of the Demanding Consumer. The Open Brand “examines what few could have predicted: The extent of consumers’ overwhelming motivation for and adeptness at being heard, making a mark, controlling their experiences, sharing products, and sharing opinions….Marketers have to rethink their approach in the face of the mounting power and reach of consumers - both as individuals and communities…The next step is to stage and support experiences that pull customers into brand participation in a way that’s relevant to their lives.”

As the title of their book indicates, Mooney and Rollins insist that a brand must be O.P.E.N.: On-demand, Personal, Engaging, and Networked. That is, whatever today’s consumers are seeking, they want it - and often get it - “right now.” Also, it is imperative to bring the given brand as close as possible to each consumer’s real-time needs, wants, and expectations. Moreover, brand marketers must development content that is “immersive, participatory and relevant in order to earn a place in the social web and consumer conversations” because open brands must provide “meaningful and engrossing experiences that foster consumer relationships online - and off.” Finally, open brands must “become part of social networks by marketing to the niche of communal consumers who interact with other like-minded consumers online.” These are not merely desirables. They are imperatives. Mooney and Rollins explain why…and they also explain how to think through the process by which to associate these attributes with any brand, be it a product, service, or person.

In essence, marketing’s primary function is to create or increase demand. Without differentiation, all brands seem the same. Even when differentiation has been determined, however, it must be recognized as such by the target consumer. And even then, the challenge remains to position the differentiated brand so that it appeals to the target consumer in terms of its immediate availability, its relevance, its ability to provide “meaningful and engrossing experiences that foster consumer relationships online - and off,” and offer the promise of being able to support and enrich interactive social networks.

Mooney and Rollins identify and briefly discuss eleven companies (”alpha openers” and “enablers” such as Amazon, Blogspot, Flickr, Google, and Wikipedia) “that have innovated or leveraged internet and telecommunications technologies to benefit consumers in new and significant ways.” They briefly discuss a number of personal brands, “icitizens,” to indicate “just how widely brands must cast their nets to catch up with these trendsetters, truth tellers and tastemakers.” Of special interest is what they have to say about what they identify as “The Open Brand Metric System.” (They provide a chart on Page 163 that consolidates all of the key points. This will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent review of those points later.) The details of this system are best revealed within Mooney and Rollins’ narrative, in context. However, I can say now is that the information goes a long way toward answering the question “How formulate business objectives, foundation metrics, and emerging metrics for each of the four components of the O.P.E.N. system.

In the final chapter, they provide a distillation of some of the key themes for their reader to consider when “opening” her or his brand. I recommend that the material in this chapter be read and re-read with great care, then frequently reviewed later as well as the chart on Page 63. Credit Mooney and Rollins with providing a wealth of information as well as their own suggestions to those who are struggling to market a brand in a global marketplace in which there are more opportunities than ever before to connect, to create interaction, and most importantly, to respond effectively to the needs and interests of consumers who have more power and less patience then ever before.

* * * * *

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out Chesbrough’s Open Innovation: Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating And Profiting from Technology and the more recent Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape as well as two books by Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (Expanded Edition) and the more recent Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands.

4 Stars I expected it to be better, more complete… …but it is not bad at all either. Is is mostly focused on branding for the Internet and not all kinds of branding resource. In those terms I think the real purpose of the book was met and it defined well the term “OPEN” Brand and some of it’s aplications in a technology based global economy.

I did learn many things but I expected a bit more from this book in terms, maybe of the origins of branding, it’s evolution, etc… I wish I could get to put my hands in a better, more complete book about branding,[...]

4 Stars Open is the new Challenge! I have read a lot of books about marketing in the new world - but I think this book nails it. Kelly Mooney and Nita Rollins have written a well organized, quick, smart, strategic and accessible book.

Somehow it cuts through all the social media clutter and talks to the brand owner about how to be open in the new world. Good Stuff!

[...]

Tom O’B

5 Stars Open Up “Open Brand” There’s a plethora of books out there about Web 2.0, Social Media, Twittering, and more…but what I love about this book is that it makes it all simple and obvious and intuitive. It cuts through the impenetrable jargon, and where jargon just can’t be chiseled free, it clarifies and translates. The book satisfies the unmet marketer need for clarity and simplicity. It’s also written by two industry leaders who “walk the talk” on all these principles.

What the authors are talking about is a new mindset…a new organizing principle…and a new consumer world order.

Great case studies, superb visuals, and extremely creative. It’s a go-to guide for easy and continued reference. The glossary is particularly “actionable.” A great book give to someone on your team who’s doesn’t get that the web is more than a tool, or just a “cool” technology.


- Pete

5 Stars No need to fear the future Each decade brings changes in the way people see things; react to things and buy things. With these changes there are a chosen few who really “get it.” Mooney and Rollins are two such people. They are not just marketing experts, they are visionaries who have their fingers on the pulse of what it takes to advance a brand in this “web made world,” So if you have a brand or just a message to spread, this is your book. I’ve learned a lot from reading it and it’s caused me to OPEN my own thinking on marketing and expand my own brand’s base. Thank you for the wake-up, it’s a must read.

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Learn the new rules of real estate marketing!

Old rule: Your website is all about you.
New rule: Your website is all about the customer.

Old rule: Online advertising will surpass offline advertising.
New rule: Integrated offline and online advertising wins every time.

Old rule: Delivering leads is the only job for a website.
New rule: The best websites deliver leads and customer service.

These are just some of the new rules of online marketing that you’ll find in this helpful, hands-on guide. In the REAL ESTATE RAINMAKER Guide to Online Marketing, Dan Gooder Richard offers new solutions and proven ways to use the Internet to drive your real estate business. Whether you’re a novice or a veteran real estate pro, you’ll find all the cutting-edge online strategies you need to design and implement your own effective, profitable marketing strategy-with practical guidance on building a unique online brand with web domains, websites, and e-mail marketing strategies. Full of real-world examples and straightforward guidelines, the REAL ESTATE RAINMAKER Guide to Online Marketing will help you generate more leads and more business than you ever thought possible!

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars A Complete “How To” for online real estate
This information will help the new and “not so new” agent understand the principles of working in an online world. From email to web presence, branding to building a business one can sell in the future, this book is replete with tips, tricks, links and insight from some leading real estate trainers and agents. Presented in a clear, easy to follow fashion you can use right now, this is a must read for anyone interested in the “new rules” of real estate.

5 Stars Outstanding Resource
This book is very simple for IT guys, But It will be interesting for those IT Experts who are new in Real Estate Online Business.

It covers from A-Z, with details and researches, full of examples and ideas.

There are too much examples and ideas that you will not be able to use all.

I recommend this book to IT Experts who are working in Real Estate Industry, New Real Estate Agents and Brokers, Real Estate Agents who are going to update thier websites (If they had one before ! ), and YOU.

5 Stars Best book ever
Full of tips easy to use and fuul with tools to sell your web site right away.

3 Stars on line marketing
Good ideas and well organized but be careful if you are not strongly web knowledgeable as some info is out of date, having been written about 3 years ago. Web is changing faster than books being published can keep current.

4 Stars Great book and very informative.
This book was full of great information and knowledge. An excellent guide for a real estate professional wanting to build an effective website. Informative also if you are hiring someone to build your website and need to be educated enough to recognize if the web designer is worth the money you are paying.

The author’s website was informative too, but I felt it could have been more impressive in appearance. Afterall, the author is wrote a book about how to design a great website.

Overall, I recommend this book to any real estate professional who wants guidance in improving their online image, internet lead generation, and a more effective email campaign.

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The Internet has profoundly changed the way people communicate and interact with each other. But it has also changed the way businesses communicate with their customers (and those who they want to be customers). In the old days, companies could only communicate through the filter of expensive advertising or media ink placed by a PR firm. Today the rules have changed entirely.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR shows you how to leverage the potential that Web-based communication offers your business. Finally, you can speak directly to customers and buyers, establishing a personal link with the those who make your business work. You can reach niche buyers with targeted messages that cost a fraction of your big-budget ad campaign. Rather than bombard them with advertising they’ll likely ignore, you can focus on getting the right message to the right people at the right time.

When people visit your company’s Web site, they aren’t there to hear your slogan or see your logo again. They want information, interaction, and choice—and you’d be a fool not to give it to them. This one-of-a-kind guide to the future of marketing includes a step-by-step action plan for harnessing the power of the Internet, showing you how to identify audiences, create compelling messages, get those messages to the right people, and lead those consumers into the buying process. Including a wealth of compelling case studies and real-world examples, this is a practical guide to the new reality of PR and marketing.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Fantastic must read for ALL business owners!
The author, David Meerman Scott, does a superb job on creating an easy read full of terrific ideas to improve the visibility of your business to the masses using WEB 2.0 (social sites on the web) technologies.

I loved the book and will refer back to it often! Highly recommend it!

5 Stars Excellent “how to” manual
This was an excellent summary of how to get involved with electronic marketing. I recommend it for anyone who is starting out.

5 Stars Well-thumbed Biz Book Favorite
Do you have a favorite business book that’s streaked with highlights, scribbled with margin notes, has a broken spine, and dog-eared post-its? The New Rules of Marketing and PR, by David Meerman Scott, holds that honor on my business reference bookshelf. Subtitled How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly, this book seemed to shout at me from the shelf during one of my regular forays into Amazon’s business section.

As a B2B marketing professional, I try to keep up with communications trends, so I was already familiar with some of the information in Scott’s book. I’d purchased it specifically for the news releases and blogging sections, but, goaded by the author’s light and enthusiastic tone I found myself learning about new (to me) online activities to support B2B marketing efforts.

New Rules gave me insight into some new tasks that have become SOP in my regular work at our Atlanta ad agency. As a result of the Buyer Personas section, we maintain and plan around the personas of our clients’ customers as well as our own.

Overall I enjoyed this book, and regularly peruse my highlighted and tabbed sections. Fortunately, David is understandable as well as enlightening. Just like his blog, www.webinknow.com, the book has a conversational, engaging writing style and is thoroughly worth the space on any business reference shelf.

/mh

4 Stars W Willard’s review of The New Rules of Marketing & PR
I have over 40 years marketing experience and now find myself needing to utilize the resources of current technology to effectively market products and services.

This book is providing me , at the age of 74, with the tools that I need. It’s very informative.

W. Willard

San Clemente CA

4 Stars Good Primer
Great book to get started for beginners (and possibly for the beginner-mid level) for getting your feet wet.

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What happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone?

“The Long Tail” is a powerful new force in our economy: the rise of the niche. As the cost of reaching consumers drops dramatically, our markets are shifting from a one-size-fits-all model of mass appeal to one of unlimited variety for unique tastes. From supermarket shelves to advertising agencies, the ability to offer vast choice is changing everything, and causing us to rethink where our markets lie and how to get to them. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers want and how they want to get it, from DVDs at Netflix to songs on iTunes to advertising on Google.

However, this is not just a virtue of online marketplaces; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for business, one that is just beginning to show its power. After a century of obsessing over the few products at the head of the demand curve, the new economics of distribution allow us to turn our focus to the many more products in the tail, which collectively can create a new market as big as the one we already know.

The Long Tail is really about the economics of abundance. New efficiencies in distribution, manufacturing, and marketing are essentially resetting the definition of what’s commercially viable across the board. If the 20th century was about hits, the 21st will be equally about niches.

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars The Long Book from a Short Article
PROS: Well written, fluid prose, clear headers guide the reader, useful observations on how the Internet has changed many industries, excellent for the business reader and entrepreneur.

CONS: Although the author generally writes in a concise writing style (which is nice), the book could be even shorter. Indeed, it grew out of a Wired article.

CONCLUSION: The reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that I wasn’t left amazed and blown away. It’s a nice book. Well written and researched. Get it if you’re an entrepreneur or you love to read how the Net disrupts industries. If you’re only moderately interested in these subjects, then just read the Wired article and/or the user comments on this book.

2 Stars Like “The Tipping Point” — A Gimmicky Concept
A writer who I follow avidly is the New Yorker’s Malcolm Gladwell, who for a decade now has successfully analyzed and explained the bleeding obvious. But he does so in a fluid and entertaining manner, which is what mostly accounts for his success.

A few years ago Mr. Gladwell wrote a book called “The Tipping Point,” which went on to become a publishing phenomenon. In it he explained how certain products become phenomena. First, someone creates the product or comes up with the idea. Second, someone packages it properly so that it’s something that resonates with people. Third, someone discovers it and enthusiastically promotes it until its sales or notoriety reaches “a tipping point,” and once it crosses this threshold the idea or product becomes a cultural phenomenon.

A lot of readers enjoyed the book and found it “empowering” because they fundamentally misunderstood it. For them it meant that if they worked hard enough and had the proper skill-set they could sell their products and be successful. But “The Tipping Point” showed how important chance and randomness were in products and ideas becoming successful and mainstream — different people working at different times re-working and re-marketing an idea or a product before the product obtains that magical combination of utility, relevance, and buzz. It’s a very much organic, natural, and social process — where no one or no group is completely in control.

In that way Malcolm Gladwell’s contribution was not coming up with a new idea but in framing a well-known cultural phenomenon.

Likewise with Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail.” Instead of telling us anything new he’s helping us frame our understanding of the Internet and digital age.

We know the Internet is a revolutionary tool that has empowered consumers with more choice and information than ever before, has made the production and distribution of products cheaper than before, and is radically challenging the dominance of traditional media and bricks-and-mortars retailers. We know that Internet retailers — such as Amazon, Ebay, and Google — have different revenue and business models than Walmart, Target, and Barnes & Noble. The Internet has also fundamentally changed consumer behavior: instead of waiting for prime time consumers now watch want they want to watch when they want to watch it. What Chris Anderson has done is frame all this in a concept called “The Long Tail.”

What “The Long Tail” means is that given the diversity of individual tastes the number of movies and books that consumers could potentially want to buy is almost infinite. Unfortunately the resources of traditional retailers like Walmart is very finite — because of limited shelf space Walmart has to choose books and DVDs that have the most consumer appeal. But web-based retailers like Amazon have infinite shelf space so they can offer consumers more choice, and consumers embrace choice.

That in a nutshell is what the “The Long Tail” is about, and to justify turning his magazine article of the same name into a book Chris Anderson offers lots of examples and cases studies of “The Long Tail” in action but mainly just waxes eloquent on how the Internet has empowered people: Thanks to the miracle of cheap digital technology young kids who don’t want to work but just want to be famous can make their own movies, and make their friends and parents buy it over the Internet.

Too much boasting and boosting and not enough analyzing and criticizing is yet another similarity between “The Long Tail” and “The Tipping Point.” Both are also magazine articles that have been for marketing purposes turned into books.

Ultimately, both books sell a gimmicky concept that doesn’t really enhance our understanding of the world.

4 Stars The Long Tail by Chris Anderson
This is a very informative book and helps one to understand the logic behind online retailers. I learned about the “long tail” topic during my graduate studies and had the opportunity to read Chris Anderson’s book on the entire topic. I decided to take this opportunity to explore the topic in greater detail and found the book to be very insightful and intuitive. The book explains all the things scholars are inclined to believe and helps us to put everything else into perspective. Mr. Anderson gives insight into industry terminology (i.e. “watercooler effect”) to help communicate certain phenomena and to give the concept definition. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to explore and learn from such a magnificent author and educator. With all that I have learned from the text, I plan to utilize its contents in the “real world” to help others understand its implications for the future in retail.

5 Stars Scintilating, brilliant. The new age explained
Anderson’s TV appearance on Charlie Rose induced me to read his Wired column which interested me in his book; all part of the long tail of information and connectivity in this new Internet age. Mixing an equal blend of statistics, charts and commentary, Anderson uses Amazon, eBay, Craigslist, Netflix and other new age entities in describing the revolution in the buyers’ entertainment options and our thirst for choice. The ancien regime of filtering news, opinion, entertainment, consumer buying choices is dead, according to Anderson. As revealing as “The World is Flat” by Tom Friedman, this book describes like no other the new age of niche selection, user choice and the shifted sands of our preferences as a plugged in society.

4 Stars The Long Tail - Economics of Abundance
The digital age has thrown a curve ball at traditional economic theory. Disrupting the institutionalized notion that economics is about choice under scarcity, the Internet has introduced economists to a world of abundance.

Chris Anderson’s book The Long Tail examines the non-traditional markets that emerge when people are faced with abundance and infinite selection. This model allows the public to deviate from the accepted norm of being fed “hits” that are corporately designed for mass-appeal. Anderson’s Long Tail theory proves that by opening the door for consumers to access niche choices and tools of creation, the Internet has unveiled a means of “turning unprofitable customers, products, and markets into profitable ones” (p. 11). The Long Tail refers to the market share that is made attainable by the Internet’s introduction of “abundant shelf space, abundant distribution, and abundant choice” (p. 143).

In The Long Tail, Anderson effectively presents engaging ideas that are muted only by the book’s sometimes-scattered structure. Anderson uses real-world examples to make his points, leads readers to evaluate their own consumer habits, and upholds the context that the Long Tail is part of a bigger picture. At times Anderson is redundant, and the book lacks the guidance of a defined genre, but compared to The Long Tail’s strong overall message, the points of contention are minimal.

Using real-world examples, Anderson effectively teaches readers how the digital age is empowering formerly complaisant consumers to control what is popular. Anderson gives examples of musicians who made it big without record label support and were able to “record and distribute their music themselves and keep their creative independence” (p. 106) and actors who developed enormous fan bases and reached stardom by posting their skits online. By citing such examples, Anderson illustrates to readers that aspiring artists no longer need to wait for a big break from entertainment industry executives; “technology has shifted the balance of power from label to band” (p. 106). Anderson also uses a real-world example to show readers that when a company broadens its selection of items it will learn from the customer what is popular: “Until KitchenAid had an online channel that allowed customers to pick from its full range of products, it had no way of knowing that there was latent consumer demand [for orange mixers] that it hadn’t previously tapped” (p. 205).

The author’s real-world proof that consumers can influence industries leads readers to evaluate their own position in corporate-to-consumer relationships. The Long Tail model causes readers to think twice about supporting broad-appeal-based businesses that offer limited selections. Readers may ask: Why should I settle for mainstream when I can get just what I want elsewhere? Both consumers and producers can leverage the Long Tail of niche markets to their own advantage. Anderson notes that while abundance of selection grants consumers the power of choice, businesses are reaping the revenue benefits of the Tail: “the numbers are so large that you can lop off a large chunk (the hits) and it’s still a huge market” (p. 215).

Anderson does a good job of reminding the reader of the context from which the Long Tail should be viewed; it is one splice of a larger market. He appropriately notes that while there is a significant subculture market to be captured in the Long Tail, the head of hits should not be disregarded. It is hard to side with writers such as Anita Elberse of the Harvard Business Review who seem to misconstrue the Long Tail concept as promoting tail-only business; Anderson explicitly states that “successful Long Tail aggregators need to have both hits and niches” (p. 148). He cites the importance of both ends, using Google as an example: “most of its revenues come from the head of the curve, [but] most of its customers are somewhere in the tail, which suggests that this is where much of its growth will come in the future” (p. 215).

While the educational and thought-provoking merits of The Long Tail are significant, Anderson nonetheless introduces two challenges to his readers. The first challenge lies in the mid-section of the book, wherein Anderson is unnecessarily redundant and risks losing the reader’s attention. Page 146 would make an excellent last page, as it nicely summarizes and connects what has been read. Although there is some good content interspersed in the redundancy, Chapter 9 (page 147) would make a nice start for The Long Tail: Part Two, as it restates what was in Part I. Page 155 revisits big box retailers, page 164 tells the reader again that there are limitations in airwaves, and goes on to recount what makes a hit. Ironically, in his WIRED Magazine article, “Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business,” Anderson states that in a world of abundance attention is the new scarcity to be vied for. A more concise, well-organized edition of the book would be more apt to engage the scarcity of attention.

The second challenge is that the book lacks a genre. Anderson admits “I tremble to think where the Dewey Decimal System will place the book you’re reading now. Technology? Economics? Business? Culture? None of them are quite right by themselves” (p. 161). For the reader, not knowing what The Long Tail was written for hinders enjoyment and slows the reading process. It is challenging to decipher if the book is meant to be read as a textbook from which statistics ought to be memorized, or as a breezy read that offers ideas that will be fun to share at cocktail parties. Anderson finds single-genre classifications to be limiting, since “one thing can be many different things to many different people” (p. 161). However, he overlooks that a genre can be of more use than just determining where to physically or digitally store/categorize the book. Genres can also provide readers a useful context from which to read. The burden of figuring out the genre of The Long Tail is a hurdle for the reader.

As Professor Kathy Gill of the University of Washington notes, this is the “Wild West” of the digital age. In this Wild West, Anderson pulls together the elements and implications of a previously unattainable Long Tail market to bring meaning to this burgeoning area that is still being defined. Despite a few points of contention, The Long Tail does an excellent job of introducing and addressing today’s changing economy and leads readers to evaluate the economic role they play.

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Do you dream of quitting your job and being your own boss? If so, this book is for you! Wouldn’t it be great if you could work from anywhere you wanted and choose your own hours? No longer would you be tied to a desk, have to fight rush hour traffic, or miss an important event because you had to be at the office. Does the thought, “I want to start a business just like that!” come to mind when you visit a site on the Internet? And imagine if you could wake up every morning, excited about the day ahead, and say to yourself, “I can’t believe people pay me to do this!” Now is the time for you, to not only have the freedom you’ve always wanted, but to bring your online business ideas to life. Thousands of people all over the world are making money on their own terms and doing it all from their computers. And if they can do it, so can you. Say “goodbye” to the speed limit holding you back from success! “Quit Your Job (and Never Go Back): How to Create, Start & Market an Online Business for Under $500 in 30 Days or Less” is a step-by-step workbook which will help you get an online business up and running more quickly and easily than you ever thought possible. In this book, you’ll learn: - The truth about how to make money online - How to effectively deal with obstacles that are stopping you - Simple methods to market your business and bring unlimited visitors to your Web site - The major advantages of doing online business…and never want to do offline business again - How to avoid the Internet marketing pitfalls that plague 98% of the people who are currently doing business online - How to find hungry buyers and get the most money from them - How to connect with your customers and build customer loyalty - How to avoid giving up on your dream By following the advice and answering the thought-provoking questions found within this book, you will be ready to start your new online business and earn the money you deserve. About the Author: David Hooper is the founder of Work Yourself Up!, a business development organization specializing in small and medium-sized companies to sell more product, increase consumer knowledge, and make more money. He is known for combining traditional business and direct marketing knowledge with guerrilla marketing techniques necessary for companies to compete.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars This book helped me make my first $1000 online
When I received this book, I promised myself I would use it first then come to Amazon to write an honest review. It’s been six weeks since it arrived.

With the help of this book, I chose a niche (rose gardening) to market in, created a blog, promoted that blog like crazy and, as of yesterday, have made just over $1000 in affiliate commission from the ebooks, products and infoproducts I write about on my blog. I am so thrilled! Next month, I know I will make more.

I wouldn’t have gotten this far if it wasn’t for this book.

Like so many people, I got lured into Internet marketing by reading all the stories about how easy it is to make money online and how some Internet marketers are making a million dollars in one day. I wanted to get in on that. But where do you start? When I began doing research on how to make money online, I got so overwhelmed. I took a lot of courses, listened in on many teleconferences and bought a lot of how-to infoproucts. My head was spinning from the many directions I could choose from and all the things I had to learn.

“Quit Your Job” simplified things for me. I’ll be honest, I was hoping this book would be a “how to make money” recipe book that I could follow easily and money would be waiting for me once I completed all the steps. This book does give instructions that work (things like how to do article marketing, building a mailing list, getting traffic to your site). But most importantly, the second part of each chapter has questions that the reader is encouraged to answer on their own. Those questions helped me to stop and think about what kind of online business I want to create and what I was willing to do to build it.

It was the chapter on how to find a profitable niche that changed everything for me. Once I finally understood how to pick a good one, it was such a relief. And then the fun (and the work) really began.

This book gave me the chance to stop spending hours online endlessly researching and got me focused enough to take ACTION.

I became familiar with David Hooper through his books on the Law of Attraction. I am so glad he came out with this one because even after my very first affiliate sale (which was only $11.11!) I knew making money online was going to make my life better.

5 Stars Great for Beginners as well as More Experienced Entrepreneurs
I found this book to be very helpful. As the previous reviewer mentioned, it is a workbook, so if you’re looking for somebody to tell you exactly what to do, it may not be for you. But if you’re looking for something that will help you to develop a PERSONAL BUSINESS PLAN that meets your needs and is both easy and fun to follow, I think you’ll enjoy it.

So many of these “online marketing” books are total BS, designed as lead generation tools for the authors to get your name and address and sell you something additional. Many are mashed together compilations of various authors, with each taking a chapter. Others are 200-page sales letters. And even worse, some are just transcripts of recorded conference calls (also sales letters).

This one has actual info which you’ll find helpful. It has quick and easy ways you can get a business started which will actually make you money, not a pipe dream that will only cost you money. It’s not a fairy tale, so if you’re not willing to do a little work, look elsewhere. But if you’re looking for a customized plan that will help you to make money quickly, this is it.

About me: I have been making money online for a few years now. I am not an expert, but not exactly new either. My friends wonder how I am doing it and this is a book that I recommend to them. Making money online really is simple, if you know how to do it. This book will show you how.

5 Stars READ THIS BEFORE BUYING THIS BOOK!!
This is a workbook. If you want a real plan to make money online, go through the steps in this workbook and you’ll end up with a real business, which will pay you every month!

This is not some kind of fantasy guide, where some “guru” tells you about a pipe dream that will most likely never happen for you. Nowhere does this book say you’ll make a million dollars in your underwear or anything like that. This book is about the creating income which comes in a little at a time, adding up to more and more money for you, the more you follow the process.

Yes, the system works. I know because I’ve done it. My friends have done it. My own father has done it. It’s that easy.

What’s the trick? You simply have to follow the process. You can’t try to shortcut or outsmart it.

This book is not for everybody. If you’re looking for some kind of fantasy, where you drive around in a luxury car or hang out on a sailboat all day, this isn’t it. This isn’t the book for you, if you want to become a “guru” in this business. Sure, it can help you get started on all of this stuff, but it’s not the end game.

So who is it for?

I recommend this book for anybody who is looking to get started at online marketing, or simply wants to make a few extra bucks online. It will take you a little time (maybe 5-6 weeks) to see results, but once you do, you’ll want to do the process over and over again.

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Plan and launch your PPC campaign and keep track of its progress

If you want potential customers to form a traffic jam at your Web site, Pay Per Click just might do the trick. This book will help you decide! It tells you all about Google AdWords and Yahoo! Sponsored Search, targeting your customers, watching out for fraud, assessing the pros and cons of Pay Per Click, and making Pay Per Click work for you.

Discover how to

• Use the right keywords to trigger your ads
• Figure your breakeven point
• Write ads that reach your customers
• Calculate return on investment
• Use geo targeting
• Track your ad results

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars If you need to know pay per click, read this book
This book does exactly what it should. It explains in clear, simple language how pay per click works, and how you should go about using it. Kent has no ax to grind. He explains why pay per click is a really lousy idea for some businesses, a really good idea for others and how to tell the difference. Before wasting thousands of dollars on a blundering Goggle campaign, read Kent and do it right the first time.

5 Stars Good for Beginners
I thought this book was very helpful. I had started a new job with no knowledge of PPC and found this to help me understand the basics.

5 Stars Peter Kent is a star!
Titles in the Dummies series range from very, very bad to very, very good. “Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies” is definitely very, very good. Peter Kent also wrote “Search Engine Optimization for Dummies” which is also very, very good and should be read before “Pay Per Click”.

“Pay Per Click” shows off Kent’s talent for leading the reader step-by-step through some moderately complex territory. Kent writes in a clear and concise style, without a condescending attitude and, happily, without corny jokes. He walks through the concept of pay per click advertising, calculating ROI, selecting and bidding on keywords, creating landing pages (a very important concept), finding the right words for your ads (a very tricky) concept and then the pluses and minuses of the various services.

Kent truly does cover the waterfront of pay per click advertising. If you’re looking for a highly readable and information introduction to the subject, this is it.

Jerry

5 Stars JB6244
Excellent job.

Good primmer with a lot of meat in a very fast moving arena.

5 Stars Another Great Dummy Book
* Very informative

* Easy to read

* A good understanding of PPCs

* Not too long (in my opinion)

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If you are in business to sell consumer goods - or you want to be - you should be on Amazon.com. More than 90 million customers shop at Amazon. As its global business booms, Amazon is inviting all sorts of independent sellers - large and small businesses, individuals, and mom-and-pop shops - to sell their merchandise right on Amazon. Whether you’re just starting or already in business, you can boost your sales and profits by showing your wares on Amazon, the world’s biggest store. Everything you need to start converting your items into cash is in this book by Steve Weber, one of the most successful and highly rated sellers in Amazon history: - How to set up shop on Amazon and generate worldwide sales volume with no up-front cost, risk or advertising. - Run your Amazon store from home, a warehouse or a walk-in store-or outsource everything to Amazon’s fulfillment center. - Find bargain inventory; target niche markets for big profits. - Get tax deductions and write-offs for business use of your home. - Use Amazon as a stand-alone business or a lead generator for an existing business. - Pay lower sales commissions on Amazon. - Sell your inventions, crafts or intellectual property on Amazon. - Guard against scammers and rip-off artists. - Automate your business with easy-to-use tools.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars If You Want To Sell On Amazon - Begin Here!
This is a fascinating little book that specifically focuses on selling on Amazon. From beginning to end Steve Weber explains everything you need to know in clear, simple language that skips all the hype. He starts by really getting you up to speed on a full range of Amazon features. I mean he digs deep to ensure you understand how to get the most out of your account.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Amazon is the “Fulfillment By Amazon” (FBA) service. If you ever wanted to know how it really works, and better yet, how to make it work for YOU, you’ll find the definitive explanation here. He does more than just explain FBA. He clearly illustrates the costs, opportunities, and profit potential of participating in this outstanding program. His treatment of the subject is easily my favorite part of the book.

Webber goes on to explain how you can increase your sales by competing against other sellers with your feedback scores, product reviews, the Amazon “social jungle”, the positive and negative aspects of pay-per-click advertising, using tags, and Amazon Advantage.

The book is short but concise and treats the major topics in a thorough but uncomplicated manner. It’s an easy read, (that’s always a plus), yet you come away with the feeling that you’ve significantly increased your knowledge.

I think Steve Weber hit another home run with “Sell On Amazon”. If you’re an Amazon seller it’ll be a great reference tool. Five stars from me and a hearty “Good Luck!” to you and your business.

5 Stars Not Just for Newbies
As a longtime small seller on Amazon and other sites, I read Steve Weber’s new book thinking that I would find a lot of material I was already familiar with. In fact, there was a fair amount of information that, while vital to new sellers, would be old hat to old timers. But there was plenty here to make it well worth my while.

Sell on Amazon outlines the basics of selling on Amazon as well as getting into the more advanced topics, such as Fulfillment by Amazon, promoting your products, and using Amazon in conjunction with your own website.

Weber also addresses the social networking aspects of Amazon, such as lists, friends, and discussion boards. These can all be of help in becoming a more successful seller on Amazon and other sites.

Sell on Amazon has an amazing amount of information for such a short book. There is no filler here; every page has useful advice, hints, links, illustrations, step-by-step instructions. The index has been well thought out and together with the detailed table of contents, you should be able to find just about any topic you want.

This is an excellent reference book for the Amazon seller. Even if you already have Weber’s previous book The Home-Based Bookstore, Sell on Amazon will be a useful addition. It covers selling more than just books, and is updated with all the seller programs Amazon has added in the past few years.

3 Stars Great Info for Amazon.com Sellers
I purchased Sell on Amazon becuase I recently started selling items on Amazon.com and was a little confused on how the process worked. A lot of the information I have researched online and other books I have read provide good information but it’s outdated. This book had a lot of repetitive information that I already knew, or could have easily found out by going to the Amazon help section, however, the content was up-to-date.

5 Stars Great over all view!
Like others have stated, most of this information could have been gotten for free by researching amazon, but this book puts everything easily within one place and is well worth the cost.

5 Stars A good reference for high- and low-volume sellers on Amazon
My husband and I have been selling books on Amazon for over five years, for our county’s Friends of the Library group. We make about a hundred dollars per month profit by selling books that have been donated to our county’s two public libraries. If you are thinking of selling on this web site, you can’t go wrong by reading this book. It’s got everything we had to learn the hard way, including tips for handling your inventory, listing your items, how to handle customer feedback (including a discussion on whether to solicit it), and the fees charged by Amazon for different categories of goods, and also for different categories of sellers.

I had always wondered why some sellers could make a profit by listing books for a penny apiece, whereas we had to list a paperback book for at least $2.25 in order to make money (and a higher minimum for hardbound books). The author, Steve Weber answers this question in his first chapter: Amazon has four different levels of seller programs, and we’re in the least profitable “individual selling account” category, because of the low volume of books that we sell.

To attain the next level up, “Pro-Merchant subscribers,” Amazon charges $39.99/month for volume listing and inventory-management tools, and “waives the 99-cent per-item fee charged on sales to individual accounts.” We’re almost at the break-even point that the author has calculated, in order to benefit from a Pro-Merchant account.

For even higher-volume sellers, Amazon has two more program levels: “Fulfillment by Amazon”; and “Merchants@ Program.” This book explains the advantages of each category.

It is very easy to sell items through Amazon, and we got by for five years without Steve Weber’s “Sell on Amazon.” However, you can save yourself time and money by reading this book. For one thing, the author lists software for automating repetitive tasks (such as notifying customers of shipping dates) that we didn’t know existed.

There are still going to be bumps in the road in the form of obstreperous or dishonest customers, and wildly variable USPS `delivery’ schedules, but Weber provides techniques for getting the most out of an imperfect delivery system, and for minimizing the inevitable negative customer feedback.

I highly recommend this book for both high- and low-volume sellers.

P.S. This website does NOT give any kind of discount to nonprofit organizations.

—Review copy supplied by author.

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Just because you’re launching a Web site for your product or service doesn’t automatically mean you’ll rake in big money. Billions of Web sites are competing for consumers’ attention, and if you’re new to online sales, it may be a little daunting.

Web Marketing for Dummies provides the know-how for creating a solid Web marketing plan, from building a user-friendly site that draws attention to closing a sale on your site. This easily accessible guide leverages your offline knowledge of marketing into mastery of the Web. It shows you a number of strategies that you can apply to your business and how to put your site to work for you. The items you’ll draw from this book will enable you to:

• Understand online marketing essentials
• Prepare an online business plan
• Design the look and feel of your site
• Create a concept, develop content, and make it accessible
• Know the key components of an online store
• Use buzzing, e-mailing, and other advertising tactics
• Make your site search engine friendly
• Handle Web transactions with ease
• Stay out of legal trouble
• Wow customers with new technology

This guide also features free ways to market your site, as well as ways to revamp tired sites. In addition, there is also a list of common mistakes that are easy to make, but also easy to avoid. With Web Marketing for Dummies, you’ll be claiming your space in the online marketplace and maximizing your marketing dollars in no time!

User Ratings and Reviews

3 Stars Better off Leaving it to Professionals!
This is a solid overview of the internet marketing genre. However, if you are serious about your small business, odds are you just do not have the time available to focus on internet marketing. Internet Marketing is something that requires a lot of work and a lot of attention. Having said that, you may go months without knowing if you are doing things correctly. The reason I say that is because search engines like Google, take several days even months to crawl your website and re-adjust its page rank calculations. If you are looking to get your web site to the top, I would highly recommend using professionals in the field. My advice would be to visit www.novelconceptstudio.com as they worked for me and did a phenomenal job keeping me in the loop.

5 Stars Nice….
Good way to familiarize myself with the terminology and theory so I can work intelligently with our webmaster. Saves time, and thus, money.

4 Stars Excellent Overview of Internet Marketing
Jan Zimmerman’s Web Marketing For Dummies gives you an excellent overview or summary of internet marketing tactics and strategies. She clearly helps you determine the purpose of your website and how to drive traffic to your website or landing page. She covers many topics from search engine optimization to blogging.

This book helps anyone who is starting online marketing and it provides an excellent checklist for experienced webmarketers. In fact, her Web Marketing Methods Checklist in chapter 2 is worth the purchase price of the book alone.

When you want to “drill deeper” on any particular online marketing strategy, you will then have to explore other online marketing resources and information. For example, Peter Kent’s Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing For Dummies provides thorough information about pay per click advertising, including Google Adwords.

In short, I highly recommend Web Marketing for Dummies for both new and experienced internet marketers.

5 Stars A must have if you own a web site
As a small tackle shop owner, and not a marketing Guru, I found this (as well as many of the Dummies books) to be worth every penny a hundred times over.

Because of this book, our web site and plan got an overhaul that WORKED. Straight forward advice, links and dos and don’t about getting your website out there, useable, web friendly, and real world ideas on how to bring qualified traffic to your site.

I would suggest this before you dump money into adwords, or any other strategy you find online at random.

We found connections inside to usability studies, digital customer service tips, real working costs of aquiring new customers, guerrilla marketing techniques.

Simply put, if you have a website, or are getting one, you need this book. I will be buying an updated copy with every new release to keep on the cutting edge of what REALLY works in the digital world.

3 Stars Could This Be For You?
Web Marketing for Dummies leverages your line marketing knowledge in controlling the Web. Because the author wrote this for owners of small businesses, where money is king, I suggest dozens of free low-cost guerrilla marketing ideas you can try online.

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Make big profits on eBay with no upfront investment!

Make thousands of dollars per week–with little or no financial risk–selling other people’s stuff on eBay. How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business explains how to locate and work with consignors and successfully deal in the goods they want to sell, including collectibles, retail store closeouts, estate items, corporate merchandise, and much more.

Find out how to get started selling on consignment, decide what kinds of items will be the most profitable, and set up your business. You’ll get sample contracts, forms, and flyers, as well as tips on creating a web site, marketing your business, and automating day-to-day tasks. Whether you want to supplement your income or become a registered eBay Trading Assistant, you’ll find everything you need in this helpful, step-by-step guide.

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars Excellent Trading Assistant - eBay Book
This is a fantastic book! It is a very truthful and open approach to this business. Definitely something to take a look at considering all of us could use some extra income in this new economic market. If you are looking for information about the tools and systems you will need to consider if you are going to think about selling other people’s stuff … this is the book to get.

5 Stars Great book!!!
Short and sweet, this book gives you all the essentials of starting your own eBay consignment business. Everything from business licenses, to finding consignors, to taking great auction photographs is mentioned. This is a great starting point for those looking to start their own consignment store.

3 Stars If you have Titanium Ebay from the same author, this book is just a cut and paste work with an extended chapter on consignment
About 85% of the book is in Titanium Ebay, and in the exact same words. Its just cut and paste. If this is your first Skip McGraph book, this is excellent way to start.

I love McGraph style, and incisive info on the Ebay business. He tells you insider secrets of PowerSellers, and their tactics. But the best are the cases he makes, examples of what to buy, how to sell it and profit. He opens up your mind that almost everything sells.

3 Stars Good shape
It shipped quickly and was in good shape. I bought this from an outside vendor. Started reading it. Very clear good information in it.

5 Stars Best Trading Assistant Book on the Market
Skips book How to Start and Run an eBay Consignment Business is the best resource for zeroing in on becoming a successful Trading Assistant. There are many other books out there, but most of them cover many things about eBay. Skip covers every aspect of the business. I have been an successful TA for many years and still refer back to this book.

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