Well the good news is I’m getting better all the time. My drug clouded brain is less fuzzy, my body feels fairly normal, and I’m full of renewed enthusiasm.

The equally good news is that I’ve just been given the go-ahead to start working again, though only part-time. Very part-time.

The medics in charge of my health have to fill in a monthly report
for my medical insurance. Last week they put me down as still
being “totally incapacitated” (which makes me think of evening’s
spent in hotel bars at Internet marketing conferences ) but I
said I felt up to part time work, so the doc added a note saying
I could work at “light computer related duties for up to 30 minutes
a day” then ominously added “if capable”

Actually he was right. That was days ago, and I’ve only just felt
capable because I’ve been so sleepy.

Sleeping 10 to 12 hour nights plus a 2 to 4 hour sleep in the day
isn’t exactly an ideal way of living. But I’ve got to put up with it
for now. In theory that still leaves plenty of time to fit in 30 mins
of work, in practice I haven’t managed it until just now.

Anyway, here I am.

___________________________________________

While off ill I’ve been keeping up with everything that’s going on
by reading lots of newsletters/ezines, visiting forums, plus talking
(via email) to some of my mates who work full-time online.

And I gather than the ‘Internet Marketing’ niche is in dire straights.
Mainly because people are fed up of being ripped off by people
putting out crap products with very over-hyped (and even lying)
salesletters.

I’ll write more on this next issue, which could be days, or
weeks away. Depends on my health.
___________________________________________

Now I’m going to hit you straightaway with a promo.

I hadn’t intended to do this, because I don’t want you to include
me in the list of ezines you unsubscribe to because all they do
is send out endless sales pitches without offering any decent
advice, or something that helps you in some way.

But  because it’s so very, very good and useful (and it’s not got
one of those hyped up lying, false promises sales letters which I hate,
I wanted to give you the opportunity to check it out.

It’s Profits Theme, a totally amazing WordPress theme which
lets you create member sites, put up fancy sales pages, change
the entire look of the site in seconds, and lots more.

I know how good it is because I bought it weeks ago. As I said
above, even though I’ve not been working I’ve kept up on
everything that’s been going on for the past year plus, so that
I didn’t get left behind. This included spending some time on
some internet marketing type forums, just reading not participating.

Anyway a few weeks ago I was on the Warrior Forum and people
were talking about this amazing theme being offered as a WSO
(warrior special offer). It got rave reviews and sold like crazy,
and it looked really good.

I was tempted to buy it, but didn’t because I’d already got a couple
of more expensive themes that seemed similar, but then my
daughter Kate called me and said she was thinking of putting up
a member site for people with Phenylketonuria (something she
was born with) and could I help her set it up.

So, seeing I’d now got an excuse to buy, I grabbed the theme just
before the WSO closed. They stopped it early so that customer
support didn’t get overwhelmed if people needed help.

I’ve no idea if anyone did need help. I certainly didn’t. It’s so simple.
And it’s got everything.

To think of it as just a WordPress theme is an understatement.

Just doing point and click stuff to select options you can create
protected, multi-level membership sites, where you can drip-feed
content if you want, set up product launch pages, one-time-offer pages,
sales pages, squeeze pages, legal pages, thank you pages, and more.

If you don’t want to get into creating member sites, it’s also excellent
for use as a normal blog (you can change the entire look and feel of
your blog in seconds) , and it’s brilliant for setting up sites to sell
your own products from.

And with it’s one click integration of Paypal and Clickbank, and a few
other sales checkout options, plus integration with your autoresponder,
it’s equally great for quickly getting plr products revamped and up on sale.

Anyway, to cut my usual rambling short, they must have realised
that most people don’t have problems with it (indeed, just the
opposite) and it’s now been put back on sale

I rate it as a ‘must buy’ because even if you don’t need it right now
it’s such a bargain because of all the features. And you get free
updates. So even if you let the download sit unused for months
it’s going to be there when you need it. And you’ll kick yourself
if the price goes up and you miss out.

http://philwiley.com/likes/profitstheme

ok, that’s it for today. If you’d like to ask questions, or talk about
todays letter, please  post a comment

And now I’m off to sleep again.

phil

_________________________________________

I was going to write about something else this week. Well a few things. A long, multi-subject, rambling affair

But guess what? I’ve just realized that today is the 12th anniversary of this newsletter. The first one was written and published (and read by very few people) on the 26th August 1997.

Which means – according to the very clever calculator that’s built into the new Windows 7 – I’ve been writing it for 4,383 days. And yes, before you hit me with the jokes, I know I’m a very slow typist

So today is just about newsletters.

Writing the newsletter, or ezine if you will, has been fun most of the time. And it’s also been very profitable, letting me earn a great income with just a few hours work a week. So I’ve been living the 4-hour work week long before the term was coined by author Timothy Ferriss.

Some issues of the newsletter have me a lot of money (US$63,000 commissions in one day from one email is my record. Though early on when I was still a wage slave, one quick ezine – which took around 40 minutes to write – made me just over $13,000, which was the equivalent of around three months wages) and some issues have made me next to nothing.

It’s hit and miss. Like me And probably I still haven’t quite got the formula right…though that’s the wrong word. Personally I don’t use a ‘formula’ and don’t plan it in advance. I just sit down and write when I’ve got something to say.

And I always try to make it a mix of entertaining and learning. Interesting is the word I usually use.

Most people who publish (what they call newsletters or ezines) just send out very short and hypey sales pitches. They get a lot of unsubscribes and are constantly battling to get more ‘newbies’ to sign up. In fact, one well-known marketer I know makes a lot of money but he gets so many unsubs every time he sends a mailing, that he has to employ two people full time to get him new subscribers.

So actually there are very few ‘proper’ newsletters in this online business/internet marketing niche. Newsletters with quality, interesting content instead of hype filled promo’s.

The ones that immediately spring to mind are those written by (in first name alphabetical order)

Allan Gardyne
Andy Williams
Harvey Segal
Marlon Sanders
Martin Avis
Michael Campbell
Paul Myers.

I’ve know I’ve missed a few, but they’re the ones I read the moment they arrive in my inbox.

Anyway, it seems appropriate that today is the launch of a new product by one of the people I’ve just listed as my favorites.

Especially as it’s all about writing newsletters

It’s called ‘Newsletter Success Formula‘

It’s from the ever prolific Martin Avis, and in 3 hours of video based tutorials he teaches you everything that he’s taken
over 8 years to learn.

There are three main sections.

Ezines for fun, fame and fortune where Martin talks about how he writes his newsletters.

His way is not the only way, of course. But he’s found a way that works very well for him. And anyone who has tried it has had great success as well. So it’s about how he makes very good money from writing a simple newsletter.

He then goes on to teach you how to write articles the right way. And when you get down to the nitty gritty making money online comes down very heavily to writing. You’ll learn just how to structure an article (you can also substitute the words ‘blog post’ for article), but more importantly you’ll learn how to write so that people want to read them.

Plus he shows you how to easily create products. “Without the tears” to use his words.

I rarely manage to sit through three hours of videos, which is what this is. But today I did And even though I’ve been doing this for 12 years I’ve had a learning day.

There’s a very common saying among online marketers, and that’s “the money is in the list”.

But really it’s what you do with that list that counts. Martin shows you quite a few good ways to grow your list, and then
how to capitalize on it, by making sure that the people on your list look forward to receiving your newsletters.

He shows you how to attract subscribers, then how to communicate with those subscribers in a way that makes them want to buy whatever you promote to them.

Quote:

-
How to turn subscribers into readers

-
How to communicate with readers

-
How to turn readers into buyers

-
How to build loyalty

Each step is quite easy to learn, but very few newsletter publishers get much beyond #1.

Martin says (and I agree) that writing a newsletter (even if you’re not a skilled writer) is truly the easiest way to make a living online.

All you need are a simple text editor and an autoresponder and you could be started tomorrow.

And very quickly turn a few hours work each week into a full-time income.

Writing your own newsletter can be a full time income, but it doesn’t have to be a full time job. Many people write newsletters to supplement their day jobs. In fact, with just 2-3 hours a week you could very soon make more money than the day job pulls in – then you’ll have the ultimate freedom – the ability to choose.

It’s what happened with me. One week my newsletter made me over $13k in affiliate commissions at a time when my day job only paid around $1k a week. But I stuck at the job for a while longer until I was consistently doubling my monthly income. All from a few hours work on a Saturday morning

If I can do it (with little brain-power and hardly any education) so can you. It takes quite a lot of effort at first, but it gets easier as you go along. And it’s never too late to make your start.

Especially now with Martin’s newsletter course. And right now, for the few days of the launch period, there’s a discount code for $50 off. So make use of it.

Just enter the coupon code saveme50 in the box provided and after you click on the button underneath, the price will drop for you.

Right that’s it.

Now I’m off to celebrate my 12th anniversary as a newsletter writer by opening my best bottle of champagne. A $250 Dom Perignon I’ve been saving for a special occasion

Until next time

Phil

ps. the coupon code has expired, but don’t let that put you off. When you look at the money you can make from just one issue of one ezine, this course costs next to nothing
Get Newsletter Success Formula here

First of all a big thanks to everyone who completed the short survey’s in the last two newsletters, and posted comments on the ‘your valued opinion post’ The survey answers and comments you left on the blog have been a big help. Thanks  And I’ll now be able to concentrate a bit more on the subjects that the survey results show you want to read about.

One of the highest checked boxes was for more help with  keyword research, and another was how to get more traffic. In my mind the two are very interlinked.

Read this short piece, then take a moment to share your thoughts.

I’m conducting an experiment with my newsletter this week.

And that’s keeping this issue short. A number of readers have complained that in these days of email overload my newsletter is often far too long, so they put it aside until later but hardly ever get back to it.

My answer is that’s because I’ve got a lot to say, but publish infrequently so I’ve got to cram it in

So what do you think? Would you prefer shorter, but frequent newsletters – inevitably meaning that some of them would just be product promos to pay the time and costs involved with writing and publishing it?

Or perhaps you like the long, and infrequent ones, that just spring into your mailbox at odd intervals?

Can you let me know here, by posting a comment.

And / Or it’d be great if you could take 2 minutes to tick your answers to my 4 questions in a short survey I’ve loaded on Survey Monkey

According to dictionary dot com a good use of the word cacophany is: “a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails.”

And that just about sums up the mayhem here

Here’s a video of Ruby teaching you how to bake a delicious lemon drizzle cake. You should try it. It’s yummy You’ll find the recipe on her (neglected) blog at rubybakes.com

In case you’re one of the few people who don’t know, the Flip is a tiny little high definition video camera, that just slips inside your pocket or purse.

Anyway I’ve just been using it for the first time, and once I’d got over the small size of the screen, I totally love it:)

The quality of the videos, when I played them full screen on my laptop, amazed me. Can’t wait to see them on a big HD TV.

The Yaro slideshow is just a fun thing really,but watch it for the two unique case studies on people starting on that lifestyle path themselves by doing well with sites on  acne treatments and magic tricks.

I’m doing the dream lifestyle thing myself right now. Instead of sitting in my home office in Australia I’m in Francine’s Cafe in Windermere in the English Lake District, logging on by using a pay-as-you-go wireless USB dongle.

Last week I was updating some sites from a hotel in Bangkok in Thailand, this coming weekend I’ll be online from Rob Puddy’s traffic workshop in Bristol, the week after I’ll be logging on from Frank Garon and Dr Mike’s seminar/workshop in London. The week after who knows where? Paris, Barcelona, or Barnsley

Ok, I just did some thinking about outside the box ‘marketing’ for Francine’s Cafe I don’t know the people who run it so it was just an experiment on my part.

The cafe is on one of the most tourist packed streets in England, it’s always busy, especially on holiday weekends like this one. But equally there are a huge number of cafes, bars, and restaurants to cater to the large numbers of visitors.

Sitting there facing the window, drinking coffee and eating my chocolate croissant and watching streams of people pour past, I noticed that every few minutes a couple of family stopped to look at the menu by the entrance. But no one came in, and although I’m told that it’s often busy, right then it was almost empty.

What’s going to bring them in I wondered? Is it a poorly written menu putting them off? Are the prices too high? Are people just checking all the cafes before making their minds up where to eat?

Then I thought about how we’d do it online. Testimonials. Happy customers. Social Proof.

So next time someone stopped to look at the menu I stood up and walked outside (I’d already paid my bill) and personally recommended the place as I left.

Guess what? They thanked me and went in

Now how to scale that? Could the cafe give a local friendly looking person free coffee to keep walking outside and luring customers in with a testimonial?

Or is that too sneaky?

I’m sure it would work though

What’s certain is that when there’s so much choice these cafes shouldn’t just rely on people walking in off the street, they need to ‘lure’ them in. And there are plenty of things they could be doing and plenty of things that we (I mean YOU) as a marketing savvy person could be doing to help them get more business. So if you’re not quite making enough online you could always think local and work out how you can help the businesses in your area get more customers. Then sell yourself and your ideas to them, and help get them more customers. For a fee of course.

Crappy salesletter which I’m going to help him rewrite when we get together in the next couple of weeks, but brilliantly authoritative veggie and herb gardening book, and if you’re at all interested in growing your own food in these recession hit times, you should definitely buy it

Just don’t read the salesletter too closely because it’s not converting well, meaning it might stop you buying a good product, so just have a quick glance then scroll down to the buy button (unless you’re a salesletter writing expert in which case you might be able to offer him a few tips via the email link at the bottom of the page)

Well that was a rather rambling intro to saying that product creation must run in the family because Rics teenage son, Andrew, has just released an Xbox Live game that’s immediately making sales.

Within a few hours he’d made 16 sales with zero publicity and the figures just kept climbing. By day two he was up to 29 sales and he’d more than doubled that by day four.

If you’re not an Xbox user you probably haven’t heard of Xbox Live (I hadn’t) it’s where you play games online for a small subscription fee, and people (with the knowledge and skills) can upload their own creations for sale.

Not sure how old Andrew is, about 18 I think, though he looks about 12 ( I just said that to wind him up, the way uncles do ) and he’s been a gamer for years, but this is the very first game he’s created after teaching himself how to program.

It’s a simple word game – a version of Sudoko, and he wrote it in just a few days over Easter.

The twist is that the puzzle is already completed, you just have to fit the pieces together! You have 9 different puzzles and three difficulty settings to choose from, so either pass the time with an easy puzzle or challenge yourself with a difficulty one.

He’s called it JigDoku, and get this – there’s already over 900 references to it in Google (most of them referring to his game) in just a week or so.

Andrew says “I’ve worked out that if I can just get 5 sales a day that will amount to $250 USD a month which sounds good seeing it hardly took anytime to program. And I haven’t done anything to promote it yet so it could make more.”

Been a smart kid he’s done some research of course, and says that most people on the Xbox Live developers forum, are reporting that their games that have been up for a while are getting around 10 downloads a day which only earns them $17. But $17 a day a game in passive income is nothing to complain about for a student.

And one person he knows makes “about 800 a week from a game”

Andrew’s now written another Xbox Live game, which has to go through a review process before being allowed to go on sale.

“This new game isn’t anything brilliant or good for that matter. It was something I threw together in a few hours to see how many trials this sort of game can get. I say game but its not really a game, more like an application.”

Now imagine if he finds that this one makes money too. Providing he can come up with enough new ideas he can get a lot of games up quickly and pay for his education.

I can see this teenager never needing to worry about having to get a job.

Most of us aren’t programmers. I couldn’t even program my cat to beg for food, never mind learn how to set the timer on the hard drive recorder connected to my TV, and you’re probably not a programmer either.

But think about it. You could do JUST the same with product creation. Pump out a series of short reports. Build a ‘buyers’ list. Create a high end product and sell it to that list. And say goodbye to your job.

Related: http://philwiley.com/resources/product-creation/

The following Thursday or Friday I’m heading for London for Frank Garon and Dr Mike’s listbuilding seminar/workshop

List building is something that’s vitally important for Internet success, and it’s something I constantly neglect. So I’m going their to LEARN not to play.

If you decide to come along (to either or both of these workshops) introduce yourself to me and we’ll have a chat. Maybe I can help you out with a spot of advice or a quick free coaching session over a cup of coffee.

Anyhow, the following Friday I’m on the train back to London again for the famous London Lunch, an informal gathering of 30 or so internet marketers of all skill levels where they/we get together for anything up to 8 or 9 hours of food, drink, talking.

Should be fun. All of it.

And that’s what working online is all about.

Fun, freedom, and more in the bank than you know what to do with

As far as I recall, gardening is a subject I’ve never written about before. That’s because it doesn’t fit in with the general theme of this newsletter, and also because gardening is something I have little interest in.

Perhaps that’s because gardening is so easy here in the sub-tropics. As easy as throwing a half eaten tomato, or just about
anything else with seeds, off the balcony into the garden and then a few months later going down and picking the crop.

Anyway, if you’re a gardener in less hospitable climes than mine, I’d like to recommend it to you. It’s well written, and gardeners are enthusiastic about it.

Well known Internet marketer and gardening enthusiast, Martin Avis, says:

"I sat down to read and was immediately absorbed. Your writing
style is very personable and down to earth, (pardon the pun), and I
was hooked from page one.

I learned a lot from your book – things that I knew but hadn’t really
understood and things that I didn’t already know. I even learned a
whole new way of laying out a vegetable patch that I’d not even
suspected before – but will put into action on my plots right away.
The only problem with your ‘High Density Gardening‘ was that once
I started reading I couldn’t stop – and lost several hour’s gardening
time this afternoon! Still, with what I’ve learned, it will have been time
very well invested."
Martin Avis.

By the way, Ric is looking for affiliates, so if you have a well trafficked gardening site (or you use SpeedPPC ) you can get in touch with him at highdensitygardening  AT googlemail DOT com