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November 22 , 2004

In this issue:
* Happy American Thanksgiving
* Free eBook On Wholesale & Dropship Sources
* Good News & Bad News
* Help Raise Money For Sean
* FEATURE ARTICLE: Affiliate Selling, eBay & Making Money Online
* eBay Fraud: A Whole New Gimmick
* Recent Blog Entries

Happy American Thanksgiving!

If you live in the US, you already know that this Thursday is our American Thanksgiving. This is a holiday that I personally approve of in a big way. We've all read and thought about the excesses that sometimes accompany Christmas and other holidays become so obscured with symbolism and silliness as to be almost meaningless, except as a day off from our labors. (Unless you're an entrepreneur, of course – then you never get a day off!)

But Thanksgiving is a more modest time. Only the grocery stores and markets profit so it isn't overblown. Only the poor turkey suffers, so no one is offended. Instead, it's a perfect opportunity to reflect on the many blessings we all have in our lives. You might read that sentence and think, “Ha! If she knew what my life was like, she wouldn't say something so ridiculous!”. Well, you'd be wrong about that. No matter what problems you have, I can guarantee that if you turn on the news tonight and watch it for a few minutes, you will see how many reasons you have to be grateful. In fact, the list is endless.

One of my major interests in life is understanding success. Not just success at 'making money on the Internet', although that is certainly a major focus of my life, and probably yours, too. Beyond that, though, I'm fascinated by what makes a life successful or not, in terms of joy, health, happy relationships, as well as financial success. And one thing I am absolutely certain about is that the more grateful I am for what I already have – the more I seem to get. Even if that wasn't true, the more grateful we are, the happier we will be.

So whether you're living in the US or not, why not honor Thanksgiving in your heart and take a few moments to acknowledge and notice your blessings, expressing gratitude to whoever or whatever you personally believe in. An even better idea would be if EVERY day is Thanksgiving Day!

Free Ebook On Wholesale & Dropship Sources

In the last issue, I mentioned the ebook Chris Malta and I have written together. There have been hundreds of downloads already and I now have it up permanently. You can get it here at no cost to yourself:

http://auction-genius-course.com/pssr.shtml

We've been selling it successfully on eBay with several hundred sales already. That's pretty amazing considering this is not the time of year for this kind of information. Most eBayers are focused on selling, selling, selling during this time of the year – the most lucrative on eBay.

Please feel free to pass this book around to whomever you wish. If you want to offer it as a free download from a site of yours, just let us know and we'll gladly help you set it up, if necessary.

And, an interesting experiment: if you go to eBay and type in “wholesale” and then choose “information products”, you will probably see a banner about our book:

http://search.ebay.com/wholesale_Information-Products_W0QQfromZR3
QQsacategoryZ47103QQsosortpropertyZ1

We are experimenting and don't know how successful this will be, but I'll let you know in future issues.

Good News and Bad News ....

There's still time left for you to register for the "Internet and Joint Venture Marketing Super Conference" in Orlando (FL), December 3-5, 2004.  That's the event where you'll receive bonuses valued at over $2,577.90 ... including the reprint, duplication, and marketing rights to Michael Penland's new CD featuring 8 World Class Marketers – including me and my friend Brad Fallon, of Stomp The Search Engine fame:

http://www.instantcashmarketing.com/SydneyJohnstonSpecial.html

The bad news is there are only 11 seats still available.  It's a "sold-out" event with people coming from as far away as Africa, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, Canada and all across the USA.  The "cut-off" date of November 24th for the "Early-Bird" discount ends soon.  That's more bad news, but...
 
The good news is that I've secured two (2) of those 11 remaining seats for my people.  And, I'm making them available at a low, low discounted price of just $97 each.  About 30 seconds after the page loads when you go to the URL below, a yellow pop-up window will appear offering you the seats at this special price.  Don't miss out.  Join me and marketers who want to succeed by registering now for this life-changing event.

Even better news: you can win a FREE cruise
 
The cruise will be a week-long cruise from Miami, FL to the Grand Cayman to Ocho Rios, Jamaica and then back to Miami, Florida. The Carnival Funship/Cruise ship is "Imagination".  The actual value of this prize is $2,500.
 
Joel Christopher will be doing a drawing for a FREE ticket to his vacation/workshop on building a mailing list. But to win you must be present Sunday afternoon at Michael's "Internet and Joint Venture Marketing Super Conference" in Orlando (FL).

http://www.instantcashmarketing.com/SydneyJohnstonSpecial.html

NOTE: several people have reported a problem with the signup link. If it doesn't popup for you, you can signup here:

http://auction-genius-course.com/scregistration.html

Help Raise Money For Sean

At the Joint Venture conference above, we'd like to help a young man named Sean.  Sean is the son of a firefighter in Melbourne, Florida.  Sadly, Sean has been diagnosed with advanced leukemia.  We want to help raise some money for Sean and his family.

So, during the conference you will receive an email from me offering Michael's CD featuring the 8 World Class Marketers who were on his Preview TeleSeminar calls.  In addition to the CD, buyers will also get BONUS gifts like eBooks, software, marketing tools, etc. All of the money will go to Sean, except for the duplication & mailing costs . We hope to raise at least $10,000 for Sean!

And while you're at it, kiss your own healthy children on Thanksgiving Day!

FEATURE ARTICLE: Affiliate Selling, eBay & Making Money Online

Recently I have gotten loads of questions about affiliate marketing. As I'm certain you know, “affiliate” is only a synonym for “commission”: sell a product for someone else and they give you a percentage of the sale. Nothing new about that.

By why should I be talking about affiliate sales in this ezine? After all, the main focus is auctions. There are several reasons.

1. eBay is only an entry portal to web profits. As I've said a million, zillion times, eBay is the easiest way to make money on the net. Period. I don't need to go into my reasons again. If you want to know why I think this, go here:

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/blog/archives/2004/08/ebay_online_auc.html

The point is that once you are making money on eBay or other online auction sites, you will want to go on and do other things. It's a natural progression and every student I've had who succeeded on eBay has added additional ways of making money. eBay is a great apprenticeship – but don't stop there.

* I love the term “multiple streams of income” and endorse it 100%. There are lots of potential pits in relying on only one way to make money. A great example is an affiliate marketer named James Martell who is known for making large profits from affiliate programs that he markets through the free search engines. Many people have written that Martell was banned from google, although guesses as to why are quite varied. One thing I do know for sure is that his main shopping site, 1st-in-net-shopping.com, isn't online. Supposedly it's “down for maintenance” - but it's been that way for weeks!

I don't know about you, but depending on only one income stream makes me exceedingly nervous!

* The third reason is that I have figured out a way to promote affiliate products on eBay, and I share this with my Auction Genius students. I've never read or heard of anyone doing this the way I do, and it's an invaluable source of income. I don't want it to dry up, and so eBay and affiliate programs are totally entwined for me.

So, back to affiliate programs - I've written before about their problems. One of the biggest is the default settings on most computers. They're set to eliminate all cookies once the computer is shut down (which most people do on a daily basis). Most folks don't even know what a “default setting” is, much less how to change it. Even more importantly, why would they want to change it? None of us wants 4,000 cookies on our computer.

But what this means to you is that if someone clicks through to an affiliate site through your link – and they don't buy that day – then you won't get credit.

Another problem is some of the affiliate providers, themselves. I was evaluating a program recently and noticed all the “bleeding”. For instance, they referred customers to a 'sister' site – that I wouldn't get paid for.

Another loophole was an 800 number. The product is relatively complex and I can see that customers might have questions. If they call on the phone, I know that the operator did NOT ask them any affiliate questions, because I called that number myself to verify my concerns. Yep, another lost commission.

Further, lots of affiliate sites have banners or ads of their own that take customers to sites they are affiliated with! Another gashing wound.

These kinds of problems mean that you and I can spend our money and time promoting a product to no avail.

So, what is the answer? Well, one possibility is doing a DROPSHIP store. I am experimenting with those now, and yes, they are more trouble to set up. But the big advantage if that a customer never leaves my site! There is no 'bleeding' because I am in total control. Once my first store is set up I can use my eBay methods to build my list, and my search engine knowledge, and create another revenue stream to augment the ones I already have.

That's the plan anyway. Stay tuned for more details!

Ebay Fraud: A Whole New Gimmick

Friday I got an email message that was supposedly from PayPal. The message was “confirming” a payment for $278.99 that I supposedly made.

The moral to the story, again, is never, never, never give information on any account by following an email! Always go directly to the account via your browser.

By the way, the item that I supposedly paid $278.99 for is the game Myst III – which is selling for $2.85 on Amazon!

Recent Blog Entries

* What To Sell On eBay: A Cheese Sandwich?

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/blog/archives/2004/11/what_to_sell_on.html#more

* Email Lists And Your Internet Income

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/blog/archives/2004/11/email_lists_and.html#more

* A New Insight Into Criminal Activity

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/blog/archives/2004/11/a_new_insight_i.html#more

* Oprah's Closet Charity Auction

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/blog/archives/2004/11/oprahs_closet_c.html#more

* Ebay Stores: Macromedia Contributes To eBay Store Building

http://www.auction-genius-course.com/blog/archives/2004/11/ebay_stores_mac.html#more