Internet Fortunes

Grabbed this from CNN. Sorry guys.

Over the last couple years I wasted thousands of dollars on classes designed to teach me things that would provide me with other streams of income.

Let's see. I was very excited and dropped about a thousand on a class to teach me to do programming for the iPhone without doing any real programming. The same information is now available in eBooks that cost less than twenty dollars.

I spent about a thousand dollars on a course to teach me how to write eBooks and create massive wealth by writing hundreds of excellent books. You can really get wrapped up in the pitch, let me tell you. Again, that same information is out there in eBooks and some are probably free by now. Of course, hundreds of them were written by people who bought the course.

I spent some hundreds of dollars to join a writing "club" where the members helped each other by reading each other's books. (If you want to know the actual name of the club, send me an email.) We'd provide feedback and the book would improve until the writer could publish something good. Some of the books were good and some members of the "club" were already established authors with valuable insights into writing and publishing. As I downloaded, read and reviewed books I discovered that most of the people in the "club" wrote poorly. They were there to write the hundred "how-to" books and rake in money. Many of them probably bought the writing class.

While I was writing My Mother-in-lawMisadventures I used a working title of The Frau Chronicles. I knew it wasn't a good book title. This writing group had a group to discuss book titles. I posted some questions, seeking a better title. Nobody answered me. Not a single person.

When I finished the book I asked for people to go grab a free copy and read it then write me a review. That's what the "club" is for. Not a single person did so.

I reviewed dozens of books for other authors. At first I tried to review everyone's new book, but that took too much time. Then I focused on books I thought I'd enjoy reading. That worked better.

Overall that "club" became worthless to me. As I later discovered, there are many on-line communities that cost nothing and provide equal or greater benefit. I'm working on building my connections on those sites, but it will take a while.

In the meantime, here's the bottom line of spending all that money.

The web sites that provided "free" iPhone application development worked fine, but they all, without exception, converted to a membership fee. For much less than the fees for those sites I can hire a programmer to update my applications on iOS and Droid (and that's in my to-do list).

You want to know how to make money writing? Write well. You want to know how to write well? Write. All the time. For years.

You want help writing? There are a lot of free sites to join with helpful communities.

Want to make a fortune on the internet?

Link up with some of these guys who still spam my email box and sell a class on how to make money on the internet.

I won't buy it though. I'm busy writing.