The short answer is yes. Of course you can. Amazon does it everyday. So does Zappos. Google makes billions.
But the operative word in that sentence is “you.” Can people like you (and me) make money online? Even if you’re not the world’s next great entrepreneur, is there a way for a writer to make money online?
I’ve been saying for a while–and I’m speaking theoretically–that writers have a natural edge over a lot of Internet marketers in that writers can write. Writers can create books, how-to classes, home-study courses, and other informational products and sell them online. It’s kind of like being a writer/publisher all in one.
The problem to all this is that you need a website. And building a website is a bit more complicated than you may think–try it and see. You need to register a domain, get a host, point the domain to the right nameserver … and that’s before you do one bit on building the site. At that point, you need to figure out how to get all those words and pictures to appear and how to make the buttons click to where you want them to click.
So where did I learn to build a website? I tried to teach myself. I got some books. I asked some people. But after a lot of trouble and aggravation, I had no website, less money, and a sense that I could not make this happen. Then I bought a course by Jim Edwards on Mini-Site Creation.
Jim Edwards is an Internet guy and I consider him one of my mentors. I don’t want to misrepresent things and act like he’s my friend (although I have met him a couple of times, have chatted with him by phone, and we’ve traded a few emails)–but he taught me a lot. I actually own the vintage Minisite Creator class–his first effort. I think he’s gone back and renamed it Minisite Creator 1, but you can’t buy it now and you wouldn’t want to. It’s outdated.
When Jim offered Minisite Creator 2.0, I jumped on it, and it jumpstarted my online business. For a class project, we had to build a minisite and set it up to sell a product. Well, I had to kind of throw my project today. I labored on the site but I whipped up a very fast, very rough info product just to test the waters and make sure I could make things work.
I sold one.
That surprised me. I hadn’t set out to do anything in that market at all–in fact, my info product was a bit on the skimpy side (I think it was 17 pages). I was just doing a project. But that single sale changed things for me.
Today I have several products on several sites, all built according to Jim Edwards’ principles. Now I’m telling you this because Jim is offering the course again. You have to pay for it, and it’s not cheap. Most really topnotch Internet how-to information is not cheap. But if you’re serious, you should check it out.
The reason I’m doing this post is not to “sell” you the course. Jim Edwards is offering a free webinar to a certain select group of people–and that includes people who read this blog. The webinar is free and there is no obligation to buy or do anything. Just listen to what Jim has to say. Then you can decide if you want to take the course or not.
But I can’t recommend strongly enough that you take the free webinar. Here’s why:
- You’ll get a pretty good idea in this webinar if you like Jim Edwards and his teaching style. I’ve taken several of his classes and he’s rock-solid consistent. He has a very specific way of instructing people. He is very organized, very step-by-step, but he can be a little blunt. So you need to see if you can “click” with this guy.
- You can also assess for yourself if he knows what he’s talking about. Maybe you already know how to build websites or you are already making boatloads of money online. Even if that’s the case, you should still hear the guy out and see if you think he’s for real.
- You can also decide if you like the format–Jim does tons of webinars. He even calls himself the Webinar King and has a goofy graphic of him wearing a crown. You’ll be getting a lot of your instruction via webinar, so this is a safe, free way to see if it works for you.
- You’ll learn something. I can practically guarantee that if all you ever do is take this one webinar and never spend a dime with Jim Edwards, ever, you’ll still get some solid information and maybe even a few laughs out of the webinar. You’ll have fun, and you’ll probably get some insights.
What you need to do is sign up! So How do you do that? It’s easy. You can click on the link off to the right (in the gray panel on the right of this website) or you can go to the tab (look at the top) that says Jumpstart and click one of those links. Or use the link at the bottom of this page (FREE Webinar).
Hurry, the webinar is June 10 and I promise you that once this class fills up (and it will) I won’t bug you about it again. I’m only bugging you now because I really think it’s a great class and too few writers participate!!
