Trying To Get Recognized On The Internet? Be Stupid

It’s becoming all the more common that people are turning to the internet as a means of gaining extra income. Sure, you could sell off all your old junk in your garage to make a few extra bucks, once that ‘inventory’ is gone, there is no more.

The better way to gain income is by having actual product – and the easiest is to write a short instructional book. This is a great thing to sell because it requires no inventory since it’s all digital, and with web sites like Lulu, getting into places like Amazon is a piece of cake.

The #1 and #2 things that sell on the internet are porn and information, in that order. Given that you’re not going to do porn, you’ll opt for the instructional book.

Anyone can write an instructional book. There is at least one thing you know, know well, and have good experience in that’s valuable enough to be paid for – so writing the book isn’t a problem.

Where a problem actually does present yourself is getting noticed. You have your book ready-to-go but nobody knows it exists.

We’ll assume for the moment you’ve written up your book and used Lulu to publish so it’s in not only the Lulu but Amazon marketplace.

The key to getting noticed is to be stupid, or to be more accurate, accommodate to ‘simple’ people.

Below are examples of what that means, but before you read the examples, here’s something to bear in mind:

Your evening news is broadcast on a 7th-Grade level.

On television you will never see anchorpersons use ‘big’ words. Everything is kept very simple and very straightforward. This applies to both local and national news.

On the internet, the same rule applies. Big words = bad. If you don’t keep it simple and stupid, it is very unlikely your product will sell.

1. Title is everything

This is best shown by example.

Bad title: The Comprehensive Guide To Widget Building

Good title: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Widget Building

People don’t want ‘comprehensive’. That’s a big word that turns people off and sounds complicated. ‘Everything’ is much more friendly.

2. "In minutes" always works

For any book published you can add in a description. Using ‘in minutes’ is always a good sell.

Example: Learn how to build widgets in minutes!

Yes, the exclamation point needs to be there.

3. Customer testimonies usually aren’t necessary

The selling point of your book is its content and not what other people say about it. Concentrate on the content and stick to it; avoid testimonies because for instructional books it’s usually not necessary at all.

4. It’s okay to be LOUD

You’re not trying to push bottles of Chanel No. 5 here; you’re selling information. The loudness particularly applies to the cover of your book.

Use a disgustingly huge font on your book cover, such as stark white on safety-barrel orange. You’ll notice that many other instructional books do the exact same thing; that’s because it gets noticed and that’s the whole point.

5. Even if what you write is already available in another book, write it anyway

Just because there are other books on the subject of what you know, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write it. What you write is imbued with your personality, and as long as it definitively instructs how to do something well, that’s all that matters.

In fact, it’s probably true there are other instructional books out there that are way too thick for their own good. Your "light" version on the same subject can be a selling point from being only 250 pages long instead of 500 or 1,000.

Just remember not to plagiarize because you can get in huge costly trouble for that.

One more thing. The reason this article caught your attention? Use of the word ‘stupid’ in the title. As said above, title is everything.