I’m giving a seminar in Davao City!
July 26, 2008 by Bob
With the growth of the Internet and the tremendous money-making potential of online tools, trends, and technologies, a good income is indeed possible. Your income potential is only limited by how hard you are willing to study and then apply your knowledge.
Is it possible to be a 100% virtual earner, earning your money from the Internet? What are the ways in which you can make money at home, using your own computer? What does it take to become an Internet Entrepreneur? How does one succeed at an online business in the midst of today’s economic crises?
Bob Martin asked those same questions when he moved from the United States to the Philippines. Now living in Davao City and making his name as one of the top Internet Entrepreneurs in the country, “Mindanao Bob” is making more money now than when he lived in the USA. Bob wants to show you how you can do it too!
With Virtual Earner: A Business Forum by Bob Martin, you can uncover many ways to earn a living in the Philippines. Invest in the potential of the Internet and reap the benefits of strategic online, offline and hybrid ideas for business. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover and prove –as Bob did– that making a living in the Philippines is NOT IMPOSSIBLE!
Details
VIRTUAL EARNER: A Business Forum by Bob Martin
Speaker: Bob Martin
Venue: K-1 Coffee Shop, F. Torres Street, Davao City
Date: Saturday August 9, 2008
Time: 3:00 pm (the seminar will start sharply at 3pm)
Seminar Price: P3,000
To register for the seminar, please either e-mail or call (or text) John at (0921) 467-8372.
The forum is created to provide an intimate and informal venue for learning how to make a living in the Philippines. It will also serve as a medium for opportunities to discuss new technologies, products, services, and business ideas with a qualified expert who has explored the possibilities on the Internet to become an 100% Virtual Earner.
Who is Bob Martin?
Bob Martin is an Internet entrepreneur based in Davao City. An American who has lived in Mindanao for the past eight years, Bob has resided in General Santos City, and now in Davao City, while owning and managing dozens of Internet Businesses.
For the past seven years, Bob has made his living exclusively through the Internet. He serves customers all around the world, and has used the Internet to enhance his earning ability to the point that he is making more money now than when he lived in the USA and had a regular job. Bob wants to show you how you can do that too!
“Becoming successful on the Internet is great, but one thing I really enjoy is helping others achieve the same,” says Bob. “It makes me feel good if I can show somebody a few simple methods, or share my thoughts with them, and watch them learn how to make a living themselves. I don’t really like it when others copy what I am doing, but when they look at what I do, and mold it a little bit to fit their interests, they can come up with something that is patterned after me yet totally different from my business. I think that is great, and it gives me a lot of joy to see a friend become successful by doing this.”
Bob has a business background in Retailing and in Manufacturing, having previously managed discount department stores and an electronics store in the USA. He is also a published author of more than a dozen books. His latest book is entitled 49 Ways to Make a Living in the Philippines.
Early Bird Bonus! - For the first 10 people who sign up and attend the seminar, they will receive a FREE COPY of Bob’s book, 49 Ways to Make a Living in the Philippines! That’s right, a book that is selling for $49.00 will be yours free when you sign up and pay to participate in the seminar(but, only for the first 10 people)! So, don’t miss out, sign up today!
To register for the seminar, please either e-mail or call (or text) John at (0921) 467-8372. Remember, the first 10 people who register will get a free copy of Bob’s eBook, 49 Ways to earn a living in the Philippines!
Interview with Tom Nixon
June 17, 2008 by Bob
Last week, I announced that I have a new book on the market, 49 Ways to make a living in the Philippines. It’s a book with a bunch of ideas on how you can earn a living while living here in the Philippines. Of course, many of these ideas can be used no matter where in the world you choose to live, but since the topic of living in the Philippines is kind of my specialty, I wrote the book with that audience in mind.
Today, I am happy to announce that I was recently interviewed by Tom Nixon, and he has published the first part of the interview on his SmallPress Blog today. To read the interview, just head over to Tom’s blog. Tom is a long time reader of this blog, and some of my other sites. He is an expert (I say that, he might try to shy away from it!) on Self-Publishing, and also in the area of Online Learning and Education.
Thank you, Tom, for featuring my book and my story on your site! I appreciate it highly.
Should Amazon be the target of Self-Publishers?
April 28, 2008 by Bob
I have been thinking a lot lately about book publishing, as anybody who reads this blog already knows. Actually, to be more correct, I have been thinking of writing some books and Self-Publishing. Those are two different things, don’t you think?
I have been published by some medium sized Publishers in the past, and it did not work out all that well. Firstly, if you let somebody else publish your work, you aren’t going to make all that much money. When I had a dozen or so books published back in the early 90’s, my royalty usually ran around 12% of the cover price of the book. On some books I made a little (very little) more, and on some books a little less. That percentage, though, doesn’t end up bringing you a lot of money.
The books that I wrote in the past were highly niche oriented. In other words, they were books belonging to a very small category. The average person would have never heard of them. However, for people who were also interested in that niche, my books (at least some of them) were well known. When you are addressing a niche (especially if it is a small niche) you are not going to sell a million books, because there simply are not that many people who are interested in the topic. Heck, you won’t sell 100,000 probably. I think that my best title may have sold 100,000 copies over the years, and the book was revised and updated each year. So, on an actual per-real-book basis, it might have sold 20,000 to 30,000 copies of a single edition. I considered it successful.
That was back in the early 90’s. We’re talking nearly 20 years ago. In those 20 years, the entire game has changed. We have the Internet where we can self-market things, we can self-publish to a greater (and easier) degree than we could 20 years ago. It’s a whole new ball game.
Another thing that is new this time around for me is that I have moved on to a whole new niche as well. My old niche (Amateur Radio and Shortwave Radio Listening) is something that I lost interest in years ago. My new niche is probably even more narrow than my previous one, which can be good or bad. Good in that the smaller the niche, the more intense the followers can be, the more they are willing to spend, and the less competition you will have. Bad in the sense that the smaller the niche the fewer potential customers you have. However, if you are knowledgeable about the topic, even a very small and narrow niche can pay off big.
Part of my thinking, when it comes to the Self-Publishing game is that I will market my books myself, and not sell them through other outlets. Some people’s first reaction is - “but, you’ll sell through Amazon, right?” Well, no. My intention is not to sell through Amazon or any other outlet, but only through my own websites.
Why?
- In the area that I am writing about, I believe that I am so well known that I can produce enough sales on my own to make me very happy with the results. I believe that if anybody is interested in the field that I am writing about, if they do a Google search, or any other search on the topic, I will be one of the first people that they find. Even if I am not the first person they find when searching, if they are serious about the subject, I believe that it is impossible that they won’t find me. If they are not interested enough to the point that they find me, I doubt that they would be buying any books on the subject anyway.
- By selling through multiple sources, I believe that I would be turning my book(s) into a commodity, rather than my brand. You see, if the book is available anywhere you look for it, it is suddenly a commodity. A bunch of different places will compete on price, thus discounting what I am offering, and thus making it difficult for me to sell it at the full price.
- By selling it myself exclusively, I can retain some semblance of direct contact with my buyer. In my niche, one of my marketing tools is that I am available to my reader. It can be difficult to maintain that availability, but I refine my operations regularly in order to ensure that I remain available, even though my audience is growing. Having that personal “one-on-one” feel appeals to my readers, and I find that it causes my personal brand to grow and increase in value. It makes me feel good, and it makes my readers feel that I appreciate them (which I do). If I was selling through Amazon and other such outlets, maintaining that personal connection would be much harder, probably impossible.
- Amazon is a middleman. All of our lives, we hear things like - “Avoid the middleman” and such. Well, Amazon is nothing but a middleman between you and your customers.
- Having that direct connection between you and your reader can lead to entire new ideas for additional products that you never even considered. If a person buys from Amazon, they are much less likely to contact you directly with their feedback.
- I have seen some areas where I feel that Amazon has displayed a “less than honest” way of doing business. For example, currently they are trying to force self-publishers who use POD (Print on Demand) services to use an Amazon owned service, rather than the POD service that they have been using successfully for years. This, frankly, reeks of trying to monopolize the market. In addition, in the past, Amazon has strong-armed others (like Toys-R-Us) who were supposed to be their partners. If they will play hardball with the big boys like Toys-R-Us, what will they do with little guys like me? Frankly, I don’t even want to find out.
Well, those are a few of the reasons why I have decided to go it alone, without Amazon, without Barnes & Noble, without anybody but myself. Here’s the thing…. if I try what is in my mind, and it doesn’t work out to the extent that I believe it will, I can always alter course and go a more traditional route!
So, what do you think? Is it a wrong path to head down, or am I making the right move?