Author Archive

Stopping People From Illegally Sharing Your Work

The other day, I realized that one of my main books had been shared illegally on the Internet. Anyone could just search for it and find it the first page of Google, and download it without paying.

Luckily, I was able to contact the owner of the website and sort out the situation.

But some other times, I’m not so lucky and there’s not much I can do to prevent some unscrupulous people from sharing my copyrighted material.

If you’re thinking of writing and selling your own ebooks, you’ve probably wondered about this issue. How can you prevent people from illegally sharing your work?

Before I answer this question, let me give you my point of view on copyright issues.

I am 100% behind the strict enforcement of copyright issues, which applies for any work an artist has created, including music, patents, software, movies, entertainment, books, etc.

These works represent the sweat of many, many hard-working people who deserve to get paid for what they do.

Over the last decade, there’s been a strong movement against copyrights, by Internet “Pirates” who have encouraged and enabled the illegal sharing of copyrighted material under the guise of humanitarian motives.

These anti-copyrights bums believe that copyrights have never been any benefit to “society” and serve to enrich a few at the expense of creativity.

To that I say: Complete nonsense!

The profit motive is an important factor in what drives human innovation and creativity. If artists and thinkers cannot make a living at what they do, they will go back to a boring job and never get to fully express the range of their abilities.

When an artist or innovator creates something that didn’t exist before — and that something can enjoyed in any form by many people in a way that improves and enhances their lives, they should be able to charge WHATEVER PRICE they want for it. And they should be able to be in total control over the distribution of their work.

People who complain that a certain book costs “too much”, that a company is “robbing” people by selling an item at a certain price, or that they shouldn’t have to pay for it, have a complete false of entitlement.

They live in a world where that “something” did not exist. Suddenly someone creates it, and wants to charge them X amount for it. No one is forcing them to buy it. If they don’t want it, they can say no. They can go back to the world they lived in before, in which that “something” did not exist.

If they want to enjoy it however, and enhance their lives, even if it’s just for a brief moment, why is that too much to ask that they pay their toll to the artist/innovator, who made it all possible in the first place?

Because of the law of competition, prices never can stay too high that their true worth, as long as other people are coming along to offer their own answer to the same problem.

All of that to say that it is 100% moral to protect copyrights, and 100% immoral to advocate the destruction of the copyright system.

If people enjoy the instant gratification of downloading something immediately, there are now plenty of options to do so legally. For example, I’m a big fan of Amazon’s Kindle for eBooks, or Apple’s iTunes for movies and TV Shows.

That being said, should you fear for your eBooks and products?

I’m actually not as worried as some people are when they first get started.

While you do not want your eBooks to be made available on file-sharing websites, there’s nothing you can do about people making copies and/or sending it to their friends.

Some people want to control everything by creating password-protected versions of their eBooks, or lock it in a special kind of software that can only be read using a key that can be disabled at anytime.

I find those restrictions too much of a hassle to create the type of experience your clients are after. If you try to make it too difficult, you’ll make the same mistakes the music industry made when they first started selling music, and actually encourage people to download your programs illegally.

I suggest selling your eBooks as simple, unprotected PDFs.

However, make sure that your download page does not show up in the search engines. There’s a simple line of code you can add to any download page that will make it “invisible” to Google. Most webmasters can do this for you.

Do not worry too much about protecting your work, since it’s not going to be a concern of yours until you become much more popular.
Once you’re well-known enough to be shared all over the web, it’s actually a good sign!

I personally don’t try very hard to protect my front-end products (by that I mean the entry-level eBooks that I sell), since they are just an entry point to the rest of my product line. Even if someone downloads them illegally, they can still be interested in the other products I have for sell!

However, if I see my books being distributed without my permission, I will intervene by contacting the owners of the website and getting the files pulled down, which has always worked.

At some point, I even had someone selling my eBooks on eBay, keeping all the profits and without my permission of course!

There’s also a big problem with file-sharing websites like Pirate’s Bay, that enjoy undeserved support from the public and who will probably remain unpunished for a long time. Of course, when one website closes down, a new one opens up the next week!

The best strategy for BitTorrents and similar unstoppable file-sharing schemes is to ignore them. The people who download (steal) your programs there wouldn’t have been your customers anyway.

If you’d like to know more on protect yourself from illegal downloads, make sure you subscribe to the Do What You Love Success Group, where next month I will be sending out a complete report on the subject, filled with tips and ideas to be ahead of the curve, but more importantly to know where to spend your attention, and where it’s a waste of time.

To subscribe, go to: www.dowhatyouloveuniversity.com/new.html

I’ve never written ANYTHING about politics, and I don’t intend to start doing so. But since I’ve been traveling around the world, I’m inevitably brought to some interesting reflections about what it’s like to be an entrepreneur in this modern world, and which countries are the best places to do that.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Canada (where I’m from), and also in the United States. I’ve also traveled and studied to Europe and have been there over 10 times.

It seems to me that a lot of people in Europe are very skeptical about everything American, while Americans themselves tend to imagine that life is so much better in Europe and that they should be more like Europeans.

There’s also a lot of Europeans who have never been to North America and tend to have a very negative image of the United States, that is in my opinion quite incorrect.

There’s no doubt that the social climates in Europe and North America are completely different. The main source of that difference is that America was founded by Europeans we were fed up with the system, fed up with high taxes in their countries, fed up with the lack of opportunities, and decided to seek a better life somewhere else and brought their entrepreneurial spirit with them.

Europe is much older, with many more established traditions and therefore each country is much more homogenized and has its own distinct character.

It’s quite obvious that Europe (especially Northern Europe) is a much more organized, conformist society.

The social pressure to be like everybody else is much stronger, and generally most people don’t tend to try a different approach and would prefer stick with their expected role in society.

Overall, the governments of European countries and the general social climate in Europe doesn’t really encourage individuals to become entrepreneurs, to go their own way, to take risks and reap giant rewards if they succeed, or fail miserably if they don’t (and that being an “okay” thing).

There’s the absurdly high taxation that comes into play (in Denmark, there’s a Value-Added Tax of 25% on everything, including groceries, and that’s on top of a very high income tax!), but again it’s the general social climate that makes people less inclined to start their own businesses.

On the other hand, it’s true that it can “feel good” to live in Europe, because you can easily find your place in society and follow the established route that has been drawn for you.

The “American Spirit” (which I will apply to the entire North American continent), is much more one of risk-taking, entrepreneurship and innovation. Individualism and personal success is much more encouraged (or tolerated), and people view failure as more of a “personal learning experience” than a devastating event.

On the other hand, it’s also true that North Americans tend to feel more isolated, more lost and looking for answers.

When I say “American Spirit”, I really mean the spirit that the founders of America and the immigrants that came to the country, rather than the mediocrity mentality that some Americans now share. I’m talking about the driving force of the country, even though it’s being squashed and destroyed by the day.

If you want to get in touch with this “American Spirit” go to Los Angeles, where every other person you meet hopes to make it in Hollywood. They might not all succeed, but the “dream” is alive.

Go to San Francisco, where every other kid is starting a new social media site and hopes to become the next Facebook or Twitter.

You could even go to Toronto, and witness the entrepreneurial spirit of the many immigrants the city welcomes every year.

Even some countries in Europe have this entrepreneurial spirit, but overall you’ll find that most places in Europe don’t have a climate that is as friendly for entrepreneurs as North America.

If you want to succeed making a living doing what you love, you have to connect with this “American Spirit”.

Like I said, the American Spirit has nothing to do with American foreign policies, or even American culture and fast food, but rather the spirit of entrepreneurship that went into the fantastic creation of this country.

I’m not even American myself, but I’ve connected with this spirit and it’s what drives me every day.

When you want to make a living doing what you love, you don’t count on handouts from the state. You’re willing to take risks, and you’re willing to fail. And if you succeed fabulously, you should be able to enjoy the fruits of your efforts.

Beware! If you succeed, others are going to be mad at you. They’re going to call you a liar and a cheater, they’re going to be angry at your “sneaky” marketing techniques, and will even ask you to give away your best stuff for free, instead of selling it.

They will never be able to see all the hard work that went into your work. They will never be willing to take the risks that you took. Naturally, they will never be able to enjoy the life that you enjoy, and will resent you for it.

If you want to succeed making a living doing what you love, it’s imperative that you connect with this entrepreneurial spirit.

To do so, you have to spend time with other entrepreneurs, and visit places where you can feel that the “entrepreneurial energy” is just bubbling.

Now on to a shameless plug: To get started making a living doing what you love on the Internet, check out my complete course on “How to Write Your Own eBooks in 24 Hours or Less”. Go to: http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/writeyourebook.html

I’ve put countless hours into this program, and I’m truly confident that it’s the most complete, step-by-step source of information to start making a living with your own eBooks. And best of all, I’m willing to guarantee it.

Again, the link is: http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/writeyourebook.html

So should America be more like Europe?

I love the best aspects of Europe, the culture, the people… but let’s not squash the Entrepreneurial spirit. There’s very little of it left in the world, and it would be a tragedy if it disappeared from America.

Recently I was talking to a family member that’s very close to me. We were talking about my trip around the world that

I am starting in just two weeks with my wife. I was telling them how next year I’m going to be spending over 9 months traveling the world, spending time in over 25 countries, and going to places I’ve always dreamed of going.

That includes places whose mention alone are enough to make you dream, such as Fiji, Egypt, New Zealand, Tahiti, Thailand, Bali, and many more.

I was getting all excited telling them about my trip, where I’d be going, and more interestingly, how I was going to make this trip actually pay for itself and at no cost to me.

Have you ever been in a situation where you’ve shared something very personal to you with someone, like a lifelong dream or ambition, only to realize that you should have just kept your mouth shut about it?

Sometimes people can’t do any better than try to discourage you from living your life to the fullest. This is exactly what happened to me when I was talking to that person.

My supposedly very supportive family member kept arguing with me how that trip might not be such a good idea, that instead I should “settle down”, buy a condo and play it safe.

Why travel to exotic tropical islands, share your passion with the world and earn a living in the process when instead you could buy a condo and stay at home somewhere that truly doesn’t inspire you?

The funny thing is that I bet if you had a big dream like that, and you were to ask a few friends and family members what they thought about it, more than one would do the exact same thing: try to discourage you from doing it.

Yet if you ask anyone on the street what they would love to do if they won the lottery, or something they absolutely need to do before they die, many of them would probably answer: travel around the world.

But there are many reasons why others will try to discourage you from living your dreams.

First of all, they themselves are not doing it. They feel pretty bad about someone else being able to do what they’d love to do when they can’t. So they prefer to stay in their comfort zone and not have to deal with jealousy and other negative emotions, rather than admiring what you do and trying to learn from you.

Secondly, most people don’t believe it’s possible to make a living doing what they love and get to travel the world. They think that this kind of life only belongs to the rich and famous.

In fact, the thought that something like that would even be possible is very disturbing to their view of reality. It would lead them to question too many things about their lives, so they’d rather not have to deal with it and again, keep you in their comfort zone.

Years ago, I heard someone say something very true: “Only share your dreams and ambitions with people who can support you and encourage you.”

Don’t ever share your dreams with someone who will discourage you from realizing them. Instead, make your dreams a reality and then let them know about it!

*How to Travel the World and Do What You Love*

Going back to my trip around the world, this is something I’ve always wanted to do. Now I can’t believe it’s happening for real!

I know exactly when were going, and where we’re going.

But most importantly, I have business systems in place to allow me to do something like that.

I can work from anywhere in the world.

I have automated many aspects of my business, so my involvement is limited to the few things that are absolutely necessary, and the things that I love doing like writing.

Is it easy to do something like that?

I would say that it’s not as difficult as most people imagine, but it does require some focused attention.

Overall, it’s much easier than spending 40 hours a week working at a job you don’t enjoy for the rest of your life.

In the few weeks, I’ll be sending you emails with some of the most important ideas I’ve discovered along the way on how to make a living doing what you love.

Maybe traveling to tropical islands several months a year is not exactly your thing. But maybe you have some kind of other dream, or you would like to have more time for yourself and your family, and do something you really enjoy for a living.

Stay tuned for these next emails!

In the meantime, remember that the most important things are to define what you want. What are your dreams? What do you want from your life?

Keep these dreams for yourself, or only share them with positive people who can support you. Otherwise, you’ll get quickly discouraged by the resistance you get from the rest of society.

If you can’t wait to get started, why not join my Do What You Love Success Group? This is a coaching and training program I run where you can discover, step-by-step, everything you need to know to make a living doing what you love on the Internet.

… check it out and take it for a test drive. Go to: http://www.dowhatyouloveuniversity.com/new.html

I’m typing this from the 19th floor of an apartment in Waikiki in Honolulu. My wife and I will be visiting three Hawaiian islands for 12 days each for our honeymoon.

Before that, we spent almost six months in Costa Rica — and I have myself spent most of my winters there for the past 4 years.

I’ve also visited Hawaii on a couple of occasions before, but more importantly Hawaii has been on the radar more than a few times as I was looking for a place to get away from the harsh Canadian winters.

If you’ve thought about moving to a tropical paradise — either part-time or full-time, there’s no doubt that you’ve also considered Costa Rica or Hawaii — or both — for obvious reasons.

Costa Rica is a famous destination for US and Canadian retirees, and Hawaii  is the only true “tropical paradise” in the United States.

The two places are worlds apart — but each has something unique to offer for the right person.

Let’s start with Costa Rica.

Costa Rica: Who Is It For?

The kind of person who will go to Costa Rica and be happy living there will be someone who’s a true nature lover.

You don’t go to Costa Rica to enjoy first-world services, amazing cultural events or even a low-cost of living.

You go there because you enjoy spending time in nature, seeing animals, visiting beaches and tropical waterfalls, catching sight of birds, and spend a lot of time outside.

If you’re not currently spending most of your free time hiking and out in nature, then Costa Rica is probably not the right place for you.

Here are the main pro’s on Costa Rica:

1) Nature. Wild nature is unparalleled. A big chunk of the country is protected by national parks, and there’s a lot to explore in such a small country. Finding your own deserted beach or waterfall is relatively easy.

2) Diversity. There’s over 12 distinct micro-climates, and you can go from balmy tropical weather to cooler, spring-like climate just by changing your elevation.

3) People. Costa Rica’s people are affectionately called the Ticos and are very welcoming and friendly. Even if you don’t speak much Spanish, you’ll easily feel at home.

4) Tourism. Costa Rica is not new to tourism, so there’s a relatively big infrastructure for anything tourism-related. Some might see this as a negative, but if you want some fun things to do, you’ll at least have many options. The farmers markets have also grown to support tourism as well so you can be thankful for the abundance of tropicalfruits being sold everywhere.

5) Climate. I do NOT recommend that you move to Costa Rica to any of the coastal areas because the weather there can be very hot and humid and not at all comfortable for the long term. If you plan on living in Costa Rica for an extended period of time, consider living in the central valley where  the climate is a constant spring-like temperature year round.

6) Cost of Living. Costa Rica can be cheap but can also be expensive depending on how you live. Some things are definitely cheaper, such as fruits and vegetables, taxis and labor. Other things such as cars, imported items, electronics and gas are definitely more expensive.

7) Political stability. Costa Rica enjoys a certain political stability with its famous “no-army” policy. One thing is for sure, you don’t have to fear a revolution or political unrest in this country.

The cons of Costa Rica:

1) Roads. 10 years ago, the roads in Costa Rica used to be REALLY bad. Since then huge progress has been made and the roads are much better, but don’t expect big American highways.

2) Infrastructure. The rest of the country’s infrastructure is several years behind the rest of the developed world. Cell phone coverage works but forget about reliable internet and 3G coverage. You can get high-speed internet, but it might not always work. Power outages are frequent, but they rarely last more than a few minutes to an hour.

3) Mad Drivers. Costa Rica has one of the highest automobile accident rate in the world. A lot of the deaths are from pedestrians getting hit by cars. The roads are not lit, extremely pedestrian UN-friendly, and the vast majority of drivers are extremely careless and seem like they got their licence in a cereal box! This is the kind of country where to feel safe on the road you get the biggest car you can and drive defensively. Don’t plan on cycling in Costa Rica as it is too dangerous, and only walk in safe areas — not along main roads.

4) Bugs. This is more a problem if you live by the beach. Ants and all types of critters are everywhere and it’s a constant battle to try to keep your food from being eaten away by them. If you live in a cooler climate in Costa Rica, you shouldn’t have too much of a problem.

5) Crime. This has never personally affected me, but you read about it in the newspaper all the time and it seems serious enough to pay attention. There’s a big problem in the country to keep criminals in jail or out of the country. Home invasions are a daily occurrence in the central valley, and the police are not prepared enough to stop it. Most Costa Ricans will tell you that the one problem they wish their government would take care of the most is crime.

6) Inefficiency. This a wide-spread cultural issue I would loosely call ”inefficiency” although it would take pages upon pages to fully describe and explain in details.

The main thing to understand is that in Costa Rican culture, harmony is valued more than honesty. Here’s one example to describe this. You hire someone to fix your internet. You are told it will be done within a day. However, for some reason there is a delay of some kind (it doesn’t matter what it is). Instead of telling you the truth (honesty), the internet guy will either avoid the situation completely by not calling you OR make up some sort of story to preserve the ”harmony” of the situation and not upset you with the details of the delay.

Of course, none of that is truly understood on the conscious level by Costa Ricans because it’s on the cultural level.

Because of that and other reasons getting anything done can be terribly inefficient and trying to find out the truth of what’s ACTUALLY going on, very frustrating.

7) Language. For some people it’s a problem, for others not. Most Costa Ricans don’t speak English but about 10% of the population can speak decent English.

Hawaii

A great way to describe Hawaii would be first-world comfort in a tropical paradise environment. But this comes at a price.

Here are main pro’s of Hawai’i

1- Beautiful & magical scenery — In spite of the Americanization, Hawaii remains a beautiful place that is truly special.

2- Genuinely nice people — Hawaii’s people are very kind and seem to smile easily. They are also relaxed drivers with some good manners on top of that.

3- Infrastructure — It’s the United States, so the infrastructure is 1000% better than a Costa Rica or even Panama. You can get pretty much anything you need and expect it to work. Because the island of Oahu is small and there’s only a few roads into the big city, traffic can get pretty bad.

4- The ocean — If you like any type of water sport, Hawaii is for you. I’m talking about snorkeling, wind-surfing, Kayaking, swimming, etc. Because the ocean is everywhere, there are so many more options than Costa Rica when it comes to enjoying the ocean.

5- The weather — I find Hawaii’s climate perfect. The temperature hovers between 20 and 29 degrees Celsius year round (Between 68 and 85 Fahrenheit), and if you hate rain you can find a spot of the island that will be pretty much rain-free year round.

6- Safety — We find Hawaii very safe compared to Costa Rica. The crime rate is much less and if you leave your stuff on the beach you don’t have to be paranoid about it getting stolen. I think the fact that it’s an island also makes a different. It’s hard to get there, and if you become undesirable, it’s also difficult to hide anywhere.

7- Shopping Possibilities — Because you’re in the United States, you can pretty much find anything you need (if you’re on the island of Oahu). This makes it very easy to run an Internet business from a tropical paradise.

Negatives

1) Cost of Living. Nobody moves to Hawaii to save money. The fact that you’re on an island AND in the US makes things more expensive. However, in my experience it’s NOT as expensive as you’d expect.

Certain islands are more expensive. Maui is notoriously known as the most expensive island, but Kauai and the Big Island are cheaper. Oahu (where the big city Honolulu is located) also has some great housing deals.

Now you have big chains like Costco that have made Hawaii more affordable.

A lot of things are priced similarly as they are in the US, such as restaurants and electronics, but groceries are more expensive.

The islands’ shops are also not full of affordable tropical fruits unless you shop at  farmer’s markets, and even there the prices will be similar or more than what you’d pay on the mainland.

Honolulu is not the world’s most expensive city. Several cities such as Los Angeles and Toronto are significantly more expensive than Honolulu, but it’s not as cheap as somewhere like the Midwest.

2) You’re on an Island. Some people can get island fever when they realize they are on a big rock and the road ends where the beach ends. But if you’re tired of the scenery, you can hop on a plane for another island for just $60, or fly back to the mainland for around $250+.

3) You’re in the US — That’s either a positive or a negative depending on who you are.

Maybe you’re American or Canadian or accustomed to American stores and conveniences, in which case you will find yourself right at home with places like Jamba Juice, Costco, Walmart, Whole Foods etc.

Or you’re not American and the idea of mass consumption on a tiny island makes you want to wretch… in that case you may want to check out the outer islands like Kauai and the Big Island if you’d like to keep to yourself and visit small local towns.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to be on the outer islands for a long stay because of all the conveniences available on Oahu.

5) The Homeless — Hawaii seems to have a big problem with homeless people living on the beach and in parks.

This is not technically legal, but the city does not do anything about it.  You will often see homeless people sleeping in parks, by the beach or tenting by the side of the road.

The good thing is they don’t often pan handle or cause any trouble, there’s just no avoiding them if you’re heading to Oahu no matter where you are on the island.

6) SPAM — In case you don’t know, Hawaii has a major spam addiction problem (and I’m not talking about the unwanted email kind).

Spam is a horrible-for-you canned pork product, filled with sodium and nitrates. Spam was introduced to the islands during the military occupation of World War II when fresh meat was difficult to get, but for some reason they kept eating it after the war even when they could afford much better options.

In every grocery store in Hawaii, you will find spam in all its forms. You’ll even see spam sandwiches, eggs and spam for breakfast, and my favorite: sushi with spam! (It actually is quite revolting looking)

The word “spam” nowadays means “unsolicited email” and comes from a Monty Python sketch, “in which the customer becomes more and more exasperated by the appearances of “spam” in every menu item”.

There’s no doubt that the health of Hawaiian people would instantly improve ten-fold if spam were to disappear off the face of the earth.

7) The lack of inexpensive coconuts -- Try this: you’re on a tropical island. There are palm trees everywhere. Yet, it’s almost impossible to find a reasonably priced fresh coconut to drink! Some juice bars sell them for an impossible price ($5.95 or higher!), but most restaurants will be happy to just get you canned coconut “juice” from Thailand (filled with sugar). On the other hand, fresh coconuts in Costa Rica are very common and only cost about 50 cents each.

You can buy young coconuts from the health food store, but they are the yellow older variety and will run about $4.95 each in Oahu and $2.95 each in Kauai. At farmers markets we’ve seen them from $4 to $6 each.

You will also see a lot of older brown coconuts being sold, some people even sell them as drinking coconuts in food courts… which is odd since there is little water in them and the meat is hard.

Another option is if you’re lucky to have a friend who can climb a coconut tree… well then that might work for you better.  Who doesn’t love a free coconut?

Conclusion

I live in Canada, but for the past 5 years I’ve been spending most of my winters in the south.

Costa Rica has been a great choice for most of those winters, and I’m very happy to have had the experience of spending so many months there.

At this point in my life, Hawaii seems to meet my needs a lot better and I also really enjoy being so close to the ocean all the time while having access to more conveniences.

My wife and I will be traveling the world for another year and then relocating possibly to Vancouver. But when the winter gets cold and rainy on the Northwest, we might just head to Hawaii for a few months instead of Costa Rica.

What about you, considering your values, which place would you choose?

The following is a short excerpt from my monthly Do What You Love printed newsletter, exclusive to my Do What You Love Success Group members. To find out more about this newsletter and how to become a member to read the latest in-depth issue immediately, click here.

I recently got an eBook from Marlon Sanders, a great Internet Marketer that I’ve been following for many years. His program is called “The Writer’s Secret” and it’s basically one eBook that tells his philosophy for selling eBooks.

Marlon claims that he can usually release a new eBook to his list every 1-2 months, and that eBooks are his main source of income.

The eBooks he sells are often turned into different products and are not called “eBooks”, for example, he has several tutorial-types of programs called “Dashboards” that are basically web pages with little icons where you can follow a step-by-step plan for starting your online business. Each icon takes you to a web page where you can read about the particular step. He also has some video tutorials along the way.

How different is that from an eBook with video bonuses? It’s only the presentation that makes it different, and the branding!

Instead of calling these products, “eBooks”, Marlon calls them “Dashboards” and sells them for $79.95.

Marlon also sells actual eBooks such as the Writer’s Secret that I bought, or his popular Amazing Formula products. Again, it’s just an eBook but in order to boost the sale, he’ll often offer a series of webinars for about $300 for people who want to go more in depth.

Again, the webinars offer essentially the same information as the eBooks, but in a different format and live, which has more value.

One of Marlon’s reasonings for selling eBooks is that his market (Internet Marketing) is filled with people who only sell very expensive products, seminars and coaching programs. The price point is over at least $1000 for these products.

So Marlon differentiates himself by selling lower-cost eBooks and makes his money on the back-end with upsales.

In my own market, I found that most people sell relatively low-cost books and DVDs, so I’ve differentiated myself by selling higher-priced and higher-end programs such as big online courses.

However, I still find that eBooks SELL and as long as they are bundled with other forms of media and are not just labeled as an “eBook”, they can prove to be an important income generator for you.

The main advantage of eBooks for me is that they are pretty easy to create.

When I think about writing an eBook, I imagine myself relaxing on my bed with my laptop or even sitting outside and typing calmly as I hear the birds singing in the trees.

When I think about creating a DVD product or organizing a live seminar I imagine myself toiling at 110 degrees weather carrying big rocks to build a never-ending pyramid for a Pharaoh , while being whipped by the slave-master.

Well, not exactly! But the idea of creating a big event or a DVD program does NOT fill me with joy and anticipation.

On the other hand, I find writing easy and something I can do anywhere without stress.

Writing a couple thousand words a day is no big deal, and at that pace you could easily write and sell a new eBook every other month.

Of course, writing takes experience and that experience comes with practice. But if you can touch-type and you have a great idea, writing a 30,000 words eBook is really not that much trouble.

So, how many eBooks are you going to release this year?

Economist Milton Friedman is said to have first coined the now popular saying “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”.

Of course, what Friedman meant by that is although some things may appear to be free such as “free” health-care, “free” roads and “free” public library — someone, somewhere — always ends up paying the bill.

We now live in a generation that more than ever seems to have totally embraced the word “free”.

A lot of kids nowadays think the only way to get their favorite music is to download it for “free” on the Internet and then sync it back to their iPod.

They might even laugh at those old people still buying old-fashioned CDs and supporting their favorite artists that way.

As for movies, a lot of people think they are so easily downloadable for “free” on the Internet that there is no reason to ever rent a DVD again. At the same time, we all complain that there are fewer good movies being released, and don’t seem to make the connection between the two.

As for the Internet, everybody thinks that everything should be “free” on the Internet, right?

And how dare some companies charge for a service that was once “free”, such as the Last.fm Internet Radio or online newspapers?

More and more, the masses have this sense of entitlement. They want free healthcare, free public transportation, free Internet, free music, free entertainment — and they get angry whenever the “evil” corporations dare to fight back and charge for their work.

In other words, they have forgotten Milton Friedman’s famous saying and believe they can get a free lunch, every single day, all the time.

Unfortunately, there is still no such thing as a free lunch.

Unless artists can earn some money, they will stop making great music.

Unless movie companies can get paid and hire great actors, they will stop making great movies.

And unless newspapers can pay their reporters and staff, they will stop writing great stories.

Companies Are Fighting Back

One of the biggest failures in old industries trying to adapt to the Internet world is the publishing industry.

We all know that newspapers are not like blogs. A blogger can write whatever comes to his mind and call that “journalism”. But true journalism involves a lot more than just writing random posts, and is also much more expensive to produce.

Think of the in-depth articles by Time magazine, or all the research involved to put out a daily newspaper.

When the Internet became popular, most newspapers started publishing their newspapers for free online, in the hope that people would upgrade to their paid services with more features.

But in practice, nobody did that. Why would you pay for essentially the same service you can get for free?

At the time, there were no Kindles or iPads or other device to read newspapers on the go (unless you wanted to carry your laptop everywhere and try to read it that way), so these companies didn’t really have any other option.

They tried to make some money with online advertising, and because a lot of people still read traditional newspapers, they hope to keep their readers faithful by publishing their news for free on the Internet as well.

Now that we have devices able to read newspapers and magazines on the go, publishing companies are still having a hard time to convince people to buy them that way.

When I got my iPad a few weeks ago, and one of the first things I did was to download a copy of Time magazine in an “iPad-optimized” version.

Time obviously invested a lot of money and efforts in turning their magazine into a beautiful, portable, digital version. They didn’t just take the magazine and turn it into a PDF that looks exactly the same.

They built a completely new, intuitive interface and navigation that takes advantage of the touch-screen of the iPad and makes it completely natural and fun to read a magazine on the device.

And for this, they charged $4.99 for one issue of the magazine.

I thought it was a fair deal because I know they have to get their investment back, and also because they cannot hope to earn the same amount in advertising on the digital version as they do with the printed version.

Yet, a lot of people were complaining about this price.
Why would I pay $4.99 for a digital magazine when I can subscribe for one year for just $19.95?

In reality, $4.99 is about the same price you’d pay for at the newsstand, but you have the advantage of portable, interactive interface and instant gratification. Complete with streaming photos and even videos.

But people don’t see it that way.

What companies are now finding is that they are having a hard time convincing people to pay for a service that was once free or really cheap.

Move the Free Line?

Eben Pagan is a very well-known Internet Marketer who is well-known for his concept of “moving the free line”.

What he meant by that is: give your best stuff away for free.

Eben thought that if you impress your audience with great free content, they will more likely want to upgrade to your paid content to get more of what you give away.

Although the concept works to some extent in practice, it can also fail miserably.

I have subscribed to Eben Pagan’s various mailing list and did not personally find that he “moves the free line” that much. Most of his ezines are pure promotions for his products and outside of his big product launches, you won’t find a lot of “free” stuff on his website.

A lot of marketers might be telling you to move the free line but often they don’t even do it themselves, because it just doesn’t work as well as advertised.

One of the worst thing you can do is build your own website by giving your content for free ALL the time, and then try to sell products to your readers after.

Often, they will resent you for it. You will get a lot of hate mail and it will be very difficult to turn that list around.

For example, a friend of mine has a great podcast on raw food he’s been running for a few years.

It’s a true high-quality podcast, and his website is top-notch. He gets thousands upon thousands of downloads per show, and has a decent amount of visitors to his website and signing up for his list.

Yet, in spite of all of this, he’s having a hard-time monetizing that list and he’s not able to give up his day-job yet.

When he tried to introduce a premium “paid” version of his podcasts, his sales were really low.

He found out the hard way that people are not willing to pay for something they were used to getting for free, even if it has more features and perks.

What Should You Give Away For Free?

The question for anyone starting a online business is: what should you give away for free?

On the one hand, you don’t want to just send promotions and come across as a greedy marketer.

On the other hand, you don’t want to attract an audience of freebie seekers that will only consume your free content and resent you for trying to sell anything and earn a living.

I do think it’s beneficial to give away some great content in the form of articles and great videos, but overall these pieces of content are more about building a relationship with your readers rather than actually giving away your best secrets.

You want your readers to feel a personal connection to you and also through your blog posts and video know what you’re about.

But when it comes to delivering your most complete and revolutionary content, the place to do that is within your paid products. If you give away your best stuff, your readers will not even appreciate it as something valuable.

A blog should have interesting news, stories and videos that relate to your topic, but your true “how to solve a problem” content is what you sell.

Another possibility to add to that is to post excerpts from your paid products on your blog. For example, for my Raw Vegan DVDs I posted short, 2-minute excerpts from the DVD series so people could get an idea what it was about, and had great success with that.

The purpose of the excerpts is more to build credibility and being transparent about the quality of your information.

Avoiding Freebie Seekers

One big problem that many people run into is that they build a great list of readers — but nobody buys anything from them because all they are used to is getting free information.

It’s very difficult to transform a list of freebie-seekers into a list of excited customers.

The way to avoid that is to sell from the start.

When your website visitors sign up for your mailing list, present them with your best offer immediately. This is when they are more likely to be interested in buying it anyway.

Give them a great free bonus in exchange for signing up to your list, but also show them immediately that you have some great products to sell — right from the start.

If you don’t have any product to sell yourself, then promote as an affiliate a product from an author that jives with your philosophy.

You might occasionally get some people who complain about your marketing, but it will be far less than if you give away everything for free and then suddenly, a year later, come up with a product that you try to sell to them.

You essentially — right from the start — want to filter out the people who are only interested in getting free stuff, and try to attract the genuine truth-seekers who are willing to pay you in exchange for your hard work and great content.

For the past four years I’ve been spending my winters in Costa Rica. Each year, I’ve spent a minimum of four months and up to six months in what most people consider to be a tropical paradise.

That’s in addition to the several months I have spent traveling to this country before, and also visiting other beautiful tropical countries such as Panama, Thailand, Bali, Brazil and French Polynesia.

In just two weeks, my fiancée Veronica and I are also getting married in beautiful Costa Rica by some beautiful waterfalls near Dominical.

I’ve loved Costa Rica so much that I’ve thought several times of moving there permanently, making it my home base. Even this year, I looked seriously into completing the process of getting my residency there.

Yet, I’ve decided not to do this, and even more, when I leave in May I’m probably not going to come back to Costa Rica for many years.

Why this change of attitude?

Was I mugged in Costa Rica and in fear of my life?

Do I feel the country has become too expensive?

Do I think there’s some place in the world that’s more beautiful and more pristine?

Actually, it’s none of the above.

I feel that Costa Rica is pretty safe even though I’ve heard a lot about the rising crime situation in the Central Valley. I’ve personally never experienced any problem though.

As for the cost of living, I’ve always said that if your goal is to recreate the same exact lifestyle you had back home but for cheaper in a sunny third-world country — you better stay home because that’s just not going to happen.

And in all of my travels, I’ve actually never been to a place that’s as beautiful as Costa Rica in terms of pure, wild nature.

French Polynesia was the most stunning place I ever visited, but it lacks the amazing lushness and biodiversity that Costa Ricans enjoy.

So why am I crossing Costa Rica off my list of places where to live long-term?

To put it simply: I’ve realized that I love North America too much.

Not only do I miss North America when I’m in Costa Rica, but I also feel that North America is overall a much better place to live.

Don’t get me wrong: there are lots of things I love about Costa Rica, Panama and all these other beautiful developing countries. But I’m just not ready to make them my home base just yet.

In my course, How to Move to a Tropical Paradise, I emphasized what I called the “snowbird” solution, which is to keep your home base where you currently are, but use Costa Rica or another tropical country with a lower cost of living as a way to spend one or month or a few months every winter, while not increasing your overall living expenses.

I also warned people against making a decision too quick to move to a tropical paradise, because the reality of living there is far from their own dream and pre-conceived ideas.

Before I go into my reasons for not making any of these sunny, developing countries my home-base, let me first review what I like about Costa Rica:

* The climate can’t be beat, as long as you live in higher elevation. The weather by the beach is way too hot and sticky, with bugs and ants watching your every move. But in the Central Valley or the mountains, the climate is a dream, with year-round spring-like temperature.

* People are very friendly and welcoming to foreigners.

* The country is wonderful to visit and there are so many great things to do: visit volcanoes, parasailing, canopy tours, scuba diving, hiking, etc. If you’re on a vacation, you cannot be bored and the country offers so much more than just laying on the beach and doing nothing. Each part of the country is different with over 16 distinct micro-climates.

* It’s still very affordable compared to North America or Europe or even many tourist destinations, if you know where to look. Many things are cheaper including produce, rent, taxis, etc.

* Tropical fruits are incredible and you can go to many farmer’s market, talk to the growers and everyone is very friendly, offering your deals, giving you free produce with purchase.

* Animal sightings are almost guaranteed on a daily basis. We had beautiful Titi monkeys visit us regularly (The rare and smart squirrel monkeys), saw giant iguanas, tucans, sloths, etc.

* The country is very beautiful. Amazingly beautiful in fact.

I think Costa Rica, Panama and other countries such as Ecuador (where I’ve never been) have a lot to offer, and I could easily imagine myself spending one or two months a year in places like that during the winter.

Even up to three months, you can easily relax into the fact that your stay is temporary, and enjoy what the place has to offer that is different from your home country.

But as you move into longer stays (three months+), you start to realize how different the culture is and what the challenges are for living there long term.

I am not your typical tourist.
I speak relatively fluent Spanish, I know the ins and outs of Costa Rican culture, I know my way around most of the country, I know the cultural faux-pas, I read many books about Costa Rican history and culture… and I’m very open-minded.

And in spite of this, I’ve abandoned any project of establishing a long-term residence in Costa Rica, or even in its more modern neighbor Panama.

Here’s what’s on my mind:

1- Cost of Living — First of all, I think that cost of living can be a very relative thing. A busy Internet Marketer like me does not need a lot of the same things as a retired English teacher (expat).

I wasn’t going to move somewhere just to save money, but what I found is that even though there are lots of things that are cheaper in Costa Rica (such as fruits and vegetables!), imported products are more expensive, in a way that probably offset any possible savings as far as I’m concerned.

For a few years, I did indeed save a lot of money anytime I was in Costa Rica. But that’s because I was single and living in a tiny apartment that I rented for almost nothing, and I didn’t drive a car and returned to Canada after four months so I didn’t need to buy many things for the long term.

Last year, my fiancée and I ended up importing a lot of products that we needed (such as a computer we needed to replace) and paid a lot of money in import fees.

People who live in the USA and complain about the prices have NO idea how much cheaper almost everything is there compared to any country in the world. Canada is more expensive than the US but it’s still nothing compared to Europe.

The only things that are truly more expensive in the USA compared to Costa Rica are things like fresh produce, maybe rent and housing, and any labor-oriented services such as house cleaning, taxis, etc.

But everything else, from electronics to gasoline is significantly cheaper in the US.

If you lived a simple life in Costa Rica, there’s no doubt you would save some money. But if you’re young and busy and you want some comfort, I don’t think those savings will show. Overall it will average out to about the same cost of living.

Panama is cheaper, there’s no doubt about it. But it still suffers from the same shortcomings as Costa Rica in other areas.

2- Latin Mentality — There’s no getting around the fact that people in Latin America are just not as efficient as in North America. You can call it “Island Time”, or “A Different Pace of Living,” but the fact of the matter is that a lot of things don’t really get done very well.

From getting a decent internet connection to regular errands such as banking, the bureaucracy and inefficiency can be frustrating.

A lot of Ticos (Costa Ricans) will be the first to point it out. I remember a taxi driver who kept ranting about Costa Rica being a “culture of mediocrity”.

You can criticize a lot of things about Western culture but I do think we know how to get things done in reasonable time frames, and with the least amount of headaches.

Personally, the inefficiency of the latin culture didn’t bother me that much. I actually got used to taking my time. But in some key areas it was annoying:
a) Internet Service. It’s hard to get fast Internet service in the first place, and when you manage to get it, it might mysteriously stop functioning at the most random times, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just reset it and cross your fingers it will start working again shortly.

Power Outages. Again, the power could go out once a week or so at a random time, with no explanation. Usually for less than an hour, but still annoying when the timing is wrong. No power means no lights, no fan, no internet and in a hot climate this can be frustrating and you don’t really have anywhere else to go.

3- Food Selection and Shopping.

Again, a lot of people who have never left the US or Canada complain that the food selection sucks in their respective countries.

The reality is that North America (and other Western countries such as United Kingdom) have the best food selection in the world, period.

In Costa Rica, I must admit the local fruits are delicious. But you are usually limited to the basic varieties of pineapple, banana, papaya, watermelon and mangoes. Everything else is seasonal (including mangoes, but they are available half the year).

When it comes to vegetables, the selection is not that great outside of larger supermarket chains such as Auto-Mercado, which are more like a small high-end market in the US.

You can still get most of what you need, but the selection in North American stores is way better.
Also, you might think that organic food is widely popular in Costa Rica, but it’s not the case. Most of the beautiful fruits you see are grown with generous amounts of pesticides, and organic food is hard to come by, unless you have know some people or you grow it yourself. The heat and insects pose a number of problems for farmers and they’re not as informed about safe farming practices.

As for health food stores, they are non-existent in Costa Rica. The closest thing they have to a health food store are these mini-stores called “Macrobiotic” stores (which have nothing to do with the macrobiotic diet) selling all kinds of medicinal herbs and more natural body-care products with no food whatsoever.

Some supermarkets carry imported organic products such as almond butter (not raw of course), but the selection is pretty random and the products generally cost 20 to 30% more than in the US.

As for shopping in general, you can certainly find what you need but you’ll need to look hard for certain items.

For example, we couldn’t find a salad spinner anywhere, so we had to import one from Amazon. The Costa Ricans had ZERO idea what we were talking about when we asked everywhere.

Clothes you’ll find in stores are either one of two categories:

Name brand American clothes (mostly surf and skater designer brands) that will be way more expensive than if you bought them in North America.
Ultra-cheap clothes and fabric (think sub-Walmart quality)

As for electronics, a brand-new 13-inch Mac-Book Pro of the top of the line configuration can be purchased for about $1450 or Amazon.com in the US, but will sell for almost $2100 in Costa Rica!

Cars are also more expensive, by about 50% or more.

4- Driving in Costa Rica

Costa Rican drivers have a reputation for being some of the worst and most aggressive drivers in the world, and it’s not far from the truth.

The truth is that driving in Costa Rica is an adventure. Streets have no names and you have to rely on stone-age types of directions such as “100 meters south west of the Santa Elena church in the city of Curridabat” — it’s up to you to figure out where that is!

I must say I’m impressed to see how Costa Rican taxis know their town so well, for getting around everywhere without ever relying on a street sign anywhere!

Driving and getting around in North America is at least 1000% easier. Equipped with a GPS and an address, you can get around anywhere stress-free. But there’s no way you could use a GPS in Costa Rica the same way you can anywhere else! You can’t even use google maps for directions to ANYWHERE in Costa Rica.

Also, Costa Rica is just not safe for pedestrians. Driver’s don’t respect anyone’s safety and the streets are just not designed for walking. There are almost no sidewalks or shoulders on roads and no pedestrian crossings or lights. Therefore, taking a leisure walk is just not fun in most places, unless you go to a park.

Driving at night is also not safe because of the poorly lit roads and drunk drivers, and almost every road is a two-way lane.

5- Other Factors

I could go down the list of other minor factors, such as the fact that the sun sets at almost exactly 6 p.m. every night (which is not as fun as a later sunset! ), but the main factor for me are the ones that I have discussed and also isolation.

I love big cities and I also love nature and the country.

The best situation is when you can take advantage of both.

The dream of relocating full-time to a tropical paradise is most often a pipe dream for most people.

Hopefully, that’s never what I’ve promoted. My course and my approach has always been about generating passive income from your online business so you can live anywhere you want, and travel to the place you want, when you want it.

Some people might say, why not Panama? Why not Thailand?

I love all these places… but only to visit for 1 to 3 months at a time.

After our trip around the world next year, Veronica and I will probably relocate to British Columbia where there’s the most fruit and organic food in all of Canada, and where the climate is pretty mild compared to my home town of Montreal.

From there, we’ll continue to travel many months during the winter to tropical countries… but for now I’ve abandoned any idea of relocating to any of these places permanently.

How do we manage this lifestyle? If you want to find out about my method for building an online business that gives you complete freedom to travel and do what you love, go to www.dowhatyouloveuniversity.com/new.html and sign of for a trial membership of my Success Group program. You’ll get over $1700 in products immediately that you can put to use to make your dreams a reality!

For years, Internet marketers have relied on audio products for their back-end information products. The typical funnel of many marketers included low-cost, mass market books or eBooks on their front-end, and big packages of audio CDs on their back-end.

If you attended almost ANY business seminar just a few years ago, and took a look at what the speakers sold at the back of the room, almost all of them were selling big packages of CDs.

Compared to books, CDs had a much higher perceived value. One CD could typically be sold for $25, so a big package of 12 CDs could easily be sold for $250 or more.

At the time, everybody bought CDs. If you wanted music, you bought a CD. If you wanted to listen to personal development information, you got some CDs to play in your car.

Now fast-forward to 2010, and we’ll notice that CDs are on the way out. In my last survey to my list just 2 years ago, I found that at least 50% of my subscribers owned an MP3 player. Now in the age of smartphones, iPhones and iPods, the number of people who don’t own one of these devices is increasingly low. According to 24/7 WallSt:

Digital downloads accounted for 40% of all music sales in 2009, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

According to The Big Picture:

Another year, another collapse in CD sales.

For the eighth time in nine years, U.S. album sales declined. That’s according to data compiled by Nielsen SoundScan.

Album sales fell to 373.9 million units, a 12.7% decline from 2008. Total sales fell a whopping 52% since 2000. CDs still account for almost 80 percent of all album purchases.

Paid online song downloads continued to grow, but at a pace that was too slow to make up for lost CD sales.

Why do CDs still account for 80% of all album purchase? The answer is piracy. Most people get their music digitally, but more often than not, without paying for it. (By the way, I’m personally 100% against online music piracy and always purchase music on iTunes.)

A friend of mine, Paul Durham, is a full-time musician who publishes his own music for his amazing band Black Lab (see his strategy and listen to his music at www.blacklabworld.com).

He told me that 5 or 6 years ago, he still made 80% of his income from CD sales, and 20% from download. Now it’s the other way around, with iTunes being his main source of income (iTunes gives 70% of profits to the recording company, in this case, he gets all the profits since he’s self-publishing).

Even in my own life, although I sometimes still bought CDs for the extras (if it’s an artist I really liked), I’ve become so used to listening music digitally that I purchase almost all of my music on iTunes.

If I get a CD, I will immediately rip the CD and only listen to the music digitally on my iPod, only keeping the CD as a backup.

CD sales are going down, but with the average album selling for $9.95 on iTunes, the perceived value of digital audio has also gone down.

A big package of CDs still has more perceived value than a digital download of the same audios. But when faced with the choice between a package of downloadable MP3s at a lower price, and a package of CDs at a higher price (plus shipping), most customers now choose the digital download (at least that’s what I’ve found in my field).

There are other options of course. Some companies are even selling branded-media players (for example: http://www.myseminarplayer.com), or even flash-drives with pre-loaded content.

It’s the equivalent of selling people an iPod with your content on it!

Unfortunately, I think most people would value the iPod or other media player more than the actual content, which they can’t see or touch.

And they might even erase your content to make space for their music, because they value the player more than your content. So I don’t think the concept of branded media players will really fly.
CD Popularity Drops, Video Grows

At the same time, while CD popularity has dropped, almost everyone now owns a DVD player, and DVDs have now replaced old VHS 100%. Also, computers typically include a DVD drive and a lot of people use their computers to watch DVDs.

With the popularity of YouTube and online videos, video has become more and more important. Smart Internet marketers today are trying to push video products in their back-end, instead of relying on audio-only products.

Audio products also have their place, but video now has a higher perceived value.

The day has not yet arrived where DVDs are phased out completely to be replaced by digital video. Even before that happens, they will be most likely replaced by Blue-Ray discs for high-definition video. The bottom line: the physical video media discs are going to be with us for a long time, and their value will continue being perceived as high by the market.

So the reason why you should have video products is that they are perfect products for your back-end (the term “back-end” simply indicates the more expensive and important products that you offer, as opposed to the low-cost, entry level products such as books or eBooks. The term comes from the seminar world, where speakers would sell their products at the “back end” of the room).

How to Create a DVD Product

One of your goals should be to release a DVD product. Here are three main ways to create a DVD:

1) Film a live event, and put it on a DVD
2) Produce a DVD from scratch
3) Use screen-capture video

For more detailed information on how to create your own dvd products IN DETAIL and other internet business techniques check out my Do What You Love Success Group at http://www.dowhatyouloveuniversity.com/new.html

If you sign up now you’ll get access to our April newsletter
“How To Create and Sell Video Products” for only $9.95 for the first month!

Go to: http://www.dowhatyouloveuniversity.com/new.html

Find out how to make your own live videos, screen capture videos, the video editing software you need and how to determine what video your market needs.

Until next time!

Your question: What videos on health and alternative living are you most interested in on watching for free online and purchasing on DVD? What do you find the most value on?

In the last two weeks, I’ve been following very closely the launch of the Apple Tablet, unoriginally called “iPad”.

Unless you’ve been living under a cave, you know that there’s been a lot of hype around this tablet computer. In fact, one columnist at the Wall Street Journal said that “the last time there was so much excitement around a tablet, the 10 commandments were written on it!”

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In a typical Apple way, the marketing and anticipation around this product has been incredible. If you want to study how to launch a product, try to reproduce what Apple is doing in on a smaller scale, and you’ll be very successful!

iPad is launching on Saturday in the USA, and I must say I’ve never been as excited about a technology product as I am for this. I won’t be able to get one before the end of the month, but I can’t wait!

And more importantly, I’m very excited about where the eBook market is going, and I now believe that if by the end of 2010 you don’t have at least one or two eBooks for sale, you’d be a complete FOOL and you will be missing the boat in a major way. But more on that in a moment.

Why iPad Will Be a Game-Changer

A lot of people don’t really see how Apple could be successful launching what is essentially a “giant iPhone” and why this product is going to be revolutionary.

When I told a friend of mine, who’s also an Internet Marketer, why I was going to get an iPad, he predicted that Apple would fail with this product. He said, “I don’t really see the point of iPad. Try to sell it to me! You won’t be able to. It can’t everything a computer can, and it can’t fit in your pocket like an iPhone.”

My friend thought the only reason I would buy an iPad is because I tend to buy almost every product Apple makes.

Yet, I also believe my friend to be absolutely wrong and I’m 100% convinced the iPad will be a huge success.

First, why would you or anyone need a big multi-touch screen?

In a few words, it’s for the intimate experience you will develop with this device.

The iPad is essentially going to fill a need that isn’t filled by any other device at the moment.

It will serve as a content-consumption hub and practical mobile computer you can take anywhere.

People are going to use it to share photos with their friends, watch movies, write notes, surf the web on their couch — and do all these things that they could be doing using a computer, but in an experience that’s much more intimate and enjoyable.

The iPad is essentially a blank slate. The apps are going to make the device, just like the apps on the iPhone turned a “cool phone” into an indispensable device for many people.

eBooks and the iPad

One thing that people are going to do on the iPad is to read eBooks.

A few years ago, I thought that eBooks would soon be dead and be replaced by more exciting forms of media such as video.

And I was wrong!

Instead of dropping, eBook sales have increased! With the introduction of Amazon’s kindle, eBooks are more popular than ever.

But the problem with eBooks is that most people don’t really have any kind of device to read them.

The Kindle is supposed to be a solution for that, but Kindle has been designed for avid readers, not for the average person.

I own two Kindle and love them for reading non-fiction books and novels. It’s truly a great device and with the e-ink technology, you can read it in bright daylight and for long periods of time.

The Kindle only does one thing well: display text-heavy non-fiction books and novels. For other forms of documents, such as PDFs or documents containing a lot of maps, the Kindle is a terrible device.

The pages don’t refresh very fast, and images show up in black and white and are not always easy to use.

I thought for example that I could use the Kindle to avoid bringing travel books when I go on a trip, but because travel books contain a lot of images and maps, reading them on a Kindle is a poorer experience than on the book.

The Kindle is a revolution for readers everywhere, but the problem is that most people don’t read a lot.

The average person reads less than one book in a year, if they read at all.

They might buy eBooks or books once in a while, but never read them cover to cover.

So for the vast majority of people, the Kindle is simply not an attractive device.

Enter the iPad, with its gorgeous screen, multi-touch technology, blazing speed processor — a device that people can use to watch movies, browse the web, answer emails, share photos, and do a LOT of other things, in addition to occasionally reading eBooks.

NOW you have a device that can reach the masses, and where YOUR eBooks and other electronic content can be consumable.

A columnist recently said, “If you like your kids, get them an iPad. If you LOVE them, get them a Kindle”.

In other words, the iPad will be a great distraction and entertainment device, while the Kindle remains a reading device with more educational value.

Even though eBooks are popular, about 50% of my readers still prefer to pay more to get a hard copy of an eBook, even if in addition to the higher cost they have to pay for shipping.

But if they had an iPad, they would probably opt for the digital version, knowing that they can read it easily on that device, comfortable in their lazy chair.

I think it’s going to take a year or two for people to realize it, but the iPad is going to create a revolution in the computer world. You’ll start seeing people who might even ONLY get an iPad and no other computer, because it’s so easy to use and they don’t need to do much other than browsing the web, watching videos and sending emails.

Of course, right now the device is a little expense. The early adopters like me are going to get it first, but in a year or two, the price is probably going to go down to at about $299 for the entry-level model.

And by then, tens of millions of people will have a device they can use to read YOUR ebooks.

I’m seeing at the moment in my business that eBooks are easy to sell (especially if they contain additional multi-media bonuses such as videos).

eBooks are also easier to create than other types of information product.

If you’re NOT selling your eBooks yet, you NEED to get started. Are you going to sit there and miss the boat, or capture this opportunity and start earning a living on the Internet?

The best way to get started is my course “How to Write and Sell Your Own eBooks in 24 Hours or Less”:
http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/writeyourebook.html

Special iPad Offer:
If you order within the next 48 hours, get a 30% discount on the course! Use the coupon code IPAD

This morning I received a comment about my last article which was entitled “I Hate Winter.” The lady wrote:

“Fred, you sent out an email tonight stating that you hate the Winter season. Wow, that one struck me hard because the use of the word “hate” is very serious, and I couldn’t believe it would come from someone who is supposed to very much deep into nature. What’s going on with this picture? I think you need to apologize to nature and all of your members. I did not appreciate that email and hopefully, in the future you don’t send out an email like that to me anymore. I do not like the use of the word, there is too much animosity there on nature.”

Now, it struck me that this person would actually take everything I write quite literally.

“Apologize to nature” she tells me!

You’ve got to be kidding me!

So let me explain for all of you wannabe Internet Marketers the reason of the use of the word “Hate”.

In case you don’t know, I have two websites, and two separate email newsletters.

One is my www.fredericpatenaude.com website and the topic is health and raw foods.

The other one is www.dowhatyoulove.com, and this is the ezine you’re reading now. The topic is “Making a living doing what you love”.

The emphasis here is really on earning a living with your own business, as in “starting your own website and selling products on the Internet.”

For most people, what I do is a dream job.

I write, I publish ezines, I get to do what I love, I travel around the world and I make a living with my passion.

And I’ve been doing it since 1998.

When I was younger, once people found out what I did for a living they would often ask me in disbelief, “And you’re able to earn a living doing THAT?”

Imagine them saying it with an emphasis with the word “THAT”.

They imagined that kid like me (remember I started when I was 21) couldn’t possibly create a life without a job, traveling the world doing something I loved, and earning a full-time living at that.

Another person asked me “Could you feed a family with what your little business earns?”

I translated that as: “Yeah, you’re young and single and you don’t have kids, sure you can live like a bum on 20K a year but I have a family to feed, so I need my day job to earn more.”

Once I looked older, enough people stopped asking me these questions and since they often met me in exotic tropical places, they figured that what I was doing was probably working! Many became really interested in what I did.

Don’t kid yourself, I’m not a millionaire, but hat’s not my goal.

And I also know that I could be making way more than I currently do if I compromised my values and started selling what people really WANT, as opposed to what they really NEED, such as miracle superfoods and supplements.

But compromising my values is really not my thing.

Bottom line, my business is still relatively simple to manage, allowing me and my future wife enough freedom to do what we want.

I’m not complaining. My business often generates in a month what many people make in an entire year, and all that selling information products that can change people’s lives, and without the hassle of a big business that would take up all my time.

I love what I do, and the reason I’m telling you this is that if you’re subscribed to the “Do What You Love Email Tips“, there’s probably a good reason you would want to try to do the same.

So when that lady wrote (and I often get similar emails) criticizing my use of the word “Hate”, I thought I could write up an article with a quick lesson in Internet Marketing.

I Don’t Literally Hate Anything

When I was sitting down and sending my ezines, at first my subject line for the email was “I Forgot About the Winter”.

Then I thought about it for a moment, and realized that this subject line, which I think of as a headline almost, was not interesting enough, and didn’t catch attention.

I don’t spend as much time as I should on all my email subject lines, but I knew this was a bad one.

So I replaced it with “I Hate Winter.”

I thought it would get a bit more attention.

Here’s a lesson in writing on the Internet:

You Cannot Be Boring!

If I look back at the articles I wrote that got the most comments, the most attention, that were the most forwarded and generated the MOST sales, they were all on topics that didn’t leave anyone indifferent.

For example, I wrote an article last year called “Why I’m MAD at the Raw Food Movement” that got posted all over the Internet, and generated probably 10 times as many sales as my normal ezines.

Why?

Because it was controversial. Because I took a strong stand on an issue, even if that didn’t please everybody.

Even then, some people wrote back to me because and were telling me that I shouldn’t be “MAD” at anything, because “anger” wasn’t a good thing!

Why do some people have to take everything SO literally!

Of course, I was not actually “mad” at the raw food movement. I was passionate about the issue, that’s for sure, but there was not a feeling of anger in my heart.

Yet, the title of that article was the best I could have used!

Can you imagine if I had titled my article, “Why The Raw Movement Makes Me Unhappy”…

Same thing for my “I Hate Winter” email.

I don’t actually “hate” winter like I would probably “hate” an enemy that might do something very bad to me.

No, wait a minute… revise that! To tell you the truth, I actually do hate the winter…

At least, that’s what I thought many times as I was freezing and fighting the elements during the heart of the winter in Canada, when just going outside for 5 minutes was a major endeavor!

But you know what I mean. The actual emotion is more “dislike” but the word “hate” sounds more convincing.

The bottom line is this: if you want to make a living doing what you love on the Internet, and if you want to succeed in this field, you’re going to have to write.

You cannot just write boring little articles and tips.

Sometimes, you have to take a stand on an issue and be willing to speak your mind, even if that makes some people angry.

Remember, like Don Miguel Ruiz wrote in his awesome book “The Four Agreements”.

“Don’t take anything personally. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”

Let me tell you, if I actually worried anytime someone disagreed with me on something that I wrote, I wouldn’t have had any time to live my life.

When I get an email like the one I just showed you, I just smile! Or laugh. I certainly don’t take things personally.

I’ve been doing what I do for too long to know that there are always people that take things too literally.

Like the great marketer Dan Kenney once said, “If you haven’t offended anyone by noon, you’re probably not working!”

If you’re telling me that nobody ever disagrees with you and you NEVER get any negative comments anywhere, then I will say, “you’re probably not earning a full-time living doing this.”

The one thing I know for sure that every full-time Internet market has in common is that they get negative comments from people who take things personally.

In fact, get four or five Internet Marketers in the same room and they’ll probably start ranting about the craziest comments they’ve ever received!

In conclusion, I will not apologize to Nature, because I’m sure Nature is pretty indifferent to my little email newsletter.

I’m quite certain that I did not offend “Nature” enough to take its revenge upon me and bring snow and cold all the way down to Costa Rica to punish me!

What do you think?