Fortunes Creator

As a writer of both fiction and nonfiction, it is only natural that I would encourage everyone to pay for the information that they want and need. But in all honesty, I have a hard drive full of free reports, ebooks, audio files and now video clips that I have collected from participating in about a trillion JV “Giveaways” over the past few months. Of this glut of information using up valuable space on my valuable PC, I estimate that I have gotten to peruse only about 5% of it, if even that.

Sure, I’ve tried to force myself to delete as much of it as possible, but like George Costanza’s father who so passionately cataloged each and every TV Guide he’d received over the past 40 years, I just can’t let go. I know there’s not enough time for me to ever put it all into my own memory bank; even if I had the mental capacity to hold it all, I certainly don’t have the wits to make use of it once it was in there anyway.

However, I have made time to read and ponder some of the ebooks I have acquired. Which ones, you may ask? The ones I PAID for! You can bet your boots that I found the time to read those puppies. If I buy an ebook or pay for a download of any sort of media, I feel a terrible guilt until I gleen as much info from it as I can.

It goes back to that crusty old truth that we all know and hate…if you give something to someone, they don’t appreciate it. If you sell something to someone, they’re likely to treasure it.

Another good reason to pay for the information that you consume is this: People who charge for what they write are more likely to provide quality work. Time and again, I have discovered in the multitude of files I have received for “free” (i.e. in exchange for my first name and email address and endless hours deleted unwanted promotional email from these internet marketing ‘gurus’), scripts that don’t work, ebooks I can’t even open, and information that is outdated by years.

Often, you’ll get that feeling of deja vu as you read something you thought you’d never come across before. That’s because they changed the cover art and the title on an ebook that you read back in 2003 (and probably didn’t put to any good use back then).

Now I don’t mean to get on the bad side of internet marketers, but if I get one more email from some self-proclaimed “guru” pushing somebody else’s latest and greatest ebook that is sure to change the face of the internet as we know it, I’m going to bleach my hair, buy colored contacts and change my email address so they can’t find me. I don’t mind getting emails promoting products…I’ve discovered a lot of great things through email marketing. What I hate is getting the EXACT SAME COOKIE-CUTTER EMAIL from a bunch of different people.

It’s the main reason I have chosen to stay away from email marketing myself. I find it irritating that these marketers think I’m such a chump that I won’t notice that they couldn’t even be bothered to customize the form emails they’re sending out to make it at least seem like guru so-and-so may really be their “good friend”. This last bit of ranting may be a non-sequitur, but I couldn’t hold back.

In any case, the internet has spawned a generation of writers and encouraged people who thought they could barely write their own names to express themselves, share their experiences and help educate and entertain us all. Writing is hard work, and people who care enough to pound the keys and put out text that others can actually use should be rewarded for their efforts.

I have been criticized myself for charging for my ebook, “How to Get High-Quality Plastic Surgery…CHEAP!” solely because the people who are looking for low cost plastic surgery feel that since they are having a hard time scraping together the money for their liposuction, I should offer up my years of (agonizing) experience, research, writing and editing to them on a silver platter gratis.

My defense is this…if the information I’ve discovered the hard way will save Stella $30,000 on her plastic surgery, she ought to happily cough up 20 or 30 bucks towards the facelift I’m going to be needing following the many hours I’ve spent absorbing radiation from my flat panel monitor and the extra butt lipo I need from the resultant ’secretary spread’.

Paying for information can save you hours and hours of precious time…time you could be spending with loved ones, watching TV, sleeping, sitting at the end of a bar swilling a cold brew or brewing up a batch of bathtub crystal meth. Whatever your preference. I’m not here to judge, just to remind you that internet research is time consuming, frustrating and often discouraging. How many times have you opened web site after web site you thought had the info you were looking for, only to find it’s got no relation to your topic of interest?

Nine times out of 10 you really do get what you pay for when it comes to paying for information…and if you don’t, it is much easier to get a refund on an ebook purchase than it is to trot back down to the Barnes and Noble and try to return the coffee-ringed, dogeared edition of Harry Potter and the Torture Chamber of Doom that you found a little too predictable. Capisce?

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The author, JoAnn Roselli, is a successful living consultant, screenwriter, webmaster, entrepreneur, real estate investor and author of “How to Get High-Quality Plastic Surgery…CHEAP!” She resides in the Dominican Republic with her husband and their 12-year-old son.