Is it best to make rational decisions with your brain, or just go with your gut? Are people who insist on logic making the best use of all available information, or are they missing out on something far more powerful?

We always hear that sometimes you just have to listen to your gut. What exactly is the gut, anyway? Dictionary.com offers this definition:

“the alimentary canal, esp. between the pylorus and the anus, or some portion of it”

If I had to pick a body part other than the brain to listen to, I’m not sure this would have been my first choice. Why not the skin, heart, or solar plexus, or even the appendix? But anyway, I’m willing to consider that maybe we do underestimate the decision-making power of our intestines.

I asked about it on Twitter, and got a couple of responses. @Armen said:

“My gut has told me some very smart things that I have ignored and paid for, but I hear your point there [that the brain is more likely to be right]…It sure is overrated. On the other hand, it is underrated by folks who ignore it until problems show up…Some that come to mind here are gut telling to see dentist, or to come clean on lie, or to try a biz opportunity”

But even if the gut works in these cases, is it the best source of advice?

Regarding the dentist, you can listen to the calendar that says to go every six months, or to your nerves that say you have a toothache. Regarding the lie, you could listen to your conscience and not lie in the first place.

As for the business opportunity, this is where I can see the gut being helpful. Many business ideas that looked crazy on paper have become huge successes. In these cases, only a gut feeling could convince someone to follow through without a logical reason.

But gut feelings can also lead people astray, such as the gambler who “just knows” that his luck is about to change (only it doesn’t). How do you sort out the accurate gut feelings from all the rest?

Maybe the best idea is to use the gut not as a replacement for the brain, but as an idea generator to brainstorm (intestinestorm?) potential options before handing them over to the brain for evaluation.

Back to Twitter, @MiscBytes said:

“Gut” is just our brain using shortcuts it’s already figured out! http://www.miscbytes.com/gut-feelings/

The linked post mentions a book that talks about the brain quickly using rules of thumb to make its best guess without analyzing all the data. This best guess is known as a “gut feeling.”

It’s not always right, of course. Gut feelings would tell you that a bowling ball falls faster than a grape, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, that there are no irrational numbers in the Cantor set, and that it’s better to upgrade a Prius than a Suburban (see When Logic And Intuition Fail).

But while poring over all the data might be better in theory, a gut feeling often works well when facing a shortage of time. An excess of data can also overwhelm you, blinding you to the answer that your intuition can clearly see.

Right now, think of some either-or decision you have to make, something you haven’t thought out yet. Going to work tomorrow vs. taking a day off, having a healthy meal vs. junk food, buying this house vs. the other one, something like that.

I’m going to flip a coin to help you decide. Heads, you take the first option. Tails, you take the second. Ready?

The coin is in the air…I’ve caught it, and it’s…

But I don’t need to say what it is. You already know what you want it to be. This is your gut talking. Does it conflict with your brain? And which organ will win?

Photo by mikebaird

[Hoping to get your book published? Here is the continuation of yesterday's interview with Ian Coburn.]

Hunter:

What is it that publishers look for in a book? Or for that matter, do they know what they’re looking for?

There was a guy who tried an experiment with Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, and Persuasion. He changed the titles, put the name of Alison Laydee on them, and sent a few chapters to 18 publishers. One of them recognized the books; the other 17 rejected them or didn’t respond.

If Jane Austen isn’t good enough, what’s an aspiring author to do?

Ian:

Well, in all fairness, some of the publishers may have recognized the works and tossed the queries, baffled that an author thought he could pull the wool over their eyes. That being said, most of the queries probably just didn’t get read or were only quickly perused. They came via the route outlined on the publisher’s site or in guides, where they didn’t get past editorial assistants—aka the gatekeepers. Publishers are looking to do as little work as possible, just like the rest of us. The more you can bring to the table, the better. Overall, it seems they want an angle, the bigger the better. This is why people who aren’t authors get deals—prostitutes who sleep with governors, governors who get fired, etc. The media eats up the stories and that gets publishers seeing dollar signs.

Don’t worry about what publishers want. What do readers want? That’s where your focus should be. To get a publisher, then, show publishers you have what readers want.

Hunter:

How much of the marketing responsibility falls on the author versus the publisher? Time you spend marketing is time that you could have spent writing another book. How do you find a balance between promoting what you have and coming up with more?

Ian:

All marketing is you. Repeat; all marketing is you. If you get lucky enough to have your publisher market your work, great; that’s a huge bonus. But go in with the attitude that all marketing is on you because it is. Market smart. I went to the Printer’s Row Book Fair in Chicago a few years ago to market God is a Woman: Dating Disasters. A lot of authors sat behind tables, waiting for visitors to approach them. I handed out bookmarks advertising my book, mingling with the crowd. I gave out hundreds (these people were buying books; they needed free bookmarks!) and saw my sales on Amazon jump up over the following couple weeks. You should always be going after your audience—reaching out to bloggers, handing out free bookmarks to readers, speaking, and so forth, as opposed to waiting for your audience to come to you.

Near and following the release of any book don’t plan on doing any writing. All your time will be spent marketing, as it should be. As long as you are getting results—media interviews, blogger reviews, a flow of reviews on Amazon—you should keep marketing hard. It will taper off and as it does, you can then get back into writing. Eventually, all marketable interest will wane and you can then focus nearly entirely on writing again. I say “nearly” because you should always keep an eye open for marketing opportunities, typically by monitoring journalist and media queries for material. (Get on the “Help a Reporter Out” list, also known as “HARO”; it is a free list of queries from the media that goes out three times a day.)

Hunter:

Is it best to write the book first and then try to get it published, or get a publisher to accept the book first and then write it? If I recall correctly, Tim Ferriss took the latter approach with The 4-Hour Workweek. The problem with the former is that it puts a lot of faith in “if you build it, they will come.”

Ian:

Again, it really depends on what’s important to you. For me, it’s typically most important to get my ideas on the page. Writing is a release of my ideas that I want to share. It’s most important to me to share the ideas. If I don’t find a publisher who wants to pay me to write my ideas, that’s not good enough in some cases. I can’t just go to the next project. I want people to at least have the chance to get the information, so I start the project as I pitch it. I was halfway through God is a Woman when the publisher picked it up. Only small publishers wanted my latest as I pitched, so I completed it without signing with anyone, hoping to get a big publisher interested at some point. (I didn’t query many big publishers, wanting to hold off until I have a lot of page hits to show them.)

Generally speaking, most nonfiction work isn’t completed past the first few chapters until a publisher is found. Fiction work is almost always done before you start pitching. Is it most important to you to get paid for your work or to complete your work? If you wait for a publisher to pick it up, there is a very good chance your work will never be written. (Some experts purport that completing a nonfiction work ahead of time is the mark of an amateur; however, more and more publishers are asking to see complete works for nonfiction.)

Hunter:

People such as Steve Pavlina, Hugh MacLeod, Jonathan Fields, and Gary Vaynerchuk got their book deals in large part because of their popular websites. Not that they built up their online presence for the purpose of publishing a book down the road, but since they had the traffic, there was much less risk for the publishers.

When does it make sense to build up an online audience first, versus going directly for the book deal without any internet fame?

Ian:

I’m living proof that you don’t need Internet fame to achieve success with a book. Some popular blogs and sites don’t do well as books. Should you write a blog? Build an Internet following with a site? Blogging and writing a book are two very different types of writing. Take me for example. I’m not a good blogger because I tend to have one complete idea. I don’t have all the continually fresh content a blog needs. I’m more, “Here’s what I have to say. Here’s what works. Follow it, make it your own, take what works, discard the rest, and it will work for you. That’s all I got.” This works very well in a book because a book has a start, a middle, and an end. Blogs can often be entered at any point and don’t end. Bloggers often struggle writing books because they need to have an end and content that doesn’t only start a debate but also closes it. Next thing you know, the blogger has a variety of similar ebooks and books because he didn’t complete the thought in the first book. It can get confusing for readers; which one should they read first? Or should they just stick with the blog? I prefer to speak rather than blog, which is why I have a vlog/blog. The site serves mostly to provide applications of what I discuss in my second book as examples of implementation.

It all boils down to sincerity. If your writing is sincere it will find an audience because people want sincerity more than anything today. Sincerity sells. It makes a site, blog, or book popular, if even in just a niche. I wrote God is a Woman because I wanted to share my funny sexual and dating misadventures while giving readers, especially college students, the chance to learn from my mistakes so they could avoid them. I couldn’t go back and fix things in my own life to make unhappy experiences happy but I could share my experiences so others could avoid the same pitfalls and be happy. That’s what made it get noticed even without a popular site or name on the Internet. Sincerity is what made audiences laugh when I was a comedian.

If you’re not a recognized name in your topic, it is best to start a blog or site sharing your work as you create it. It can only help. You can still pitch while creating the site; no harm, no foul.

Hunter:

Ian, thanks for all this information. There’s plenty here that will give people a leg up on their competition.

Any questions for Ian? Ask away!

After ten years as a comedian, where he holds the entertainment industry record of 106 straight weeks touring, Ian Coburn no longer wanted to entertain people; he wanted to help them achieve their goals, just as he had with comedy. “There is no better feeling; no greater sense of accomplishment.” His tangible decision-making process for making good choices is shared in his second book, currently available for free download at www.bestpossiblechoice.com, where you will also find examples of its implementation.

Writing a book is one thing. Getting it published is another. And people who pull off the former beautifully often flop at the latter.

For those of you who’d love to see your literary masterpiece get the widespread distribution it deserves, how can you maximize your chances? Let’s ask someone who’s done it.

You may have seen comedian-turned-author Ian Coburn in the comment section on my blog. His first book, God is a Woman: Dating Disasters is available in bookstores and on Amazon. His second book, Choice – The Meaning of Life: How to Have More and Better Choices in Business, Relationships, Government and Life, is temporarily available for free online.

Over the next two posts, Ian will tell us about his adventures in publishing, and the advice he has for aspiring authors.

Ian:

First, I just wanna thank you for taking the interest in interviewing me about publishing; I’m flattered and happy to offer any insight I can. Hopefully it will prove helpful.

Hunter:

When God is a Woman: Dating Disasters came out, you got hit with a sudden wave of fame. What was that like?

Ian:

Unexpected. In many ways. I didn’t have a blog until after I wrote the book and it seemed like only I, my family, and two friends knew about it . . . none of whom actually read it. Yet, suddenly, a month into the book’s official release, I started getting emails asking dating questions from as far away as Norway and South Africa—I live in Chicago—and it jumped in sales on Amazon. I didn’t even know there was an Amazon.co.uk and when I checked it out, I was surprised to see the book selling there well, too.

How the hell did people hear about it? Sure, I was working hard to write articles for sites and doing interviews, but a lot of ‘em hadn’t even come out yet. And things kept growing. I discovered that in addition to my own efforts to spread the word, bloggers and these people called “pick-up artists” (pua’s)—whom I had never heard of before—were blogging and writing about it. They compared it to other books and liked it a lot because it was different than anything else out there. At the same time, women loved it because they got to read about a guy making an ass of himself as well as gain insight into the male mind. What woman doesn’t want those things? (Lifetime actually hired me to answer women’s questions on their site for a year under a column entitled “Ask A Guy” after they checked out the book; another surprise.) I became what I affectionately call “Internet Friends” with some of these people and because I answered each and every email eventually, I got even more word of mouth. The review on Legal Pub especially comes to mind; again, someone I had never heard of previously. I also owe a lot to reviews on Amazon, where it got good word of mouth, too.

It was also very different. I was a comedian from basically 18-30. I was used to getting responses in laughter and applause. I met fans after the shows in-person, immediately. I had only face-to-face encounters and lots of ‘em. Suddenly I was getting emails and nothing face-to-face. It’s weird for a people-person like me to realize that the Internet was this huge social dynamic. You can learn about and contact people you might otherwise never have met. Prior to releasing the book, I had never used the Internet for social purposes beyond emailing the various sports teams I captain weekly game times. Other people were using it to date, get jobs, make friends, find roommates, plan trips . . . Wow, did I have a lot to learn! Mostly, the wave was flattering and fulfilling, as people thanked me for writing a book that helped them while making them laugh.

Hunter:

These days, there are more publishing options than there were in the past.

For your first book, you went with a small publisher and got it into bookstores. For your second book, you currently have it freely available online with a suggested $10 donation. My first novel is freely available online and supported by ads. Tim Brownson and John Strelecky sell their book on their website, and reinvest 90% of the proceeds in printing copies for those who can’t afford them. And companies such as CreateSpace and Lulu let anyone self-publish their book.

How does someone decide which method Is best for them?

Ian:

Ha! As you know, I am big on answering what I call the Basic Life Concept Questions, BLC’s for short. The questions are:

What do you need? What’s important to you? What are your responsibilities? What are your limitations? What I love about the BLC’s is that you’re not limited to just applying them to your whole life; you can also apply them to any aspect of your life. Redecorating your kitchen? What do you need in your kitchen? What’s important to you in your kitchen? I apply them to all my big projects, including my books. I advise other authors to do the same.

For my first book, it was important for me to have control over content to “keep it real” and to see it on bookstore shelves. I wanted to see my name on a book at Barnes & Noble and other stores. That was big. (Not many people realize it but few books actually get shelved. What you see at a bookstore is only a small percentage of the number of books actually published.) For my latest book, it was no longer important for me to see the book on bookstore shelves. It is important for me to get a big publisher, though, because I had to focus too much on publishing issues with my first book. For example, each week I sent B&N and Borders a letter updating my media appearances and reviews. This is why they finally shelved the book. I shouldn’t have had to do that. It’s also important for me to get the information in the book out to as many people as possible; I am eager to help others achieve their goals and the tangible system I teach is a great vehicle for achieving your goals. So I put the book online as a free ebook, asking for donations, to help spread the word and build an audience; hence, I am in the position to reach people and garner interest from a big publisher.

One thing that drives me nutso, especially in fields like the arts or publishing, is that experts always assume that every artist or author or comedian or musician or whoever has the same priorities and are in the same position to go after them; thus, their advice tends to be narrow and incomplete. You’ll be much better off if you identify what your specific priorities are, and what position you’re in to go after them, from the start, before you think about publishing. Then go after the appropriate publisher.

Hunter:

If someone wants to go with a traditional publisher, how do they find and approach them?

Ian:

All right, against all better judgment, I’m going to share a huge secret with you. It goes against better judgment because I know there are people reading this who are thinking, “I am a great writer. I should be treated like a great writer by all,” and because of this attitude they do everything half-past. These people always piss in the pond for the rest of us. So I’ll preempt my answer by telling everyone out there reading this not to send anything to any agent or publisher, using the approach I’m about to share, until you’ve had a professional editor check your work over. I don’t mean your friends; I don’t mean bloggers; I don’t mean an English teacher you know. I mean a professional editor. Or, alternatively, until you have a foundation.

When I say foundation, I mean you’ve already been published by someone big, or have a successful book, or have published numerous articles for which you’ve been paid, or have a large blog following, or are an A-list talent, and such. (If you are a prostitute who slept with a president or an infamous drug dealer, that is not enough. You still need an editor to reach out using this method; however, a big publisher will probably contact you before you even think about writing a book.) If an editor says your work isn’t ready, follow the traditional advice you get in Writer’s Market and other such places. I mean it. If you just start following what I’m about to share, sending in outlines you wrote on napkins while drunk with your friends, your delusional butt is going to ruin this approach for everyone. You’ll literally kill it.

Forget all the advice you get outside being professional and polished. All you need to know is this: In the back of almost every book authors write “Acknowledgements.” They name their agent. They name their editors and publishers. Google those names to see where these people are currently working. Still at Crown? HarperCollins? With the same agency? If you can find the email pattern at a publisher, like HarperCollins, email the person. As long as you have credibility, they will respond and typically request what you offer to send them. If you can’t determine their email, send them a letter addressed specifically to them at the publisher or agency for which they work. Again, as long as you have credibility, you will hear from them.

I’ve gotten key personnel at publishing houses across the board (small to huge) to read my pitches using this method and they have all responded with feedback, including the much welcomed constructive criticism. Which reminds me, if you don’t want to receive criticism, another sign you are not ready to consider publishing, don’t use this method. You’ll piss off whoever you contact when you reply to their feedback by telling them they don’t know what they’re talking about, arguing for your content, etc.

Hunter:

What are some common mistakes that first time authors make, or red flags that they should watch out for?

Ian:

Oops, I kind of answered this in the previous question. (I tend to do that a lot.) Lack of humility. Thinking you’re the bomb keeps you from finding tools to measure your ability. How do you know you’re stuff is good? Really?

My first manuscript was a fiction, sci-fi thriller called IP. My friends told me it rocked, except for one who told me it was “painful;” he couldn’t finish it no matter how hard he tried. I entered it into a couple contests to gauge my ability. I didn’t place. I left it on the shelf for a while and re-read it months later. My friend was right; it was painful. The manuscript sucked.

When I started to write screenplays, I entered contests for feedback and to measure my ability. I had no idea whether or not my stuff was good because it was a new medium for me. The feedback let me know I was on the right track. I won a contest and that got me a lot of attention, landing me my first manager.

Being humble kept me from sending IP to publishers and screenplays to producers before I had properly measured both them and my abilities. When writers aren’t humble they ignore all feedback and don’t bother with having their stuff measured. Remember, it’s much easier to open doors that are unlocked than it is to open ones that have been slammed in your face or to cross bridges that you burned by being premature. It’s great—and a necessity—to be enthusiastic and tenacious; just don’t be cocky.

Watch out for publishers or agents who want money from you in any way, shape or form. If you choose to publish via a POD publisher, don’t go with any that charge you more than cost for your book. You will need to send free copies to tons of places for reviews and possible media attention. Why should you pay 30% less than retail, well over cost, for those copies? A POD who charges authors extra money doesn’t believe in their authors or their products. They aren’t truly interested in selling your book to people; they’re interested in selling it to you!

[Come back tomorrow for the rest of the publishing interview...what publishers are looking for, marketing, selling a book before writing it, and leveraging internet fame.]

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

Thus begins the classic 1980 computer game known as Zork I. The player is suddenly thrust into this world, and given little direction. The possibilities are endless, and it turns out that the narrator understands English fairly well.

It occurred to me that someone’s response in this situation could serve as a psychological test of sorts. Like an inkblot, there’s not really a right answer, but your choice could reveal factors such as motivation, temper, patience, initiative, persistence, creativity, assertiveness, etc.

Left to your own devices, what would you do if you found yourself standing west of a white house, next to a small mailbox? (The following are all valid commands and actual responses from the game.)

>look at house
The house is a beautiful colonial house which is painted white. It is clear that the owners must have been extremely wealthy.

>walk
What do you want to walk?

>walk me
You should supply a direction!

>walk to house
It’s here!

>find house
It’s right here! Are you blind or something?

>knock on door
Nobody’s home.

>enter house
I can’t see how to get in from here.

>kick door
Kicking the door has no effect.

>hit door
What do you want to hit the door with?

>hit door with hands
I’ve known strange people, but fighting a door?

>look at mailbox
The small mailbox is closed.

>clean mailbox
If you wish, but heaven only knows why.

>eat mailbox
I don’t think that the small mailbox would agree with you.

>drive mailbox
What a bizarre concept!

>kiss mailbox
I’d sooner kiss a pig.

>burn house
What do you want to burn the house with?

>inventory
You are empty-handed.

>burn house with hands
With a pair of hands??!?

>destroy house with mailbox
Trying to destroy the white house with a small mailbox is futile.

>destroy mailbox with house
Trying to destroy the small mailbox with a white house is futile.

>kill myself
What do you want to kill the myself with?

>kill myself with hands
Suicide is not the answer.

>kill troll
What do you want to kill the troll with?

>kill troll with hands
You can’t see any troll here!

>wait
Time passes…

>stand
You are already standing, I think.

>swim
Go jump in a lake!

>jump in a lake
You can’t see any lake here!

>jump
Wheeeeeeeeee!!!!!

>jump
Are you enjoying yourself?

>jump
Do you expect me to applaud?

>jump
Very good. Now you can go to the second grade.

>talk
What do you want to talk to?

>talk to house
You can’t talk to the white house!

>talk to myself
Talking to yourself is said to be a sign of impending mental collapse.

>damn
Such language in a high-class establishment like this!

>eat myself
Auto-cannibalism is not the answer.

>pick up mailbox
It is securely anchored.

>pick up house
You can’t be serious.

>pick up house
A valiant attempt.

>what is
What do you want to what?

>what is love
I don’t know the word “love”.

>kick mailbox
Kicking the small mailbox isn’t notably helpful.

>touch mailbox
Fiddling with the small mailbox doesn’t seem to work.

>open mailbox
Opening the small mailbox reveals a leaflet.

>take leaflet
Taken.

>read leaflet
“WELCOME TO ZORK!

ZORK is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortals. No computer should be without one!”

>zork
At your service!

>xyzzy
A hollow voice says “Fool.”

>destroy leaflet
What do you want to destroy the leaflet with?

>destroy leaflet with hands
Trying to destroy the leaflet with a pair of hands is futile.

>drop
What do you want to drop?

>drop all except leaflet
It’s not clear what you’re referring to.

>drop myself
You don’t have the you.

>drop leaflet
Dropped.

>say “hello”
Hello.

>say “hello”
Good day.

>say “hello”
Goodbye.

>say “hello”
Nice weather we’re having.

>listen to myself
The you makes no sound.

>take myself
How romantic!

>win
Naturally!

>lose
Preposterous!

>mumble
You’ll have to speak up if you expect me to hear you!

>yell
Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

>repent
It could very well be too late!

>find myself
You’re around here somewhere…

>count myself
You have lost your mind.

>look at myself
That’s difficult unless your eyes are prehensile.

>smell myself
It smells like a you.

>damn myself
Insults of this nature won’t help you.

>don’t
I don’t know the word “don’t”.

>say “goodbye”
Nothing happens.

>quit
Your score is 0 (total of 350 points), in 75 moves.
This gives you the rank of Beginner.
Do you wish to leave the game? (Y is affirmative?): >y
***END OF SESSION***

This is gonna be a really short review, because some things just don’t need a hard sell.

1. Skellie wrote an ebook called the Blog Business Funnel. People love everything she writes, and this ebook is no exception.

2. It’s about how to build a freelancing business from work that comes to you through your blog. Mind you, it has to be a relevant blog – you can’t get banner design work by blogging about underwater basket weaving. But if you already have a blog that’s related to what you’d like to freelance in, you’ve got a big head start.

3. If you’re a freelancer who doesn’t have enough work, or if you have a blog that’s not making money, you should take a look at this. It only took Skellie 11 months to go from zero to $8,000 a month in her freelance writing/copywriting/consulting business, and she was even a full-time student at the time.

If you haven’t thought about freelancing before, this might be a great option for you. Skellie makes a good point in the opening of her ebook – instead of working your butt off in search of the elusive 4-hour workweek, you could be making good money and enjoying flow moments right now – using the skills you already have.

What kinds of skills are we talking about? Writing, drawing, programming, designing, and photography are common examples. If you have a skill that people will pay for, you can turn it into a freelancing business. And if you use a blog to funnel traffic to your portfolio and services pages, it can become a pretty darn profitable one.

Others have done it. Why not you?

What does physics have to do with making money online? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

Our scientific understanding has advanced greatly over the centuries. But while our knowledge has brought plenty of complications, in a way it has also made things simpler. We can now explain the workings of the universe with just four fundamental forces:

- Gravity
- Electromagnetism
- Strong nuclear force
- Weak nuclear force

The number of fundamental forces has come down over time. For example, electricity, magnetism, chemical bonds, friction, etc., once thought to be separate forces, are now known to just be different aspects of an electromagnetic field.

If we’ve now reduced physics to four fundamental forces, might we someday get it down to just one? This is the search for a unified field theory.

Physicists disagree about whether one is possible. There have been proposals for how to combine electromagnetism with the weak force, but incorporating the strong force is problematic, and gravity really throws a wrench in the works.

There have been different unification theories, but so far they’ve all had holes. Maybe there really are four fundamental forces that can’t be put under a bigger umbrella.

Making money online

Much has been written about how to make money online, but when you look at the big picture, what are the principles at work? How many truly different ways are there to make money online? Does it all come down to just one?

People say that to make money online, you need to write for people, not search engines. Well, no, you don’t. Nor do you have to solve an urgent problem, or be authentic, or target a lucrative niche, or any of the other things that people say you have to do.

Yes, these are all good ideas, but each one has plenty of counterexamples. For any “must do” principle, there are success stories from people who violated it.

Why is this? Because there’s not just one way to do things. Here are four fundamental forces, if you will, for making money online:

- Being cool
- Being spammy
- Satisfying a want
- Satisfying a need

Maybe there are more, but these are the ones that came to mind. They appear to be independent, in that while you can certainly combine them, you can also succeed with one while ignoring the others. But are they really independent, or is there a larger force that unifies them?

Let’s first look at them separately.

Being cool

“Cool” here includes likeable, funny, entertaining, etc. People in this category make money by leveraging their personality.

Johnny B. Truant went from making practically nothing online to five figures a month in nine months, once he started being cool. Officially, he sets up websites and such. I’m sure he’s good at it, but the reason people want to buy from him isn’t because he’s better at websites than everyone else. He gets fans because he swears, he tells clients he doesn’t care if they work with him, he blogs about stuff that has nothing to do with what he sells (like why Christmas is gay), and he confesses to crimes he didn’t commit. In short, because he’s cool.

Gary Vaynerchuk is the face behind another personality-driven business. Today he has the whole “crush it” and branding expert thing, but he didn’t have that when everyone first started talking about him. I watched his videos trying to see what he was all about, and he was very entertaining, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what he actually does (other than screaming about wine). And then I realized that was it – screaming about wine; i.e., being cool.

Stuff White People Like became an instant hit on humor value alone. Sometimes sites like this get a lot of traffic that can’t be monetized, but Christian Lander reportedly received a $300,000 advance for his book based on the blog.

Being spammy

I don’t necessarily mean actual spam, or doing anything unethical or illegal. I’m just talking about focusing on tactics for converting visitors into cash as opposed to providing value.

The guy known as Grizzly has a number of sites, but I only know one of them. And he was nice enough to spill his money-making secrets for this site in How to Increase Your AdSense CTR.

His blog is about making money online, and filled with content containing relevant keywords. It happens to be very good content, but that doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t make his money from regular readers. He just needs relevant content so Google will send him search traffic.

He deliberately went with a blogspot blog because it’s ugly. When visitors see this ugly blog, they want to get out of there, and 7% of them leave by clicking the huge ad in their face (at the very top, above the post title). I’d guess that most of his other sites use this same approach, but minus the good content.

(Actually, I just checked out his site for the first time in a long while. It now looks much less ugly, and the big AdSense ad is gone. Not sure what happened.)

Satisfying a want

This is the category for professional problem solvers: copywriters, blog consultants, marketing consultants, and so forth. They don’t create stuff first and then try to find people who want to buy it. They start by identifying their ideal customer and getting to know them.

When they understand the problem that is keeping their ideal customer up at night, they’re in a position to give the customer exactly what they want. They show this by listening, establishing trust, telling stories, highlighting benefits over features, giving a call to action, etc.

Satisfying a need

You’ll have a hard time selling something to someone who truly doesn’t want it. However, you don’t need to sell to their wants per se.

Steve Pavlina has done quite well by ignoring what his readers want, and just telling them what they need to hear. He positions himself as an expert with advice to give, a position that would only be weakened by asking for permission. He makes enemies by calling his readers Nazis for eating eggs or selfish for being underpaid teachers, but he also makes tens of thousands of dollars a month.

Is there a unified theory of making money online?

In practice, people don’t necessarily restrict themselves to just one of these. Naomi Dunford is cool in addition to being a problem solver, Grizzly quite possibly parlayed his reputation for AdSense success into an additional income stream, Steve Pavlina asked his workshop attendees for detailed feedback so he could improve, etc.

Still, these methods appear to be different. Is there some higher thing that ties them all together, or are they really independent? Albert Einstein failed to unlock all the secrets of the universe, leaving questions that may never be answered. But maybe we can unlock the secrets of making money online, which would be almost as good.

Photo by Victorrjr

You know how sometimes you read or hear something, and you have the feeling that you’re missing an inside joke? People who read my novel Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York may have that feeling every few pages. While some of the Easter eggs are obvious, many are not.

As I had always planned to, I’ve updated the epilogue to point out the hidden references, symbolism that may have been overlooked, notes about the actual writing of the novel, etc.

Here are some of the questions that are answered:

• Where do the characters’ names come from?
• What is the significance of the photon with a wavelength of 400 nanometers?
• What is the meaning of Jack’s cryptic notes, which even he doesn’t understand?
• What blogger is referenced twice, though not explicitly named?
• What’s special about the exact time that Jack wakes up?

etc., etc. To get the full Mesothelioma Lawyers, New York experience, you need to read the epilogue – but it contains spoilers! (The full text of the novel is still freely available at the link above.)

Economics professor Daniel K.N. Johnson thinks that the world is much more predictable than you would expect. It’s no surprise that he can use economic models to predict unemployment rates. But one day, he decided to see if he could predict Olympic medal counts the same way.

He didn’t expect it to work, but it did. From the 2000 through 2008 Olympic games, he predicted total medal counts by country with 94% accuracy, and gold medal counts by country with 87% accuracy.

It’s amazing how little information he need to give the computer, and in fact, he doesn’t look at individual athletes at all. He only considers five factors: per capita income, population, climate, political structure, and home court advantage. His track record speaks for itself:

Event	Accuracy rate of predictions Total medals (Gold medals)
2008 Beijing Summer Games	93% (92%)
2006 Torino Winter Games	93% (89%)
2004 Athens Summer Games	94% (86%)
2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games	94% (85%)
2000 Sydney Summer Games	95% (84%)

In Beijing, he predicted 103 medals for the U.S., with 33 gold. The actual count: 110 and 36. In Athens, he predicted 103 medals for the Americans, with 37 gold. The final results: 102 and 36.

He admits that China causes problems for his model, because there’s no one to compare them to. But other than that, the key to Olympic victory is clear: a successful country should be rich, big, and cold. It should also have a single-party government, and most importantly, it should host the games itself.

The model has held up remarkably well, and not even the anomaly of Michael Phelps threw it off much. But while it’s interesting that a handful of variables can tell you so much, it’s also a bit depressing that the world is so predictable. You could say they might as well just hand out the medals and skip the formality of actually competing.

When I heard about Daniel K.N. Johnson a few weeks ago, I made a note to see how well he predicted the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. The results are in, and surprisingly, he did a really awful job:

Country	Predicted Medals Total (Gold)	Actual Medals Total (Gold)
Canada	27 (5)	26 (14)
United States	26 (5)	37 (9)
Norway	26 (4)	23 (9)
Austria	25 (4)	16 (4)
Sweden	24 (4)	11 (5)
Russia	23 (8)	15 (3)
Germany	20 (7)	30 (10)
Italy	19 (3)	5 (1)
Finland	14 (4)	5 (0)
Switzerland	13 (4)	9 (6)
China	12 (2)	11 (5)
South Korea	11 (4)	14 (6)
Netherlands	10 (3)	8 (4)

Not sure what happened here, but it looks like the world isn’t so predictable after all. I guess computers don’t believe in miracles.

Photo by Duncan Rawlinson

John Hoff is a guy who knows way more about WordPress security than most people could ever hope to. He offers a security upgrade service that I’ve recommended before, but now he has an option for people who want to save money by doing the work themselves.

His new ebook is called WordPress Defender: 30 Ways to Secure Your Blog From Attack Anyone Can Do. Do you see the double meaning in that title? John meant:

(30 Ways to Secure Your Blog From Attack) Anyone Can Do

That is, you don’t need to be a techie to implement these steps. You just need some basic skills, such as installing plugins, editing files, etc., and he spells out what you need to do to secure your blog.

But the title could also mean:

30 Ways to Secure Your Blog From (Attack Anyone Can Do)

You see, hacking a blog isn’t all that difficult. The problem is that almost all WordPress installations have the same out-of-the-box security configuration. So when a new vulnerability is discovered in WordPress, a hacker knows that he can exploit it on most blogs. He can even set up a bot to automatically carry out attacks on huge numbers of blogs while he sleeps.

Don’t think that you’re not a target because your blog is too small, or it’s not making that much money, or you’re too nice. It’s almost inevitable that you will be targeted at some point. I’ve been hacked at least once, maybe twice, and every now and then someone else will try. Fortunately, John’s system has made me much safer, and I get notifications when someone is trying to hack me.

I get a little more paranoid about hackers each year. Last week, the head security guy where I work gave a presentation about how big the threat is. He thinks that antivirus software is basically useless, because it only protects you from the hackers who aren’t trying very hard.

He told us about companies that sell viruses to people who want to hijack other computers. Many of them offer live support – if you buy a virus from them that gets caught by antivirus software, just call their toll-free number and they guarantee they’ll fix the virus to put the bad guys back in business.

He told us about how the hackers we catch in the U.S. are at the very lowest levels of their organizations. The big guys operate from certain countries in eastern Europe, where they’re safe from prosecution, and free to recruit people to carry out their evil deeds.

In other words, hackers are a very big threat, and one you can’t afford to ignore. John found that out the hard way when his wife’s online jewelry business was completely shut down by a hacker. And millions of other people have learned this lesson after it was too late.

WordPress Defender is 150 pages of solid information about how hackers think and how you can thwart them. It also comes with 14 videos (nearly 2 hours worth) to make things crystal clear and easy to follow along.

Unfortunately, people often make the mistake of waiting to get hacked before they start thinking about security. It’s far better to get prepared now, so you can relax knowing that you’re not an easy target. While nothing is completely secure, the system in this ebook will make your blog far more secure than it is now.