I love my customers so much, I married one – soon after my sister sticks it to me
I never thought I’d be sitting here telling you all this. But I’m a married woman – again.
To one of my blog readers, nonetheless. (How about THAT for a “where the hell you been?”)
We met about two years, initially by telephone. What started off as a 30 minute consultation that fateful day, turned into a 2 hour telephone meeting of the souls — he the sexy surgeon with a love for wintry backyard BBQ’s, I the “bringing-home-the-bacon” single mom who could nary let the grass grow under my pedicured feet.
The attraction blossomed rather instantly, or should I say insanely, because I was stark, raving crazy for this guy.
For our first date he put me on the back of his Harley and took me to a bookstore on the other side of town.
A BOOKSTORE, for the love of pete’s sake! I’m the woman who would rather eat ramen noodles for a month, than give up my Amazon Prime membership.
I knew from that moment I could never let this lovely helmeted creature go. And I didn’t. Luckily for me the attraction wasn’t lopsided. As cool as we both tried to play it, we loved each other from “hello” and never stopped. (Cue the “Aawww!” sound now.)
Last October I sold off Desperate Buyers Only, wrote my own vows, and settled in to a perpetual honeymoon as Mrs. Dawes.
After I sold off Desperate Buyers–
I opened up a little bike (bicycle) shop… something I’d been contemplating for a couple of years.
From week one it was a serious success, which I must say I DIDN’T expect. I mean I’d been doing the online thing for so long that I wasn’t sure what would happen offline.
But I live in a bike-friendly city, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch. I found a niche that worked and I worked my niche.
One evening Mr. Dawes and I were buying some used bikes from a dealer outside of the city. We soon discovered that barnyard bike dealer was looking for a stable retail location in the city proper.
After a few weeks of negotiation, I ended up selling the bike shop to the used bike dealer, turning a super sweet profit on my initial investment. Not bad for a few months of work.
And then…
I became Alexis the Housewife – or more appropriately, Alexis “bored-out-of-my-mind-with-no-business-to-run” Dawes.
Why did I sell the damn bike shop, with nothing else to occupy my busy little mind is beyond my comprehension.
I’m used to juggling motherhood, writing, marketing, laundry, groceries and 500 other tasks in a 24 hour time period. But with a larger household income, I simply didn’t have all the same pressures that I did before. (Yeah, woe is me, right.)
I dunno what kind of insane workaholic gene I’ve got coursing through my veins, but I’m not happy sitting still for long. I love the challenge of solving problems.
I called my half-sister, Dahlia, who’d been doing pretty well with Amazon affiliate review sites, to see if she needed any help. An e-book perhaps? Two e-books? Twelve e-books?
“No, no, no,” says this little hippie. Dahlia explained that there had been a rush of people writing these do biz on Amazon ebooks, so that topic wasn’t desperate enough. (I’d obviously been out of the loop!)
Fortunately I must have lit a creative flame under her ass, because the following week she tells me that she came up with an e-book idea anyway. Perhaps you’ve seen it. It’s called The BIG LIST of Amazon Products.
Hey, what the????
From the day she launched that ebook this chick starts having crazy success. She’s making out like a bandit. Doin’ it, and doin’ it and doin’ it well, to quote LL Cool J.
“Alexis, log in to my PayPal account and have a look see,” she says.
“Alexis, I can’t believe I slept on this ebook thing for so long,” she says.
Sheesh!
EVERYBODY sleeps on the ebook thing
Until they realize it ain’t no joke!
I mean how else can you generate perpetual cash in your bank account for work you did months or years ago? If you know how to write and sell ebooks, you can basically dictate your lifestyle.
My husband is always trying to get me to go through a regular publisher, and I’m always like, “Duuuude… I don’t care about people buying my stuff in a bookstore.”
I have a special love for the ebook business and I simply wouldn’t get the same buzz-filled excitement dealing with an acquisitions editor – unless of course it came with a sizable advance. (I didn’t say I was stupid!)
Anyhoo, so Dahlia and I are having lunch one day and she tells me that she’s going to crack the ebook sales code. She’s hooked. She understands why I was able to gallivant off around the world, while she was whopping it up (ha, ha!) selling jewelry supplies at home. (Though to give her credit, she did do very well with it.)
“Crack it like what?” I asked.
“Crack it like I want to figure out why people impulse buy ebooks,” she said.
At that moment, I heard a ringing in my ears
School was suddenly in session for me.
This girl was always smart. But at that moment I realized she was brilliant.
“Dang D, what made you think of THAT?”
“It came to me while I was on a website the other day.”
At that time she broke down what she thought made an ebook sell. I listened intently with a big cuckoo-for-coco puffs smile on my face.
Selling to desperate buyers works because somebody, somewhere is always desperate to solve a problem.
Selling to impulse buyers isn’t quite the same thing. Impulse buyers don’t have to be searching for a solution in order to buy an ebook. Dahlia taught me that it’s better if they’re not searching for a solution in any way, shape or form.
Huh?
Yeah!
The surprise of finding a particular ebook when they’re not looking for it is what makes people want to impulse buy. She’s got an entire theory behind this stuff, and the shit makes uber sense.
Needless to say, having an expert in the family fueled my interest in ebooks again
So after a long hiatus I’m off to challenge myself in the ebook industry again – but this time adapting a different strategy. I’m using Dahlia’s ideas to target impulse buyers.
I love the whole feel of her techniques. She laid out this mind mapping scenario that I’ve never seen anyone else teach before. This thing spanks booty when it comes to figuring out ebook ideas.
Dahlia abhors the Google Keyword Tool (in all but one situation), but she gives a pretty persuasive case against it. Her reasons certainly made me rethink my reliance on it.
She also found all these super little marketing resources for promoting your ebook. Like Business2Blogger.com, a website where you can submit your ebook to be reviewed by bloggers in your niche. And it’s free, though they do have a paid option too. Better still, she tells how to use that review in a power move sort of way.
Alexis Dawes back in the ebook biz?
This should be interesting!
P.S.- Check out Dahlia’s “Creating E-books that are Impulse Buyer Magnets.”
P.P.S. – Can you believe I married a reader of this blog?!? No shit! (Hi baby!)
