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!)

But as I lay in the bed semi-comatose, listening to the news channels, I realized that something really wonderful is happening right now if you’re hip to the game of writing for Desperate Buyers Only (DBOs).

In the US we’re teetering on the brink of a recession. The stock market is taking a beating. And it’s all good. Why? Because it’s creating profit opportunities.

For instance, when stock prices start going down, it’s a short sellers paradise. There are plenty of investors with money to burn who still want to play in the stock market, but don’t understand the fine art of short selling. (Which is a tricky investment strategy that works during times like these.)

Can you explain short selling to newbie investors? Can you write an numbers intense sales letter that helps them understand the huge financial benefits of short selling? If you can, THIS is the time to share your knowledge.

Foreclosure rates are skyrocketing right now, which is bad for cash strapped homeowners. But out in San Diego realtors are holding foreclosure tours for investors.

When one person loses, somebody else wins. Your job right now is to figure out who’s winning and who’s losing in this credit crunch game, and sell advice to the potential winners.

Somebody’s gonna do it. If you’ve got the knowledge, let it be you. Hard times can be profitable times.

Warmest regards,

Alexis

I wish you all a happy and healthy holiday.

May you be blessed with the most productive Christmas gift of them all – a great e-book idea that practically writes itself.

Love,

Alexis

For me, 2006 was very productive. And it wasn’t because I made more money. Admittedly I made less in 2007 than I did in 2006.

This past year ended up being productive because I was able to take a good chunk of my time to think and pray and re-energize myself on a spiritual level. A phase that I needed as much as a waterless man in the desert.

But even though I took a break, less money didn’t equate to less-than cushy lifestyle.

In 2007 we moved from Canada to New York City – (after spending an awesome year in Montreal). I was able to put my daughter in a bilingual kindergarten where the yearly tuition costs as much as a fresh-off-the-assembly-line 2008 Toyota. With the crazy US economy I’ve been able to make some decent investments. And yes… I am still the sole breadwinner of my household.

I don’t tell you this to brag or boast. Trust me when I say that I am no more special than the next man or woman.

I simply want you to understand that you don’t have to continuously work hard, if you make a conscious decision to continuously work smart.

For me, working smart meant writing a few e-books targeted towards desperate buyers, that ended up sustaining me and my family FOR YEARS. Traditional print book authors think they have it sweet when they get a royalty check. But my royalties arrive almost daily. And I expect them to.

The world may change, but heart-wrenching problems don’t.

So as you’re mentally sizing up 2007, I want you to ask yourself:

* Is this (infoproduct business) something that I truly want to do, day after day, week after week, month after month?

* Am I truly putting forth the necessary energy to make this business work?

* Am I staying focused? (Probably one of the most important questions – and yet one of the most neglected. If this is your downfall, see Business Goal Bootcamp.)

No matter where you are right now, you can always get a tighter hold of the reigns and take your business wherever you want it to go.

And even though she’s well-versed in online shopping, the catalogs continue coming. And she continues to fill her closets with merchandise purchased from those print catalogs.

My mother’s in the same boat. Relatively new computer, high speed Internet, existing computer knowledge. Only my mother’s shopping addiction is fulfilled by home shopping channels – rarely the Internet.

So when people ask me if the techniques in Desperate Buyers Only still work – (”Alexis, are you still making money using the techniques you advocate?”) – it’s always met with a resounding ‘YES!’

The Internet changes by leaps and bounds every couple of years. Most recently we’ve seen social media websites like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the such, draw millions upon millions of users. Lots of folks jumped on the bandwagon, trying to figure out how to promote their e-books on these venues.

I didn’t. And trust me, I’m not knocking anyone who did.

In all honesty I was too busy enjoying the fruits produced by the very marketing techniques I talk about in Desperate Buyers Only. I didn’t even stick a pinky toe anywhere else. (Ahem… let me correct myself… I did sign-up for a Facebook account. But I never did anything with it.)

In fact, you can fall into a coma today, wake up two years from now and I promise you’ll discover that:

1) People still go online to look for specific solutions to their problems.

2) People still use search engines to look for those solutions.

3) People are willing to pay for information if it solves an especially pressing problem.

4) People still read long, detailed salesletters if it speaks about solving a pressing problem that they have.

Yes, the Internet will have changed in two years. But that doesn’t mean your customers/prospects will also change their ways/habits in bulk.

Just like my mom won’t stop shopping on HSN. And just like my aunt won’t halt her love affair with snail-mail catalogs. Technology will ALWAYS progress faster than John and Jane Q. Public will.

So as the new year rapidly approaches, keep in mind that you don’t have to incorporate every new whiz-bang tactic into your e-book marketing routine.

Be willing to try new things. But don’t be so fast to discount or abandon the techniques that worked yesterday. Because in the end, the more things change, the more things really remain the same.

(I’m telling you, being a writer is the most awesome occupation on earth!)

Mini-me is enrolled in a bilingual garderie – (fancy French word for ‘day care’). I write and drink tea most of the day.

So yesterday I decide to go shoe shopping for Mini-me.

The Metro stop where I got off is the precise location where a gunman opened fire yesterday. There’s an underground passageway from the Atwater Metro that leads you directly past the Dawson College door.

Thank God I missed the gunfire. I was a couple of blocks away when it happened. But I have to admit, I was quite shaken seeing all those kids hysterically running down the street.

I walked (briskly) to Mini-me’s garderie, and brought her home. We stayed home last night (she missed kung fu). And I just cuddled her.

One of the teens who was hit by gunfire died yesterday. Two others are in seriously critical condition. Still others are in critical condition.

So today take a few extra minutes to hug your Mini-me’s (spouse, parents, friend, whomever) extra tight. Tell them how much they mean to you.

The people in our lives deserve such precious moments.

Alexis Dawes