I’m not feeling like my normal self today.

I had oral surgery on Wednesday to have two wisdom teeth removed. The antibiotics are making me sick to my stomach. The pain killers – (which promptly wear off every 4 hours) – are making me hazy. And the stitches are just plain annoying.

My 4-year old who’s studying for her kung fu sash test (and who thinks she’s Bruce Lee re-born), has been using me as a punching bag.

Yesterday she chung choied my hand so damn hard, it’s still hurting today! Let me tell you this.. in 10 years you won’t want to see her in a dark alley.

Yes indeed… it has been an interesting two days.

And even during this somewhat un-fun time, I still have to produce.

Christmas is coming, and I have ebooks that need to come out before that time.

Oh yes, it’s certainly fun being self-employed. But when the task of bringing home the bacon (or the tofu) rests on your shoulders, sometimes you have to forge through illness to get the job done.

Fortunately I have tools in place to assist me when I’m feeling out of sorts.

One of my favorites being… Diigo.

The name “Diigo” is an abbreviation for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff.”

It’s basically an online bookmarking tool that allows you to: highlight or add sticky notes to specific parts of a web page you’re reading, search and share your bookmarked pages, extract your highlighted data, and more.

So instead of bookmarking a page the traditional way – and probably forgetting about it – you use Diigo to extract what you need. This task alone makes the job of writing much easier.

One of my other sick bed saviors is TagJag.

TagJag pulls blog post summaries, articles and other news from a variety of sites. It’s a quick way to get information on a topic, without visiting a bunch of different sites.
 
Get your contingency plan in place before a situation arises and grow rich,

Alexis Dawes

I get a 4-figure Paypal deposit every month from a web site that I’m an affiliate for.

Besides the checks I get from Clickbank, it’s the only affiliate program that I’ve consistently profited from.

Best of all, it’s two-tiered. So those affiliates who signed up under my link are now beginning to generate more money for me than I’m actually making from the same site.

Now here’s the thing. I’m really and truly an AWFUL affiliate marketer.

Seriously! I am. At least in the traditional sense.

But I know how to sell an ebook like a bee knows how to make honey.

And that is how I get a big affiliate check every month.

Here’s the secret…

I built a ebook around a web site with a good affiliate program.

Okay I didn’t intentionally plan it. But now looking back at my steadily increasing payments, I see the absolute brilliance of the strategy.

You see my Get-In-Google-Now.com ebook teaches readers how to advertise on specific web sites, so that your ad gets a top 10 rank.

In the ebook I mention a handful of sites that work for this strategy. One of those sites is very, very popular with my readers because it produces the most consistent results.

So they advertise on that site. And every time they buy an ad, I get a commission. A small one. Maybe just a few dollars.

When they see that my strategy works, they keep on buying ads. Month after month after month.

So it’s not a one shot deal. I get paid from the same customers over and over again.

Like I said, I also get a kickback from those affiliates who signed up under me. That commission is relatively small. But again, it’s not a one time sale. It’s residual.

And finally, I sell the ebook for $97. So I’m profiting all the way around. Front end and back end all in one.

Did I get your wheels a turnin’?

Build your ebook around an affiliate program and grow rich,

Alexis Dawes

I tell my friends that all writers are a little bit crazy.

What about me? Shit, are you kidding! Of course I am. That’s the best part about being a writer.

I have a special chair – called The Throne – that I sit in when I write. No matter where I go in the world, I must buy this specific type of chair to work.

And everyone knows not to park their arse in The Throne. Except my 4-year old. She’s got an intense creative streak like me. So she gets to share The Throne during her painting sessions.

My other crazy quirk… I talk to a little doll baby that sits on my desk. She’s like my little mascot/muse.

Of course she doesn’t answer back (but wouldn’t THAT would make an awesome blog post).

But she listens. And sometimes that’s all I need to solve a mental block.

Perhaps it is an unusual habit. But I’m not the only one in the club.

Rubber Ducking is a activity that programmers (yeah programmers) partake in as well.

You describe a problem in great detail, and in doing so you find the solution to your problem.

I’m currently finishing up my new ebooks, and it was Rubber Ducking that helped me breakthrough some major obstacles.

What types of questions can writers ask their inanimate object friend? Well as a how-to author, here are derivatives of questions I ask:

* What would make customer get on the Internet and look for information on x topic? Describe a scenario.

* How does an ebook compete effectively when there’s lots of competition? Do you write an ebook, or create another type of information product?

* How can I discover the core deficiencies/wants of an audience when I don’t know a lot about them?

Some food for thought.

Alexis Dawes