Hidden Frequency

The Trillion-Dollar Metaphor

Search is dead. People click less. Growth is only supported by adding users and getting us to spend more time online. We reach peak users this decade and probably peak time next week. After that growth stops. ‘Nuff said.

Then what happens? Text ads die too. Finally we give up the current metaphor and find a new one that better fits how we use the web.

The future has always been social
The one thing everyone knows about the next metaphor is that it somehow involves the word “social” like the last one used “context”. The most obvious example of a social platform right now is Facebook. Yet, the most effective social (and contextual) ad platform in history has a CPM of .04%. That’s 400 clicks out of a million impressions. Scary stuff. Thankfully for them they’ve got entire internal economies based on games and virtual currencies. Facebook will do just fine. So what about the rest of us?

It’s obvious that the newspaper/magazine metaphor we arrived at in the 1990’s for monetizing the internet isn’t going to last any longer than actual newspapers and magazines. Those of us not named Facebook need a new metaphor.

A starting point for a metaphor can be a meme. The current meme is all about social proof. Startups like Blippy and Facebook concepts like Beacon are based upon the idea of using social proof as a way to get you to buy the things your friends are buying.

Both were very clumsy attempts (perceived as being either invasive and/or outright tacky) at cracking the social marketing problem. As obnoxious as it is to build a startup that tweets the conspicuous consumption of affluent Bay area folks to a world going through the worst recession in a generation, it was an attempt by very smart people to solve a problem we have no clear solution for: How do you make people buy things when they don’t want to click on ads anymore? Solution (or so they think): tell your friends what you’re buying and maybe they’ll follow suit.

Near as I can tell, Blippy, Beacon and similar platforms are a metaphoric crossbreed of a Tupperware party and the price tag on Minnie Pearl’s hat. It’s using people’s own consumption as advertising to their friends.

I think there’s potential in that metaphor if it doesn’t come across as being too invasive or tacky. Unfortunately, those are the two things the people trying hardest in that space excel at being.

A really good metaphor, one that we can use to contextualize all of this networked activity, should give us at least another decade of growth and innovation. This metaphor that gives us a new, yet familiar way to look at things and plug in content, business and social interaction is the what’s going to unleash the next big boom in online commerce. Like search and contextual advertising did for the last decade, this new metaphor is will be the launching point for the next trillion-dollar online economy. So what is it?

We’ve already met part of the metaphor…
The important parts of this metaphor are right in front of us. We just haven’t recognized it yet. Text ads, search and contextual advertising were around before Google figured out how to make them all work and we saw the Internet as a giant newspaper/magazine metaphor.

We know the next stage has got to be social and that’s why there’s all of that investing into apparently ridiculous schemes. This isn’t a game where it pays to sit on the sidelines when you’ve got billions of cash at your disposal to spend on experiments. Blippy, Beacon, even the nefarious Pay-Per-Post provided us with lots of information about people’s behavior. Granted, you could have probably learned a lot of this with some clever small scale experiments, but that’s not the way VCs work. It’s all anecdotal until you try it. These are folks willing to build their own space fleets on a whim. Spending ten million to annoy you with locations services or show you how crass your friends are is chump change for them. People say they’re aiming for the next Google. But actually they’re actually aiming to be even bigger than that.

Taking a wisdom of the crowds perspective, we can deduce:

1. Somehow it’s “social”.
2. It won’t be something that makes us click outside our area of interest.
3. We’re going to be even more annoyed by the failed attempts.
4. It’s going to make us rethink “privacy” (an already an alien concept to anyone under 20).
5. It’ll be explained to us as a metaphor we already understand in a different context.
6. Really smart people are spending lots of money on things they think are part of it. There’s a reason Google has been smothering pet projects in the crib; they want to focus their resources.

Those are just a few pieces of the puzzle. I personally suspect that the next metaphor isn’t necessarily going to be something as simple as saying the Internet is now like pay cable or radio. In fact, I think we’ve already exhausted all the traditional forms of looking at media as a metaphor for the internet. Sure it’d be nice to invent some new construct to look at it, but that never works with humans. We work with patterns we’re already familiar with.

I thing this next metaphor is going to based much more on how humans do trade and not how we consume information. And I just don’t necessarily mean how we did commerce in the 20th century, the Middle Ages or even during the time of the Phoenicians. I think we may need to start talking to anthropologists about much deeper metaphors that go back 100,000 years or maybe even further. But not too much further. It’s not a metaphor that applies to chimps or even our more closer related ancestors like Homo Erectus or Neanderthal. I bet elements of it are in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. Figure out which part and maybe you’ll be the one to figure out the trillion-dollar metaphor everyone is looking to find.

Andrew Mayne is founder of Blurbtastic.com and publisher of WeirdThings.com. His personal website can be found at AndrewMayne.com.

Apple’s iAd will probably not destroy life on this planet as we know it

Before the even the first iAd has been served, panic over Apple’s iAd platform has begun. Dave Johnson at BNet has decided that the mere suggestion of it is reason enough to switch phones right away (BNet). He fears that because it functions at the “platform level”, it’ll be too easy to put ads into every app in the App Store - even the paid ones.

He’s making a very strange assumption I can’t quite wrap my head around.

Right now, any app developer can put ads into their applications free or paid. The lack of an Apple ad revenue system isn’t holding them back. Market forces are what guides each developer’s decision. Want to put ads into a $3.99 image retouching application? Go for it. Think people won’t complain? Guess again. There are plenty of other applications in the App Store that would be happy to sell you an ad free version.

Johnson’s fear implies a misunderstanding about how markets work. Since the decision to put ads into each application is made by the developers and not Steve Jobs, there’s not a whole lot of coercison going on by Apple. Don’t want an application that uses ads on your iPhone? Don’t install it. Given the growth of the App Store, you’re likely going to find another app that’s more suited to what you want.

What the iAd solution will do is create a solid business model for developers to launch apps, get wide exposure and create two revenue streams: One for ad supported versions and one for ad-free paid upgrades. This means we’re going to see even more apps coming into the App Store, many from developers that want to focus on writing great apps you’ll want to buy and/or keep using. This is good for everyone.

The other focus of his argument is that the ads will take up too much space on the small screen. He says, “It’s like iPhone OS 4 is able to shrink the size of your iPhone’s screen without your permission.” This is such an odd statement. Again it implies that the decision to implement ads in an application is made by Apple and not the developer. Every internet browser and every OS ever created has had this same ability. The choice to crowd your screen has been always been up to the content creators and the consumer, as it should be.

Mr. Johnson says, “Apple has found a way to turn their mighty iPhone into a ghetto of banner ads and reduced usability.”

That’s a choice each content creator will have to make for themselves. In Mr. Johnson’s case he’s made that decision for his own BNet site by putting up his own pop-up ad in the middle of the page that arguably turns it into it’s own “ghetto” of “reduced usability”.

I’m not knocking his choice to do that. Content needs to get paid. I just wish that he would be a little more understanding that other forms of content also need to find ways to get paid. And at least Apple’s iAd solution is a little more tastefully done.

For more commentary check out Daring Fireball’s promise to “mark” Johnson’s words about the ubiquity of iAds in paid applications in the future: Daring Fireball

The Unofficial Apple Weblog, one of my favorite Apple news sites has some interesting comments (and a really not cool headline): TUAW

Redheaded Ring of Death: Why a Conan O’Brien XBox Live show would have been a bad idea

After the announcement that Conan was going to TBS word got out that Team CoCo was seriously considering a jump to XBox Live (Deadline.com). While that may sound like a hip and edgy thing to do, it would have been a step backward and likely a complete disaster. Media pundits weighing in on the issue put it into the same context as Revision3’s offer to get Conan on to their network (An open letter to Conan O’Brien). Even though both platforms involve the Internet, the similarities end there. Revision3 would have been the better online bet. XBox Live would have been worse than going to a cable channel that only served 10% of the country.

Contrary to a position taken over at Geekosystem, although XBox Live could offered a theoretically big paycheck, Conan’s not in it for only the money. Otherwise he would have stayed at NBC.

It’s important to understand so called new media that’s just old platforms with better tech versus real new media that embraces how people really function. Revision3 is an open distribution channel. Content on there gets pushed out everywhere from inflight airplane entertainment to illegal downloading torrents. iTunes, YouTube, Revision3.com, they don’t care how you get it. Revision3 is about providing content to wherever their audience might find it. And they find it. When they announced that shows like Diggnation were getting 200,000 plus viewers, some traditional media pundits scoffed at that, including the head of one of Microsoft’s major PR firms. He opined that a show with those numbers wouldn’t last long on cable. He should go take a look at how CNN and CNBC are scoring in the same demos as Diggnation (for extra kicks he should look at the dismal numbers big media firms like his get when they try to do pseudo viral videos). He then should take a look at their respective budgets. Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht are the Paranormal Activity of online content.

XBox Live is the opposite of that. It’s a glorified cable box. The purpose of content on XBox Live is to get you to buy XBox’s and pay for subscription services from Microsoft. There’s nothing wrong with that for Microsoft. For content creators it’s not the ideal way to reach a larger audience. Your audience is never going to be greater than the number of people who have access to XBox Live content. Presently that’s about 20 million consoles. It’s all the opposite things of growing online media.

Frustrating that even more is the headache Microsoft has given content creators even when they’ve give them “total creative control”. (Check out James Gunn’s item, “My Painful XBox Experience” JamesGunn.com) Would the Masturbating Panda last long on XBox Live if execs there got nervous about how it affected their brand? If past behavior is any indication the answer is “no”.

All things considered, TBS is probably the best fit for Conan. He’s still a traditional media kind of guy. As delightful as it is to see him on Twitter, he’s nowhere near as engaged in it as someone like Shaquille O’Neill, “First person to touch me gets court side tickets to tonights game.” It’s ego shattering for many celebrities to find out how few people are willing to show up at their beck and call online. It’s not because they’re any less loved. It’s because we consume that content in a totally different manner. XBox Live is still the old model and wouldn’t have given Conan the audience he deserves.

How to build your multimedia empire on the cheap

The online world is very different than it was just 5 years ago. As a content creator the landscape has changed dramatically. It’s also made what would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars a few years ago essentially free.

Five years ago:

YouTube didn’t exist…
There was no such thing as Twitter…
There was no Facebook…
Hardly anyone owned a smart phone, let alone an iPhone…
Apps was just an annoying term developers used…

Five years later you can broadcast all the video you want with no fear of bandwidth costs. You can reach out to your audience immediately in real time. You can build a more personal community. Your content can go everywhere that your audience goes. People will actually pay for content.

In 2006 blogging was the best way to communicate with a large audience. I’m proud of what we’ve done with iTricks.com, but now the world has changed substantially. There are new ways to interact with an audience. Fortunately for us iTricks is an adaptable brand that can do things like blogging, podcasting and live content, thanks in part to the fact that iTricks editor Justin Robert Young is a very charismatic personality who works in a lot of mediums. I don’t think we need to set our boat on fire. But I do think it’s helpful to think how would we do things now if we were starting from zero.

I know if we were launching a site like our iTricks magic news site today we’d take a different approach. I’m not sure what the shape of that would be, but I think it’d be much more influenced by the current state of social media.

As a content producer it’s important to have a very good idea of what’s going on around you. That doesn’t mean jumping from fad to fad, but having an understanding of how your audiences are interacting with content in general.

How has your vision changed? How should you implement the idea you had three years ago? Can you admit when it’s time to put an idea to rest?

One of the smartest strategies in business is to exploit your least expensive commodities. That’s why Google gives up so many CPU units to free services. It’s why we build stuff in poor countries where labor is cheap.

The new rules for content are no different. Things that were once very expensive are now ridiculously cheap or free.

Here are the new rules. How do they fit your content?

• Bandwidth for video and everything else is essentially free.

• Scalable web platforms like Wordpress and SquareSpace cost almost nothing.

• You can video conference with any part of the world for free.

• You can reach your audience immediately and for free using Twitter (versus email).

• You can record an interview, take a photo, write a blog post or make a movie with your average smart phone.

• You can create your own live tv or radio channel for free.

• You can build an engaged community for free.

• There are more places to sell content.

How can you leverage these resources to build your multimedia empire?

Counterintuitive: Why Murdoch’s overpriced Wall Street Journal iPad subscription may be a stroke of genius

When the Wall Street Journal iPad app hit the Apple app store most people including myself were taken aback by the price for the actual subscription. Priced higher than the print version and web version combined, it didn’t seem to make any sense. Add to that the fact that the subscription based app also includes ads. An overpriced subscription app that isn’t ad free? What’s the deal with that? But after thinking about it, it makes sense. It may in fact be genius.

The WSJ is different than other papers. It has a specialized content aimed at a specific audience. A generally affluent audience that puts a high value on information. While many of us appreciate the content the WSJ has, few of us actually subscribe to it. For Rupert Murdoch, we’re a lost cause. While a cheaper subscription might entice more people to subscribe, that’s not his goal. Murdoch doesn’t want a lot of people paying a little. He’d rather have a few people paying through the nose. While that may seem counterintuitive, it makes sense when you think about why the iPad version also includes advertising. That’s the whole purpose of the high price: Murdoch wants to attract high income subscribers (think $200,000 or more a year). He can then turn around and sell advertising at a ridiculously high CPM.

Companies that lease jets or offer CEO head hunting services aren’t interested in advertising to $30,000 a year just out of college graphic designers. They want viewers who can afford their high cost services. Ads for services like that can run in the hundreds of dollars per CPM.

By creating a pricey iPad app, the WSJ has created a way for the very affluent to self identify themselves and given Murdoch one of the most prized audiences in all of advertising.

Time will tell if it works. It’ll be interesting to find out.

Is Apple’s iAd the biggest thing since Google Search?

The Apple iPhone OS 4.0 announcement was a big deal. So big that people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around it. The real story isn’t about Apple shutting out Adobe development tools. It’s not even blessed multi-tasking on the iPhone. It’s Apple’s vision for advertising in apps via iAd.

“So what?” Is the response from a lot of people. While we already had in app advertising before, we haven’t had the Steve Jobs version of it. He and his team at Apple are very thoughtful people. They have a vision. They just told it to us. It’s a very, very big vision.

Imagine I told you back in 2000 that I was going to monetize web pages by putting little text ads on them ad putting text ads next to search results for those pages. Very few people thought this was going to be big. Those that really believed it put their money behind Google and made a fortune

Here in 2010 we’re amidst another game changing event. This time Apple wants to be at the forefront of this revolution. Apple wants to do for applications what Google did for monetizing the web.

In Apple’s vision a developer doesn’t have to worry about advertising or monetizing their work. Create a great application. Put iAd into it and upload it into the app store. Apple takes care of making it discoverable and profitable from there.

To be sure, a closed system has its downside. However the upside makes it more than worthwhile for an independent developer like myself. I’d go bankrupt on Google AdWords trying to attract the volume of customers that the App Store store gives me for free (well, 30% of gross).

iAd takes that a step further. With a built in ad model I can start making $.99 applications into free ones and put them into the hands of more people. Lots of more people…

By doing to applications what Google did to web content, Apple’s vision could change the fundamental economics of computing.

As a content producer it’s helpful to think differently about how you might monetize what you produce in a world where people are getting more and more of their content from within apps.

Podcasting, blogging and just about every other form of content have a new opportunity to create a successful business model because of this. A free app based on an iAd supported ad platform in an ecosystem that encourages in app purchase and upgrades is an exciting thing. How would you leverage it?

Sidenote: Don’t think for a second that Google is going to sit still. Expect an announcement about their own platform soon. The question is how well do they understand the app ecosystem? The Android App store isn’t an encouraging sign, but they’re smart and they learn.

How focusing within a niche can have huge results

What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles is the top-selling book on changing careers of all time. What many people don’t know about the book is that it was originally written for a very narrow audience; Episcopalian ministers who were losing their jobs in a budget crunch and were looking to find new jobs. That’s about as narrow of a niche as you can imagine. Yet by focusing in that one area and addressing very specific problems, he came up with some universal truths that applied to everyone.

He wrote the book based upon his experiences with his own job situation and self-published it. Other people heard about the book and realized that much of the advice could apply to them and the book started selling outside its original niche. Millions of copies have been sold and it still sells over 100,000 copies a year. Not bad for a book written 40 years ago for a very narrow audience.

Richard Bolles saw a problem right in front of his face. He wrote a book to help people with the problem and ended up creating something that had much wider value than he realized.

I’m willing to bet that if the book hadn’t had been focused on a niche, it never would have become the success that it is today. In focusing on a niche, three things happened:

1. Bolles wrote a concise to the point book for an audience he understood: Bolles wasn’t writing to an imaginary audience. He knew exactly who he was talking to and was able to write a book that dealt in specifics that addressed their situation. If he had written a more generalized book it wouldn’t have been as relevant to the people he was targeting.

2. Bolles had a very specific market to focus his energy on: Bolles didn’t waste his money advertising the book in places where he wouldn’t get much traction for the dollar. An ad in a magazine ministers read would get more attention per dollar spent than one in a non-focused magazine. He could market to large audiences every time he met with other ministers.

3. A large number of people initially picked up the book creating word of mouth: The first 100 people to read his book were mostly the ministers he targeted it to. Because the book was specific to their needs, they raved about how good a book it was to their non-minister friends. He quickly reached a group of hardcore promoters who took up promotion of the book. Other people found value in it as well and the book took off from there.

Rather than try to write to “everybody”; choose an audience that you understand. You’ll be able to spend more time catering to them and create something they’ll feel more intensely about. When it comes time to market your content, you’ll know exactly who to start with.

Besides creating content, here are five other areas where focusing within a niche had huge implications and created billion dollar companies:

5 steps to identifying your niche

Before my foray into publishing, the first niche I tried to exploit had mixed results. When I was in high school I decided I wanted to become a professional magician. There are many different directions a magician can take. There’s the general performer who does shows locally for parties and special events. There are close-up magicians that work in restaurants and private parties. Then there are trade show magicians who specialize in working with large companies that can make as much as the CEO’s they’re hired to entertain. I decided on performing big stage illusions; so the obvious choice at the time was to work on cruise ships. Living in Fort Lauderdale made that an easy choice. I got off to an excellent start. At least I thought so.

Although I had chosen a specific niche that seemed to lead to where I wanted to go, I was less than passionate about it. It took me a while to learn that I could create my own niche based upon the things I was passionate about. You may have discovered that some of your ambitions aren’t all they can be. If the problem isn’t your work ethic, then it’s likely you need to consider changing your direction or approach.

Looking at your combination of interests and skills, you want to find one that looks interesting from every angle. For me, magic was fun; working on a cruise ship was not. I would have been better suited finding a way that I could have tied performing magic with one of my interests.

Generally, your niche is a market based upon your interest. Although video editing is an interest of mine, it’s really more of a skill. I have a generalized view of the industry and the technology, but I don’t keep up with it anywhere near the level I do my interests in science and entertainment. I’d be pretty bored focusing my energy on mainly reading video journals and software manuals.

If my interest was magic and my skill was creating magic tricks, I could have just kept on being a regular magician. I also could have done more work for other magicians as a creative advisor. However, my interest in magic was small compared to my interest in marketing. Marketing products based upon my skill was a better fit. Marketing my ideas worked out really well.

Your niche starts with your best fit. If you have an interest in scuba diving, somewhere between the factory where the tanks are made and the reef where the fish live there’s a great opportunity for you to apply one or more of your skills. If you’re looking to create a product or service that deals with your interest, look for a market where your skill has value.

I tried lots of different kinds of writing before I wrote my first magic book. When I was in a position where I had to find a niche where I could actually make money, I had to identify a market that I already had the skills for. This is a very important point: I didn’t choose a market that I wanted to have skills in. I chose one where my existing skills were already in demand.

A big mistake people make is they choose an interest and pursue it without any skills. I had few skills as a marketer, but my skills as an inventor were enough for me to base my interest in marketing upon. Rather than try to develop some skill you don’t possess, look closely at the skills you already have. Those are your best shots at being successful in that interest.

Another point to remember is that even two successful people in similar positions in similar fields might have very different interests and skills. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both the heads of high tech companies. Whereas Bill Gates interest in competition and business drives his skills in computing, Steve Jobs passion for thinking different and creating whole solutions is driven by his skills as a forward and detailed thinker. Gates went for market share. Jobs went for creating the best products in the world. Both companies succeeded in ways that reflect their founder’s passions.

Your niche is either a place where you have a highly specialized skill that can be put to use, or an interest that you are willing to devote yourself full time to pursue. If you like horses, are you prepared to read every equestrian book and magazine you can get your hands on? Are you willing to learn basic zoology to better understand how they work on the inside? You don’t have to be an expert on the whole field. You just need to zero into a level where your skills become very useful and your interest will be fully committed. This is where you find your value.

Sometimes you need to change the direction of how your interests affect your skills. Sometimes you need to change the direction in which you apply them. When I went from a magician to someone who wrote about magic, I changed my market from people who want to see magic shows, to people who want to perform them. This is a 180-degree turn around. Where before I was focused on keeping secrets, I now became focused on sharing them.

You might be an excellent car salesperson but hate sales. You might want to consider what I did and flip your direction. If you have a skill in some form of communication, you might make a great sales trainer. Your niche is now sales training and not cars. Or you might create buyer’s guides for car shoppers. There could be any number of opportunities that your skills can help you with.

Your niche is the place within an interest your skills have maximum potential. The stronger the interest, and the stronger the skill, the greater the chance of success. If you’re still having difficulty, you probably need to add a third element. Someone whose interest is entertainment and skill is acting is going to be in the same “niche” as about a million other people. Focus.

Here are the important points to remember:

1. Your niche is the place where your interests and your skills meet and create value
2. Your market is where your skills have the most need
3. Choose skills you already possess
4. Focus to find your niche
5. When in doubt, consider the other direction


Have any questions or comments? Email me at andrew@andrewmayne.com

How babysitting a mountain lion helped me make $100,000 in self-publishing

Before my first book was sold on store shelves, before my video projects aired on television, way before I created a brand around my name, I was a magician who made a living performing on stage. I got off to a great start and had my first world tour when I was 19 headlining on a cruise ship. Soon after I was performing in resorts and casinos all around the world. I traveled. I made money. I met interesting people. I hated it.

What seemed like a great lifestyle at 17 turned out to be less than I thought at 20. Part of it was my attitude. Another part of it was the fact that working on ships and resorts meant working in smoke-filled bars and living out of a suitcase for long periods of time. The glamour fades when you realize that the same guy that books you into a gig also books that chimpanzee that rides a tricycle and plays the kazoo.

In one six-month period I performed 500 shows without a day off. It wasn’t a strenuous job. All I really did was point at boxes while my assistants jumped out and did all the work. However, it was monotonous and wasn’t very creative.

When I realized that I wanted to get away from performing for a while I took a look at my skills and considered my options. My options were based upon the things I knew and could do that had value to other people. My peers in magic recognized me as being very creative. I had several tricks published in other people’s books. Publishing my own book seemed like a logical choice. But how would I go about it?

Publishing is both expensive and risky. Self-publishing is even more so if you don’t know what you are doing. I knew several authors that had garages filled with books that just weren’t selling. By the time I’d decided to take a different career direction, I’d spent most of the money I had made from my last tour. If I was going to venture into publishing, it was going to be on a shoestring budget.

I planned careful and launched my first book for less than $100. To date, that book has made over $100,000. Not a bad return on my investment. More important than how much money I made off that book is what I learned from the experience. Those principles have helped form my approach to business in general from DVDs to iPhone apps.

When I wrote that book I didn’t even have my own computer. I spent one weekend at my parent’s house using theirs. With some notes I’d made over the past couple months, I wrote a book for magicians on stage magic. It was a niche within a niche. I showed it to a couple friends who were also magicians. They thought it was pretty good. Now what? I didn’t have the money to spend on a press run. I didn’t even have the money to take out an ad for the book. I had enough money to live on for a couple more months, but little else.

Fortunately for me I had a friend who owed me a favor. Off and on, for several months I’d feed a cougar that belonged to my friend Rand Woodbury when he was out of town. Rand also happened to have published a book in the same niche as I was writing for. He’d taken out ads and put together a mailing list of people who bought his book. Out of gratitude, Rand let me use this list to launch my book.

Inevitably, someone will read this and complain that I got a lucky break. If you think feeding a 200-pound wild animal that would like to snap into your neck like a Slim Jim a lucky break, I got a job for you riding a tricycle playing a kazoo. I could have created my own list with a few hundred dollars. Instead, I babysat a cougar and got it. Lucky me.

Mailing list in hand; on my parent’s computer, I designed a flyer and made 250 copies at Office Depot for $10. I bought $80 worth of postage, spent another $9 on labels and sent out 250 flyers to that mailing list. At that point only one copy of the book existed in the world. I was hoping that I would get enough orders to pay for a print run so I could fill the orders and offer the book to magic distributors and fill their orders without having to borrow any money. I also was hoping to make enough money to pay for a full-page ad in the leading magic magazine.

I took all those flyers down to the post office and mailed them. I then waited.

One week later the orders started to come in - about 50 in all that week. Was that a success? It’s all relative. The retail price of the book was pretty steep at $40, but well within the standard price for something in that niche. That $99 spent on printing and postage had turned into $2,000 in orders in just 14 days.

I used this money to pay for the first run of books at Office Depot (100) and sent copies to distributors along with a copy of the ad I was going to run in Magic Magazine. The distributors ordered 400 copies at jobber rate (60% off retail). That was $6,400 in orders.

I used part of the profits from my first sale to pay for that print run. When my ad ran two months later, even more orders came in. Within the first 60 days I’d made $10,000 from a book I wrote in one weekend on a $99 dollar budget and still had all my fingers.

On the success of my first book, I wrote more books and created a publishing company. Today, I have over 40 titles in print and still make money from the very first book I ever wrote.

For many of us, the first dollar we ever made was a moment to remember. After I started receiving checks for my first book I had a realization that stayed with me ever since; I was making money while I was doing nothing. Sure, I’d been paid to stand around and do nothing before then. On the average cruise ship gig I’d work only two nights and week and then only for two hours that night. But after that week, I didn’t make any more money for the work I put into that show. No matter how hard I worked, I only got paid once. Writing is different. If you work really hard, and write something really useful, it has lasting value.

That experience taught me the value of intellectual property. If you’re smart, you work and you invest a portion of your money so it can earn more money for you. That’s the most common way to invest in yourself. You can do that and create a way for your past work to still bring in money. That can be something as simple as growing a business you own that has real value, or you can take it a step further and work towards creating your own intellectual property.

People make money from content all around you. The magazines you read, the music you listen to, the movies you watch and the books on your shelf all contain information that belongs to someone. That information can be words, images or sound. What makes it valuable is the fact that you want it. To get access to it, you’re willing to pay for it or tolerate somebody trying to sell you something.

Increasingly, companies are beginning to realize that they’re in the intellectual property business and not the manufacturing business. Microsoft sells software and not DVDs. Even their X-Box is made in another company’s factory. It goes straight from there to your home. It never stops in a Microsoft warehouse. They sell X-Boxes at a loss because they make their money selling content. The game Halo 2 made $100 million it’s first day of release. There’s lots of money in content.

As the price of manufactured goods goes down, we spend more money on content like video games, books and DVDs. This is great news for you. This means the demand for the content you have the potential to create is only going to increase.

I discovered through dumb luck that you could create content and make money at it without a whole lot of cash. My company, Maynestream Productions, which now produces books, videos and television content was started with a $99 investment. If you’ve got creativity and ambition, that’s enough. You don’t even need a cougar.

Broken down into steps, here’s how I turned $99 into a publishing company:

1. I found a niche that was suited for my skills

2. I identified an audience within that niche

3. I created a product that would be in demand

4. I found an inexpensive way to market to that niche

5. I found a way to grow


Have any questions or comments? Email me at andrew@andrewmayne.com