A new member of my Private Site asked me this question recently. It is such a good question I’m going to repeat his question and my answer below… read this, it could help you too.

I promised to keep some things private but here’s the essence of his question (edited for privacy):

“Dear Dave, You seem to have more of an insight into the hearts of marketers and their success and failure than anyone I’ve met online. So I thought I’d ask you this question: …I seem to spend lots of time reading lots of ebooks and enjoying this. I actually apply a little of what they teach me. But the problem is this: I never seem to apply them for long. Part of the problem is I LOVE learning and I love reading specialized ebooks. My question is: Can someone whose primarily motivated by just learning actually make money on the internet? I could easily have been a professor. Primarily I seem to have a very strong desire for learning …” -(Name Withheld)

MY RESPONSE:

——————————————

Hi,

Thanks for the kind words…
I was EXACTLY like you for 18 years!!!

All I did was read, read, read… I read tons of books (they didn’t have ‘ebooks’ back when I was doing a lot of reading)… but did nothing with the knowledge I was gaining.

I was, truth be told a … bookaholic.

The first step is to recognize you ARE a bookaholic (or ‘info-junkie’), and admit it to yourself and you’ve won half the battle.

Seriously, you have to start applying what you’ve LEARNED all these years READING.

CREATE your business by EXPRESSING yourself and getting it to FLOW FROM YOU. You have ABSORBED a lot of INFORMATION and now it’s time to be a teacher, let it out and inspire others with what you’ve learned.

As you said,
> The problem is, I seem to prefer the theory
> much much more than the actual practical aspects.

Then TEACH… teach others what’s going on in the industry and who is saying what. Give as much information as you are getting. Share your opinions and the facts as you see it.

You write very well - you should have no problem getting people to sign-up for your ‘newsletter’….

Just start GIVING… giving of yourself and what you’ve learned, give a little back to others.

You can do this… and if you think you can’t then the choice totally is yours. But I sense in your letter that you’re ready to do something with what you’ve learned, you just don’t know WHAT.

RE:
> Feel free to be brutally honest. I’d like to know
> what your experience tells you.

Well, you ASKED for it
RE:
> “Do I have the characteristics for successfully
> earning a living online?”

Like I said, I was EXACTLY like you are. All I did was read, read, read, but never TOOK ACTION. Once I decided to just simply ‘help others’, even if I didn’t know everything, I was going to try and help as many people as I could.

And I think this is the key for most people who are ’stuck’ - they are thinking about themselves too much.

I don’t mean that in a bad way… or that they are selfish, I mean that they need to think in terms of ’service’, ask yourself, “how can I help others with the knowledge I’ve acquired?”…

Even if you have very little knowledge, or you think you have very little knowledge about a subject, there will always be people who are LESS knowledgeable than you, and those people are your market.

The key is to focus, not on yourself, but on how you can HELP others…. that will set you in motion.

Forget about attending some ’self-improvement’ seminars. You probably already know what they will teach you. Everthing you need to know is ALREADY inside you, you just need to recognize that and seek the answers INSIDE YOURSELF…

Technically, you might need some help. That’s why I created my course, “You Can! Make Your Living Online!“.

It takes you through the psychological and technical details of how to make a really successful business on the Internet.

Best wishes for your success,

-Dave
——————————————-

Now, as you saw from the interview with Jim Straw (below) one, big secret to success is the ability to create your own info-products.

Not everyone can create their own products and if you can’t, it’s ok.

You can purchase the rights to sell other people’s products.

Just because you see some people selling the same product you want to sell, don’t think that you can’t sell it too. You can.

The best products to buy, in my opinion are those that allow you to edit, add your own material and use it as a ‘base’ to create your own product from. I call those kinds of rights ‘Private Label’ rights.

It gets you started. It helps you get something going. This type of ‘right’ is especially helpful when you don’t know WHAT to write about!

Larry Dotson has done just that with at least one of his products here, http://www.visiturl.com/instant.html

He allows you to change, add, include and modify his content (900 business tips) and re-compile them into you own instant information product.

You can create ebooks, ecourses, add them to your ezine or add them to your site surrounded by Google ads using AdSense, etc…

If you are stuck… you can’t get started writing something- use these tips as a “get started” method.

Let me say as clearly as I can: If you want to increase your income online CREATE something.

You want to be successful online?

+ Create an ebook!
+ Create a course!
+ Create a video!
+ Just create something!

Then just tell other people about it.

The more people you tell, the more sales you’ll make.

That’s it. Hard huh?

Let me give you an example.

Here’s a product I sell, and all I have to do is tell other people about it and I sell lots of them,

http://www.infoproductlab.com/blogreport.html

The sales page is too simple: a listing of the table of contents. Of course, before I send them to this page I give a description of what the book is about and how they will benefit from it. But it’s SIMPLE, and I keep it simple for a reason. I don’t want to exaggerate the benefits as so many people do online with their products.

Believe it or not, I’ve had COMPLIMENTS on this page. People have told me they are tired of the ‘hype’ of most sales letters online and this page was ‘refreshing’. I kid you not.

And you know what? I agree with them. I’m rather sick of ‘hype’ too. But you know what? Over-hyping a product is not even necessary.

If it SOLVES a problem, and communicates CLEARLY HOW it will solve the person’s problem it WILL sell!

It’s a simple product that solves a simple problem, How To Start A Blog for Profit.

That’s it. It sells. The more people I tell about it the more I sell.

You can do this!

Hey, if you have a book or info-product that you think I would like let me know. I’m always looking for high-quality books that my subscribers can use to learn marketing, selling and Internet business. If it’s unique or approaches the subject in an interesting, insightful way I will mention it to my list.