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The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself
What It's About: Creating freedom through a very small business.
Who Should Buy This: Anyone hoping to escape the tyranny of a conventional working life, anyone interested in setting up a microbusiness to earn additional income, and anyone who believes in hard work.
Who Should Not Buy This: Expert Internet marketers who already know a lot about working online, anyone looking for a quick fix, anyone happy with their current working situation and income, and anyone not willing to work hard.
In Pursuit of Freedom
The greatest benefit of self-employment, or even a side project that produces additional income, is personal freedom.When you can take more control of your choices, you'll experience an independence that money can't buy.
No one will do this for you. If you want freedom, you'll have to make it happen for yourself, but this guide can help.
It includes:
8 Ways to Earn (At Least) $200 a Month
Truth and Lies of Affiliate Marketing
3 Separate Ways of Selling on eBay (including one that 98% of eBay sellers ignore)
The Truth about Blogging for Dollars
How to Get Paid for Things You Currently Do for Free
6 Top Mistakes of Entrepreneurship
4 Overrated Businesses You Should Avoid
Who Should Buy This: Anyone hoping to escape the tyranny of a conventional working life, anyone interested in setting up a microbusiness to earn additional income, and anyone who believes in hard work.
Who Should Not Buy This: Expert Internet marketers who already know a lot about working online, anyone looking for a quick fix, anyone happy with their current working situation and income, and anyone not willing to work hard.
In Pursuit of Freedom
The greatest benefit of self-employment, or even a side project that produces additional income, is personal freedom.When you can take more control of your choices, you'll experience an independence that money can't buy.
No one will do this for you. If you want freedom, you'll have to make it happen for yourself, but this guide can help.
It includes:
8 Ways to Earn (At Least) $200 a Month
Truth and Lies of Affiliate Marketing
3 Separate Ways of Selling on eBay (including one that 98% of eBay sellers ignore)
The Truth about Blogging for Dollars
How to Get Paid for Things You Currently Do for Free
6 Top Mistakes of Entrepreneurship
4 Overrated Businesses You Should Avoid
54 pages, ebook
418 people want to read
About the author
Chris Guillebeau
40 books1,680 followersChris Guillebeau is the New York Times bestselling author of The $100 Startup and other books. During a lifetime of self-employment, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. Every summer in Portland, Oregon he hosts the World Domination Summit, a gathering of creative, remarkable people. Chris also hosts Side Hustle School, a popular podcast that is downloaded more than 2 million times a month.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 20, 2010
As a rabid Chris Guillebeau fan with limited funds, I've had my eye on this for some time. When he had a Thanksgiving sale, I jumped on it.
I was surprised to find it hardly contained anything that I didn't already know. The website does warn that it's not for expert internet marketers who already know a lot about working online, but I hardly qualify as that. At the time I bought it, I had yet to make a penny from any sort of internet tycoon activities. I guess even super baby internet tycoons who have never actually done anything but have thought about it and read a few blogs for a month or two need not apply.
It does give about eight ways to create small income streams online. If you have no idea whatsoever of any ways to do that, I guess it would be a good reference, but even then, you'd want more detail about how to do most of the things.
The chapter on 4 overrated businesses to avoid was probably the most interesting, along with top mistakes new entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them. Still though, my world remains unrocked, despite his guarantee to the contrary.
I'm really surprised this book wasn't better. His free stuff is action-packed and absolutely great, and many bloggers I respect recommend this series of guides. Maybe they haven't read this one? Or maybe they're so far beyond newbie, they can't tell what level is useful? I don't know, but I won't be in a hurry to buy his next one, that's for sure.
I was surprised to find it hardly contained anything that I didn't already know. The website does warn that it's not for expert internet marketers who already know a lot about working online, but I hardly qualify as that. At the time I bought it, I had yet to make a penny from any sort of internet tycoon activities. I guess even super baby internet tycoons who have never actually done anything but have thought about it and read a few blogs for a month or two need not apply.
It does give about eight ways to create small income streams online. If you have no idea whatsoever of any ways to do that, I guess it would be a good reference, but even then, you'd want more detail about how to do most of the things.
The chapter on 4 overrated businesses to avoid was probably the most interesting, along with top mistakes new entrepreneurs make and how to avoid them. Still though, my world remains unrocked, despite his guarantee to the contrary.
I'm really surprised this book wasn't better. His free stuff is action-packed and absolutely great, and many bloggers I respect recommend this series of guides. Maybe they haven't read this one? Or maybe they're so far beyond newbie, they can't tell what level is useful? I don't know, but I won't be in a hurry to buy his next one, that's for sure.
February 12, 2011
I bought this a few days ago and read it pretty quickly. It's well-written and easy to read onscreen (works especially well on an iPad, actually - you'd think it was made for it). As a web professional, yes, there was quite a bit of info in there that I was aware of, but it's given me a bit of context for what I already knew, and that in itself is useful - it's helped to tie some bits together.
Guillebeau provides a few suggestions for ways to make money online. I was pleased to see that there's a bit of variation in them - it's not all about the quick fix, although I do wonder when the market will reach saturation point for information products, especially where they're not produced by genuine experts but by people who just consider themselves experts. But I guess it will be like blogging - for a while there'll be a bit of noise, but then the sheep will separate from the goats and it'll be a bit easier to tell who is authoritative and who is not. He has some helpful suggestions about promoting your offerings, and I've found the audio segments really quite useful - especially the one about driving traffic to your site.
'Rock my world'? Not sure yet. I do think it's worth my while to read through it a second time and take some more notes, but if nothing else it's galvanised me into taking some action. It's sparked ideas that had lain dormant for a while, and given me some new ones. Some of those are for proper 'job' ways to make money, but that's fine - my goal, as he states, is freedom, but part of that is the freedom to make money doing things I enjoy, not just great wads of spare time. Maybe that will come eventually.
For the price and for my situation, I think this has been a worthwhile investment. For anyone who's a bit clueless about how one makes money online, or promotes oneself, or uses social networks then I'd say this could be a small revelation. Given his warning that it's not for internet marketing gurus, I didn't expect it to change everything, but it's certainly helping me to start changing some things.
Guillebeau provides a few suggestions for ways to make money online. I was pleased to see that there's a bit of variation in them - it's not all about the quick fix, although I do wonder when the market will reach saturation point for information products, especially where they're not produced by genuine experts but by people who just consider themselves experts. But I guess it will be like blogging - for a while there'll be a bit of noise, but then the sheep will separate from the goats and it'll be a bit easier to tell who is authoritative and who is not. He has some helpful suggestions about promoting your offerings, and I've found the audio segments really quite useful - especially the one about driving traffic to your site.
'Rock my world'? Not sure yet. I do think it's worth my while to read through it a second time and take some more notes, but if nothing else it's galvanised me into taking some action. It's sparked ideas that had lain dormant for a while, and given me some new ones. Some of those are for proper 'job' ways to make money, but that's fine - my goal, as he states, is freedom, but part of that is the freedom to make money doing things I enjoy, not just great wads of spare time. Maybe that will come eventually.
For the price and for my situation, I think this has been a worthwhile investment. For anyone who's a bit clueless about how one makes money online, or promotes oneself, or uses social networks then I'd say this could be a small revelation. Given his warning that it's not for internet marketing gurus, I didn't expect it to change everything, but it's certainly helping me to start changing some things.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews