Stuffed like Grandma’s Thanksgiving turkey
Earn money online. Hmm, doesn’t that sound amazing? Easy money, right? Well, maybe it could be according to millionaire Internet pioneer Marc Ostrofsky. In his book, Rich Click, Ostrofsky provides multiple money-making ideas and examples of people who used them to make money online, lots of money. In addition to several pages of keys in the book (mostly from other successful online sellers), the book contains 17 full chapters of methods to potentially break into the Internet money market. Mr. Ostrofsky also provides the reader with information on how to develop a mindset to enter this business, plus many references to resources for additional tools or information.
What I liked about this book is the fact that it really delivers the goods. The methods presented are proven methods to make money on the Internet and Ostrofsky gives you enough information about the method to at least get started, in case he wants to continue. So when it comes to quantity, this book is a hands-down winner. If I sat down and wrote a list of all the ways you could make money online, from selling personal items on eBay to selling domain names for millions of dollars (Ok, maybe the domain name for millions of dollars isn’t ( unless you’re keeping an eye on the future of dotMobi domains), I don’t think I could have covered the field better than this book.
The other thing I liked about this book is the resources provided. Within each method outlined in the book, Ostrofsky does a good job of providing links to resources for tools or vendors that are valuable to the novice entrepreneur. Also, at the end of the book, there is an entire chapter devoted to resource and supplier information.
Because Rich Click it is packed with information that serious Internet opportunity seekers could benefit from, I highly recommend it. I applaud the authors’ style of presenting important key processes in easy-to-follow numbered sequences or bullet points. As someone who reads a lot of technical information on the web or in books, it’s refreshing to see the steps broken down into little chunks that are easy to read and digest. The book is also broken up into little sub-chapters so it goes pretty quickly and for those of us who are only interested in one or two specific methods the book is designed to accommodate them easily. Of course, I don’t recommend this, because you won’t get your money’s worth from the book by simply choosing one or two methods.
Now my grain of salt
Despite my recommendation of the book, to give a fair warning to anyone who gets their hands on the “buy now” button on Amazon; I would like to point out some things that I did not like about the book.
First: Although the book appears to be organized in a good standard Microsoft Word layout with headings and subheadings with accompanying text, sometimes the organization of the author’s thoughts deviates a bit. For example, in the chapter titled “Collecting Your Payments: Quick and Easy,” the author begins collecting payment from credit cards and uses drop shipping, etc. So far so good. But then, right in the middle of that, he presents a flowchart and concept on database marketing and talks about qualifying and selling leads. What? What does this have to do with getting paid? I found examples of this ADD style of writing throughout the book, which could be attributed more to poor editing than poor authorship, but it does take a lot of the flow out of it either way.
Second, you can’t read the book without feeling a little groggy. Clearly, many of the references provided by the author must be obtained by linking to the author’s website. No doubt this is for a monetary affiliation with that referring product or service. while the book IT IS about making money online and I can’t blame the author for trying to make money as he proposes to you, the reader, it would be very refreshing to read a book on online marketing or monetization that is truly altruistic on the part of the author (as they claim they are.) “I made money, so I want to give back, blah blah blah…” Make no mistake about it; in addition to the profits Ostrofsky makes from book sales, he intends to connect with you, the reader, as a potential source of income. So keep that in mind. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that, and frankly, if I had the chance, I’d probably do the same thing. Still, it’s nice to dream of really generous people whose only motivation is to give back to the community.
Finally, the last thing I didn’t like about the book is the author’s self-aggrandizement that is peppered throughout the book. Again, this is very typical of these kinds of books where the author uses his own success as the shining example of how to do whatever he is promoting in his books. Maybe I’m not being fair here, because of course we wouldn’t want to hear from the author unless he hasn’t done something to establish himself as an expert on the subject. Still, I’m still hoping to find one that isn’t. I think it’s entirely possible to present his success without sounding like an egomaniacal name-dropper. Rich Click It’s not as bad as that, but there was enough personal aggrandizement in the book to irritate me from time to time.
Summary
Well, maybe I’m just jealous, or maybe I’ve never quite fitted into the hyped-up sales stereotypes that tend to write these books to make money. Hint, hint… does this mean that this personality type is a mental requirement for success? No, I really don’t think that’s true. In fact, when you think about the concepts promoted in this book for “online” success, involving individual non-corporate achievement, self-initiative, and an independent spirit, then logically the opposite could be true. I’ve given Mr. Ostrofsky a bit of a grudge for his salesmanship in the book, but I still applaud him for creating a story and an example of individual spirit and ingenuity. These are the stories that interest us and make us buy books to see if there is anything we can do to emulate these stories.
This book is too full of good information not to read it. You may need to do a little more research on any specific method that appeals to you, but the book provides a comprehensive overview of each method presented. I rate a book in this genre, which is meant to inform and educate, by how much I actually learned. And I learned from this book, plus I also got several good ideas and resources that I intend to investigate further. I feel like you will too.
