An Introduction to… Me

It’s a cold Saturday here in Andover, so I thought I would take a little time out and tell you a little bit about myself and why I’m doing this weblog.

I am 50 years old, married, a father of three and a stepfather of three more. I’ve got three dogs — 2 Cavalier King Charles and a Labrador Retriever. I am a homebody for the most part. My office is right off of my bedroom, and I spend most of my days there. My social life mainly involves church related activities (I’m an Episcopalian in case you were wondering), visiting with friends, attending my children’s school and athletic events, and sometimes going out and doing a bit of shopping. I love to cook. I love to read — mainly non-fiction. I love to hang by the fireplace and catch up on my blog reading with my Powerbook. I also love attending concerts and indie movies.

I can be sociable when called for, but for the most part I’m something of an introvert. Not a terribly thrilling guy.

Those in the biz who know me mainly remember me for my days at the ClickZ Network and especially for when I sold it to MecklerMedia (now JupiterMedia). There is a perception that because of the size of the sale, I’m basking in luxury, living the good life. I live a good life, but perception is far from reality. The sale involved a significant portion of MecklerMedia stock, which lost most of it’s value within months of the sale. Nevertheless, I had to pay taxes on the full amount anyway. So, beside the worthless stock, splitting out my partner’s share, splitting up 50/50 with my ex-wife, and paying through the nose to Uncle Sam, there wasn’t nearly as much laying around as one might think.

After I sold the company, I went into semi-retirement for a couple of years. At about the same time I started getting back into the thick of things, I had 3 heart attacks and a quadruple bypass — all in one night. They just about lost me more than once. Doctors didn’t think I’d leave the hospital alive. Somehow I made it. But I do live with congestive heart failure, which is no fun at all — severely limits my activity. Because of the CHF, I don’t handle winter terribly well. Last winter, I was hospitalized with pneumonia 3 times. I had a few other ailments that put me in the hospital for a week at a time as well. Suffice to say that my health is one of those things I don’t take for granted.

So why am I writing this blog? Why am I buying and reading and reviewing eBooks with a slant toward launching new businesses online?

It has to do with the audience for the eBooks. They have no source out there telling them whether or not a particular eBook has any value or not. Most of the alleged “review” sites I’ve seen are poorly disguised sales sites that enthusiastically endorse every single eBook and eTool that ClickBank offers. Given how persuasive the sales letters are for most of these eBooks, I would certainly like to have a filter out there telling me whether or not the book is worth investing in.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not an expert on affiliate marketing, have no experience in AdSense/AdWords optimization, have never sold a thing on eBay and have little experience with eCommerce other than buying a lot of stuff online. But I do know how to create and build a content site. I know how to build a valuable audience. I know how to “monetize” that audience. And truly, audience building is the core skill behind most of these areas. You can SEO your site to death and load it up with AdSense and affiliate ads and still fail because for the most part, people aren’t idiots. They can smell it when they’re being exploited or taken for granted.

So when I read these eBooks, based upon my own life experience, I can sniff out whether the content is a bunch of fluff or has something of value to offer. I may not be an expert in the subject matter, but my gut tells me when the author is leading the reader down a slippery slope. If something is legit, I can usually sense it, though I’ve been wrong on more than one occasion.

I see my job here as looking out for you. I don’t want you buying books that are fluffy, dishonest or loaded with crap. If you buy one of these books, I hope you’ll get maximum value out of them. I hope they make money for you with their ideas. I hope they get your juices flowing and keep you up at night, brainstorming.

How do I benefit? Frankly, it keeps my juices flowing. Keeps me thinking. I get ideas from some of these books and parlay them a number of different ways until I see a great way I could do business more profitably. I also consult, and want to serve my client(s) by always having a fresh idea for them to use in building their business.

It might help me make a buck or two as well. I throw affiliate links on to the titles that I recommend in the hope that maybe someone will be moved to buy it and I’ll get some extra spending money as a result. Right now, quite honestly, I am not making a dime. There are about 300-500 folks a day who come by and read the articles (12/05) and I hope that that number will grow over time. I am intentionally writing the articles so that as the base of content grows on this site, the value of the site grows for the new readers who join us. I look forward to the day when the category list is ridiculously long with tons of titles I’ve reviewed and summarized for our readers. That is when this site will have significant value for its readers.

That’s me. That’s where I’m coming from. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing here.

I sincerely hope you enjoy and profit from the content here.

Feel free to drop me a note anytime at andrew at bourland dot com if you ever have a question or comment. I always reply.

Thanks,

Andy