Money back warranties or guarantees. These are really forms of free content. The consumer is safe in knowledge that he can always return already consumed content and get his money back. In other words, it is consumer who decides whether to transform content from free to paid by not exercising money back guarantee.

Relative pricing. Information available on Web is assumed to be inherently inferior and consumers expect pricing to reflect this "fact". Free content is perceived to be even more shoddy. The coupling of free ("cheap", "gimcrack") content with paid content serves to enhance RELATIVE VALUE of paid content (and price people are willing to pay for it). It is like pairing a medium height person with a midget - former would look taller by comparison.

Price rigidity. Free content reduces price elasticity of paid content. Normally, cheaper content - more it sells. But availability of free content alters this simple function. Paid content cannot be too cheap or it will come to resemble free alternative ("shoddy", "dubious"). But free content is also a substitute (however partial and imperfect) to paid content. Thus, paid content cannot be priced too high - or people will prefer free alternative. Free content, in other words, limits both downside and upside of price of paid content.

There are many other factors which determine interaction of free and paid content. Culture plays an important role as do law and technology. But as long as field is not subject to a research agenda best we can do is observe, collate - and guess.

This article is, of course, free content...:o))

APPENDIX - Types of Free Content

The experiment of online content is in its infancy. Content creators, providers and aggregators fall into seven categories, though hybrids and permutations abound:

I. Entirely Free Content

Unrestricted access to entire body of content available through a central URL or database.

II. Registration Required

Access to entire body of content available through a central URL or database conditioned on providing a few personal data and being assigned - or choosing - a user ID and password. But, subject to registration, content is entirely free, as in (I).

III. Time Limited Free Content - New but not Archived

Unrestricted but time-limited access to some content available through a central URL or database. Access to new material is free and unrestricted. Access to archived material requires a subscription.

IV. Time Limited Free Content - Archived but not New

Unrestricted but time-limited access to some content available through a central URL or database. Access to archived material is free and unrestricted. Access to new material requires a subscription.

V. Time Limited Free Content - Rotation

Unrestricted but time-limited access to some content available through a central URL or database. Various parts of Web site (desks, chapters, features, articles, stories, sections, etc.) become accessible at different times. Access is rotated between these sections periodically or thematically or arbitrarily.

VI. Teaser Content

Unrestricted - time unlimited or time limited - access to some content (selected articles, headlines only, etc.) available through a central URL or database. Access to rest of content requires a subscription.

VII. Subscription

Access to content subject to paid subscription or payment per item.

You can submit your articles to individual e-zine publishers but it is very time consuming and I find that I am lucky to get a favourable response from one in ten publishers that I contact in this way…. Once you have written your first article and had it published, you will find ‘as I did’ that next one comes easier to write. Try to write a new article every week. Also find another article agency every day or two and submit to them your existing articles. This way your articles will very soon be published and read world-wide. Every time that you get an article published it is new money in your bank account.

Earlier, I suggested that you sign up with affiliate programs that have a two tier system. This means that anyone who joins progrom through one of your links and signs up someone else, receives their commission and you also get a fee as well. This can increase your earnings in long term to a considerable degree.

As I said at start, You can get by without a website. That does not mean that you could not do better with one.

A website can be hub for a number of programs. You send your prospects to website where you have details of all of your projects. Not only that, you can capture e-mail address of all those who purchase from you with object of selling to them again at a future date.

Without a website, best way of collecting e-mail addresses is to have an e-zine to do collecting for you. But that is another story.

In meantime. GIVE IT A GO!!!! Bob......