Don't Call it an E-book!Written by Marcia Yudkin
Terminology greatly affects how people perceive value. Call something a "brochure" and no one will want to pay for it. Call it a "booklet" and it sounds small and insignificant, perhaps worth up to four or five dollars. Call your digital document an "e-book" and people instinctively compare it to tangible books and will pay no more than what they'd pay for something they can pick up at bookstore. Indeed, according to Angela Adair-Hoy, co-owner of Booklocker.com, magical price point for e-books is just $8.95.Consider these alternatives. "Special report." In business world, people will spend much more money for timely business information or instruction when it's called a "special report" than for an "e-book." A dollar per page is not unusual -- $4.00 or $5.00 for four pages, $97 for 90 to 100 pages. My research turned up many even higher priced special reports, where author already had impressive credentials, such as $195 for a 114-page report from usability guru Jakob Nielsen's firm and $945 for a 245-page report on Russia's aerospace industry from Jane's, a well-known U.K. security and international affairs information company. "Manual." Contrary to what you might expect, packaging
| | Fraud in real estate, are you being victimized? - Part IIWritten by Willard Michlin
The phone range and Peter was on other end of line. "Willard, I have a friend of mine that has a real estate problem." I said, "Send him over." Two hours later, Jerry sat in front of me terribly upset. Three years earlier, he had been talked into buying a 4 unit building in partnership with Smooth Talker, a knowledgeable, smooth talking real estate salesman. Smooth Talker offered to find property, arrange financing, manage building and even put up down payment. Jerry was told that all he had to do was use his perfect credit to qualify for loan and then sit back, wait seven years and money would come rolling in. Smooth Talker also promised that two of them would do more deals and Jerry would make over $100,000. What Jerry did not know and he would not figure out until 3 years later was that Smooth Talker had no intention of splitting anything and Jerry could kiss his perfect credit goodbye. 3 years ago, Smooth Talker had Jerry and two other buyers, buy three buildings, located on one street. The buildings cost $150,000 each. Smooth Talker put up $1,500 down payment for each property, while at same time, telling buyers that he was putting in $12,000.00 for each. There was an unexplained difference of $10,500 each. Smooth Talker also collected a $9,000 Real Estate commission on each. Smooth Talker also agreed to take building in as-is condition, with no inspections and without requiring seller to make any repairs. There were, unknown to Jerry $10,000 worth of air-conditioning as well as other work. Smooth Talker had those other two buyers borrow from Federal Government a remodeling loan of $48,000 to make needed repairs. When those other two buyers each got their loans, Smooth Talker took all money and said he spent it on Jerry's building. Let me clarify that. Smooth Talker stole money from other two investors, telling them he used it on Jerry's building. That is still stealing. My research later showed that he did almost no repairs to any of buildings, and what little repairs he did have done, were not even paid for.
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