photo: dark.molly

Hey kids! The biggest change we have for this blog is the addition of a new writer, Stacy. You may know her from her blog Birds and Bills, where she writes about…

…wait for it….

…personal finance!

If you haven’t read her blog, I suggest you do so. She is the CNNMoney.com’s small business editor, so I think that she may know what she’s talking about when it comes to money. Just a hunch.

She is also another urban dweller, a resident of New York, the city that wishes it were Chicago. Or is it the other way around?

Anyway, she’ll have a post once a week here at least for the next two months. You can read more about her in our about page. I look forward to her contributions.

Welcome, Stacy!

Hot Product Sourcing Strategies

by Jesse Holmes

If you have gone through your house and have been listing off your
odds and ends, by now you should be mostly sold out of them. Now it is
time to start searching for items to go out and buy to get listed. You
should now be a master at completed item research, and as you go out
and hunt for deals it will prove to be invaluable.

Now is the time to go to the mall, outlet malls and storefronts on an
inventory hunt. The ideal situation at this point is to find inventory
from a store that is having a clearance sale. Stores that are already
discount orientated such as outlet malls, TJ Maxx, Ross, Marshalls and
Nordstrom Rack are the perfect stores to visit when sales are taking
place. Take a pen and paper and as you spot deals, write them down.
Take quick snapshots if you have a camera phone. At this point, you
are just seeing what's out there. Already having a good idea of eBay
Pulse will give you a good idea what to start looking for in the
store.

When you go home, make a list of deals that you found while browsing
around. With your list, you are now ready to find out which deals are
keepers and which ones are not. Go through each item on your list and
perform some completed item research on eBay. This will tell you if
the items are selling or not and what they sell for on eBay. Once you
have determined which items are profitable to buy (after listing
fees), then go back to the stores and pick up the items you want to
start selling.

If there are multiples of the items that are profitable, buy
multiples. Having an item you can relist and sell more than once saves
time and makes you more money.

Thinking this is all just a waste of time and there is no profit to be
found? We used this exact same strategy and bought a pair of jeans for
at a Marshalls and sold them for 0 on eBay.

It doesn't take very long to see what you can sell on eBay for a
profit after a few trips to the store. If you want to take some old
clearance inventory off their hands, develop some relationships with
the store managers. If the items still sell well on eBay, its worth
your time, and usually they are more than happy to have you clear out
their old stock.

About the Author: Jesse Holmes is the designer of the free eBay 101
Start Up Kit [1]. In this easy to follow video kit he will show you
precisely how to make make money on eBay [2] quickly and easily! Get
your free copy while supplies last.

Links:
——
[1] http://www.powersellerpath.com/
[2] http://www.powersellerpath.com/

http://www.articlejunktion.com/2009/06/hot-product-sourcing-strategies/

Deciding the Nature of Your eZine

by Steve Blalock

When choosing a topic for your eZine, you must consider some important
success factors that can determine the flow and goal of your eZine.

We suggest you to write non-time sensitive contents such as short
tips, mini stories and interviews. Doing so enables you to create
content in advance so that you can conveniently dispense to your
subscribers at a later schedule.

Topic-wise, you will do well to cater to a hungry market that will
always be on demand for the kind of content you offer. And by this, I
mean that you should zero in onto a demand that has been, is and will
always be there.

Relationships and dating are niches that have been on Earth long
before the World Wide Web came up, for example. The food niche will
always be there as long as there are chefs cooking.

Having said that, you also want to have products and services of your
own or an affiliate for you to endorse to your mailing list and make
even more money.

This is the reason why the Internet Marketing niche will remain one of
the hottest niches, as products and services are created around the
clock. As long as there are Internet Businesses cropping out, there
will always be needs to be fulfilled.

About the Author: Now that you have a website and an online
presence, you need customers! Make sure you sign up for Steve
Blalock's free information at www.onlinebizsource.com build website
customers [1]

Links:
——
[1] http://www.onlinebizsource.com

http://www.articlejunktion.com/2009/05/deciding-the-nature-of-your-ezine/

Know More About Book Printing and Publishing

by Thomas Goodlet

Publishing of books is the process of preparing and issuing of print
material for the purpose of distribution to the reading public.
Printing your own book may be an arduous process but it mostly depends
on how people will receive your book. A family name should never be
used as the Publishing name. Individuals that publish their own books
are likely to get discount rates, promotion money and good
relationships with online and conventional sellers of books.

Book publication however is time consuming and quite expensive for
publishers who have little or no idea in book publication. Contrary if
you publish your own book will give you contentment and feeling of
achievement in your work. It will also show how hardworking you are
and the apth to succeed in the world of publishing.

If you want to publish a first class book, you have the task of
producing a book for different people. You need to look for help from
various professionals from the book industry. Book printing and
publishing is a lucrative business to gain a lot of profit if you have
a clear mind to what makes people feel attracted to ideas. Your book
should be attractive; both the content and the outlook. For instance,
you need some appealing colors on the cover of the book that you are
about to publish; although the color of the book depends on the color
of the paper and the theme of the book. In the cover you can use three
to four different colors. Usually, colors make the cost of the book a
bit more expensive compared to the one which is plain.

The content and color of the cover is a big factor in how attractive
your book will be to the buyer. The color scheme must be attractive
and will depend largely on the paper that you are using for your cover
and the ink that will be used to print the content on it. You are
allowed to use three or four colors on the cover if you wish. Too many
colors will make the cover seem messy. All these factors go into the
considerations that will determine how much the book will cost.

About paper weight, type and color is also a very important
characteristic. When the paper weight is high the quality becomes good
this is how the paper is system is classified. Some companies use the
recycle papers for printing, as we know this are light papers and its
quality is very low compare to the one which is heavy. However, the
cost of book production is definitely low.

About the Author: Thomas Goodlet, a book publishing mentor offers
high quality website book printing [1] solutions for books, booklets
and newsletters at minimal costs. He also provides comprehensive
warehousing and fulfillment services through his website
http://www.book-printing-for-less.com [2].

Links:
——
[1] http://www.book-printing-for-less.com
[2] http://www.book-printing-for-less.com

http://www.articlejunktion.com/2009/03/know-more-about-book-printing-and-publishing/

Congrats to the author at Frugal World, the very first commenter on our Valentine’s Day contest! We’ll be contacting you to get your info so that we can send the book Please Send Money! A Financial Survival Guide for Young Adults on Their Own by Dara Duguay.

Hope that our Valentine’s Day tip worked for some of you out there!