26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disorganized and incongruent mess consisting mostly of filler, 8 Jan 2012
Let me first warn you that I'm fairly certain most of the 5-star ratings on this book are fake. Take a closer look at them: They are very vague in describing the book's content, they all say more or less the same thing in the same style of marketing-lingo, and they never mention any of the inevitable problems that you will come across in trying to implement the (few) ideas presented therein.
The book consists primarily of filler and very little substance. He spends the first 20-25% of the book (about 120 pages in written form) telling you that you're wasting your life working a full-time job, and telling you that you will always be in debt, etc. It very quickly gets old and boring. The entire first quarter of the book reads like an advertisement that's about to sell you a Get-Rich-Quick scheme -- At this point warning flags should go up because a good book shouldn't have to work so hard to sell itself to you. He tells stories, makes comparisons to famous millionaires, makes pointless lists and arguments, and so on. For example, he devotes several pages describing computations for how rich you would at the end of the month if you started the month with £0.01 and doubled your money every day.
Ironically, in one of his anecdotes the author explains exactly what this book is: He describes that back in the mail-order days, he paid for a get-rich-quick scheme and instead received an envelope stuffed with junk. So he realized that he could make money by packaging junk to thousands of people.
So for 100+ pages, he describes why you're a loser in society for working a full-time job and selling your life for money, and promises a lifestyle of riches and millions, while leaving you free to do whatever you want. He explains that the result of every day of his work, results in £1 a day steady income for the rest of his life. Which is a nice concept if it would work; i.e. if he taught you how to quickly develop and launch a small business that makes £1 a day then the book would have been amazing.
However, he does not deliver.
Instead of plans and techniques, he describes various methods for scraping a few pennies from the internet. For example, scouring eBay for cheap items that you might be able to resell for higher prices. He suggests buying up internet domains in the hope that someone will buy them from you at a higher price later on. (Hardly a strategy to quit your day job for.) His main concept is setting up a number of small websites in the hope that people will click on ads. (His philosophy is "If you can't beat the internet giants like Amazon, join them by helping them sell products")
He fails to mention that you are competing with billions of literate people in the world, most of which are happy to work for £1-£2 an hour, in a market with almost no barrier to entry. He fails to mention that the accumulated overhead of running so many websites will soon reach a critical point where you will not have time to do anything else.
In fact, by describing how much time he wastes on pointless and fruitless efforts, he slips up and reveals the fact that he doesn't make nearly as much money as he says he does. I've known plenty of millionaires that hardly have time to go to the post office. I'm personally working in the City of London pulling in roughly £50 an hour. To me, most of the things he mentions doing make me cringe, because they are such blatant wastes of time. For instance, he describes how he entered a competition to sell 15 beanbags in the month before Christmas, and near the end he spent considerable time watching his seller's page: at one point refreshing it every 5 minutes for an hour. For what? The prize was a £90 beanbag. Anyone who's making serious money would value an hour of their time more than a potential free beanbag. If he wanted a beanbag why didn't he just buy one?
I almost feel guilty giving this pile of rubbish 2 stars instead of 1, but I want to be fair and the book does contain a basic introduction to domain trading, website building, ad revenue, and affiliate marketing, for those that are interested. If you take out the filler, the author could have made a decent 50-page book out of it. I also like the £1 a day concept. That is all you will get out of this book however, so if you read it, you're reading 400+ pages for a few bits and pieces tucked away in a huge pile of fluff.
At the end of the day you have to realize that if someone really figured out a working method to make millions from the internet, they would not be selling it to you for £5 or £10 or even £100.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent and content rich, 27 Jan 2012
An excellent read from an entertainment point of view. Revolutoinary and full of ideas from a personal work point of view. Followed his guidelines of setting up your own website. The difference about Marshall is his emphasis on doing something you love and bluring the lines on the definitions of working hours. I won't go on but a book like this has been a long time coming for so many. No get rich quick scheme here, only a blueprint for liberation.
Also, asked him to put a link for a new site on his website to boost its SEO. He wrote back like an old friend! Gentleman.
Patrick
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