I am reposting this thread on the updated forum as there were so many newbies that profited by my experience.
I am writing this message to all the rookies like me! Well, now that I think about it, you are probably not like me. I am a 57-year-old grandmother who lives on a tiny farm in the middle of a cow field in Central Washington.

Anyway, last December I was financially desperate. I won't tell you my whole sob story, but the bottom line is that I was out of money and still had $1000s of bills to pay each month!

So I had to reinvent myself. I had been in real estate investing and when the bottom dropped out of the market, it took all my financial resources with it.

I started reading Your Portable Empire by Pat O'Bryan and that's when I decided to try Internet Marketing.

So I bought a couple eBooks that taught me what to do . . . and I started. I followed the writers' advice to the letter. One of the eBooks was about writing eBooks and the other was about getting traffic to your site.

Here is my encouragement to you! I had never done this before! I was a writer and I had a laptop, but that's about as much as I could bring to the table. On top of it, I had very little money! So I had to make things happen with a minimal investment!

I ended up spending less than $100, wrote and started selling two eBooks of my own . . . and within just over 5 weeks, I made more than $12,000. What I've since learned is that this is even more amazing since the two eBooks I wrote and I sold were both priced at under $10 each.

Here is what I did:

1. I found a niche
2. I built a free WordPress blog
3. I created a Squidoo page and pointed it to my blog.
4. I wrote about the subject and created about 10 posts. I kept adding more and more content throughout the process.
5. I wrote my first eBook and priced it at a very low and affordable price.
6. I contacted about 10 other site owners who wrote about the same subject and asked them to link to my site. Two of them agreed.
7. I wrote another eBook and priced it under $10.
8. I kept adding more and more content and I answered emails and comments from readers ASAP.
9. Within in a few weeks, I was on page 1 of Google
10. I had to Mickey Mouse the sales pages because the free WordPress sites don't allow e-commerce. I used a service at first, but later switched to another site I built.
11. I stayed focused and from the time the sales started coming in pretty well . . . to five weeks later - I made more than $12,000!

So now that I've had this first experience, I am totally convinced that focused work and determination can create an income through Internet Marketing. Truly, I just wrote about a subject close to my heart. I sold to common men and women who were looking for information - not internet information, but information to help them in their lives.

I tried to be honest, respectful and give excellent customer service to everyone who contacted me. Now I am working on ways to sell more products to my more than 1400 buyers!

There is still a lot I don't know. I love this forum and especially value it for all the advice and tips people share. I'm excited about the future and encourage each of you reading this post to stay focused, spend your money wisely on good quality tools, and BEGIN!

If a grandma living in the middle of a cow field in Central Washington can make $12,000 in just over 5 weeks on her first Internet Marketing offer, then anybody can who is willing to follow the same or similar steps for success! I know that to be true!

Be blessed as you work to reach your goals!