Like three bandits in a Mexican stand off they just stand there, still as moonlight. Eric Giguere, Joel Comm and the Rich Jerk, all nervously eying each other amongst the ruins of many books, e-books and “special reports”. There’s gun smoke all around and the sound of broken glass as people scatter. How will people know which book to buy, if any?
Well, something like that anyway. Three books really stand out lately, either due to their reputation, notoriety or even their content. Those books are:
- Joel Comm’s “What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense”
- Eric Giguere’s “Make Easy Money with Google: Using the AdSense Advertising Program”
- “Making Money on the Internet” by The Rich Jerk
They’re all different enough to deserve their space on the market too. Think of the Rick Jerk book as an overview of things you can do to earn money, Eric’s book as an absolute beginners guide and Joel’s guide a series of methods and ideas to help you along as an existing website owner.
I’ll add now, there are are no affiliate links in this review, and I have no connection to any of the authors. I’m a website developer, much like you.
Starting with “Make Easy Money with Google: Using the AdSense Advertising Program” which despite having a cover and title like something you’d see in a yard sale is actually a good book. I’m sure Eric won’t mind if I say the contents are pure fiction. That’s right, it’s a story. Eric takes you by the hand as a total novice in the form of a tale and takes you through all the steps necessary to get you online and earning money. You’ll learn alongside a fictional family, all with a slightly different perspective.
Despite not being a novice myself, the book actually reads at a very good pace. One way he achieves this is by not getting bogged down in unnecessary detail - if something needs further explanation he’ll lead you to an page on this website that further explains the topic. A page without AdSense on as well, to his credit!
Joel Comm’s “What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense” on the other hand hits you with fact after fact. Ways to optimize your site and its advertising and how exactly to go about it. You might think that a lot of the stuff covered is obvious… but have you tried it? …with measurable success? There’s some damn good stuff in there, all of it illustrated and straight forward. Joel, like Eric, is a good author and you’re never left trying to decipher what they mean.
He covers topics such as size, color, placement and how to track them best. An excellent section of the book shows you how to best make sense of your website logs to improve your site’s overall performance and how to constantly tweak things. Each tip or method is backed up with a real world example you can view on the web at the moment - not all his sites, but he’s up front about it all. This book weighs in at over 120 pages, and none of it fluff and filler.
Thirdly, it’s the Rich Jerk’s guide to “Making Money on the Internet”. This guy came running out the stables with all guns blazing. One day he was just there, right in your face with an Army of Clickbank affiliates promoting the book. This whole thing is a classic sales tactic. By that I mean his posture and stance. But if you look through the projected image then there’s some good things in there. The book is less of an action plan, it’s more about throwing things into the arena and discussing them.
There’s some very good things in there. Case Studies of sites give him some level of credibility and all the ideas presented in there are sound ones. He discusses how best to get people to want what you’re offering and shows examples of adverts and headlines that fall in line with the Rick Jerk philosophy. I was pleasantly surprised at some of the other ideas in there that I’d never thought about before.
There is one complaint that is leveled against all these books, and in fact every ebook out there. People whine that “there’s nothing in there that you can’t read online for free” to which I can only reply “fine, go ahead and do that”. One thing that free info on blogs and forums can not do is present the information in one place in a coherent order. Plus, why not pay someone else to carry out this research and present it to you?
So which of these would I recommend? At $199 I wouldn’t recommend the Rick Jerk book to anyone. But he usually uses the classic sales tactic of selling at a knocked down price for $49.95 for a “limited time”. Is it worth that? Well, that is for you to decide. You’ll make that back if you follow his tactics, but as with most people seeking “Get Rich Quick” books will you actually bother? (This is a point he makes in his book - saying that an excellent market to profit from is the Get Rick Quick crowd who buy book after book hoping that they’ll get rich. Oh, the irony!).
This leaves the other two AdSense books. And to be honest I’d recommend both of them. If you’re really at square one, then Eric’s book is totally ideal for you. If you know someone who is pestering you for information about how you make your money online, then it would make a good present too seeing as it’s a real book you can hold in your hands.
Joel Comm’s “What Google Never Told You About Making Money with AdSense” I would recommend to anyone who isn’t happy about how their site is performing. You’ll get no-nonsense common sense advice on how to improve your site and, of course, your AdSense income.
I thoroughly enjoyed all three books, I really wasn’t expecting to, and one thing I gained from all three was a sense of enthusiasm and eagerness to get stuck into my sites and get them really going. And that’s priceless.
This is a repost of an article I originally wrote for ThirdSquare
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November 13th, 2008, at 7:14 am #