If Johnny Marketer launches a new e-book on making money with YouTube videos, he probably knows there’s going to be a large amount of prospective buyers who can barely use a disposable camera, let alone produce decent videos that people will actually like. But if he says that in his marketing pitch, he just lost a majority of his potential sales.

This is common sense, but we all continue to buy into the promises that “anyone” can do it. The fact is simple: not ANYONE can do some things.

I can hear some of you now, “Drake, anyone really can do it if they are motivated, passionate, and have the DESIRE to do it.”

Well, yes. But the problem is that those characteristics are traits that a very small amount of people actually have, yet most people THINK They have it. Let me explain.

If I put a briefcase with $7.5million on a table in front of you and tell you it can be yours, how are you going to feel? Excited? Amazed? Horny? Probably.

Now I’m going to tell you the WAY to get it is by riding a unicorn to the end of the rainbow, murdering the leprechaun you find there, and trading his pot of gold straight up for this briefcase. BUT….anyone can do it because I have devised a TOP SECRET, NO-NONSENSE, STEP-BY-STEP STRATEGY DEVISED FROM A FORMER UNICORN OWNER THAT NO ONE ELSE IS TEACHING. Even a caveman can do it.

Your excitement from the initial possibility of getting the briefcase full of cash is completely hindering your ability to decipher the utter bullshit I just put in front of you. Obviously the example above is a bit extreme (everybody knows a pot of gold is worth more than $7.5mil, right?), but you get the point.

So, how do you make sure you don’t waste money on garbage products?

• Use common sense. Does something sound completely rehashed? It probably is.

• Never buy hype. Look at the contents of what you’re buying, not the hype surrounding it. Are you buying “a way to make 6 figures online” or “a course with videos, books, and real examples of people who made 6 figures online.” If it’s the first one, put your credit card away. You’re better off buying solar-powered night vision goggles.

• Use Google! Seriously, search for the product you’re about to buy. Read reviews about it. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars this way.

• Only buy from someone who genuinely trust. Again, don’t confuse your trust with hype. It’s easy to learn to trust someone because they make you feel excited inside about possibilities.

I’ve spent the last 3 weeks reading so much “free” material from dozens of marketing gurus that I think my eyes literally start bleeding at one point. Because of the rules I followed above, I never purchased a penny worth of material…and I strongly believe I learned as much as if I would’ve spent thousands.

That’s one great thing about the ridiculous competition between marketing gurus pimping their products. Each one has to step up his or her game to out-do the others, and the best way to do that is by creating more and more free reports and products to try to suck you into their paid products. When you put all of this free stuff together, you end up with a course worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Total cost to us: $0

ReadPrint.com
The listing

In a nutshell, ReadPrint is a place where people can read books for free. Sound illegal? It’s not. These are all classics (ie, out of copyright) and books that authors have sent to them for the free exposure.

So why is this site pretty much awesome? Because that’s a LOT of content and, last time I checked, Google loves content. Even better, this is mostly a hands-off venture with very little day to day upkeep. Adding books, handling questions, and working the social media…that’s about it.

ReadPrint is currently doing around 15,000 visitors per day and seems to be profiting around $5-6k/month. Considering 50% of that traffic is from search engines, these are excellent numbers. The only problem is the asking price of $250,000 is just too high. It’s a great site with great rankings and a fantastic userbase, but 50 months revenue is too much for any Web site short of a YouTube or a Facebook.

Considering this is out of most of your price ranges, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep an eye on the listing. Even better, look at the business itself. It’s something virtually anyone can start, the content is free/uncopyrightable, and it’s a potential search engine goldmine.

BuildingMuscle.org
The listing

This one’s overpriced as well (I’m noticing a trend here), but it’s a quality site with a lot more potential than the current owner is taking advantage of. Basically, it’s a site with original articles that help skinny guys build muscle. It does about 500 visitors a day, mostly from relevant search engine traffic. The current owner basically gets the visitors to an affiliate program (a muscle building course). It makes around $250/month from this.

The asking price is $9000, which is also too high. However, I think there’s some serious potential here. You pay someone to create your own course on “building muscle for skinny guys.” Then the profit’s all yours. Massive opportunity here if you can get the seller down in price.

These are two quality sites that you should definitely check out. If nothing else, you should copy their mechanics. They’re both great for search engines and do an excellent job of monetizing WITHOUT ruining the user experience.

I decided to start Publisher Point because there seems to be a real lack of LEGIT money-making strategy sites out there. There are hundreds that will teach you in return for money. You know, the “for just $47, you will learn how to make money online by flying a space shuttle to the imaginary Internet where my ideas actually work!” type sites. Hopefully Publisher Point will eventually put those sites completely out of business.

Some of the things I plan for this site are:

• Forums with REAL experts who will give you REAL advice
• Weekly Web site ideas and exactly how to implement them
• Reviews of existing scripts and e-books so you don’t waste your money on the shitty ones
• Free resources to help you grow your site
• Relevant, quality industry news that you’ll want to know for your business
• …and a lot more that I probably haven’t thought of quite yet.

The best and MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do right now is use the form in the column to the right to sign up for my newsletter. You will be getting the following sent directly to your inbox instantly:

• How I grew my site to 400,000 uniques and made over $1,800,000 in 3 years
• 10 killer web site ideas with examples and how much you can realistically make
• 1 weekly e-book outlining a web site PLAN (not just an idea)
• Anything else that will ultimately make you money.

So sign up for that now and check back here soon.