I come from a different background than what you might expect of an Internet marketer. Growing up, I was a highly creative kid who loved to draw comic books, write stories and make short films with my video camera. I went on to earn my degree from New York University, where I studied at their prestigious film school. My goal was to be a writer/director of motion pictures.

After college, like many recent film school graduates, I spent a couple of years working as a PA (production assistant), which is the film industry’s equivalent of slave labor. Waking up at five in morning, working 16 or 18-hour days, lugging equipment and cleaning up the set when the day of shooting was done…while being treated like dirt and earning barely enough money to keep a roof over my head.

Meanwhile, I was writing screenplays that I hoped to direct. I cranked out a bunch of “spec” scripts (samples of my work) and mailed them out to agencies that represent screenwriters. (You need to be represented by an agent in order to get your work seen by the movie studios and important producers; otherwise, it will just end up in the trash bin.)

An agency agreed to represent me, based on the strength of my spec scripts, and over the next few years I had endless meetings. I learned that in Hollywood, it’s all about “taking meetings.” Your agent’s job is to get you into meetings with “development executives” who work for the studios and the producers, whose job is to meet with writers, listen to their ideas, and try to develop the most promising ideas into screenplays that become movies.

But to “develop” an idea, in Hollywood-speak, typically means mangling your concept in an attempt to give it more commercial appeal, or tailor it for a particular actor whom they hope will play one of the roles. Countless times I met with high-powered producers and famous actors who would give me their “notes” on my screenplays and send me off to rewrite it to their idiotic specifications. I had to grit my teeth and put up with it; screenwriters (except for a handful of A-listers who have huge hit movies and Academy Awards on their resume) are some of the lowest folks on the totem pole. Which is ironic, considering that without a good screenplay, it’s impossible to create a good movie. Even the greatest director, actors and special-effects wizards on earth can’t turn a turd of a screenplay into a film that will stand the test of time. (Exhibit A: Any one of those godawful “Transformers” movies.)

There’s an old joke in Hollywood: “Did you hear the one about the Polish actress? She slept with the writer.” That pretty much sums up how much respect writers get out in the movie biz. I found the whole process—the whole Hollywood culture, in fact—to be extremely frustrating. I was able to earn a living from it (which is more than 99.9% of writers living in Hollywood can claim), but more than earning a paycheck, I wanted to see the fruits of my labor. I wanted to see my scripts get made. I wanted to get my stuff out there!

One of the 15-some-odd screenplays I wrote did get turned into a film, a crime-thriller which featured some hip-hop stars and some actors from Oz and The Sopranos, which, at the time, were my favorite TV shows. I must say, it was a thrill to see the film get released, and to watch it in a movie theatre in New York City (my hometown) along with a paying audience. But it was also clear to me that I didn’t have a long-term future in the movie-writing business. I wanted to be prolific. I wanted to express my vision. And I also wanted to make money—lots of it! As much as I loved cinema and the craft of screenwriting, my success is that field was completely reliant on other people.

Sure, nowadays any young Scorsese wanna-be with a digital camera can shoot their own film for a thousand bucks and get it viewed on the Internet. But there’s no money in that. Like I said, I’ve always been driven by financial goals as well as my creative ambitions. I’d done the “starving artist” routine during my post-college years, and it was no fun. I felt it was time for me to cash in on all of my hard work and talent.
By this time I had grown to despise the “Hollywood culture” in Los Angeles (which seems to me more about taking meetings than actually pulling the trigger and getting anything done), so I decided to live in Las Vegas, which was close enough to LA for me to travel there for meetings.

Late one night, while hanging out at a bar at the Hard Rock casino, I happened to meet an incredibly charismatic guy who had a “way with the ladies” like I’d never seen. He told me he was a cop; I told him I was a writer. We were intrigued by each other’s occupations. Many of the screenplays I’d written were set in the world of cops and criminals, and he told me he was taking writing classes in the hopes of writing his own screenplay. So we hit it off and became fast friends.

Now, here’s where the story gets interesting…

By this time, I’d grown tired of the screenwriting business. I was earning money by rewriting other people’s scripts and getting screenplays I’d written “optioned” (which means a studio or producer pays you a modest sum of money to retain the exclusive rights to your script for a period of time, during which they can try to get it made—but this rarely happens unless you’re considered to be a “bankable” writer with a proven track record.)

So I decided to switch my focus to writing books. Being a Hollywood player wasn’t my goal; I’d always considered myself to be a “writer” and not married to any one particular industry. (In addition to my screenplays I was a prolific writer/journalist for a number of magazines.) I figured that with books, I’d have creative control over my work, and I’d be able to get a book published in a fraction of the time it takes to get a movie made. Plus, if I came up with a good “hook,” there was always the chance that a studio would option my book and possibly turn it into a movie.

And for my first book project, I had one hell of a hook. My cop buddy, as it turned out, had a background as a Hostage Negotiator. He’d been the youngest Negotiator in the history of his police department. And it was his particular skill set—the ability to influence a person’s emotional state and “bond” with them, to bring about a peaceful resolution—that was the secret of his success with women.

I contacted my agent and told her I wanted to pitch a book idea. I was able to get meetings with several major publishers, and one of them offered The Negotiator and I a $30,000 advance to write the book I’d dreamt up during out late nights prowling the nightclubs of Las Vegas: “M.A.C.K. Tactics: The Science Of Seduction Meets The Art Of Hostage Negotiation.” It would be the ultimate how-to guide for the modern guy who wanted to elevate his confidence, dating life, and verbal skills with the opposite sex.

I spent the next few months grilling The Negotiator about his strategies and tactics, and using them to craft a book that explained how these same methods could be applied to attracting and seducing women. Before the end of the year, it was on the shelves of bookstores across America.

Like all first-time authors, I assumed that my book would be a priority for my publishing company; I expected them to throw their full weight behind it and promote it like crazy. Unfortunately, they did virtually nothing. It was up to The Negotiator and I to pitch the book to magazines, newspapers and radio and TV shows to try to get exposure. I learned the harsh reality of the book publishing business: unless you’re a Tom Clancy, Stephen King or the writer of the “Twilight” books (i.e., you’re a proven money-maker), you’re rarely going to get much support.

During this time, I had taken the initiative to get a website built for M.A.C.K. Tactics. Our publisher wasn’t willing to shell out any cash for this, so I hired a web designer and paid him out of my own pocket. After it became clear that we weren’t going to get any support from the publisher, I decided that instead of trying to get a publishing deal for another book, I would pen a sequel to Mack Tactics, another seduction manual for guys, and self-publish it. I found a “print on demand” service that would print copies of my new book, and ship it, every time I received an order from a customer. I promoted the new book on my website.

Back then, my website was only able to take orders from customers who had Paypal accounts. I only sold a few copies a day, but it was a huge thrill, because it was pure profit. If a copy of the book cost $7 for me to have printed and shipped, I could charge $20 for it and make $13. I knew that if I scaled up my promotional efforts, I could keep earning more money—all of which went straight into my pocket, rather than being filtered through some shady corporate accounting department.

I looked into buying ads in some of the popular men’s magazines. I also explored the possibility of buying banner ads on some high-traffic websites which catered to young men, the kinds of guys who would want to buy a “how to pick up girls”-type book. But all of these options were out of my price range. I couldn’t afford to risk thousands of dollars to (hopefully) sell a few more copies of my book.

This is when a friend of mine told me about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). These are techniques you can use to move your website up the Google rankings for certain “keywords” that you target. I learned that by achieving high rankings in Google, you could get “search traffic”—people looking for information on that particular topic would see you in the Google listings, click on your site, and come check you out. And you can effectively “optimize” your site for free. It requires you to roll up your sleeves and do a lot of writing—for example, commenting on other people’s blogs and including a link to your site, or writing articles on your topic and submitting them to article directory sites—but since I was a writer, I didn’t mind doing this. And I could do it well. In addition to learning everything I could about SEO, and implementing it, I invested a few hundred bucks in software that could automate parts of the process. For example, I could record a short video in which I talked about my book and gave away some tips. Then I could use software called Traffic Geyser to automatically submit my video to YouTube as well as dozens of other video-sharing websites.

Back in 2004, when I first started using SEO to boost my rankings, the landscape was a lot less competitive. My efforts paid off quickly. Soon I was on top of the Google listings for search terms like “how to approach women,” “how to get girls,” and “how to pick up girls.” Every day, thousands of guys would run Google searches on these phrases and find my website. A small percentage of my daily visitors would order a copy of my book.

Looking back, my website at the time looked terrible and was awkward to navigate, and even though I was a skilled writer, I had no concept of writing effective sales copy (which is a whole other discipline). Nonetheless, it was making money every day—even while I slept!
Around this time, I also discovered the world of Internet marketing. To my amazement, I learned that some authors were skipping the “traditional” book publishing model altogether and selling their books in digital (PDF) format. There was a term for these types of books: Information Products. They taught people how to do things—how to lose weight, how to train your dog, how to make money in real estate, how to improve your golf swing, etc. I heard that some of these “online information” peddlers were making a fortune!

I began to study how successful Internet marketers packaged and sold their products, and I saw that none of them sold only a book—the book was always bundled together with other products and “bonuses.” Everything was digital and downloadable. So I followed the same strategy, bundling my “how to pick up girls” book with instructional videos, bonus books, and an audio course. (For the audio course, I simply bought some cheap audio gear, recorded myself reading the book out loud, and uploaded it to my website as an mp3 file. Easy!)

Now, rather than charge $20 for a book, I could charge $77 (or $97!) for a “complete system” in which the book was just one component.
By using my growing SEO knowledge to promote my product—which was now completely digital and downloadable, eliminating the need to print or ship out books—my income began to grow exponentially. I kept writing more books, and adding more bonuses. I started networking with other Internet marketers who were in my niche, and we formed partnerships to promote one another.

Today, I generate a very comfortable income just from those products. I was one of the pioneers of what is now known as the “seduction” niche; these days, there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of marketers who are pushing similar products about how to attract and seduce women. Meanwhile, I’ve expanded into other niches, such as fitness, and I make a lot of additional money as an “affiliate” for other websites and products.

I’ll explain more about affiliate marketing elsewhere on this blog, but essentially it means that you send people to a website that is selling a product, and if they make a purchase, you earn a commission. Because I’ve built up a large email list over the years, of tens of thousands of guys who are hungry for information about dating and seduction, I can not only sell them my own products—I can send them to other offers which pay me a 50%-75% commission for every sale I am responsible for.

So in my case, I’ve already gone the “traditional” route with my creative endeavors. I got one of the my screenplays turned into a movie. I got a book published (two, actually, but my follow-up was a total bomb that isn’t worth discussing.) And I eventually realized that the Internet was the ultimate vehicle for me to express my creative talents AND make as much money as I wanted.

Here’s what I love about Internet marketing:

• You release your own products, on your own schedule. When I was in the screenwriting business, it pained me to know that even when I did sell a screenplay, the chances of it ever being made into a movie were miniscule. Every year, the Hollywood studios purchase hundreds of scripts and only wind up making a handful. Personally, I like to see the results of my hard work—and now, instead of my name appearing on movie screens, it appears on the computer screens of thousands of my readers around the world. I think that’s pretty damn cool.

• The selling process is completely automated. I don’t enjoy dealing with customers, and with my internet business, I don’t have to. I outsource my customer service for a few hundred bucks a month. I can focus on being creative.

• It’s passive income. One of the great joys in my life is waking up every morning and checking my sales account—and knowing that while I slept, customers from all over the world purchased my product. Before I even start my workday I’ve already made more money than most of my friends who work 9-5 jobs.

• Your earning potential is unlimited. Why stop at creating one product in one niche? Create 10 products in 10 different niches! Once the money is rolling in, you can hire ghost writers to research and write your books. (You don’t need to be an expert in the niche; you can pay someone to research it and become an expert, and then write the book for you.) You can pay web designers to set up your sites. You can pay outsourcers in foreign countries a pittance to handle all of your SEO needs. The sky is the limit!

People often ask me when I’m going to write another screenplay, or get my next book published. Right now, I don’t see the point. I’ve found a way of doing business online that I find creatively satisfying and extremely lucrative. On this blog, I’ll share with you the specific tactics and techniques I used to launch and grow my online business, in the hopes that you, too, will enjoy the same success.