Easiest way to make money on the net I ever heard of

[kranky]

Read an interesting story in a magazine today.

A guy took out a domain name based on research he did about what people search for on the web. He noticed that many people are searching for information on real estate, so he got a real estate-oriented domain name.

He went to the library and looked for books on selling real estate which are so old, the copyright has expired. He scanned them, repackaged them as e-books, made some edits to take the dated comments and make them current, and sells the e-books on his site.

I think we'd all agree that there's not a whole lot of work involved with that setup. Not a lot of cost, either - just pay for search engine data so you can pick an area that people are already trying to find information about, and set up a web site.

He's making $25,000 a month.

 

[SagaLore]

If the books are so old that the copyrights are expired, then I think its unethical of him selling them as current. Because a lot has changed since then.

 

[brxndxn]

That's a LOT of work.. Good for him.

It may be simple in theory.. but sounds to me like he put a TON of hard work into it.

 

[maximus maximus]

You know it sounds too easy... but you are missing the most important thing..

You need to have knowledge in the area too... if you write crap, nobody will want information from you.

Again, to gain knowledge you must invest time and time of course is money. Do the math!

 

[SVT Cobra]

Hello good brother of great america

I have interesting buzyness proposition on to you that I hope will bring us much great fortune. I have domain names very popular in realesate and I sell them to you for cheap price, but I still make good profit. Why I do this? I trust you as a good honestly person and I come to you first friend. I only require $20,000 american. Send to Nigeria.

Thank you very much for you graciousnest
Bruce Willis

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: maximus maximus
You know it sounds too easy... but you are missing the most important thing..

You need to have knowledge in the area too... if you write crap, nobody will want information from you.

Again, to gain knowledge you must invest time and time of course is money. Do the math!

He doesn't need to know anything. The books were written years ago by people who DID have the knowledge. All he does is repackage old books with a little tweaking if there are dated references. If the original book said "Follow these steps and you'll be the Lou Gehrig of the real estate market!" all he does is take out Lou Gehrig's name and put in Albert Pujols' name.

If you chose a book that was sufficiently generic (steered clear of addressing current laws, for example), it might need next to no work at all.

 

[lokiju]

Spammer!!










j/k!


Sounds like a easy enough idea though.

 

[thetxstang]

lolzors roflwaffle lolercopter

 

[Rastus]

Copyright are so absurdly long, I doubt there are any on real estate sales that have ever expired.

 

[IntrinsicValue]

And this alleged website name is.... ?

 

[RossMAN]

I did something similiar but I'm not earning $25,000 per month from it.

I wish!

Almost two years ago I saw hundreds of Google and YouTube videos which had the URL IDontGotAWebSite.com and I clicked on it. Nothing happened and I did a WHOIS search to see who owned it. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the domain wasn't registered and was available for purchase! I quickly registered the domain and redirect it to my website.

Hundreds of thousands of hits later the website has paid for itself and then some with zero advertising or marketing :thumbsup:

 

[911paramedic]

Originally posted by: Rastus
Copyright are so absurdly long, I doubt there are any on real estate sales that have ever expired.

That's what I was thinking. I thought they lasted until your death +50 years or something like that.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: 911paramedic

Originally posted by: Rastus
Copyright are so absurdly long, I doubt there are any on real estate sales that have ever expired.

That's what I was thinking. I thought they lasted until your death +50 years or something like that.

It's something like Life+70 years these days.

It's Ludicrous.

 

[JLGatsby]

For the copyrights to expire, the author needs to have been dead for 75 years. Any book THAT old, it probably way to out of date to use.

 

[Epic Fail]

another problem is getting people to go to your site, you need huge number of hits to get any conversion for selling crappy out of date real estate ebooks.

if that guy can get that many hits, he can sell anything. besides that, scanning a book is very time consuming.

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
For the copyrights to expire, the author needs to have been dead for 75 years. Any book THAT old, it probably way to out of date to use.

The fact is he's already doing it, and it's working to the tune of $25,000 a month.

 

[Xyo II]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
I did something similiar but I'm not earning $25,000 per month from it.

I wish!

Almost two years ago I saw hundreds of Google and YouTube videos which had the URL IDontGotAWebSite.com and I clicked on it. Nothing happened and I did a WHOIS search to see who owned it. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the domain wasn't registered and was available for purchase! I quickly registered the domain and redirect it to my website.

Hundreds of thousands of hits later the website has paid for itself and then some with zero advertising or marketing :thumbsup:

Nice!

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: Xyo II

Originally posted by: RossMAN
I did something similiar but I'm not earning $25,000 per month from it.

I wish!

Almost two years ago I saw hundreds of Google and YouTube videos which had the URL IDontGotAWebSite.com and I clicked on it. Nothing happened and I did a WHOIS search to see who owned it. Imagine my surprise when I discovered the domain wasn't registered and was available for purchase! I quickly registered the domain and redirect it to my website.

Hundreds of thousands of hits later the website has paid for itself and then some with zero advertising or marketing :thumbsup:

Nice!

I register about 5 domains a month and my first requirement is they earn enough to cover the costs of domain registration and web hosting. That's around $50 per year. After that it's all PURE GRAVY.

I don't know about you but I love gravy. Maybe not as much as Canadians but it's damn good on fries.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

wrong!

easiest way is to take pics of your titties (or other body parts (possibly doing naughty things)), put them on the net and charge horny men big bucks to look at them. piece of cake, but theres probably 4 members of this forum the idea would work for.

easy safe money.

 

[RossMAN]

Bump for a great story!

 

[PoPPeR]

I'd like to see his financial records.

Or to start, at least a link to his website.

 

[SunnyD]

What he is doing is likely infringing on people's copyrights.

Note:

Copyright term of length: United States of America

28 (if copyright not renewed) or 95 years for works copyrighted 1923-1963; 95 years for works copyrighted 1964-1977; thereafter life plus 70 years. (Copyrights prior to 1923 have expired.)

So he's quoting realestate books from 1923-ish... WOW. I sure don't want to be reading his work.

(cited from Wiki)

 

[Injury]

Originally posted by: JLGatsby
For the copyrights to expire, the author needs to have been dead for 75 years. Any book THAT old, it probably way to out of date to use.

But didn't copyright laws change to this in the late 70's early 80's, and thus all works no longer covered before the copyright change are still not covered, AFAIK.

This is the reason you can only take pictures of art in a gallery that was made before 1978 or something.


edit: Guess I should have made it to the post before mine before replying! :-x

 

[marulee]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
If the books are so old that the copyrights are expired, then I think its unethical of him selling them as current. Because a lot has changed since then.

Yeah..

 

[mugs]

Don't copyrights expire like 75 years AFTER the author has died? What useful information about just about anything could there be in 100 year old books?