Never Listen to Advice from People on This 1 Website
They’ll tell you something won’t work even if they’ve never tried it.
I went to the scariest place on the internet to look for information on writing ebooks.
Reddit.
I love Reddit for some things, but it’s mostly a giant cesspool of unhappy people. And when you have unhappy people giving out advice, it’s never a good thing!
I went to a thread called:
Are writing and selling ebooks a legit way to make good money?
And as soon as I started reading the comments, I felt sad for the person asking the question.
The problem with people is that they can only give you advice from their experience (or lack thereof).
And it seems that every person on Reddit is a Debbie Downer naysayer with a terrible perspective on ebooks (and life).
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This Reddit post is 2 years old, but I have zero doubt the answers would be the same today.
Let’s look at the first person’s answer:
First, he makes a snarky remark about how writing ebooks is technically legit. And then he mentions how hard…“really hard”…it is to make money. (It sure is with an attitude like that!)
Maybe the next person has a positive response:
Nope!
(And, by the way, there are plenty of readers out there. Just look at the success of Medium, Substack, and Amazon KDP.)
The next person almost had a positive spin thrown in there by saying writers can use ebooks to market themselves…
…until he (or she) ruined it by saying a lot of those fail.
There are a few more answers in the thread, and only the last person offered support, hope, and an income report. (Which means they’ve actually tried writing ebooks and had some success at it.)
These types of answers are why I strongly discourage looking for outside validation.
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Do you think the person asking the question tried writing an ebook after reading these answers?
Likely, he thought:
“These guys are right. There’s no point…”
And he went off to look for some other shiny object to chase. I know because I’ve been there.
I used to let people talk me out of trying things. Because “it’s not realistic”, “it’s too hard”, or “it’s too saturated.” (It’s funny how everything is always too saturated.)
In fact, I have my own naysayer on Medium:
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Gary is someone who is “realistic” and means well, but I’ve had to learn to brush these types of comments off.
Why?
Because when I want to try something, I want to try it. I don’t need another person telling me it’s not going to work.
I’ll figure out if it works or not by doing it.
I’m not saying you can’t seek advice and help from people. But if you do, make sure it’s with people who have experience doing the thing you want to do.
Don’t let some dude on Reddit who’s never left his mom’s basement tell you it’s not possible for you.
Many people out there in the world love to play the victim:
“It’s too hard. It’s too much money. There are too many other people doing it. No one succeeds at this.”
If everyone asked for and listened to the advice and opinions of these types of people, we’d still be stuck in caves beating each other over the head with elk bones.
My advice is to completely ignore these Debbie Downers’ versions of reality and be bold enough to create your own!
Did you know I also share short lists of links to everything I learn about making money online in this mini newsletter? → intellectualists.com
Totally agree with you on this! Many people get a kind of kick by discouraged advices or pushing down your throat, what worked for them. ..
Yes, I do agree that it's absolutely fine to disagree if I don't agree with others and it's absolutely fine to test your own ground instead of testing others' grounds! Worst case, you may fail, so what? We learn valuable lessons from failures...
I've tried to use Reddit multiple times, and I'm not sure what turns me away more: the people, the content, or the interface.