I received this book a long time ago in the Early Reviewers program, but I haven't been able to get through it. I've tried reading it multiple times, and I just can't get into it. It seems interesting enough content-wise, but it just wasn't engaging enough to hold my attention.

Although much of this information is available on line, I applaud Scott Fox for putting it all in one place, and making it readable for the non-techie! He demonstrated the process that should be used, and how to follow-through with your plan. If this interests you, I would recommend checking this one out! ( )

Very well written and easy to understand. the author, Scott Fox, might have put the bee in my bonnet for me to get moving and stop all this procrastination. Sorry I took so long to put in my review. I do procrastinate. ( )

This book is great for anyone interested in starting an Internet business. It provides the guidelines and tools necessary to build an Internet business from the ground up. What I found of particular interest was that everything was kept simplistic, showing the reader that you no longer had to be a tech wizard to be successful on the Internet.

The author, Scott Fox, makes every effort to guide the reader through a step by step process, encouraging you to develop your business as you read through the book. In addition to encouraging, simple instructions; there are also numerous interviews scattered throughout the book from others who have created successful Internet businesses.

As a moderately skilled "techie" there were some aspects of the book that I found to be a bit tedious to read, though even that information was well thought out and easy to understand. I recommend this book to anyone even remotely curious about creating an Internet business. Prior to reading I hadn't considered the possibility, but now I'm even looking into it a bit, thanks to the ideas the book encouraged. ( )

Absolute beginners who know nothing about the Internet and/or business will probably find this book useful, though not necessarily more useful than many free online resources. Fox clearly doesn't know much about the technical aspects of the Internet, but nothing he says is so terribly wrong that it will make a difference. Likewise, the general business information is cursory, and adds nothing to free information available online from the SBA and other groups, but it's accurate as far as it goes.

Fox makes a few points that are quite sound: you don't have to know a lot about technology or business to get started selling stuff online; it's better to get started quickly and learn as you go than to develop a perfect business plan that never gets executed; and overspending at the beginning is a bigger danger than being undercapitalized.

It doesn't take an entire book to reveal these "secrets"; nor is Fox a particularly compelling writer. But not being horribly wrong is actually better than average for a "get rich on the Internet" book. I also appreciated that he didn't advocate spamming or deceptive SEO practices, though he could have done his readers (and, thereby, the rest of the world) a service by covering these issues in more detail. His discussion of copyright could also be both improved and expanded.

While I don't necessarily recommend this book, I don't know of a better one to recommend for an absolute beginner who thinks they might want to get rich online. For general background on starting a small business, I would recommend the classic Small Time Business Operator by Bernard Kamoroff.

[2008-08-14] ( )