Check out the competition

I think, more often than not, people go through their lives with some level of depression. I mean, it's the rare person who is happy ALL THE TIME. Every single minute? Even when a toe is stubbed? Very rare.

So I've been tired and feeling mildly depressed, nothing that a good night of sleep won't fix, but it's annoyed me just the same. When I feel like this, I usually take action, somehow. Tidy up the bills. Create an email list for marketing. Go online and do some marketing.

I was doing this, talking on some Yahoo groups, when I discovered The Competition. You see, I've written and published an ebook, and I place ads sometimes on the Yahoo groups where I participate. On one of these groups, I saw an ad for someone else's ebooks. Hmm. Okay. I clicked the link, thinking that I was going to see something similar to what I have on my website.

It is a handmade site, obviously. The propaganda is FULL of typos, which made me think, "Why would I want to buy your book? You obviously don't care about clarity or editing." Furthermore, just in the text on the website, the writing was clunky and just not attractive. The whole experience left me feeling like, "Hey, my site is great. Glad I went with a web guy, instead of doing it myself."

Then I went to her purchasing page. You see, I still thought I might purchase one of her books, for research, to see what my book is missing. Until I saw the prices. $19.95 for a soap making ebook? It went on and on. The same price for a lotion-making book. Etc. Etc.

Holy crap! There is NO WAY that I was going to spend that much money on my competition, when she can't even write good marketing text on her website, obviously doesn't know publishing basics or ignores publishing basics, and the whole thing just looked so "handmade" and "homegrown" that I suddenly felt a whole lot better about myself and my efforts.

I suppose it's not the nicest thing, to bash the competition like this. Therefore, I won't give you the link to her site. I will let you know that I feel so much more confident in all my writing and publishing efforts, my depression has completely lifted.

Perhaps the coffee helps.