You can download your FREE report HERE!

“I was worried because I stopped receiving your emails and your sites are inactive. Any chance you’ll be back soon?”

My response to her is what I’d like to use as a foundation to explain what’s been happening over the past several months… why I “vanished” from the world of the Public Domain for nearly three months. Some of you know the beginning, but I feel that I owe you more details about where I’ve been, why I pulled back from Internet Marketing and what the future holds.
Many of you are aware that a year ago, my Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer. We’re blessed that he’s still with us for another holiday season, but the past few months have been difficult for him with seizures, blood clots, a further degeneration of his speech and ability to walk, etc. Also, in September, my wife and I filed for divorce…it was a mutual decision but it still was what it was…with stretching financial responsibilities, relationship adjustments, emotions…you know how it works….

And so, my divorce and all the changes associated with that, the loss of close friends (because of divorce) and my Dad’s struggle with deteriorating health from the brain cancer really put me into a bit of emotional overload, to be honest. So much was happening all at the same time that I had to pull back everywhere I could… kind of like a dark night of the soul. Of course, we all go through them…I’m sure you could tell me stories…perhaps much worse than my own…but the thing I discovered is that you don’t know how you will respond in situations like that until you go through them. For me, something had to give and I honestly felt like just walking away from everything (as you can obviously tell). I lost my drive and passion for business…creativity stopped, I could think of anything to write about…and I came to the point where it had to be family (and me) first if I would ever have a chance at coming through all this stronger and wiser. So I unplugged almost completely. During that time, I also did not respond well to e-mail, if at all, my customer service was been extremely slow, I stopped e-mailing everyone on my lists, and I neglected friendships and business acquaintances that I had been nurturing and were (and still are) important to me. I’m not happy about those areas of failure…I can only offer apologies and a new commitment to get things back on track and improve the areas I allowed to slip. It wasn’t my intent, but it happened none the less.

During that time, I had a lot of amazing support from friends and family, and from friends in the IM community. There are a few people that I owe a deep debt of gratitude to for their amazing support and friendship over the past few months. Whether they realize it or not, they’ve been lifesavers to me. I want to publicly thank my close friend, Ed Owens and my business partner, Marsha Blessing for their encouragement and listening. I also want to thank Jim Edwards, David Hancock, Warren Whitlock, Rhea Perry, Donna Fox, Ben Mack, Eric Farewell, Lynette Patterson and a few other IM friends who were also lifesavers for me…more than they know. Thanks to them, I’m still in business and am excited to move forward again! My Twitter friends have also been amazing with encouragement, friendship and prayers…if you’re not on Twitter, you’re missing an awesome community of people who care (you can follow me at: http://www.twitter.com/tonylaidig). So, thankfully, it appears my “Dark Night of the Soul” is coming to somewhat of an end…and I’m glad.

So that’s been the past three months…

Things are beginning to return to normal now (except for Dad’s health)…I’m getting adjusted to single life after 21 years…although, with my ex-wife moving 4 hours away next week and my youngest daughter moving with her, there will still be some adjustments. Plus…because I can’t have pets at my new place, my husky, Kola, is also moving. I do visit Dad everyday though and it’s been great to “be there” for him and Mom.

Over the next few weeks, there will be a number of changes in my business in an effort to get everything updated and back on track. I’m in the process of updating all my websites with new, current contact information so that it’s easier to get in contact with me. I’m moving away from all my old e-mail accounts (mostly due to ongoing server issues) and creating new e-mail accounts for interaction. I’m moving several sites to new servers and autoresponders, as well as updating outdated websites and more. I’m also updating my customer support help desk to make it clearer and easier to use and will be responding much more quickly to those needs as well. And the best news of all is that I’ve been writing again and will be blogging and releasing newsletters on a more regular basis…yay!

I also have some new products planned that I’m extremely excited about. Some have been in-process for a while, like Info Gold Extreme (which should be ready by the end of January, along with some new ones you don’t know about just yet…grin. Over the past few weeks, I’ve also identified and tested some new Public Domain research strategies that are very cool and VERY effective. I’ve been finding some of the best, most amazing content in my entire career in the past few weeks, and I’m going to tell you exactly how I did it! Watch for that report in the next week or so!

Lastly, I wanted to do something for the Holidays…something special that I haven’t done before as a way of saying “Thank-You” for the past year of friendship and exploring the Public Domain together and to say “Hello!” again! So I pulled together a bunch of FREE gifts for you as well a couple special offers on some of my most popular products to help you leap into the New Year with new ideas and opportunities.

Click here to learn more and to celebrate the Holidays with me and to get your FREE gifts!

Here is the legal code waiver as proposed by the Creative Commons^TM site (http://labs.creativecommons.org/licenses/zero/1.0/legalcode)

CC0 Waiver

1. To the fullest extent permitted by (but not in contravention of) applicable law, Affirmer hereby fully, permanently, irrevocably and unconditionally waives, abandons and relinquishes all of Affirmer’s Copyright Related Rights and associated claims and causes of action, whether present or future, vested or contingent, in the Work, (such waiver, abandonment, and relinquishment, the “Waiver”). Affirmer makes the Waiver for the benefit of each member of the public at large and to the detriment of Affirmer’s heirs or successors.
2. Should the Waiver for any reason be judged legally invalid or ineffective under applicable law, then the Waiver shall be preserved to the maximum extent permitted and Affirmer hereby grants to each such affected recipient of the Work a worldwide, royalty-free, non exclusive, perpetual (for the duration of the applicable copyright), non transferable, non sublicensable, irrevocable and unconditional license to exercise Affirmer’s Copyright Related Rights in the Work, which license shall be deemed effective as of the date this CC0 Waiver was applied by Affirmer to the Work.
3. No trademark or patent rights held by Affirmer are waived, abandoned, relinquished, licensed or otherwise affected by this CC0 Waiver.
4. Affirmer hereby fully and completely disclaims responsibility for clearing rights of other persons that may apply to the Work or any intended use thereof, including without limitation any such person’s Copyright Related Rights (including privacy and publicity rights). Further, Affirmer hereby fully and completely disclaims responsibility for obtaining any necessary consents, permissions or other rights required for such intended use.
5. Affirmer understands and acknowledges that Creative Commons is not party to this CC0 Waiver and has no duty or obligation with respect to this CC0 Waiver or use of the Work.

Essentially, CC0 works very much like the current laws regarding the Public Domain with one huge exception: CC0 is regarded as a global license and not country specific, and that point alone could make it superior to simply releasing a work into the Public Domain. Another key difference between CC0 and the Public Domain is how related rights are addressed. With CC0, moral rights retained by the original author(s), publicity and privacy rights pertaining to an individual’s image or likeness depicted in a Work, rights protecting against unfair competition in regards to the Work, and any rights protecting the extraction, dissemination and reuse of data in the Work (such rights all, collectively, the “Copyright Related Rights”) are also waived. The only exceptions I could think of (and I’m sure there are more) are when a work involves more than one contributor or includes individuals other than the copyright holder (such as a photograph that pictures another person. That person’s publicity and privacy rights would not be waived without their consent).

I’m curious to see how the final draft turns out and whether content creators will adopt CC0. As new developments arise, I’ll keep you up-to-date!

For additional reading on the topic:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0

http://labs.creativecommons.org/licenses/zero/1.0/legalcode

• Argentina
• Canada
• Chile
• Italy
• Norway
• Philippines
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• United States

For more information, feel free to visit the OKF site at: http://okfn.org/wiki/PublicDomainCalculators

If you have followed this blog for very long, or if you’ve been on my list for very long, you’ll know that I normally write a LOT. I enjoy it. I love helping people succeed in their business. You’ve probably also noticed that for the past few months, my writing and product development has dropped to almost zero. There are a few reasons for that. Personally, I’ve been going through a divorce and my father’s health has not been good. Dad has brain cancer and probably will not be with us much longer. Those personal struggles have understandably taken some of the “wind” out of my sails, but they have also (thankfully) forced me to re-evaluate everything else I’ve been doing in my business. The experience has been somewhat humbling, and in some cases, shocking.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed that there is actually a lot of worthless crap out there on the market…especially in the Internet Marketing community. There are very few NEW ideas (in spite of what you’ve been told), and quite honestly, a lot of the new products are just rehashed ideas, either with a slightly different spin on it, or as just a blatant ripoff of other’s hard work. But the biggest “discovery” I made in the past few months is just how few “how-to” products actually tell you how to do anything. Sure, they make the promises of “how to do,” but in most cases you just learn “what to do,” and trust me, it’s not the same (in case you haven’t noticed).

This revelation was really brought home to me thanks in part to one of my business partners, Simone Blum. Simone has the innate (and sometimes annoying) ability to ask “how” questions with regard to selling online that really force you to break a strategy down to its simplest forms–and that can actually be harder than you think. Her constant challenges were one of the motivators for my re-evaluating what I’m selling and doing online. It is amazing how a simple question like, “Where do I really start and how do I do it?” can force you to think differently. The truth of the matter is that the “real” answer to that question demands action, not BS, which is what we’re used to getting (and in same cases giving).

The result of my interaction with Simone over the past few months has resulting in a few promising and sometimes scary decisions. First, I realized that, in light of her questions, I needed to make changes in my business and products (in some cases, significant changes). Over the next several months, I am going to be making a LOT of changes with my products…I can’t go into details now, but trust me, you’ll LOVE the end result! Why? It’s simple…I want my products to be the best they can be to provide maximum usability…and I DON’T want to sell false hope.

Just recently, I purchased a new product that promised to teach you how to make money with Public Domain content. I buy ALL products that teach on the Public Domain for two reasons…I like to learn and I want to make sure people aren’t selling crap in my niche. Unfortunately this product did exactly that…it was a bunch of crap. It was cheap enough…only $7…but absolutely worthless for teaching anyone “how-to.” What’s worse is that large portions on the text were plagiarized from article sites without the proper credit being giving. The e-book also offered “strategies” that were downright unethical, not to mention illegal. Apparently the law means different things to different people. I was so frustrated with the product that I think I would have rather just taken out a five dollar bill and two ones and just burned them rather than having spent them on this product. The experience also got me thinking about my own products and led me back to the questions I asked at the beginning of this article…have I (personally) lead you astray concerning the Public Domain? The answer is both yes and no! Let me explain…

You can have all the content in the world, but if it isn’t content that people want, need or are looking for, then it’s a waste of time…it’s crap! Unfortunately, a lot of the information that’s presented about the Public Domain leads you to crap. It’s one of the reasons why I picked up the Public Domain torch to begin with. While I don’t want to limit your creative innovation with using Public Domain content to create new products that actually sell, I’m also not too proud to admit that, except in rare cases, some currently taught Public Domain strategies just will NOT work for the average person. Let me give you an example of what I mean.

In some of my products, and certainly other products, I have talked about creating compilation CDs or DVDs of Public Domain content to sell. I don’t necessarily encourage it, but I do present it as an option. While there are a few people who ARE making money using this strategy (and there is even an e-book out there that teaches this strategy with Public Domain content), the truth is that YOU will likely NOT make a lot of money doing it. It’s a lot of work for a little money. Of course, there will be exceptions and I’m sure that someone will challenge me on this, but I’d like offer the challenge to prove it. As a matter of fact, a new phrase challenge just came to me as I’m writing this and I may just use it from now on. Simply put, the challenge is this:

Does your product pass the “prove it with a newbie” challenge? And I offer that challenge to myself. Can a newbie take your strategy or business model and actually make money with it? Interesting challenge…let’s get back on track…

The primary purpose of Public Domain works is simply to provide content for your products, whether they are e-books, audios, videos, physical products, etc. But I realized that if you don’t pick the RIGHT content, you’re wasting your time, and a LOT of people, including myself, have been wasting a LOT of time with little or no results. So the REAL question becomes, “How can I EFFECTIVELY use Public Domain content for product creation?” Honestly, the answer has nothing to do with the Public Domain and EVERYTHING to do with understanding the power of picking the right niche. Let me repeat that in a different way…

The true key to success with Public Domain content (or any other content for that matter) is to know HOW to pick the RIGHT NICHE! Period! A fantastic, high-quality product in the wrong niche will NOT sell, while a mediocre product in the right niche can sell like crazy. That’s why I’ve decided that my time needs to be refocused and spent doing two things (as should yours):

1) Becoming a MASTER at identifying trends and hot niches; and
2) Effectively identifying and find the RIGHT Public Domain content.

Yes, there are 85 million books and over 200,000 different magazines worth of content in the Public Domain…not to mention the millions of photographs, illustrations, patents and more. But out of ALL that content, how much of it is REALLY usable…seriously? Twenty percent? Ten percent? One percent? I don’t honestly know. But I DO know this, I am committed to not teach or write about Public Domain content in ways that are little more than filler and have no place in real-world business success. I’m also committed to learning and teaching HOW to identify the best niche markets to sell in, which is why my FIRST teaching venture after my “epiphany” is to partner with Eric Farewell on sharing Expert Niche Strategies. Listen, in the Great Depression, a LOT of businesses went under and tens of thousands of people lost their jobs, but not all of them did. There were a few businesses that GREW during the Depression! How did they do it? They understood the buying habits and trends of the American Public and then gave thepublic what they wanted. That exact same strategy will work today, and that’s why you NEED to learn and understand it!

Eric is a MASTER at identifying hot niches…he’s an expert! I am an expert at finding the right content for those niches, so together, we are going to deliver a one-two punch that will economy-proof your business! Are you interested? You should be! Discover what Eric and I are up to here => http://www.expertnichestrategies.com

Join us…it will change your business as it has his and mine!

I bought a Mac Book Pro! Goodbye PC!

Eleven years later, I can say with certainty that I have seen things from new perspectives. As a matter of fact, that initial experience was a defining moment in my life and has ultimately resulted in MUCH change for me personally—from my personal views of God to business approaches and relationships. Finding that new way to “see” something has become a driving force in my life, which also means that change has been a driving force in my life.

Of course, the latest change has been my wife’s and my decision to part ways. Lots of change and new perspectives with this decision…and scary as hell. But I have to admit that I am intensely curious as well to see how it goes. In the end, I really hope I “get” the lessons the universe has for me…that’s my goal…because I’ve also learned that, just because we’re presented with change, doesn’t always mean we’ll learn the lessons or benefits from it. That’s important!

So, don’t waste your moment of change. Embrace it, no matter how difficult, and evolve into the next stage of who you are meant to become. And one last thing…if you are not changing…if things are mostly the same with you, it’s time to begin asking “WHY.” The truth is that you can’t keep doing the same things over and over and expect different results. Don’t happen! If you want a result that’s different than the one you’re currently experiencing, you need to change something…period!

What does this have to do with the Internet Marketing business and with the Public Domain? Everything!

Successful product creation and selling is always a delicate balance of mixing the proven with the constantly changing. Ecclesiastes 1:9 states that, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done. There is nothing new under the sun.” It’s true…there IS nothing new under the sun, even in business, but “change” requires us to consider “perspective” and “context.” Our perspective and context is what makes our current experience unique…it’s what separates the men from the boys, so to speak.

Consider “Perspective” this way: Perspective is the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed; whereas “context” is the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs. So in a sense you could say: Context is “what” it is and perspective is “how” it is, with “it” being whatever you’re referencing (a product, a niche, etc.). The genius behind truly successful sales is in understanding the context and perspective in ways that are different from those who are failing, which is why you can have one person be wildly successful at selling a product online in a certain fashion and another copy that system and fail.

I love the Public Domain because it represents the brilliance of those who lived before us, and while it’s sometimes easy to conclude that the content is old and outdated, nothing could be further from the truth. The real key…the real secret…to succeeding with Public Domain content is simply this…present it within a new context and from a new perspective. That’s where the money is, and in future posts (as I get back into writing since this new change in my life), I’ll be discussing those perspectives.

“As I write this, I’m listening to the teleseminar. It is without a doubt one of the best I’ve ever listened to. Listening to the conversation between you and Mike is like all three of us sitting in the den or living room having a conversation. Well, OK, you guys are having the conversation and I’m the wide-eyed kid sitting, quietly, listening and absorbing every word. Right now you’re speaking of content. And “content” is what this seminar is. Period. My sincere thanks to both of you for an enjoyable and extremely useful experience.”

 “We were able to join the replay of your fantastic teleseminar. The ten questions you answered were loaded with valuable information. It certainly was the best, most informative teleseminar that we have ever attended, and we thought the one in which Jim Edwards interviewed you was pretty solid. You really unloaded all or maybe most of your secrets to the giant Pandora’s box of public domain.”

“I listened to the whole seminar and yours was the best seminar with the most information that I have ever attended, and I have attended many.”

As you can tell, we had a great time! Ultimate Public Domain Q&A Teleseminar normally sells for just $97…an extremely low price for all the insights you receive, but I decided that, as a way of saying THANKS to you, I am going to offer a 40% discount on the series. Simply follow the link below…it will take you to the salesletter for Ultimate Public Domain Q&A Teleseminar. Click the ORDER button, and on the Checkout Page, enter the coupon code: TELECALL-1 in the space provided and click “Apply.” That will reduce your price by 40% and give you access to amazing content at an even MORE amazing price! Thank you! Here’s that link:

http://www.thepublicdomainexpert.com/teleseminar

Introducing Hayden Rose Martin!

Tony’s Yard Sale

See you there!