Look at all these books that have been written about storage auctions!

I did a little home work on this and you're absolutely right. The content is what really counts in plagiarism cases.

Since I haven't read his book, I wouldn't know if any of the content was taken from my book. I guess all I would have to do is look for paragraphs that had correct punctuation, spelling and grammar.

I dont know the anaswer to your questiona bout whether he can come up with a book with a similar title to yours but something interseting, anyone who writes a book about anything "for dummies" winds up getting sued by the people who put out the "for dummies" series. even if you are writing about a topic they havn't covered they have "for dummies" trademarked. Im a member of some webmaster and affiliate marketing forums and hear about this happening all the time.

as for similar content there's programs you can load your content into and it will tell you if someone else is using your content, thats if its on the internet so wont necessarily work on something written in print if its not on the net.

prety much everything on the interenet is copied though. many bloggers and writers use article spinning software that basically will take an article change words and whamo there's a new article

I've had many articles copied and spun. Even had some legitimate companies (small storage facility chain, other storage auctions websites, etc.) post my articles on their website without altering them and without my permission. I guess imitation in the sincerest form of flattery.

Since I haven't read his book, I wouldn't know if any of the content was taken from my book. I guess all I would have to do is look for paragraphs that had correct punctuation, spelling and grammar.

I did a little home work on this and you're absolutely right. The content is what really counts in plagiarism cases.

Since I haven't read his book, I wouldn't know if any of the content was taken from my book. I guess all I would have to do is look for paragraphs that had correct punctuation, spelling and grammar.

 


It must be pretty easy to get away with.  There was this guy in my life (not in that way, people!) that I forced to deal with.   He was a get rich quick type.  Always a new plan, most failed.

He wrote some books.   I think to boost his own ego or to make himself look important in his other dealings...

Anyway,  to read these are like reading cliff notes of industry leaders books.   He basically took a 200 page book and paraphrased it into 100 page book.    And where he couldn't paraphrase he says "from so-n-so....."   And copies&pastes a whole section.   

I laughed when he said he got published.   Yeah, man.  Paying lulu.com to set up a publishing company for you and paying for the publishing fees and print cost yourself doesn't really count as "getting published"

Kinda like saying you "got hired" to sell Amway. 

Sure, there are a LOT of books on Amazon (and elsewhere) about the storage auction business. But I also know this: They're not selling a lot of copies! Check the "Amazon Rank" for any of those books... most are in the range of 300,000-500,000... which is TERRIBLE as far as the number of sales per month. These authors will be lucky to sell 1-2 copies per month. Anything with a sales rank above 100,000 isn't selling many at all. (Amazon rankings go from low to high...)

Not sure what that means, really. A lot of people are interested in the storage auction business... I've written about it myself... but I guess not a lot of people want to read about it. Maybe they're just learning it "on the job"....

Bill S.

I appreciate the input Bill, that's interesting to know. Maybe since people see it on TV they think they already know how to do it.

Your best market place is of course Amazon and they have what's called "CreateSpace" - createspace.com/

Great way to get yourself out there.

A good way to market an ebook is to keep the price within .99-$2.99, you achieve 75% of the profits I think. How you market the book from the webinars I've attended on Traffic Travis is to set up a day where you offer your book for FREE,

however,

you need to get 100 people you know to download and review that book within that 1-2 days your book is for free. What this does is catapult the book up to the top of its search on that topic because of the "surge" of feedback you received. Cost $100 to get an isbn number if you do it yourself, btw, for those interested, but you don't need an isbn to sell e-books.

With Kindle being the hottest e-reader on the market, sales for e-books are shooting through the roof. So I would seriously consider self-publishing on the e-book than allowing a publishing house to take of your profits.

As far as titles are concerned, I do not believe they are copyright protected. However, I would go with:

Beginner's Guide to Storage Auctions

Your current title: Storage Auctions 101: Beginner's Guide to Storage Auctions is slightly redundant. With titles keep it simple and to the point.

My 3 cents on that (everyone says 2 cents, so I bid you a penny up).

Just take a page out of L.Ron Hubbards play book and buy up all the books yourself so it hits #1. 

Here's a quote from an article about titles:

Titles are not protected by U.S. copyright laws (which is why so many books have the same titles). To qualify for copyright protection, a work needs to possess “a significant amount of original expression”—and while “a significant amount of original expression” isn’t fully defined by hard-and-fast rules, the courts have ruled that expressions as short as book titles do not qualify.