Storage Auctions

The Storage Locker => General Storage Auction Talk => Topic started by: HomeGrownPromos on October 18, 2013, 11:30:04 AM

Title: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: HomeGrownPromos on October 18, 2013, 11:30:04 AM
I'm thinking of writing an ebook that's a bit more realistic about the industry. Want to throw some topics/ideas out?
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: alloro on October 18, 2013, 02:48:00 PM
For title or content?
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 18, 2013, 02:58:58 PM
Chapter 1. It's not hoarding...if you plan to sell it.

Chapter 2. There's gold in every storage unit...that you didn't win.



Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: StorageAuctionFinds on October 18, 2013, 03:18:23 PM
Chapter 1. It's not hoarding...if you plan to sell it.

Chapter 2. There's gold in every storage unit...that you didn't win.

I like Chapter 2.

Chapeter 3. Acquiring a Hazmat Suit  :D
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: HomeGrownPromos on October 18, 2013, 04:56:17 PM
Chapter 1. It's not hoarding...if you plan to sell it.

Chapter 2. There's gold in every storage unit...that you didn't win.

LOL

For title or content?

I'm not worried about title at this point. I want to write an ebook regarding the way things really are in this business. Every book out there makes it seem like a get rich quick scheme it seems. I think an honest book, with real solid advice, but also deals with the realities, will help people more, but also keep those on the fence away.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 18, 2013, 05:24:04 PM
I wrote a 150 page e-book about a year ago that dispelled the myths of the business. If you want to check it out (or anyone else for that matter) send me a PM and I'll email you a copy. It might give you some ideas that you can build on.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: MovieMan on October 18, 2013, 07:51:46 PM
Chapter 1. It's not hoarding...if you plan to sell it.

Chapter 2. There's gold in every storage unit...that you didn't win.

Chapters 3...412.

See Travis' book.

Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 18, 2013, 08:17:13 PM
After you finish reading the book, advanced learning can be obtained through Movieman's private tutoring.

Just remember: MovieMan = Mentor   ;D
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: rulesforrebels on October 21, 2013, 10:35:08 AM
Prior to investing the time in writing this book think about how much time and effort its going to take you and how much you think you can make off of it. I'm not as involved in the storage auctions or the forums as I used to be so maybe I'm a little oout of it but it seems to me most of the hype from the shows and stuff has blown over, people are sick of storage wars, those newbies who wanted to try their luck buying units have pretty much come and gone. I think you missed the boat on writing a storage auction book.

Just do a quick search on amazon for storage auctions and look in the books category and there's 355 results. Not granted sometimes it pulls books off topic but just browsing thorugh first 3 or 4 pages it's all relevant content. How many buyers are still out there buying books and more importantly waht's going to make yours stand out from the other 355 books out there?

I have a storage auction book. In all honesty it wasn't somethign I put a ton of time into, I was stuck working on a saturday and wrote a quick guide maybe 50 pages long. I wasn't the first butI was one of hte earlier people to jump on the ebook band wagon, I was kind of inspired by glendon cameron as far as sharing knowledge for money to supplement my income on units since the market was getting tougher. I've sold a decent amount of books but like I said the hype has died down. Past few months I been making maybe $65 a month but its really slowed I think I sold like 1 or 2 this month. I'm ranked #7 on amazon too so keep in mind as a new book you'll get an initial bump if you join that special amazon program and offer it for free for a few days but after thatyour going to be competing for ranking with books that have been on the market for years.

Also, that's just amazon I'm counting theres other sites to buy ebooks nad other people wiht ebooks and progams selling them ontheir own website.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: HomeGrownPromos on October 21, 2013, 02:03:36 PM
I have been looking into it a bit more. It's a big time investment for little reward. This is true. However, I'm thinking of ways to better stand out from the other books out there. The time investment is more of an issue than the reward. I don't care about making money on it, I'm just a natural writer and have to be writing something all the time. I used to write movie scripts, but that style of writing takes momentum. I can't write for a few weeks, take a week off and go back. It's something that demands consistency.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: rulesforrebels on October 21, 2013, 02:11:58 PM
I was going to say regardless of how great your book is written, I think the market for these types of books is a fraction of what it would have been a year or two or three ago so as long as you go into this realizing you'll probably sell a few books a month I don't see any downside to it, especially if you enjoy writing anyways.

I enjoy writing myself as well and on a topic like storage unit buying I already knew all the knowledge so there was no tedious research or anything like that involved, I literally just sat down and over the course of a few hours on a saturday afternoon the book just flowed. I think I did a few more quick readthroughs to edit and boom onto amazon it went.

If you just want to throw it up on amazon and makemoney passively you can do that. If you really want to sell some you may want to try to sell resale rights to some affiliate marketers or something like that and either charge more for books with resale rights or maybe get affiliates yourself or put it up on clickbank and have an army of people working for you promoting your book.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 21, 2013, 03:09:59 PM
Also, if you're just offering an e-book it's relatively inexpensive to get it to market; however, if you want to sell paperbacks it's going to cost you a nice little chunk of change. Heck, just 1 ISBN will run you $125 and you need a separate ISBN for every format you offer the book in. For example you would need one ISBN for the e-book, one for the paperback, one for the Kindle version, you get the point.

If you've never self-published, the whole process will be a learning experience. There are a lot of rules (industry standards) and a lot of choices to consider. It will require a considerable time investment.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: rulesforrebels on October 21, 2013, 06:50:04 PM
good info about publishing a book. when i got mine i was going to look into geting an isbn and then realized it gets pretty costly
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: HomeGrownPromos on October 22, 2013, 01:57:37 PM
You need an ISBN to sell your book on any major market format like Amazon, iBooks, or Android right? That's what I was assuming.

Maybe I'll just become a YouTube Douche like Glendon Cameron..
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 22, 2013, 04:55:17 PM
Maybe I'll just become a YouTube Douche like Glendon Cameron..

Sorry, this guy beat you to it.

Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: HomeGrownPromos on October 22, 2013, 05:35:09 PM
Damn! Well maybe I'll be the Anti-Glendon Cameron.. The Anti-Douche.. Although this guy at the link seems not to be douche-y..
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: MovieMan on October 22, 2013, 05:49:57 PM
Damn! Well maybe I'll be the Anti-Glendon Cameron.. The Anti-Douche.. Although this guy at the link seems not to be douche-y..

It's over. The storage auction frenzy, the storage auction list frenzy, the YouTube advice videos, the e-books, the blogs, and yes, the blossoming online auctions, though they have to peak before they go away.

It's time for the next big thing.....coffee shops on every corner, yogurt shops on every other corner, box-stores, internet cafes, some new tech gizmo, you name it. All this stuff has its day and then depending on how many people partake, some of them go away.

Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 22, 2013, 09:44:10 PM
All this stuff has its day and then depending on how many people partake, some of them go away.

Say it isn't so.   :'(   ;D

Actually, I disagree. I think online storage auctions are in their infancy and will continue to grow over the next several years. Need I remind you that a decade or so ago, some people thought online shopping would never go mainstream. Look how far we've come since then.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: MovieMan on October 22, 2013, 09:56:23 PM
Say it isn't so.   :'(   ;D

Actually, I disagree. I think online storage auctions are in their infancy and will continue to grow over the next several years. Need I remind you that a decade or so ago, some people thought online shopping would never go mainstream.  Look how far we've come since then.

No, you don't need to remind me, but I think you have tunnel vision when it comes to online auctions. Your comparison to the infancy of online buying in general ignores one fact which I think is quite large.

The online shopping which has developed over the last decade encompasses hundreds of venues (if not thousands or tens of thousands) which are selling a WIDE variety of goods, and they appeal to millions upon millions of online buyers, not the 10,000 (or whatever) people who buy storage auction lockers.  The comparison is like comparing....I don't know what...but it's not a good comparison from a logical standpoint. But, we are each entitled to our individual opinions; however, I have no motivation to promote my belief whereas you do.



Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 22, 2013, 10:06:31 PM
10 years from now, we can have this discussion again. I'll send the Gulfstream to pick you up.  ;D
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: MovieMan on October 22, 2013, 10:12:59 PM
10 years from now, we can have this discussion again. I'll send the Gulfstream to pick you up.  ;D

Ten years from now neither of us will be involved in this business as we are today and I don't mean that in any way connected to a significant change in the business or any sector of the business.

Gulfstream?  Wasn't that the motorhome you paid $600 for and sold for $2K ? 
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Cobia on October 26, 2013, 06:12:12 PM
Say it isn't so.   :'(   ;D

Actually, I disagree. I think online storage auctions are in their infancy and will continue to grow over the next several years. Need I remind you that a decade or so ago, some people thought online shopping would never go mainstream. Look how far we've come since then.

It's kind of a double edge sword. Re-selling is a tough business and getting inventory cheap is one of the keys to the business. growth in on-line auctions would only make them more competitive and more expensive and less profitable. At some point the growth would stall do to people giving up on the on-line auctions because they are too expensive. Storage facilities won't use on-line services in mass unless they are getting high enough bids so the idea of there being more units for sale then available bidders causing those bidders to win the on-line units really cheap probably won't happen.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 26, 2013, 06:44:17 PM
It's kind of a double edge sword. Re-selling is a tough business and getting inventory cheap is one of the keys to the business. growth in on-line auctions would only make them more competitive and more expensive and less profitable. At some point the growth would stall do to people giving up on the on-line auctions because they are too expensive. Storage facilities won't use on-line services in mass unless they are getting high enough bids so the idea of there being more units for sale then available bidders causing those bidders to win the on-line units really cheap probably won't happen.

I respectfully disagree with that as well. I think that for storage facilities, it's less about the money they recover than the convenience that online storage auctions bring. In the future, once online auctions are more prevalent, prices will level out. Then, when you consider the gas and time your saving, it will be more cost effective.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: rulesforrebels on October 31, 2013, 11:30:34 AM
You need an ISBN to sell your book on any major market format like Amazon, iBooks, or Android right? That's what I was assuming.

Maybe I'll just become a YouTube Douche like Glendon Cameron..

i believe you only need an isbn for a physical paper book. i have several books on amazon in pfd format for kindles and have not had to pay for an isbn
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: rulesforrebels on October 31, 2013, 11:35:05 AM
No, you don't need to remind me, but I think you have tunnel vision when it comes to online auctions. Your comparison to the infancy of online buying in general ignores one fact which I think is quite large.

The online shopping which has developed over the last decade encompasses hundreds of venues (if not thousands or tens of thousands) which are selling a WIDE variety of goods, and they appeal to millions upon millions of online buyers, not the 10,000 (or whatever) people who buy storage auction lockers.  The comparison is like comparing....I don't know what...but it's not a good comparison from a logical standpoint. But, we are each entitled to our individual opinions; however, I have no motivation to promote my belief whereas you do.

i think both you and travis are right. i think online storage auctions are in their infancy, probably going more from physical auctions to online, maybe even gotomeeting type settings where everyone from their home computer is calling bids over a facetime type deal.

that said i also agree that comparing storage auctions to online shopping isn't really a fair comparison, like you said online shopping encompasses basically every retailer andmerchant who had a brick and mortar store transitiioning into online where as everyone needs to buy things. storage market is a more limited market, how many people are buying things for resale, buying used things, trying to make money flipping,, much smaller market.

that said i think this industry is changing and whoever is innovative and changes with the times will come out on top. i do somewhat agree however that the hype the show created has come and gone though i imagine more people are involved now than before the craze
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: rulesforrebels on October 31, 2013, 11:41:18 AM
if you enjoy writing and want to write a book i have a better angle for you than an educational series. i personally dont think there's anything you can do that will set yourself aside from the crowd, the crowd being the hundreds of books and programs already out about storage auctions.

if you are able to find a way to seperate yourself good luck educating your potential buyers as most people have probably bought a few crap ebooks already and dont want to give you a chance even if yours is the best yet.

here's my angle for you. many of you on this site have very entertaining stories about interesting occurances at auctions as well as funny stories on craigslist. i personally could see myself buying a funny book if it was anecdotal about your stories and experiences at storage auctions and maybe chime in with a bit of wisdom as well if you want but make it more entertainment than educational.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: Travis on October 31, 2013, 11:47:51 AM
That's actually not a bad idea; however, I still think it would still get swallowed by the other hundred e-books.

On a side note, Dave Hester's book should be out soon if it's not already. I think Dave's book will give Glendon Cameron a run for his money.
Title: Re: Putting together ideas for an ebook..
Post by: HomeGrownPromos on October 31, 2013, 11:54:53 AM
You've got a good idea there! I could certainly put together a group of horror stories, funny stories, amazing buys, duds, etc. for a book. However, I think to more solidly paint the picture of the story, I'd have to have pictures.. which I don't have.