How to Make Money Writing on the Web,
Barbara Price Galvan

Reviewed by Eve Lopez

Spending time on the Internet means getting accosted by all sorts of things we've come to view as nasty. Pop-up ads, sticky porn sites, avalanche upon avalanche of spam. But there are a lot of good things, too. E-books are one of them.

There was a time in the mid-90s, when academics feared the Internet would mean the demise of books, newspapers, and civilization as we know it. The theory was that the more convenient a product is-like an e-book-the less quality it tends to have.

So how can something be of inherently less quality and still be a good thing? Here's a list of such products: Taco Bell, the 99-cent store, Adam Sandler movies, and 1980s pop music.

But let's get back to e-books.

Before buying How to Make Money Writing on the Web, I'd only bought one other e-book in my life; and that was a spur-of-the-moment, late-night impulse buy. I'd wanted to read a book on how to get an ex-boyfriend back and it was too late to go to Barnes & Noble. So, I researched some books on the Web, bought this e-book that seemed to have good reviews, and followed the steps on how to get the ex back.

They actually worked!

So, since I was one for one in the e-book game, I felt I had nothing to lose.

I visited WritersWeekly.com. I absolutely adore this site, which bills itself as "The highest-circulation freelance writing e-zine in the world." The editor, Angela Hoy, is a feisty writer/mom who is a champion for writers' rights-basically, the right to be paid for work. Among my favorite articles on the site are "10 Ways to Make Deadbeats Pay Up . . . Fast!" and "How to Deal with 'Jerks' Online." I trust WritersWeekly.com and decided to buy an e-book advertised there. I wanted to learn about how to make money writing, and the title to Barbara Galvan's book seemed perfect.

Ordering and downloading the book proved to be a difficult task (I couldn't figure out how to open the file after I downloaded it) but finally, there it was, in black and white on my desktop.

I started reading. About half an hour later, I was done.

And I was really disappointed.

Galvan's ideas on how to make money writing on the Web were, just three years after the e-book's was published, rather outdated. While the e-book's blurb promised I would learn "71 Ways For a Writer to Make Money," it turns out I was only given 71 ideas on how to make money. These ideas included copywriting, editing, and writing feature articles.

No kidding.

Not that the whole book was a waste of time. Galvan believes that in order to succeed at making money writing on the Web, one needs to have a concept Web site, and to belong to newsgroups and e-mail discussion groups. These ideas I definitely understand.

However, as part of the marketing plan Galvan outlines to make a Web site successful, she suggests a rather sketchy scheme to get people to click on banners. The idea is to buy something really cheap, have a banner that says "Click here for your free ___," and when people click on it and enter their e-mail address, they are given a coupon for a free "___" with instructions to send a few bucks for "postage and handling." You then have a database of e-mail addresses to send "free newsletters" to, and some money in your pocket.

You're also a soulless, heartless sell-out with no morals.

That's just my opinion, of course.

The rest of the e-book gives lists of search engines, job sites, and key words to use when searching for paid writing work. I learned that typing in "Writers Needed" into Google was sure to work.

So, I'm cynical about these types of things. But I still think e-books are cool, and I still love WritersWeekly.com. I understand that Galvan's methods probably work really well for her-after all, I bought the e-book, didn't I?

But the next time I want to buy a book on how to further my career and make money, I'm heading to Barnes & Noble.

Eve Lopez is a freelance writer living in Seattle.