Just a quick piece of news.

My wife’s book, Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins, is com­pletely done and all three sec­tions (each one con­tain­ing five chap­ters each) are avail­able with­out any optins.

In other words, the entire book is avail­able as a direct down­load right off the web page. You don’t need to reg­is­ter, log in, or fill out any forms.

The pre­vi­ous optin form was used sim­ply to notify those inter­ested when parts two and three would become avail­able (since it was writ­ten in install­ments over time). But now that all three parts are out, it’s no longer needed.

The first two are PDFs, and the third one is a video. So if you would like to read and watch Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins, go there now. And don’t for­get to retweet this.

Click here to get Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins by Sylvie Fortin.

After typ­ing furi­ously for the last three days, my wife has finally put together the first part of a three-​​part man­i­festo, in which she finally exposes some of the griev­ous sins com­mit­ted by many mar­keters on the Internet.

It has shocked a great num­ber of peo­ple, and it will make a lot of peo­ple mad. She’s also tak­ing a mon­u­men­tal risk by speak­ing out like this. But she’s mad, too, and can’t take it anymore.

In it, she not only lashes out at Inter­net mar­keters who use stu­pid (and some­times ille­gal) mar­ket­ing tricks, but also con­sumers of Inter­net mar­ket­ing prod­ucts who per­pet­u­ate them — and what to do about it.

There are 15 sins in all. She will be cov­er­ing five sins in each install­ment, and she’s cur­rently work­ing on the sec­ond. The first five sins are avail­able right now.

This man­i­festo is free and there are no sales pitches.

There is an opt-​​in email form in order to notify you when each install­ment is avail­able. And in it, my wife does offer some links to a few resources, includ­ing some of our own. But they are not nec­es­sary for you to read and ben­e­fit from this report.

Now, an impor­tant warning…

She doesn’t hold any­thing back. If you are squea­mish or get offended eas­ily, then please don’t down­load it. My wife uses very strong lan­guage not intended for younger audi­ences. So reader dis­cre­tion is advised.

Click here to go down­load “Inter­net Mar­ket­ing Sins.”

Pre­am­ble: In response to some excel­lent rebut­tals as well as count­less com­ments I’ve received on my pre­vi­ous post, “The Real Sin­is­ter Side of Forced Con­ti­nu­ity,” I believe some peo­ple are miss­ing the point of my argu­ment, and I want to clar­ify a few things.

I’m not a lawyer by any stretch. But as a copy­writer and busi­ness owner, I do know the rules enough to know that there’s a dif­fer­ence between “optional con­ti­nu­ity,” “forced con­ti­nu­ity,” and “hid­den continuity.”

Optional con­ti­nu­ity is self-​​explanatory. Forced con­ti­nu­ity is a very com­mon mar­ket­ing prac­tice (I’m not a fan of it, but I don’t mind it). In fact, there’s noth­ing wrong with forced con­ti­nu­ity in and of itself.

What’s wrong is when it’s used in a wrong way.

The real prob­lem, I believe, is that good mar­keters, includ­ing mar­keters using “forced con­ti­nu­ity” in an eth­i­cal and legit­i­mate way, are get­ting a bad rep­u­ta­tion because some mar­keters unscrupu­lously mis­use forced continuity.

The lack of trans­parency is the real cul­prit — such as hid­ing it or dis­guis­ing it. Espe­cially when it’s done on pur­pose. That annoys me. Because it’s no longer an issue of mis­use. It’s out-​​and-​​out abuse.

But what both­ers me more is how it affects us all. And it affects us all, both cus­tomers and mar­keters alike, in more ways than you think.

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“The trou­ble with so many of us is that we under­es­ti­mate the power of sim­plic­ity. We have a ten­dency it seems to over com­pli­cate our lives and for­get what’s impor­tant and what’s not. We tend to mis­take move­ment for achieve­ment. We tend to focus on activ­i­ties instead of results. As the pace of life con­tin­ues to race along in the out­side world, we for­get that we have the power to con­trol our lives regard­less of what’s going on out­side.“
– Robert Stuberg

“First, all rela­tion­ships are with your­self — and some­times they involve other peo­ple. Sec­ond, the most impor­tant rela­tion­ship in your life — the one you have, like it or not, until the day you die — is with your­self.“
– Peter McWilliams

Remem­ber that your inner self is your great­est source of all that feeds you along the road of life. It’s what builds you as a per­son. It’s your val­ues, your pri­or­i­ties, your mind, and espe­cially your peace of mind. Most impor­tant, it’s your self-​​image. Since your image is a mere reflec­tion of your self-​​image, then what goes on out­side of you is an indi­ca­tion of what goes on inside.

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Through­out my research, I’m always sur­prised when I stum­ble onto web­sites that are pro­fes­sion­ally designed and seem to offer great prod­ucts and ser­vices, but lack or fail in cer­tain impor­tant elements.

Ele­ments that, with just a few short changes, can help mul­ti­ply the results almost instan­ta­neously.

Gen­er­ally, I have found that there are seven com­mon mis­takes. I call them the “Seven Deadly Sins.” Is your web­site com­mit­ting any one of these?

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Have you ever made a buy­ing deci­sion only to have that gut instinct called “buyer’s remorse” creep up on you imme­di­ately after you’ve left the store?

Or, worse yet, have you ever felt the need to ratio­nal­ize a pur­chas­ing deci­sion to save your­self from this conflict?

This very thing hap­pened to me just a few days ago. How­ever, this time it was the ven­dor who ini­ti­ated the remorse. (The result was the loss of a four-​​figure sale!)

Read on to find out their grave mis­take… and the mar­ket­ing les­son behind it.

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My apolo­gies for the webi­nar being cut inad­ver­tently short. I was giv­ing out so much con­tent that I lost track of time. The soft­ware mer­ci­lessly booted me out in the mid­dle of my presentation.

This pre­sen­ta­tion was “off the cuff” and meant purely as a way to give you as much great con­tent as I pos­si­bly could. I wasn’t look­ing at my watch. (Judg­ing from the emails I received, you weren’t, either. And I’m glad!)

But I want to stick to my promise.

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