tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8960700035327932062011-12-14T18:35:09.003-08:00Ruggero T. Ricordi's rants pertaining mostly to ecommerce, but also to opera, literature, history, politics, and what not.Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.comBlogger171100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-68785389968085742542007-12-18T08:33:00.000-08:002007-12-18T08:38:20.143-08:00

I created a separate website for Ricardo's book "A Fat Girl's Ultimate Guide to Thinness and Happiness."Here's the site:Weight Management Book: A Fat Girl's Ultimate Guide to Thinness and HappinessI added the following bunch of lines at the end of the promo:This weight management book will be your intimate friend.This weight management book will not make you feel guilty.This weight management

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-73689762677276375622007-10-22T11:46:00.000-07:002007-10-22T11:50:58.539-07:00

I asked Ricardo to write a dozen very brief articles about his weight management book, A Fat Girl's Ultimate Guide to Thinness and Happiness. He obliged. I've posted the articles to a whole bunch of article directories. Some of the articles discuss Rubens' paintings. On the website, I added a page to illustrate those, and attached an "add to cart" button. The book is available in both print and

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-86203802850231058792007-10-03T12:06:00.000-07:002007-10-03T12:18:07.848-07:00

Ricardo's new novel is an historical comedy/adventure/romance/action piece. It is both hilarious and quite serious (in spots). Here's the blurb for it:Even though the Declaration of Independence has been signed and the Revolutionary War is in full swing, Lady Crawford is not impressed. She has her own agenda - keeping her New England estate together while her estranged husband, Lord Crawford, a

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-19933513325796649922007-10-02T12:54:00.001-07:002007-10-02T12:55:46.490-07:00

My article on the subject at Ezine Articles

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-52728951425985167572007-10-01T00:33:00.000-07:002007-10-01T14:08:01.082-07:00

The other one got me quite a few interesting responses. So I decided to write another one - to the candidates. Here it isMy open letter to the Presidential Candidates

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-10303100890459936872007-09-26T21:14:00.000-07:002007-09-26T21:16:05.609-07:00

A joke's a joke, and yet, as the saying goes, every joke contains a grain of truth. This one seems to have a lot of truth in it, I think. I only realized this after finishing the article.An Open Letter to the President

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-4333775000494822452007-09-26T14:57:00.000-07:002007-09-26T14:59:06.622-07:00

Here's an article that explains it:Contemporary Literature: Where Traditional Publishing Fails

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-61226392342323239952007-09-26T14:38:00.000-07:002007-09-26T14:49:43.210-07:00

A brief note. Any forum that has "kitchen" in its name is bound to have a lot of fat girls as members. A perfect opportunity for a publisher selling a weight loss program. Naturally, my first post attracted "spam hunters," and the topic quickly grew to over a hundred posts. Folks were having a lot of fun. Two members quietly bought the downloadable .pdf version of the book, and I thought I was

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-26687626678014881422007-09-25T15:30:00.000-07:002007-09-25T15:37:32.370-07:00

Delphi Forums. I've been a member since 1999. I found a forum that gives advice on how to get rid of your debt. Lots of visitors. I went in and posted a message about this blog. Like, come on over and visit, folks. I'm telling it like it is, you'll like it.The "moderator" immediately interpreted it as spam. Gave me a lecture on how a seasoned member should know not to spam in his first post. I

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-64337392497561930462007-09-25T14:21:00.000-07:002007-09-25T14:30:29.024-07:00

Sounds a bit pornographic, doesn't it? As many of us already know, all search engine submission "services" are pure bullshit. They promise to put your site in a thousand engine indexes while there's only two that really matter. There's also a rumor that when robots see automated submissions, they knock down your rankings. That's bullshit, of course. If you're desparate enough to use submission "

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-11439739819156145302007-09-25T13:53:00.000-07:002007-09-25T13:58:20.868-07:00

I'm doing a lot of that as we speak. Most boards (forums) ask you to register, the idea being that if you register, you won't spam. The idea is stupid and makes the process a pain in the ass. Some sites (Delphi Forums, Myspace) offer a large variety of forums, and you only have to register once. My strategy:The date of the last post on the forum. If it's earlier than today's date, I move on.The

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-25394950719267271722007-09-25T13:01:00.000-07:002007-09-25T13:27:49.905-07:00

In case anyone's interested, here's one of Ricardo's guides we publish and sell: A Fat Girl's Ultimate Guide to Thinness and Happiness. The Guide section of Mighty Niche Books is a pretty solid money-maker. The main (fiction) section is not - not yet. Folks ask me why none of our books have ISBN numbers, and why none of them are listed on Amazon.com.Amazon.com is a very good company, I think. We

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-71295905706628658062007-09-25T12:56:00.001-07:002007-09-25T12:58:42.338-07:00

I looked into another pay-per-click company today. They claim to be better than Google and Yahoo. They want to charge you $25 upfront, minimum. I don't know why.

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-30577108077669664142007-09-25T12:35:00.000-07:002007-09-25T12:55:33.717-07:00

There's plenty of advice you can find on how to run your web business. Most of it is free. Some authors try to charge you for advising you. Most of it is bullshit.Search Engine Optimization advice. Believe me, folks, it matters very little how well-optimized your site is. Most sites that get top rankings on Google are NOT optimized. They don't have meaningful keywords. Their HTML is a mess. They

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-27424591700282433552007-09-25T01:47:00.000-07:002007-09-25T02:08:46.830-07:00

You don't have a million dollars to spend on advertising. The Web promises a number of ways to get word out on the cheap. ALL of them are considered spam. Make no mistake: all of them.No one reads emails that look like they're trying to sell products. Not anymore. All those "opt-in" lists are pure bullshit. I'll tell you why.Do you read emails that look like they're trying to sell something to

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-29416568057124401712007-09-25T00:42:00.000-07:002007-09-25T01:46:24.929-07:00

Pay-per-click "campaigns" may have worked at some point in the past. I don't know. They're supposed to be an inexpensive yet efficient way to advertise your product, an opportunity for a small business to carve a niche for itself, a way to beat the prohibitive costs of traditional advertising today, which only big corporations can afford.Something they forgot to tell us: the Web has changed

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-896070003532793206.post-16895006636478525272007-09-25T00:04:00.000-07:002007-09-25T00:26:09.141-07:00

It is my opinion that everyone should have a blog, including everyone who currently is, or planning to become, the President of the United States, as well as the vice-President, and the head of the Treasury, and maybe some celebrities. Unfortunately, this is impossible, since the vice-President would not write his blog himself. Someone would hire a blog writer for him, the way they hire speech

Ruggero T. Ricordihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10114626804146209468noreply@blogger.com0