Midway Battle - SBI! vs GRWeB 3.0

I just reached midway in both SiteBuildIt! and Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0. I have promised you a review, so..  Let's make them battle!

Yes, I know this is not an even fight. SiteBuildIt! is an all-inclusive passive income business building program, while Getting Rich With eBooks is a course for making best-selling ebooks. But, for a newbie they stand almost on the same line.

"I want to start earning passive income online - tell me what to do!" - They both promise to deliver that.

Also, SiteBuildIt! costs $299 per year and Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0 costs $400. So why not compare them?


Time required - Winner: Getting Rich With eBooks 3.0

I used about 40 hours to reach the midway in SiteBuildIt!

Reaching midway in Getting Rich With eBooks took me 8-10 hours.


Getting things done - Winner: SiteBuildIt!

After SiteBuildIt! day 5 I have:

• Preliminary site map for my future site. That is, plans for 57 pages with SEO-friendly keywords
• Draft for my site's home page. It is not search engine optimized yet, but otherwise ready
• A domain. Included in the price, it is registered and ready for me
• Learned a lot on copy writing and search engine optimization
• Learned how to evaluate my ideas
• Knowledge that my site has commercial potential
• Monetization plan for my site

After video 4 of Getting Rich With eBooks I have:

• Homework to write the whole book
• Homework to invent a top-selling book title
• Homework to buy a domain
• Homework to design graphics for my book and web site OR to hire a designer to do that
• Homework to check legalities around my subject OR to hire a lawyer to do that
• Learned how to evaluate my ideas
• Learned some valuable tips and tricks about eBook writing and publishing 
• Knowledge that my idea has commercial potential

In SiteBuildIt! you'll do the work during the course, not as an extra homework. It is like a parent holding your hand when you have to face something scary. Whenever it is time to do something, it says: "Do it now and then come back to me".

In Getting Rich With eBooks you'll watch the video first and then you get an assignment for the next week. After the first 3 videos I felt that the homework was reasonable. The video went through the information needed to do the tasks. But the fourth video was different. It skimmed through an awfully large topic - writing a book, and then gave an assignment to write it. Now I have a horrible list of homework to do.


Extra costs - Winner: SiteBuildIt!

When I joined these courses, I did expect to have some extra costs. I expected that I need to buy a domain and get some graphics for my site/book.

SiteBuildIt! gave me a nice surprise gift - the domain is included in the price. Not only that, also the WordTracker credits needed for keyword research were included. So I now have this impression that with SiteBuildIt! there might not be any extra costs for me at all. We'll see.

Getting Rich With eBooks gave me a disappointment - it suggests that I should hire several experts to help me with different issues. Well, it does say that I can do them myself too, but that it is not worth it. I assume Vic is right here. It may not be worth it to do everything yourself. But it sure would have been nice to know there are so many extra costs *before* I joined the course.


Simplicity - Winner: Getting Rich With eBooks

SiteBuildIt! will overwhelm you at the start. You'll get this feeling that it pours so much information to you that you'll choke. It has its own concepts, abbreviations and tools. And you'll lose some precious time learning them. But on the other hand, the tools save you a lot of time.

Getting Rich With eBooks is not complex. It tells you the minimum what you'll need to do and then asks you to do that. Simple tasks after another. The downside is that you'll start to wonder if the course really told you everything that is important. If it does, he offers nice counterbalance to SBI! Maybe all those well planned steps are not required to succeed. If it doesn't... well, then your chances of succeeding may be smaller.


Worth per penny - Winner: Who knows?

Worth is very hard to evaluate. It might have been either of these two courses that gave me the critical piece of information. If you take the opportunity, I think one can succeed with either of these programs.

However, I do think Getting Rich With eBooks costs too much compared to what I have got from it this far. Especially taken into account that it contains very little information that SiteBuildIt! wouldn't have.

I bought SiteBuildIt! with the monthly subscription option. It costs me $30 per month and I think it is reasonable priced. However, if you don't know how to transfer domains and web pages away from SiteBuildIt! system, they will charge you the monthly subscription price for as long as your site is up.



Worst this far

In SiteBuildIt! the worst is definitely "The Way of The Tortoise". Everything proceeds so slowly!

Another thing that I have grown a bit annoyed is the repetition and constant material over-delivery. They want to make sure that everybody surely get the main points. I feel that is a bit outdated thinking and would prefer more condensed course, implemented in a way that I would not feel that I'd miss something important if I took the shorter route. But both of my problems here are just minor annoyances.

In Getting Rich With eBooks the worst for me is the lack of trust. It feels like I would be dealing with a car salesman. Can I trust what he says?

Also, the videos are of poor quality. They are not cut in any way, even to hide the technical problems they had in the live courses where the recording was made. I'm not really interested in waiting 15 minutes if someone raises her hand or not. While in SiteBuildIt! the slowness comes from the huge amount of study material, in Getting Rich With eBooks the slowness comes from laziness. This man supposedly sold eBooks for million dollars, yet he cannot afford to get his videos properly edited.



Best this far

SBI! has removed the pressure from my project. I don't need to hassle around, worry and get everything ready today. With this program, it is easy to believe that I will succeed. But it may take a bit longer than I expected. Fortunately, there is still plenty of time before my goal deadline.

That is my best benefit, but then, I am a programmer with over 10 years of experience. I'd bet that most people would say that the best thing in SiteBuildIt! is that it frees you to concentrate on the business. It handles all the technicalities for you so you can focus on the issues where the money is.

Getting Rich With eBooks has taught me an effective way to do simple keyword research. Even though I now have all the nice tools that SiteBuildIt! offers, I still do quick sanity checks for the main keywords using Vic's method. Simple, fast and easy.

Another great thing in Getting Rich With eBooks is the Affirmations Audio. That 20-minute recording is a work of art. It has perfect affirmations needed to succeed in a passive income project. I do have my own affirmations, but I really like these. I still listen to this audio almost every day.


Conclusion

I think SiteBuildIt! is the winner for me, no doubt there. I feel that it will teach me everything I need to know about passive income web business. If something, it may teach me too much!

I also like that in SiteBuildIt! I can access all the information there is after the initial $30 payment. You cannot access all the tools right away, but that is not needed. Right now I feel that the biggest reason for Getting Rich With eBooks to hide parts of the course is that if people would be able to see everything right away, they might turn back and never return.

At the end of my first review I thought that Getting Rich With eBook did offer value for a newbie. But then I found SiteBuildIt! Of course, they work on a bit different subjects, but this far Getting Rich With eBooks has contained very little information that is not available in SiteBuildIt!

If after all this you are still interested in Getting Rich With eBooks, here is my advice:

Pay the initial $12, watch the available two videos and download Vic's keyword research excel. Also get the affirmations audio. After that, evaluate the situation again! Do you really want to continue? If not, just remember to cancel your subscription so that they don't continue charging you. 

Right now I'm really exited about SiteBuildIt! It is a solid program. It is so good that I am thinking whether or not I should buy a one year subscription for my sister as her birthday gift.

My second advice to you is:

Visit SBI! Order Page right away and take their monthly subscription option. That will give you access to a goldmine of passive income study material and still leaves you a nice way out if you find out that the program is not for you. They do have 90 day money back guarantee too, so there really is no risk seeing the course material.

Even though I no longer recommend Getting Rich With eBooks, I'm not resigning either. There are 4 videos more even though the eBook is (or should be) ready already. Vic has several times mentioned how important the steps after the book creation are, so I am really eager to hear what he has to offer. But you'll have to wait some time for the next review... it will take me some time to write the book!

Overall, I'm glad that I have two programs instead of just one. It gives me some perspective on what things are really important to earn passive income online.

Bootstrapping Design eBook Review

I read a lot. I have read well over 10 books during the last 10 weeks. I am not going to list all of those books, but I want to tell you about the best of them. I think the books that will increase my changes of succeeding in my passive income project ought to be mentioned here.

I'm going to start with a review of Jarrod Drysdale's Bootstrapping Design. Bootstrapping Design is a great read, but it is also inspirational in several ways.


Bootstrapping Design shows you the money

Jarrod was kind enough to reveal in his blog that Bootstrapping Design made $30.000 in two months. Seeing those figures is superbly motivating and highly inspiring. Especially when he has also shared his story about his previous online business that failed.

Even though I have not yet shared my previous failures, they are there. And Jarrod shows us an excellent example on how the past success does not determine the chances of succeeding in the future. If after reading his blog you still feel that you could not succeed like he did, you should read Steve's latest article about dissolving limiting beliefs.


Bootstrapping Design teaches you a lesson on pricing

Jarrod's guest post in A Smart Bear blog compares Bootstrapping Design to another eBook that was published on the same day, but with a completely different pricing strategy - Perfect Pricing Part Deux — More money from fewer sales. That post explains how concentrating on the problem that you are solving instead of the product you are selling is the correct way to price the product. The value is in the mind of the customer, not in the product itself. Add there the fact that how the product (and its sales material) looks like affects on how the customer sees it, and you are more than tempted to buy Bootstrapping Design.

I first read about Bootstrapping Design from that blog post. Why didn't I buy the other book that was on the same subject, but cheaper?


Bootstrapping Design solves a problem

I did compare Bootstrapping Design to Sasha's Step by Step UI Design. But I did not buy Step by Step UI Design because it did not promise it would solve my problem. It also looked long and detailed, and what I needed was a book that would tell me only what I need to know and what is important. I had the same attitude than Vic Johnson, when he bought a ten-page eBook for 100 dollars. I don't care if there are 40 pages or 300 (Bootstrapping Design has 156 pages), I just care that my problem gets solved. 

You see, I have designed user interfaces since 1999. I really did not want another book on just how to do that. But my problem was that even though I have long experience on UI design, I've only built desktop applications and I have worked on a large company with strict guidelines for look and feel. Web publishing and web applications are a completely different animal. I've never done commercial design starting from scratch. I've never picked fonts and colors all on my own. That was all forced on me by the strict company guidelines. However I know enough on the subject to know that I should learn (or at least refresh my skills) about design as I'm going to publish eBooks and applications on web. Another areas where I have a lot to learn is marketing and business in general. If I can get the design problems solved easily, that gives me more time to concentrate on those other topics.

When I read the sales page of Bootstrapping Design I got a feeling that it was an easy solution to my problem. It would give me a condensed set of rules that I could start with until I have more time to read about the subject.


Bootstrapping Design delivers what it promises

I feel Bootstrapping Design delivers just what it promises. It contains a set of rules that make it possible for anyone to design a web page that looks professional enough to deliver a message that you are selling quality content. Design is a horribly large subject, and if you try to learn it on your own you will be drowned in information, not knowing what is important. I think Jarrod has succeeded perfectly in picking the subjects that are worth concentrating.

Bootstrapping Design contains the most important design principles, but also some advanced concepts like negative space. I was never taught to use negative space while learning UI design, I later learned that from art studies. And it would not have occurred to me to pick it to a book like this. But that is essential, and I'm glad Jarrod has brought it up. 

I did expect Bootstrapping Design to mention about consistency between elements and language used, but I don't recall seeing that subject. But that was the only subject that I was expecting but did not find in this book. And omitting it might have been on purpose. I've noticed that web applications often are not so strict on consistency.

Overall Bootstrapping Design was just what I needed! I also think that this book will work for beginners too. You'll  save a lot of money being able to create the necessary designs by yourself.