I have to be honest with you. I had been attempting the whole Internet Marketing thing for about a year before I really started seeing any results from my efforts. It wasn’t that I didn’t try to achieve greatness. It’s just that I kept being pulled in so many directions that I didn’t know where to turn.

Every single day, I was bombarded with all sorts of messages from this guru and that one. The more I signed up for “free offers,” the more I received ones that required money. Just about everyone seemed to achieve success but me.This person kept touting this product and this one kept saying, “No, you need this one.”

As a newbie Internet Marketer, I kept right on buying eBooks and courses looking for the newest and best thing that would make me the next internet millionaire.I would then get all excited, read the book, try it out half-heartedly, lose interest and move on to the next thing. The result? I was spinning my wheels getting nowhere fast. After a year, I had accumulated about $4000 in debt from all my reading material and was startng to think that Internet Marketing was a total waste of time. Then, by divine intervention, I found the book by Dennis Becker called 5 bucks a day, which changed my life.

So, I’ve been a member of Elance for over nine years now, and I typically receive my payments via electronic deposit. I stopped receiving them via check a long time ago because it took too long and I was always scared it would get lost.Anyhow, I recently noticed that I could apply for a debit card and decided to try it out.

Apparently Elance, through their partnership with Payoneer, now offers members the option of receiving their money through a paid debit card.It took about three weeks to get approved for the debit card, and I received it about a week after getting approved. The card was blue and had a fancy Elance logo.

It was pretty cool to see my name with Elance next to it. For a moment I imagined that I owned Elance and was a millionaire, and then I imagined that I was a corporate partner or an employee of Elance with corporate privileges. Heck, a girl can dream, can’t she?

Here’s what I found: Elance’s debit card deposit isn’t instant. In fact, it may be slower than bank deposits. Heck, it seemed to take longer for the money to credit Payoneer after Elance sends it to them. The delay is caused because you have to wait for Elance to send the money to Payoneer, then you have to go to Payoneer and release it to your Payoneer account. It then takes two to three days for the money to post there. This costs $1.50 extra that is debited from your account.

The only way to avoid this extra step is to make the release at Payoneer immediate. You’re then charged $4.50 every time, and the money is available within two hours.So, here’s what I think…the Payoneer Elance card is NOT faster than bank deposit and costs you more money, but I still like it for my IM business.

Here’s why: I use it to budget my IM costs. You see, every month, I set aside 30% of my freelance income to build my IM business. Therefore, I transfer 30% from Elance to Payoneer and then use the Elance Payoneer card to cover my IM costs. This way, I never go over my budget. I then transfer the remaining freelance funds for spending purposes. This method works for me and keeps me from overspending!

If there is anything I learned from being a ghostwriter to the gurus it’s that you don’t have to get mad – get even. Learn what they know and use it to your benefit. By doing this, you will not waste precious time and energy thinking about all the money that you lost as a result of NOT learning Internet Marketing before now. Instead, you will use your marketing skills to make huge profits for yourself.

Internet Marketing is extremely powerful, and once you combine it with your writing skills, there is absolutely nothing that you can’t accomplish. In fact, one successful writer-turned-Internet-Marketer that I personally know has actually befriended the gurus and become one herself.

Her name is Tiffany Dow and she is outstanding. I’ve known Tiffany for about eight years now and we both started off as struggling ghostwriters on Elance. The only difference is that Tiffany left ghostwriting years ago and while I was still struggling to pay the bills, she has been working as a full-time Internet Marketer. As such, she is now a guru herself, does joint ventures with the gurus, and makes some serious cash.

Well, I recently contacted my buddy Tiffany and asked her for some advice on skyrocketing my eBook profits. Well, she immediately suggested that I read her eBook on Building an eBook Empire, and I must say that it is outstanding. I have been writing eBooks for years but never knew how to market them. That is the key. 

Tiffany basically broke it down about how one one can use their outstanding writing skills to amass TONS of residual cash just like the big boys do. She candidly discussed such topics as: choosing a profitable niche, importance of thorough research (and how to do it), writing hard-hitting sales copy, successfully compiling and selling your product, branding your product, developing an affiliate program, back-end tactics to boost profits, and more.

In Building an eBook Empire, Tiffany even talked about how she took one aspiring writer and transferred her from broke freelancer to $4,000-a month-eBook empiress. And no, it isn’t me, but if it were up to me, it would be! LOL!

The thing I love about this book is that Tiffany doesn’t leave anything out. Unlike some gurus, she lays it on the table and doesn’t leave you wondering or guessing if there is more. She wants you to learn and apply the lessons that she teaches. All you have to do is read and implement the techniques that she gives you, and I do believe you will become successful in eBook publishing.

I give Building an eBook Empire two thumbs up and if you’re interested in taking your Internet Marketing writing eBooks to a new level, then you have got to read this book. Once you do, you will have the tools you need to get even with the gurus, too.

As for me, I plan on implementing Tiffany’s techniques on my two current eBook projects and will be producing and successfully marketing one eBook or short report a month on “hot” topics for “desperate buyers.” Join me, won’t you? Let’s give those gurus a run for their niches and profits!