“The kid that made that deserves that Maybach.”

– Kanye West, Spaceship

Today’s my last day of working for someone else. As of four o’clock this afternoon I’ll be free indefinitely. I’m pretty excited.

A year and a half ago I had no idea how to make money online. I’d bought a lot of books on the subject, but they only gave abstract theories on what to do. “Make a product and sell it” isn’t exactly a specific plan of action.

At the time it wasn’t that big of a deal though. Most of my free time was spent goofing off with my friends anyway. Making money off my own ideas was just something I day dreamed about. I’d get started on it, some day.

At the time I was coasting through college, doing all my assignments at the last possible second, winging everything. I didn’t really like school, but I didn’t know what else to do. From what I had been told, people who didn’t get degrees were probably all losers who spent the rest of their days shoveling coal and digging ditches. With my English degree the world would be my oyster. There would be plenty of lucrative coffee shops to work in, or inner-city schools to instruct at.

Earlier this year I had an epiphany. I was driving home late one Saturday night when I decided that I wanted more out of life. As much fun as I had doing nothing, partying, and watching Netflix; my life wasn’t really all that special. I didn’t have a real goal, or any useful skills.

Over the next few months I made some changes. I decided to spend every week night from Monday to Wednesday at home working. There’s nothing fun going on a Tuesday evening anyway, so I wasn’t missing out on much. I cut out all my lazy friends. As much fun as playing video games or hanging out with them was, they didn’t add anything of value. Lastly, I started waking up an hour earlier than I used to. While it doesn’t sound like much, having an extra hour a day is actually incredibly useful. It’s given me a lot more time to get things done and it’s earned me a lot of extra money.

While I’m done with having a job, I’m not done working. I plan on taking Saturday off to celebrate, after that it’s back to the grind.

“Christ! This is like Zelda meets There Will Be Blood!”

– Ben Croshaw, Minecraft review

I was reviewing strategy guides for a popular video game when I saw it. In the “Recommended Items” bar stood a guide. It’s title, Minecraft building Ideas For You. Being a Minecraft fan, I was compelled to look. Ten minutes later I realized that I had inadvertently stumbled onto a genius idea. The author had made a whole line of Minecraft related eBooks. Some contained blueprints for houses, others contained tactics for surviving, and a few others were about miscellaneous things like how to build traps or gadgets.

All of these books cost around three dollars and some of them were even best sellers.

I personally thought that this was an outstanding idea for a book series. Minecraft is diverse enough that writing an entire book series about it is actually possible. Also, unlike most games, it’s completely non-linear. The player can do whatever they can imagine.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of another game nearly as open ended as Minecraft, but I’m sure there are a couple that exist. It wouldn’t be a horrible idea for someone who spends a lot of time gaming to whip up a little eBook on whatever game they’re really good at.

“This is a bundle of three erotic stories containing romance, adventure, vibrant worlds of fantasy, and of course, sizzling, scintillating sex with fast, muscular, powerful velociraptors.”

– Book description

The three most common types of books that I review are: cookbooks, books on picking up girls, and 50 Shade of Grey knock-offs. All in all it’s pretty harmless stuff.

Earlier today I was asked to review a fantasy novel. The book itself was completely normal and inoffensive. However, in the book’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” tab I saw the apex of weirdness. There a book titled Ravaged by the Brontosaurus*. Growing up a dinosaur nerd, I knew that the Brontosaurus was an herbivore. What kind of hack had written a book about killer dinosaurs and not even researched which ones were harmless? I clicked the link.

It turns out that Ravaged by the Brontosaurus wasn’t about people being murdered by dinosaurs, it was about people fornicating with them.

Even worse, there was a cornucopia of dinosaur-on-human themed porn books. Evidently, they’re a niche market.

Rather than merely grossing you out, I’m going to use the booming dinosaur porn business to highlight an important lesson. No matter how dumb or weird you think your idea may be, there are enough other dumb weirdos out there to buy it.

Over the past month I’ve gotten quite a few emails from people asking if I though their product or website idea would be viable. All of them have been infinitely better than “what if I wrote a novel about stegosaurus f*cking?” While I’m no expert, I am pretty sure that businesses like a website about cheese or an eBook about programming apps have a wider customer range than Ravaged by the Brontosaurus. As such, I think you’ll do alright.

* Name changed to protect the innocent.