Editor’s Rating: 8.7

Editor’s Note: This review is a fifth entry in a series of e-book reviews.  The review is by Thursday Bram of ThursdayBram.com.

One page into Alexis Dawes’ e-book, “Desperate Buyers Only,” I was fully prepared to hate my reading experience. I noticed a typo, and for someone who has worked as a proofreader, a typo in final copy can be the kiss of death.

I was more than pleasantly surprised as I made my way through “Desperate Buyers Only,” however. I can tell you know that I’ll be rereading it multiple times — the sheer quantity of information Dawes has collected has made her e-book the go-to resource when thinking about selling a report.

Dawes goes far beyond simple advice on how to prepare such a report: she guides her readers through every step of the project from brainstorming a topic to affiliate marketing and targeting keyword ads. She’s written to a level of depth that I can’t help comparing to John Chow’s blogging but his depth comes from years of blogging on the topic of how to make money online, while Dawes does it in less than 100 pages. Dawes manages this by drawing on her own, highly successful experiences — she has reports that have been selling for years but still bring her in a daily income of at least $200.

There are plenty of options out there for finding information on selling reports and other written products online: Courtney Ramirez (webwritinginfo.com) focuses on the same topics as Dawes, as does Angela Booth (fabfreelancewriting.com). But Dawes delves into topics that other writers barely cover in passing. I learned more about the nuts and bolts of sales letters by reading “Desperate Buyers Only” than I got in an entire class on copy writing — her concise writing style certainly sticks better than a monotonous lecturer.

“Desperate Buyers Only” pulls no punches. Dawes doesn’t try to give her readers an easy time of things. Instead, she makes a point of getting into the details and start explaining how to handle necessary issues. Her e-book is ideal for use as a workbook, as well. Each section leads to specific actions. Dawes makes using her report a matter of following certain steps and considering a few crucial ideas — which happen to have been made into an easy to print handout ideal for keeping in one’s work space.

Dawes avoids the stigma of get-rich-quick schemes, as well. She makes it clear that creating a report or e-book for sale is quite a bit of work, despite the expected payoff. More importantly, she doesn’t bill her techniques as some sort of something for nothing deal: she outlines her own advertising needs and how she spends money to make money.