Online Books Books

This is an excellent resource for small business owners with little computer knowledge who may need to create business presentations and even basic graphics for logos or flyers. For those small business owners who think out of the box, this book can help with learning PowerPoint's graphics features to create letterhead, business postcards, customer thank you cards, and even newsletters. Good resource!

The seller was very prompt with delivery and the entire transaction went perfect. Overall, I was very satisfied! thanks.

This book tells you exactly what you need to know for the exam. I was able to concentrate on the proper information without worry. I passed the exam first time :D

The Step by Step books are my second favorite to use and this particular book follows suit. I chose 4 stars because these books as far as layout and ease of undertanding/use goes, are just one step under what I consider the best out there, the "Inside Out" books.

Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 Step by Step This is a good book for an 76 year old man like me. It was a great help in teaching me to do a PowerPoint program. This is a good book for beginers. Its not perfect, but I could not find a better book for a beginner like me, I know as I tried a few of them including "For Dummies"

Definitely a very useful book.

If you pick one of these books up, from this series, and learn just one thing, or something that saves you some time, it is well worth it.

I use a couple of things from here, or adaptations of constantly, and it helped with learning some new techniques.

Definitely recommended.

I bought this book shortly after it came out, and actually still refer to it from time to time. This is just another book that shows you how powerful Perl can be when in the right hands.

This book has a strong perl focus, so make sure you want to use perl. Otherwise, it's a great book with plenty of examples on integrating website data into your site.

well, sometimes a generalizing lie.
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IMHO, this book should have been named "(some) Spidering Hacks using Perl"
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the "100" and "industrial strength" sale pitches they could have spared from the title as well
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the very little python and java code that was either mentioned and/or included as code examples I think was as a way to pepper the content and apparently make it more appealing to a broader audience
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._ the book is mostly about Perl scripts (you could compile Perl to C and then use c2java, for example, but why bothering if, as I noticed right away, it was mostly toy code?) I wonder what the "industrial strength" thing was all about.
There is also some gnu utils examples (wget and curl), from which you could get better examples online
._ the book has "examples" that don't make any sense (to me) and not only that but you could see as a total waste of time, why bothering scraping amazon's pages if they offer SOAP/RSS feeds? And not only that but then he goes on telling you how to scrape a site offering financial stocks info, too!?!?! I would have started by splitting the book in two, cases for which you don't really need scraping at all and those for which you do
._ the author in an attempt to reach the "100" mark, included cases on how to download, say MP3 with Beatles songs and PDF files from IRS sites as separate cases :-? I wonder what the difference is once you have a connection to the data feed?!?
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there is, "Web Content Mining with Java" ISBN: 047084311X and as you see the publishers/authors named this book after what it is all about and if you want to read about "industrial strength" approaches I would recommend "Mining the Web" ISBN: 1558607544
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usually "hacks" books are about hacks, meaning you already know your stuff and are learning some hacks. If you know the basics of spiders and how to retrieve data off the Net programmatically this book is not for you. If you, on the other had, are new to this subject and are a Perl programmer you may learn a few things from it
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otf

A spider (also known as a web crawler or web robot) is a program which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. This book is about how to create programs that perform the functions of a web crawler, with most of the Hacks being written in Perl. Like the rest of the Hacks series, this book presents 100 bite-sized chunks of code or technique to tackle specific activities. In this book these range from the simple - how to download a set of image files - to the complex - cross-referring the output from one site with another to generate a third set of data. No matter what the complexity, each hack is clearly explained, with the code samples balanced with instructions, examples and notes on how to hack the hack.

As already mentioned, the hacks in this book mostly use Perl, though scattered here and there you'll find some Java, Python and PHP. If you really hate Perl, then you will not like this book. On the other hand the authors assume only a rudimentary knowledge of Perl, and there is no requirement for any knowledge of network programming of any description. After the opening chapter which gives guidance of being a good spidering citizen (how to respect the sites you are taking data from), there is a second chapter which details how to create a spidering toolkit (how to find and install the site of modules that many of the hacks depend on).

With a toolkit in place and a knowledge of good behavior, the book dives into the various hacks that are organized by topic: collecting media files, gleaning data from databases (with many examples for Yahoo!, Amazon, Google, Alexa and other popular information sources), maintaining your collections (more automation with "cron" or other scheduling tools) and a final chapter on giving something back (creating a web service, generating RSS feeds and so on).

The bulk of the hacks are in chapter four, which looks at extracting data from databases. Aside from the obvious sources such as Amazon and Google, these including online banks, tracking FedEx packages and more. There are a range of techniques used to grab and filter the data, so even if a data source you want to use isn't listed, the chances are that one of these hacks can be refactored to do what you want.

If Perl is not your thing then the very light sprinkling of non-Perl hacks probably isn't enough to make this a worthwhile purchase. If you're a Perl hacker interested in spidering there is a ton of stuff for you here without doubt. Also, if you are a student looking for a good supplement on building a web spider from scratch, this is probably not the book for you either, but the various hacks will give you some ideas on what you might want to do in your own spider if you wish to write one in a higher level language such as Java. Amazon does not show the table of contents so I do that here for completeness:

Chapter 1. Walking Softly
1. A Crash Course in Spidering and Scraping
2. Best Practices for You and Your Spider
3. Anatomy of an HTML Page
4. Registering Your Spider
5. Preempting Discovery
6. Keeping Your Spider Out of Sticky Situations
7. Finding the Patterns of Identifiers
Chapter 2. Assembling a Toolbox
Perl Modules
Resources You May Find Helpful
8. Installing Perl Modules
9. Simply Fetching with LWP::Simple
10. More Involved Requests with LWP::UserAgent
11. Adding HTTP Headers to Your Request
12. Posting Form Data with LWP
13. Authentication, Cookies, and Proxies
14. Handling Relative and Absolute URLs
15. Secured Access and Browser Attributes
16. Respecting Your Scrapee's Bandwidth
17. Respecting robots.txt
18. Adding Progress Bars to Your Scripts
19. Scraping with HTML::TreeBuilder
20. Parsing with HTML::TokeParser
21. WWW::Mechanize 101
22. Scraping with WWW::Mechanize
23. In Praise of Regular Expressions
24. Painless RSS with Template::Extract
25. A Quick Introduction to XPath
26. Downloading with curl and wget
27. More Advanced wget Techniques
28. Using Pipes to Chain Commands
29. Running Multiple Utilities at Once
30. Utilizing the Web Scraping Proxy
31. Being Warned When Things Go Wrong
32. Being Adaptive to Site Redesigns
Chapter 3. Collecting Media Files
33. Detective Case Study: Newgrounds
34. Detective Case Study: iFilm
35. Downloading Movies from the Library of Congress
36. Downloading Images from Webshots
37. Downloading Comics with dailystrips
38. Archiving Your Favorite Webcams
39. News Wallpaper for Your Site
40. Saving Only POP3 Email Attachments
41. Downloading MP3s from a Playlist
42. Downloading from Usenet with nget
Chapter 4. Gleaning Data from Databases
43. Archiving Yahoo! Groups Messages with yahoo2mbox
44. Archiving Yahoo! Groups Messages with WWW::Yahoo::Groups
45. Gleaning Buzz from Yahoo!
46. Spidering the Yahoo! Catalog
47. Tracking Additions to Yahoo!
48. Scattersearch with Yahoo! and Google
49. Yahoo! Directory Mindshare in Google
50. Weblog-Free Google Results
51. Spidering, Google, and Multiple Domains
52. Scraping Amazon.com Product Reviews
53. Receive an Email Alert for Newly Added Amazon.com Reviews
54. Scraping Amazon.com Customer Advice
55. Publishing Amazon.com Associates Statistics
56. Sorting Amazon.com Recommendations by Rating
57. Related Amazon.com Products with Alexa
58. Scraping Alexa's Competitive Data with Java
59. Finding Album Information with FreeDB and Amazon.com
60. Expanding Your Musical Tastes
61. Saving Daily Horoscopes to Your iPod
62. Graphing Data with RRDTOOL
63. Stocking Up on Financial Quotes
64. Super Author Searching
65. Mapping O'Reilly Best Sellers to Library Popularity
66. Using All Consuming to Get Book Lists
67. Tracking Packages with FedEx
68. Checking Blogs for New Comments
69. Aggregating RSS and Posting Changes
70. Using the Link Cosmos of Technorati
71. Finding Related RSS Feeds
72. Automatically Finding Blogs of Interest
73. Scraping TV Listings
74. What's Your Visitor's Weather Like?
75. Trendspotting with Geotargeting
76. Getting the Best Travel Route by Train
77. Geographic Distance and Back Again
78. Super Word Lookup
79. Word Associations with Lexical Freenet
80. Reformatting Bugtraq Reports
81. Keeping Tabs on the Web via Email
82. Publish IE's Favorites to Your Web Site
83. Spidering GameStop.com Game Prices
84. Bargain Hunting with PHP
85. Aggregating Multiple Search Engine Results
86. Robot Karaoke
87. Searching the Better Business Bureau
88. Searching for Health Inspections
89. Filtering for Content
Chapter 5. Maintaining Your Collections
90. Using cron to Automate Tasks
91. Scheduling Tasks Without cron
92. Mirroring Web Sites with wget and rsync
93. Accumulating Search Results Over Time
Chapter 6. Giving Back to the World
94. Using XML::RSS to Repurpose Data
95. Placing RSS Headlines on Your Site
96. Making Your Resources Scrapable with Regular Expressions
97. Making Your Resources Scrapable with a REST Interface
98. Making Your Resources Scrapable with XML-RPC
99. Creating an IM Interface
100. Going Beyond the Book

There are hundreds of good ideas floating around, just as every trader has thought of hundreds of great winning trades. The problem is in manifesting those ideas, making them work in concrete reality. Ari Kiev's book goes beyond the typical in that it doesn't stop at merely describing those obstacles to becoming a better trader; it pushes into the realm of implementation.

All of us can recall the feeling when everything falls into place, a point made clear from the many relevant interviews that reinforce Dr. Kiev's points. The difficulty--and the strength of this book--is to be consistent in one's effort to maintain that state of mind. There are mny useful tools and exercises offered that will keep traders from unconciously falling back into unproductive habits.

Everyone needs help, especially on the path to becoming an accomplished trader. This book is an essential guide to staying aware and taking action.

I bought it and not much to learn from it. It would not improve my bottom line, This is my opinion.

There are hundreds of good ideas floating around, just as every trader has thought of hundreds of great winning trades. The problem is in manifesting those ideas, making them work in concrete reality. Ari Kiev's book goes beyond the typical in that it doesn't stop at merely describing those obstacles to becoming a better trader; it pushes into the realm of implementation.

All of us can recall the feeling when everything falls into place, a point made clear from the many relevant interviews that reinforce Dr. Kiev's points. The difficulty--and the strength of this book--is to be consistent in one's effort to maintain that state of mind. There are mny useful tools and exercises offered that will keep traders from unconciously falling back into unproductive habits.

Everyone needs help, especially on the path to becoming an accomplished trader. This book is an essential guide to staying aware and taking action.

I personally admire Dr. Kiev's work and contribution to daily psychology. However I would suggest any trader - or any other person, for that matter - to read and apply the ideas in his " Daily Living Strategy". His goal-based approach is what I live on, and I certainly understand the positive comments made by his clients, but I think the reviews are concerning the book + the counselling they took personally from Dr. Kiev. By itself, the book is not complete. It is helpful, and it certainly adresses several important issues, but it doesn't go deep. Also, it is a product of Dr. Kiev's work with the professional traders working in huge trading firms or departments, and as such, addresses the problems and solutions that can be found in such settings. Even the trading methodology Dr. Kiev seems to advocate sounds very institutional: he is talking about how to get real info from analysts that call you up. Well, being a full time trader who strikes on his own, that didn't help me. Again I recommend buyiing his now-classic book, the Daily Living Strategy, and apply it to whatever it is you want to achieve in your life.

I had read Douglas's Trading in the Zone before. I had a very high expectation on this one. However, I was very disappointed.

The author emphasized throughout the book the importance of entering the zone, a state of mind that you can neglect fear, greed, P/L, and just trade according to your feeling of the market, though he supplemented that with the need of analysis, hardwork, focus blah blah blah, and that different people have different means to enter the zone, illustrated with examples anonymous. Those might be true stories. However, the author just did not tell the readers how they could do it themselves without the assistance of a coach like the author's good self.

A reviewer of this book wrote that this should be read together with Douglas's Trading in the Zone and Mc Call's The Way of the Warrior Trader. One should read those two excellent books only, but definitely not this.

The maxim, "Knowledge is power," comes to mind after reading Rebecca Smith's book, Electronic Resumes and Online Networking (Career Press, 1999). This book is truly a wealth of information . . . with it, job seekers will be armed with the power to create content-driven Web resumes, negotiate the maze of the Internet, and connect with like-minded job seekers, as well as recruiters and employers. The author is a crack researcher and knows her topic inside and out. This book should be required reading for any job seeker who wants to know how to use the Internet to advance their career! Susan Whitcomb, author of Resume Magic (JIST Works, 1999)

The Internet has opened many doors for employment opportunities in recent years. Many Websites, job boards, and books have been produced to help people find the jobs they want and to help employers find the people they need. Electronic Resumes & Online Networking by Rebecca Smith is one book job hunters should seriously consider picking up. It will provide plenty of resume writing and job searching assistance.

This book is wholly devoted to creating electronic format resumes for posting online. It sets forth important guidelines for them. The author provides detailed instruction on how readers should structure resumes for electronic distribution. The author also spends a good deal of time helping her readers to create their own Web resumes.

Web resumes, one of the latest developments in job hunting, allows job seekers to have more control over the way they present themselves to prospective employers. They offer job seekers an excellent opportunity to create online portfolios of their work histories, professional accomplishments, art and photographic work, testimonials, and personal photographs. Web resumes, due to their unique nature, are very economical to create, maintain, and update on a regular basis. Plenty of ideas and examples are provided to get readers started right away!

The author includes literally hundreds of Websites, many of which allow readers to apply for work online, some according to their own industry. Other sites offer further assistance in finding employment, creating Websites, obtaining graphic images, and more. An excellent listing of recommended reading materials is provided at the back of the book to offer further assistance in creating resumes, Websites, Web graphics, using e-mail, and learning HTML programming.

This book is highly recommended for job seekers who feel comfortable about posting their resumes online. They will have the opportunity to reach a broader number of employers with specially-tailored resumes. Interested persons could also open up their own online resume posting services as well. This book will teach them how!

This is a "must have" reference for all professionals, both employed and unemployed alike. In addition to simplifying the process of electronic resume writing and job search techniques, Smith turns what typically is considered a challenge, into an educational experience. Regardless of your technology level, there is something for everyone in this book. From learning basic web technology to creating a professional web portfolio. In addition to that, she offers a wealth of information for electronic job search options and an abundance of search strategies. The powerful job search techniques that are presented throughout the book are invaluable.
I would highly recommend this publication to every professional that wants to stay ahead of the competition in the job market.

Rebecca Smith's work on Electronic Resume's and Online Networking is a must read. It's one of those books that you hate to loan out, for fear of it not being returned! The definite, premiere work on strategic methods for succeeding in a competitive job market!

In a fully updated, revised and expanded second edition, Rebecca Smith's Electronic Resumes & Online Networking offers the reader the necessary information and techniques for crafting reviews suited to the Internet and targeting employers in terms of their hiring needs; identifying key skill needed to fill a specific job; keeping up with a given profession in discussion forums and virtual communities; creating the perfect electronic resume; the use of keywords and search engine techniques to get a resume noticed; and how to evaluate all the new resume options including electronic messages, electronic forms, web pages, and more. Electronic Resumes & Online Networking is a highly recommended resource for individual job seekers, job counselors, as well employment training and placement center reference collections.

As a number of reviewers have indicated, this is not a recipe book for implementing Web Services/SOAs. Rather, Kaye provides a terrific overview of the proper way to approach Web Services/SOAs. He correctly eschews the use of object-to-object invocations through Web Services and instead evangelizes a true *service* model where services with well-defined interfaces are accessed - not object methods invoked.

Once he's made that important point, he identifies shortcomings or "missing pieces" in the current offerings (e.g. security, workflow) and offers insightful solutions or potential solutions.

A "must-read" for technology leaders and business leaders interested in SOAs implemented through Web Services.

They say, that this book is mainly for executives and architects. That is not true. Even developers should read it, although it doesn't provide any API descriptions or howtos. The book describes how current systems and architectures have evolved to the Service Oriented form, as well as what does it actually mean for the real enterprise applications and environments. It is obvious, that the author knows what he is talking about, since he gives the reader a deep insight into the whole Web Services concept, raising issues and problems the world of WS is facing now (orchestration, asynchronous web services etc). Doug Kaye is well known guy in the industry and he is able to express concepts and ideas as only a few of the others do. Web services/SOA is currently on the peak of hype, a lot of has been written about this topic. Some writings are usefull, some are just empty talking without the point. This is not the case. Read it, if you want to get better understanding what is actually the content of all that hype.

I have been using this book as a reference and teaching text since Sept 2003 and have stuck with it because I have found that it offers more comprehensive and clearer explanations of the key web service concepts than do other comparable texts - though some other books eg by Marks and Werrell or by Douglas Barry are also well written and have their strengths, they are somewhat less insightful on important aspects. The coverage of 'missing pieces' such as WS security, is [inevitably] becoming dated but hopefully given the modular nature of the text and the author's willingness to publish electronically, it will soon be reissued with some critical updates.

This book is extremely helpful for decision-makers who are considering proposals for implementing web services. It is not designed for the architect or programmers but provides an outstanding overview of the key issues. I particularly appreciated the chapter on how to decide what type of project to undertake and assess its complexity and proposed schedule.

I really hope that Mr. Kaye comes out soon with a book with very practical advice on how to use web services to integrate specific COTS such as Oracle Financials, etc. with other applications. The idea of web services sounds great, but as a veteran of two projects now that are using some form of web services, it is not as easy as one would like. Mr. Kaye clearly defines some of the issues. Now lets have a follow-up that helps us with the next phase.

This book has been a tremendous disappointment, specially since most reviewers gave it 4 or 5 stars and I usually trust reviewers' opinions. Disclaimer: I'm a programmer, not a manager or a burocrat.

First of all it really bothered me to find so many mispellings. A simple spell check would not have hurt. Other spelled ohter, etc. If you didn't use a spell checker, what else did you forget with such a loose quality control policy?

Secondly the title of this book was clearly brainstormed AFTER it was written and is misleading. This book was written as "a random walk through web services", so they took the concept of loose coupling and stuck the phrase "loosely coupled" in randon paragraphs throughout the text. Of course web services are meant to be loosely coupled and it is practically impossible to write a tightly coupled web service. Loose coupling is the reason web services exist...so people don't need access to your source code or access to your company's internal workings to be able to use your services. Doug Kaye obviously didn't get it : web services were CREATED to allow loosely coupled distributed systems, but he writes as if loose coupling is a consequence of you reading his book... Which started bothering me already in the first few chapters.

Another appropriate title would have been "The Web Services Fake Book" - as in the Jazz fake books. With jazz fake books you sorta quickly learn an easy version of the song and then you can get by a gig by faking it, as if you knew all the songs, so you can make a quick buck not refusing a gig for songs you didn't know. With this book you will learn all the hot lingo and you will SOUND like a web services pro after reading it. But it's mostly theoretical and he forgets to use the word "supposedly" throughout the text.

Further criticizing the misleading title "the missing pieces of web services" - "the missing pieces" covered in this book make up a 3 PAGE CHAPTER!(Chapter 4) The index shows the chapter has 5 pages, 47 to 52, but the first and last are blank...LOL Which proves the title was created AFTER the book was written, obviously they just stuck a few short paragraphs about missing pieces there and bob's your uncle.

The author's pretension reaches a climax when he proposes web services be renamed "internet services" because, according to him, web services are not at all web-related. He seems to have forgotten that HTTP was created FOR the web, not the web for HTTP, and that web services are a revolution exactly because they use the existing HTTP infrastructure, which was created FOR THE WEB.

My personal conclusion: this book is 80% alchemy, 20% science and I could not get past page 192 feeling that I was wasting my time with it.

You WILL learn all the acronyms and sharp talk, but you will probably finish this book asking all the same questions(i didn't finish it, but I'm still asking myself all the same questions, specially "why did i buy this book?"), because as with every good burocrat this guy managed to fill 320 pages and not add very much to the discussion.

This book is jam packed with good information about online stalking, online shopping, protecting your identity, etc. As technology becomes more advanced, there are more and more ways for people to become victims of Internet crime. Jayne Hitchcock explains the steps to take if this ever happens to you and ways to prevent it so it never does!

An excellent read - AND you don't have to be a computer genius to understand all of her technical information!

One of the hook lines for this book states, "..an insightful book that is a must read for everyone who owns a computer". No it isn't! The number of people who have not heard anything about computer viruses, identity theft, hackers or at least some form of computer attack must surely be a small minority by now. Even the most non-mechanical of drivers know something about oil, where the gas goes, tire pressures, etc. even if they only ever turn the ignition key and point their vehicle in the direction they want to go. Why then, would someone who owns a computer and surfs the internet assume all it involves is turning on their computer, getting an internet connection and pointing and clicking? This book is for those people.

It does a good job at highlighting the pit falls, traps and virtual land mines waiting for the unprotected, ignorant or just plain stupid. The book also gives good advice on what to do if harassment gets out of hand. However, the sub-title of "Outmaneuvering the spammers, swindlers and stalkers" is somewhat misleading. The outmaneuvering techniques described are basically don't go to chat rooms, news groups or message forums where people take a virtual swipe at you. The passages about outmaneuvering the spammers also seems incredibly naive and is centered around displaying the full header of an email so you'll know who sent it. Wrong! Some mention is made of how return email addresses can be faked, but so too can IP addresses. Complaining to an ISP about spam, especially one which knowingly hosts spamming operations, is a waste of time. Even more so if they originate somewhere in Asia like a lot of them do. Then we have the anonymous emailing web sites and of course the spammers favorite, the zombie computer which they use to re-direct their emails without the computer owner's knowledge.

If you're looking for a technical reference which tells you how to protect yourself online, what tools to use, what they do and why you need them, this book isn't for you. However, if you're concerned about internet horror stories, online safely and are not particularly computer or internet savvy, this book will be useful to you and you'll learn much about the dos and don'ts of life online.

Ms. Hitchcock outlines the major threats to Internet privacy and safety we face in a clear, easy-to-read, and very comprehensive manner. Although the book caters more to the novice Web surfer than it does the technologically adept, even hardcore geeks will be impressed at how she takes stories of cyberstalking, spoofing, auction fraud, and flame wars and puts human faces on all of them.

Though message boards and newsgroups have been replaced with blogs and MySpace, the basic principles of being smart and protecting yourself when you go online are even more important, and Hitchcock reminds us that no matter how smart or savvy you think you are, you can end up a victim of "Net Crimes", unless you pay attention.

Definitely recommended.

Net Crimes is an outstanding source of information to learn how to protect yourself while online. It thoroughly covers many topics and addresses several issues that you may not realize put you at risk. After reading it, I am "kicking myself" for things I have inadvertently done online that could have caused some potential problems. I will now be much more cautious about websites I visit and personal information that I provide to them.

I just received the 2nd edition, and Hitchcock has again put the fear of the virtual world in me. Her examples and discussion is certainly eye-opening as to what or who is lurking out there.

Not only is this a good read, but it is also a great reference for high school and undergraduate college. The examples and resources made it a valued purchase for me.

If you have just lunch eBay and sell some items, this book will add nothing for you!! because 80% of the book contents you already know it!! it just show you step by step how to do a specific thing like registration, leaving feedback,..etc

This is the first book on eBay selling that you should read. The book has a nice layout that makes it easy to read. More than any other book I read, this book makes the entire process seem easy. It contains pretty much everything you need to know about selling on eBay.

After reading the top eBay books, below are my recommendations:
---Beginner with eBay and computers---
1. The Official eBay Bible

---eBay Seller---
1. Sell it on eBay
2. eBay Hacks

---Full-Time eBay Business (not for the casual seller)---
1. eBay Strategies
2. eBay Business the Smart Way

This book is very easy to follow and simply covers the steps to selling in great detail, with good illustrations. This is an excellent book for anyone who is uneasy with technology and wants to sell on eBay. I think ebay for dummies does a better and more rounded job though.

If you have any experience with eBay, or are looking for something that will help you maximize your returns, this book will be of no value (eBay secrets is a great alternative, how to do everything with an eBay Busibess is also good).

I can see why this book has extremes of reviews, I didn't find it helpful. I borrowed it and I am glad I didn't pay for it. That said, I work with computers day in day out. Great book for people who don't.

I'm one of the authors of this book and just want to encourage anyone who's considering it to buy the new, second edition instead! It came out in November 2005 and covers all the latest eBay selling developments. It's much more up to date than this edition.

If you'd like to search for it here on Amazon, its ISBN/catalog number is 0321356802.

Thanks and happy selling!

From Joe Catal, author of the book "Telesales Tips From The Trenches". If you really want to make money on E-Bay, you must read this book. It teaches you everything you need to know to be successful. How to list your product, how to price it, what days of the week to list and not list, the rules of E-Bay, Handling disputes, Pictures, and just about anything you can imagine. Before you start any business venture you first have to read about it. Cut your learning curve by 80% with this book. I personally use it and it's working great!

This could be a good book. There is some good content, but it so overshadowed by the lack of editing, that you will kick yourself for buying it.

This is what I think the author did: He sat down over a weekend, talked into a tape recorder and sent the tape to someone else to transcribe it. He never read the transcription. He just sent it to a vanity press and had it published.

Here's a typical example of the horrific text you will struggle through:
"For instance, if you are serving a market place that is looking to lose weight, the weight loss market place that constitutes the majority of the United States and could constitute the majority of the world for that market, then your market place has the need of losing weight for various reasons. One reason could be social acceptance; another is to be more attractive, which actually is the need of using the formula we used before of always taking the need to the next step to discover the true need..."

The chapters are titled Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, etc. There is no index.

Sorry, this book REALLY needs an editor.

What I liked about the book is that the author shares his personal experience in starting and running his online businesses. Instead of reading about the online giants like Amazon you get to ready about how an average guy started and runs his online businesses. Why go through years of trial and error when you can take benefit from someone else's experience?

Effective online strategies for those who have online experience. What makes Selling Online unique is that the author is engaged in running online businesses.

While I primarily sell on eBay I found that Selling Online works just as well for eBay sales as it works for general online sales.
The reason is because the strategies that are suggested are aimed at converting casual browsers into excited customers who will want to buy your products or services.
If that casual visitor sees your products on eBay or on your own web site, you will need the same set of skills to turn her into a buying customer.

I normally do not bother to take the time to write reviews because other readers do such a good job reviewing a book but this one seems to have missed. I am not a writer but I do appreciate a well-written book and Lowy book was anything but. It was a low quality, self-published book where they forgot to edit it and stretched every sentence to reach the 135 pages. This book can be summed up in a pamphlet. Save your money buy something else such as eBay timesaving techniques. This book was painful to read. It is not for beginners, intermediate, or advanced sellers. I am a eBay powerseller and I can not think of anytime this book could of helped me compared to the other great books out there.

I like the concept of novellas, but when publishing one with only 5 or 6 stories, ALL the stories must be on-pointe to capture the readers attention from start to finish. That was NOT the case with sistergirls.com. A book written around an internet theme is a great idea in this age of .com's, but some of the authors in this book fail to address the intrigue, the suspense, the excitement, and most importantly, the erotica around the subject and that left me a bit disappointed. If you buy the book, buy it used.

The Gentleman in Sistergirls.com carried their weight. Two of the reviews listed complained about the two best stories in the book, which is sad because both gentlemen, Earl Sewell and William Fredrick Cooper are two of the most talented writers to come along in recent memory. "You're Making Me Wet" is my favorite story, and "Legal Days, Lonely Nights" is very well written. The other stories lacked in potency, but I enjoyed it. It's a shame readers have their minds made up on what's good before they read it.

You Are Making Me Wet" by Earl Sewell - The best story in the book. This story was funny, and sweet. I enjoyed it, and will read this one again.

"Life Happens" by Rique Johnson - was interesting. The story kept my attention.

"The Wanting" by Michael Presley - another interesting story, and it had a nice little hidden message.

"Legal Days, Lonely Nights" by William Fredrick Cooper - This story started off slow, picked up and by then end you were catching your breath.

"Somewhere Between Love and Sarcasm" by V. Anthony Rivers - This was the WORST story in the book. There was nothing erotic about it, and it was no where between love and sarcasm. The story was all Sarcasm and it was stupid and had no business in the book.

My suggestion is read all the stories in this book EXCEPT Somewhere Between Love and Sarcasm. Trust me you will not miss anything by not reading this story.

I didn't enjoy this book too much. The first story 'Legal Days, Lonely Nights' was entertaining but tends to drag on. Mr. Cooper's description of the cybersexcapades were captivating but the story lacked in the imagination department. The next two stories, 'You're Making Me Wet' and 'Somewhere Between Love And Sarcasm' were terrible. 'You're Making Me Wet' was about a father/son team who happened to fall in love with a mother/daughter pair. Is it just me or isn't that step-incest? If mommy and daddy get married then won't son and daughter be brother and sister? Right. 'Somewhere Between Love And Sarcasm' was a witty tale that sometimes brought a smile to my face but what woman knows a man who will let her walk all over him like that? 'Life Happens' is an interesting tale about a lesbian turned hetro that finds true love over the net. Very happy ending but not too much for the entertainment aspect. 'The Wanting'....well you'll have to read that one yourself. Talk about a hustle. I would loan this book out and wouldn't be upset if I didn't get it back. Definately not worth the money. Save your bills for the next Zane installment.

The prolific contributors of SISTERGIRLS.COM do not disappoint with this heated compilation of five sensual novellas centering around online romance. This book will titillate the senses and invoke a warm sensation from its readers! You'll want to curl up in your own private cozy place and not put this book down!

Each story is very well done, creatively descriptive and communicated in good taste. Kudos to each each of the contributors - Earl Sewell, Rique Johnson, Michael Presley, V. Anthony Rivers and William Fredrick Cooper! Each novella ties into this imaginary online romance website called Sistergirls.com and builds from there. The unique voice that each author lends to his own particular story will compel you to want to read more. "Legal Days, Lonely Nights" by William Fredrick Cooper portrays an up and coming attorney who is sizzling both in and out of the courtroom. He flirts with online romance via the Sistergirls.com website and blazes a trail of passion with one of its members that is unrivaled. There is a twist to this story that you do not want to miss! "You're Making Me Wet" by Earl Sewell will also have you lustily turning the pages to see what will happen next.

I could go on and on, but will leave this parting thought - if you're hungry for a book to peak your senses and tap your curiousity, then Sistergirls.com is definitely the book for you!

Reviewed by Nedine
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

I actually received a referral for this book from a publisher, as they use it themselves for reference and a tool for new authors. this book is truly a gold nugget of information.
The book is short, but there are countless references and resources to more detailed information - enough to keep any author busy for weeks on end.
The most important note in the book for me was what I tell others who ask me about publishing their 'dream'. Writing a book is easy compared to the marketing, the marketing is where the major work is. Whether you self-publish or go traditional publishing routes, this book is filled with valuable information on how to get started. Even traditional publishing houses expect authors to be very active in their own marketing. Stephanie's book is a perfect guide to get you going. Thank you Stephanie!

Leigh Le Creux
Author The Secret Unraveled: Opening the Secret Once and for All! ,Astro Socks

I bought this book after reading Terry Whalin's very helpful newsletter "The Writing Life" (http://www.right-writing.com/newsletter.html) in which he recommended it.

The book begins by explaining what Ms. Chandler calls "the truth about publishing," - the fact that, for the author, there is more to selling books than just writing them. Production costs are so high that publishers routinely expect authors to make as much effort to promote their books as they can.

Promotion, however, begins long before the book is written. Your website is the best tool you have for marketing yourself; but, as one online contributor put it, promoting yourself on the Internet is similar to planting seeds: the effect of doing both takes time.

Although this may seem self-evident to most people, it is remarkable how little of what is accepted as common knowledge is actually put into practice. Few people really understand search engine optimization, though there are plenty who talk about it, and even fewer who know how to maximize their web presence. This book provides practical advice for how to do both.

I read the book in several short sittings over the course of a week; however, it took as much time to jot down all the things I needed to do to improve my own online marketing plan and to check the numerous websites she mentioned and that also seemed relevant to me. I intend to incorporate many of her suggestions into the maintenance of my web site. I recommend that you buy this book and do the same.

Bruce Hoag, PhD
Co-author of Managing Value-based Organizations: It's Not What You Think (New Horizons in Management Series)

As the self-publisher of my first book, I readily admit I have a great deal to learn. Can't say writing the book was the easy part -- yet, I certainly understand there is MUCH I need to learn to get my book out so people can benefit from the discoveries I have made in my Executive Coaching business.

Twice during the evening I found myself getting up and "checking" a website she recommended. Now I wish I had this book before I published my book. Obviously, I missed a number of opportunities to get some advance publicity.....and let's not even think about how I didn't have the advantage of ALL her information on press releases for the book.

Today I got up bright and early and started implementing ideas she discussed in her book. For starters, you wouldn't believe how many places you can put your profile. Amazing thing is that you are probably already a member; yet haven't taken advantage of the profile on the sites.

I still have a number of things circled that I haven't tried. Though I'm planning on getting up early tomorrow again and implementing some more of her great ideas.

Kathy Condon author of the book "It Doesn't Hurt to Ask: It's all about communication."

As a writer of fiction, I found this book to be extremely helpful in building my on-line platform. Stephanie presents her expertise in a clear concise manner that I appreciate in a book. No extraneous fluff where you need to read and read pages of the author's filler material, just to try and extract the real point the author is trying to make.

I absolutely recommend this book to any author, fiction or otherwise, who is trying to promote their work.

This book was not one of my favorites. I did not find it to be particularly well written, nor outlined well. And to make matters worse, I didn't think it was long enough to legitimately be called a real book. The body of the book is only 132 pages long. Then comes a less-than Directory of Resources from pages 133 to 140. And the book ends on page 143. There is an Introduction and 9 chapters as follows:

1. The truth about publishing
2. Web site strategies
3. Setting up your Web site
4. Web site enhancement tools
5. Building your expert status
6. Online marketing strategies
7. Online media opportunities
8. Amazon.com success strategies
9. Final thoughts

Without question this book is just another of a long line of Internet Marketing books on the market today. There is little new between its covers. Ever since early 2006 I have been aware of the author's "Internet Platform" because I read a couple of her books and Googled her name to find all the marketing techniques she had been using to promote herself and her business ventures. Overall, I have been impressed with the author and the self promotion techniques she has employed online. Unfortunately I have not found her to be a particularly good writer. Sorry. She does not focus on a subject well in her books and fully explain it. She tends to get sidetracked. And her editors (if she has them) don't catch her on this.

The title of the instant book provides that this book is an "author's guide" to Internet marketing. But what kind of author are we talking about? Is it an author of fiction, i.e., romance writers, fantasy writers, science fiction writers, chik lit writers, mystery writers, etc? If so, then why was there a need for Chapter 5 regarding "Building an Expert Status?" Is it an author of nonfiction, i.e., business writers, how-to writers, or some other book that needs to be written by an expert? If so, then why didn't the title to the book specify it was about authors who write nonfiction? Or is it not really an author at all, but instead a consultant who does some writing? If so, then why did the title to the book even include the term "author" at all?

The book is clearly an overview of the Internet Marketing tools and techniques the author has used to create her own Online Platform. But is she just an author? Or is she more like Dan S. Kennedy who she profiled in Chapter 4? He says he is first and formost a consultant and he publishes primarily for self-promotion reasons. He says there may be some profit from publishing books, but that is a distant consideration. So having said all this, is the book really one for authors? Or is it one for consultants? I think the latter.

Knowing what I know about Internet Marketing for authors, I was disappointed in the coverage of Amazon.com. I don't think an author should have shopping cart technology embedded in their author Web sites. I say this because authors should seek to maximize sales of their books on Amazon so the books will rank high on Amazon's top sales list ranking. The author should become an affiliate of Amazon and direct sales from their author site to Amazon where Amazon will process the sale. Their author blog or blogs should direct traffic to Amazon for book sales, too. If Amazon processes the sale, then there is no need for the author to have a shopping cart on their site.

I was also disappointed in the coverage of Amazon.com since Chapter 8 did not come close to helping the reader with Amazon as compared to the coverage presented in "Sell Your Book on Amazon" (ISBN: 1432701967). The instant book being reviewed could have re-written the best of that book and included it as Chapter 8. But that is not the case, unfortunately.

If the title were changed so it properly reflected its content, then I would give the book 4 stars! But that would have been a gift because I would have been rounding up my star rating from a 3.6. But since the title is off, and the book is short and not particularly well outlined or written, I am dropping my rating to 3 stars. It's just an OK book. 3 stars!