Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace.

They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing

information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge.

Each day the number of people accessing the Internet

grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase

incrementally. It's obvious why electronic

self-publishing has become so popular so quickly.

The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to

forever banish the printed word to the dustbin of

history. Books in print have their own special

qualities and merits, and the world would be

diminished by their disappearance.

Having said that, let's look at what makes ebooks so

important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities

and qualities that other mediums do not possess.

For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce, and

their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about

it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing

press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor.

You just need a great concept, the ability to write it

or to hire a writer, and the right software.

Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly

distributed online. They are also easily updated; they

do not require a second print run. All you need is to

go into your original creation and modify the text or

graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can

change and grow as fast as you can type.

Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don't have

to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles

at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download

it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer,

ready to be read.

Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique

and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add

surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for

customers to purchase your products or goods, sound

and video that draw your reader into the virtual world

of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites

that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is

virtually limitless.

Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other

mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio

shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks

remain on your computer for as long as your choose,

and they can be read and reread whenever you choose

to. They can even be printed out and stored on the

shelves of your traditional home library.

Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no

barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go

through the endless process of submitting your

manuscript over and over again, and then once you land

an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over

and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands

of dollars for printing a self-published book. All

ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software.

Figure out your market, write your book, post it on

your website, and with the right business savvy, your

audience will come to you.

Finally, you have creative control over your ebook.

You don?t have to compromise with an editor or the

publishing trends of the time. You don't have to

haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys

to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control

of the design and the text.

How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion

There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote

your business and drive quality traffic to your

website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them

into a daily course, which brings your customer back

to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free

gift for making a purchase or for filling out a

survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an

innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by

inserting the disc into your sales packages.

The most effective marketing products are those that

are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you

have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can

offer to the public. People will have to visit your

site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow

of quality traffic and the potential of sales and

affiliate contacts.

Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it

frequently as the market and trends change. Add new

advice and techniques to show your prospects how your

goods or services can enrich their lives. By

constantly keeping abreast of new trends and

techniques, you can continue to see profits from your

ebook for years after your original creation.

Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can

test their marketing potential without putting out

hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook

one copy at a time, each time you receive an order,

eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By

this method, you can gauge the saleablity of your

ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the

orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn

about your market and customer habits and motivation

over a period of time, without risking your precious

financial resources. They also provide you with an

invaluable way to gather marketing information, which

you can use in many different facets of your business.

Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and

problems are in your specific industry. Then figure

out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook

with this invaluable information. This will increase

the value of your business, upgrade your reputation,

and get you known as an expert in your field.

You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking

the book down into chapters for a serial course, into

special reports available on your website, or into

audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into

several different promotional materials by excepting

some of the articles and using them to promote your

product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to

promote all the products or services you sell. You can

include a thank-you note for reading your book and an

invitation to download a trial version of your

product. Or you can include a form for your audience

to contact you for further information or with

questions, thereby building your business

relationships and your mailing list.

Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of

individually producing separate promotional materials.

You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and

to sell new products to your current customers.

No other medium has this kind of flexibility and

ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a

spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go

and create that web, and see how many customers and

prospects you can catch!

Q: Entrex has brought public market standards and disciplines to the private market. I understand the value of this to the alternative investment community, but what is the value to me as the owner of a private company?

- Craig Rutkai, business owner, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

A: It's the question I get more than any other. To answer, let's start with what Entrex is.

In broad strokes, Entrex is a brand-new market for the alternative investment community. It takes the compliance standards and reporting structures that have long been a part of the public investing market and applies them to private companies.

Until Entrex, there was no way to compare apples to apples and no way of knowing what you were getting yourself into when investing in a private company. Entrex has brought transparency to the process of private investing, giving the alternative investment community a new place to put their money.

So how does this benefit you and others like you? In a word: capital.

Today, roughly 80 percent of private companies receive their funding within a 50-mile radius of their home office. Essentially this means friends and family, country club colleagues, regionally focused venture capitalists and fellow businesspeople. To say these avenues for pursuing capital are limiting would be something of an understatement.

But alternative investors are chomping at the bit to invest in private companies. They simply require the means to do so - an entity willing to do the due diligence so that they may find, research, track, manage and trade their investments. Entrex is that entity.

Whether you're looking for capital, interested in being acquired or simply want to see how your business is valued for shareholders on a quarterly basis, Entrex can help. It brings private business owners' need for liquidity and the alternative investment market's need for fresh investment opportunities together in one place.

The revolution is beginning. You can be a part of it.

If we were to go out on the streets in any major city and ask people to explain what globalization is and how it affects people in a “Jay Leno” type manner we would probably arrive with many different answers. Why is this? Why are their so many different definitions of globalization and why are there so many different opinions on the topic? In this essay we will look at the definition of globalization including the pros and cons of this concept. To First tackle these questions let us take a look at the definition of globalization.

There are many types of globalization, which give us the ability to describe it in many different fashions. We could look at cultural globalization for example, which explains and discusses the movement of a culture and cultural values around the globe and ways in which they build upon one another and meld together, or we could take a look at communication and how it changes across the globe. Though, for the sake of this article, we are going to focus on Economic globalization described by Bhagwati in his book “In Defense of globalization.” According to Bhagwati, “Economic globalization constitutes integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, direct foreign investment (by corporations and multinationals), short-term capital flows, international flows of workers and humanity generally, and flows of technology…” Now that we have a brief understanding of what economic globalization is, let us look at some controversies revolving around globalization and identify positive areas of globalization and other areas that need fixing.

When was the last time that you turned on your television or opened the news paper and read some article regarding globalization and outsourcing or globalization having to do with an increase in poverty? It seems that this is a hot-topic among the media today driven by rallying youths, banners waving, and non-government organization (NGO’s) voicing their opinion. Is all this anti-globalization justified? According to Bhagwati, it seems that we have two types of people leading this anti-globalization movement: “stake-wielders” and “stake-asserters.” Stake-wielding people are people who feel that they are at war with globalization and are usually wild extremist waving posters and shouting out arguments that they most likely don’t understand themselves. Now stake-asserting people are different in that they use reasoned dialogue to argue their points and generally try to inform and educate people on globalization issues rather than protesting. So what are some of the issues that these people spend all their time voicing concern over?

One very common discussion is whether or not globalization increases the poverty level and the gap between the wealthy and the poor. One argument that we could take regarding this issue would be to argue that through globalization we are able to slowly increase free trade and thus the movement of goods and services across boarders more easily. We would then have gains from trade that will enhances the growth of the economy which will in turn provide more jobs and lower the unemployment rate bringing countries out of poverty. The best way to do this according to Bhagwati is to have “an increase in the size of the pie.” This is done not by an economy simply producing more of what they specialize in but rather by increasing the gains they make through the process of international trade. In his article, “Fixing Globalization – A Review Essay,” Joel J. Toppen argues that globalization is still very much up for debate and that our real focus should be directed towards the poor. Though globalization may not be specifically directed toward the poor, we can defiantly argue that it helps to elevate people out of poverty. So what are some other issues regarding globalization that people strongly advocate against? Does globalization actually solve these issues or does it need fixing?

Let us take a look at an issue that is constantly seen in the news, this would be the issue of outsourcing. When Nike first started outsourcing jobs overseas people were outraged. They were giving away American job just to make a few extra bucks and people were simply not happy about it. So how is this form of globalization even possibly a good thing? An argument that would support this aspect of globalization would be that by shipping jobs overseas countries in our economy are able to better maximize profits and thus help to grow our economy. Well this sounds all well and good but how long is it going to be until we see some of these gains in our economy? Are we not taking advantage of people overseas by paying them next to nothing? If one of us went to work one day and found out that our job was lost to outsourcing we can be sure that we wouldn’t be content with someone telling us that it was going to benefit the economy as and whole and eventually increase the standard of living. No. We would be miserable because we were now out of a job and among the unemployed; a person doesn’t live off of future gains. Now when deciding whether or not we are taking advantage of those “less fortunate” overseas by paying them so little we need to look at real wages.

Though it seems that we are taking advantage of people overseas and forcing them into sweatshop labor we are in fact increasing their real wage. Due to this increase in real wage the price of labor increases and we see a shift from longer hours of leisure to longer hours at work. This explains why people work so long at their jobs overseas. They want to work. Though this may explain that we are not taking advantage of people, we still see a loss of American jobs. Though we are seeing a loss in jobs, Bhagwati claims that we have “…actually raised the real wages of the workers.” He claims that the lower jobs are being outsourced and we are creating better jobs through and increase in education and technology. So is a part of globalization that needs fixing. If so, how do we do this?

If globalization causes an increase in real wage overseas and an eventual increase in the economy through the sacrifice of American jobs, how is it that we can stop the loss of these jobs and still maintain the benefits from globalization? This clearly needs some kind of fixing. One way that we could help with the loss of jobs would be to compensate those that lost their jobs from a clear from of outsourcing until they are able to get back on their feet. This is already done through programs provided by the U.S. government though it is often hard to make a clear distinction when it comes to the manner in which a job is lost.

Along with benefits form globalization there are also other areas that need fixing. A problem that we can see clearly results from globalization is the problem of illegal immigration from poor countries to rich countries. Through globalization, it has become easier and more beneficial for people living in a poor country to move to a country with a stronger economy. This is especially true when looking at the movement of people from Mexico to the United States. So why don’t we just open up our boarders and make it legal? If we were to simply open up the boarders between the U.S. and Mexico our economy would be obliterated. There would be a huge rush from into the U.S. by people waiting along the boarders. This huge rush of people would suck our economy dry, leaving us in a far worse condition. We are therefore presented with the problem of what to do with preventing illegal immigration. It used to be that most of our illegal immigration from Mexico came for people crossing the Rio Grande though it now comes from a different form. Bhagwati says that 50 percent of illegal immigrants now come form legal means such as visas. They enter the country legal and stay illegally. We know that it is impossible to eliminate illegal immigration so what do we do about it? He explains that to fix this problem “governments in the developed countries must turn to policies that will integrate migrants into their new homes in ways that will minimize the social costs and maximize the economic benefit.” This is a problem that will not only result between Mexico and the U.S. but also other countries as well.

Now we are going to take another look at an area of globalization that needs improvement. This problem is the ease at which capital flows can move in and out of an economy. It has been increasingly easier and easier to invest in foreign economies due fallen barriers broken down by pressure from institutions such as the IMF and OECD. According to Stiglitz, “The most adverse effects have arisen from the liberalization of financial and capital markets-which has posed risk to developing counties without commensurate rewards.” As globalization continues to occur it has become easier to invest in foreign economies through decreased barriers and instant transfers via the Internet. This can could potentially cause overwhelming problems because “as investor sentiment changes, the money is pulled out, leaving in its wake economic devastation.” So how do we fix this problem that arises form globalization? There clearly needs to be some type of barrier when it comes to capital flows. “[Capital-market liberalization] illustrates what can go wrong with globalization. Even economists like Jagdish Bhagwati, strong advocates of free trade, see the folly in liberalizing capital markets.” It is clear that we need to have some type of resistance to the ease at which capital may flow in and out of a country.

In this article we have looked at the definition of globalization, areas of globalization that are sound as well as areas that could use some improvement. From this we are better able to understand the complexity of the issue and hopefully gain some insight that will help us to live in a way that will help better our world.