Summary:
Has this ever happened to you? You are washing dishes or feeding the dog, or changing diapers or finishing a term paper and suddenly, it’s as if your body has been taken over by what I now call the “Outlook Express Demon”. I have to check my email. Come on. Be honest.

Ok that is not really the jest of my story here. I want to write a bit about how the Internet changed my life. I was not a very good student growing up. I came from an upper-middle class family in south Ms. I…

Has this ever happened to you? You are washing dishes or feeding the dog, or changing diapers or finishing a term paper and suddenly, it’s as if your body has been taken over by what I now call the “Outlook Express Demon”. I have to check my email. Come on. Be honest.

Ok that is not really the jest of my story here. I want to write a bit about how the Internet changed my life. I was not a very good student growing up. I came from an upper-middle class family in south Ms. I did not like being in an upper-middle class family (at least mine), and I don’t think they particularly cared for me being there either, but we all put up with each other. I was expected to amount to something big. I was on my way there (to something big….not sure what, but I am sure it was big), and then I discovered the Internet.

I had been warned by PHDs and professors of technology not to get too facinated or obsessed with anything that has any-thing to do with technology but I just couldn’t help myself.

On the Internet, I could become whatever I wanted. Well, that is what I thought anyway, until I once read an insightful piece, “Never make up a fib, especially on the Internet… the Internet will always find you out.” And those are really words to live by. So I decided to go back to college at age 48 and major in business information technology with an emphasis on e-commerce. I’m still there by the way and if all goes well will finish next year.

But before the Internet, I was just another one of “America’s corporate layoffs”; mid-level management with no golden parachute. I knew I had to land on my feet but how?

It was 1997 and nobody wanted to hire a “Willie Lohman-type” 42 year old salesman.

So I started my own cartoon because I knew how to write funny. But oh, I forgot, I can’t draw that well. So I recruited a team of illustrators who took a risk with me and guess what?

(Shameless bragging rights); Our cartoon became the top independent cartoon site on the Internet according to Alexa and Netcraft and in the top 100k of ANY genre websites. Not bad for a rookie, eh? But a little secret. I learned about organic seo just when it was beginning. So rather than make a living at it, which would have been a very good one, I decided to focus it on my own cartoon site. It gets about 4000 hits per hour or 6.5 million hits since Jan. 2005.

Then I opened a cartoon superstore with a manufacturer who produces and distributes my products. Then Blish, the top content syndicator decided to syndicate us. Then I opened a clothing line and a private label cartoon gourmet coffee line. This week, after the phone wouldn’t stop ringing (no kidding) to raise my seo, I decided to make business cards.

I have other ecommerce sites and a few more opening, but they seem to take a life of their own and it is automatic cash flow. I like that. I was a starving writer for a very long time. Now I’m a neurotic comfortable writer who thinks at any minute he will forget his skills and go back to being a starving writer who at least is not neurotic.

But I am also a third year 52 year old (serious) business student at one of the best business colleges in the country (more shameless self-promotion) but I say that for a reason. I do have fun with the cartoons and e-stores, and now my Affiliate toolblog and such, but I seriously love helping others (especially those who have had the awful experience of “quick result” SEO and then their letdown (Google hates that stuff as do other engines); and when I show them how to be patient and let me do my work, they laugh (all the way to the bank). And I love making people laugh and they tend to laugh more when they have money in the bank. At least that has been my experience.

So somewhere along the road rarely traveled (on my way to being big for sure), I discovered the Internet and I am happy as a lark helping others with their seo and even have a super affiliate program for those who like my cartoon products. I’m having fun on the Internet, and to be fair and honest, I have met many of the people in real life (people who have enriched my life) and I probably never would have met them if not for the Internet and really learning search engine optomization.

There are a lot of folks out there that call themselves SEMs (Search Engine Marketers). They claim to be experts and many are. But when they solicit me I always go to the analytical ]\ sites and see their own site history. Nine times out of ten they are not even on the Alexa or Netcraft map. That tells you something. My original website, that I launched before affiliate programs, seo, ppc or anything else but banner ads existed, has remained on the Alexa top 200k since 2005 and Netcraft Top 100k since about the same date.

In other words (he humbly added), “I think I might be doing something right for a change!”