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The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself (E-Book Review)-

Editor’s note: This article contains affiliate links.

The train from Battambang to Phnom Penh. By sorella.

Chris Guillebeau has just released The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself, the second ebook in his series of Unconventional Guides (his first was a guide to discount airfares I reviewed last month).

In the new guide, he shares how you can set up a small online business to earn at least $200 a month.

About Chris: If you’ve ever dreamed of travelling long-term while living off a small perpetual income, you need to know this about Chris: he’s on a mission to visit every country in the world over the next five years, and has visited 100 so far. He doesn’t have a “real job”, but he’s been working as an online entrepreneur for 10 years. He speaks with a voice of experience, not only as an online entrepreneur, but also as a traveller.

The biggest hindrances to travel are not having enough time to get away and not having enough money to get there. With a “very small business” that you operate from anywhere in the world, you’ll be able to work on attacking both of those problems.

What you get: Chris doesn’t give you just one way to start up a small business: he gives you eight ways. This is one of the guide’s strongest features, as it allows you to see the wide range of possibilities on the internet. Too many guides try to play the one-size-fits-all trick; not here. While I knew about several of the tactics Chris shares, his guide was full of fresh ideas for me personally.

Chris’ realistic, down-to-earth approach makes his guide one of the best ebooks about making money I’ve read (and I’ve read a bunch!).

Here’s what Chris covers:

• How to write and sell your own information products
• Building an information portal
• Two ways of selling digital photographs
• Building an eBay business
• Blogging for money
• Consulting
• Creating a membership site
• Setting up an Adsense-earning site

For each one, he gives you a specific action plan, so you can start implementing his principles immediately.

The action plan is vital, because this guide is designed to get you started earning money online as soon as possible. In fact, if you find Chris’ tactics don’t work for you, he has a great money-back guarantee: if you are unable to set up a $200-a-month business using the advice in The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself, Chris wants you to ask for your money back.

The guide only costs $58 $52.20 for TravelBlogs readers (see below) and includes three 25-minutes MP3 audio teaching sessions, a bonus ebook about Search Engine Optimization and free updates for 6 months. You can also purchase additional material: an audio segment on Creating a Brand to Build a Lasting Business; and a detailed guide to earning income through travel. I haven’t had a chance to check either of these out, but given the quality of the main guide, I don’t doubt that you will find these additional materials very valuable.

After reading the guide, I asked Chris a few more questions about how he thinks his guide can benefit travellers.

How will this ebook help travellers?

Generally speaking, it will help anyone interested in creating more personal freedom for themselves, so that certainly includes crazy travelers like me. The biggest hindrances to travel are not having enough time to get away and not having enough money to get there. With a “very small business” that you operate from anywhere in the world, you’ll be able to work on attacking both of those problems.

How have you personally used the tactics and strategies you write about to help you travel more?

Through trial and error (including much error, let there be no doubt) I’ve been able to construct a work/life balance that allows me to travel for much of the year. In 2007 I visited 26 countries, and it looks like I’ll break that record in 2008. I would never be able to do that without a source of income that was somewhat passive, or at least that allowed me to work from anywhere.

For the guide, I wanted to write everything down that I’ve learned along the way, including a lot of the mistakes I made so that other people could avoid as many as possible. I want to be clear that this is not a “get-rich-quick” plan — I know of no such thing. But for those willing to learn and work hard, I believe it’s completely possible to use the information to begin a very small business that helps create personal freedom within a few short weeks.

Can TravelBlogs readers get a discount? (Pretty please:))

Sure, use coupon code TB to get 10% off the guide, the additional material, or both.

Order The Basic “Just Getting Started” Version of the Unconventional Guide and quote TB for the discounted rate of $52.20:

Order The Upgraded “Escape Artist” Version of the Unconventional Guide, which includes Additional Materials, and quote TB for the discounted rate of $70.20 :

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Other e-books written by travel bloggers:

• The Unconventional Guide to Working for Yourself by Chris Guillebeau
• Travelling Europe: Indie Travel Guide by Craig Martin (currently priced at only $5.95!)
• How to Find Cheap Airline Tickets by Elizabeth Sanberg

Subscribe to TravelBlogs Posted by Gretchen on October 23rd, 2008 in Book Reviews.
Tags: entrepreneurs, freelance work, long-term travel, working for yourself, working on the road