And No, It Ain't Worth $97

It amazes me and amuses me when authors give away things with a $97 "value." Let me get this straight: You're charging $20 for a 200-page book with small print and you're giving away a 20-page report with large print and it has a $97 value? How many of these $97 value items ever fetch $97? The answer is almost none. Therefore, if you've never gotten $97 for the item, it doesn't have a $97 value.

Authors often use these items to attain a bogus "bestseller" status. They get others to offer worthless $97 items to entice visitors to buy books on a particular day to attain a bogus "bestseller" status. Most of the things they give away are things you can get on their websites for free, anyway. They inflate the value of stuff they can't sell, give it away and make it look like you're getting something. So, in the end it looks like you're getting $38,729 worth of free downloads plus a book - all for $20. If the book is not enough, don't think that those 20-page PDFs and MP3 downloads are going to provide a lot of added value. Chances are that if you are getting much more "value" from the free items than what you're paying for the book, then those items are probably worthless - unless they sell or have sold the items for the value they claim. Usually they haven't or they can't sell them, which is why they are giving them away in the first place.

Value is what you can get or have gotten for an item or service, not an inflated number you give it to prop up the value of something else. So, remember, it ain't worth $97 or $47 or $27 unless you've gotten $97, $47 or $27 for that item.