Sometimes I like to know a little about the people I do business with online. I guess I’m just curious, but I do like to know about people I learn from myself. This isn’t required reading and you won’t be quizzed on it (whew), but here’s a bit about me if you wondered.
A strange place to begin perhaps, but I’ll begin with my senior year in high school–many, many years ago. That’s my senior picture at the left. Yikes, that was a lifetime ago. I took advanced biology that year; Norm Rubel was the teacher. I respected him. I didn’t just give him my respect, he earned it. Sure, he taught me some cool stuff, but more than that–he made me believe in myself. It wasn’t so much what he force fed me, it was what he pulled out of me. He got me interested in science.
During my junior and senior year in high school I read almost every chemistry, physics and mathematics book in both my high school library as well as my public library. It was my passion. After graduation I attended a community college and my freshman year I received the Freshman Chemistry Award. I remember that I got 100% on most of my chemistry tests. I was way beyond what they were teaching and I still had a passion for math and science.
My junior year I started at Michigan State University and got into a teaching program. I got married after my first year there and got my first teaching job at an inner-city high school teaching chemistry. I loved my job. That’s me at the right. It was a rather thinner, punkish looking guy–and yes they did have color photography way back then, but that’s just a pic I saved through the years.
But after about twelve years of teaching I decided I wanted more out of life. I looked for ways to supplement or replace my current earnings. I bought two books that changed my life: How To Get Rich In Mail Order, by Melvin Powers–and The Writer’s Utopia Formula Report by Jerry Buchanan.
This was back in about 1985, way before the Internet days. I studied these two books religiously; they were each well thought out, instructional and very motivational for me. Soon thereafter I began my self-publishing business.
I put together some 2-5 page reports about making money from home as well as a 40-page
booklet I titled, “The Self Publishers Desk Reference”. At first I ran small classified ads in national tabloids such as National Enquirer, Star, Globe, etc. This was a terribly long process by today’s standards.
I would have to place my ads about six weeks prior to the publication date and ask people to send me a letter or postcard asking for more information. I would then send them back an advertisement for my booklets and reports and a certain percentage would order from me. Actually I was showing a profit and then I began running full page ads (shown at left).
I was still teaching and two years before I quit teaching I wrote a simple little booklet of about 50 pages titled, “52 Ways To Liven Up The Chemistry Classroom”. I sold hundreds of copies in just a couple month so I wrote 4-5 small booklets about teaching science and put together a little 8-page catalog which I mailed out to 5,000 chemistry teachers. This worked so well I then did a mailing to about 15,000 high school chemistry teachers and the results blew my mind.
Two years later I quit teaching to devote full time to creating more and more science related books for teachers. Within a few years I had an 80-page color catalog with over 60 products of my own and hundreds of products from other science publishers and manufacturers. I soon got about a dozen of the largest school supply catalogs to carry my products and my sales ballooned.
About this time people were starting to get online and I created dozens of instructional videos which sold very well. The first product I created that I sold online was my, “You Can Make Big Money Writing Little Books” product.
The book caught on like crazy and a producer at ABC World News in Manhattan even called me and asked if I would like to come to New York and do a 3-4 minute author interview with Alison Stewart on their evening news broadcast. What a gas! They picked me up at LaGuardia in a big black limo and took me to their world headquarters on West 66th Street in downtown Manhattan.
I did the interview and they gave the ordering info for my book in the scroll beneath the interview.
This really juiced the sales of the book! Alison was such a beautiful woman, both inside and out. She was a gracious host and I was very impressed with her interest and making me feel at home. Alison is an award winning journalist and writer (First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School and JUNK: Digging Through America’s Love Affair With Stuff). And–ABC was kind enough to let me bring my daughter into the studio to watch the whole thing go down in person.
Soon after this time, my wife (Carolyn) of 30 years passed away at an early age from an incurable disease she suffered with for many years. She was a wonderful wife and mother and was instrumental in helping me getting my business off the ground in the early years. Her funeral was a small family thing. We held an outdoor ceremony in the woods along the red cedar river just North of VanHoosen Hall. Carolyn and I would sit in the woods there in the evening talking, playing our guitars and drinking a little beer under a huge sycamore tree that hung out over the water.
It had been 30 years since we carved a heart and our initials in the tree (middle image above) about five feet from the ground. Although slightly distorted, our initials and the heart were still visible. We spread her ashes with rose petals under that tree as we remembered her.
Soon afterward I started doing Barnes & Noble book signings for my book and then did dozens of radio author interviews to promote it. About that time I created an online product development course for school teachers and within a few years my course was offered online through over 2,000 colleges, universities and community colleges across the U.S.
Since then I have done dozens of live speaking events related to creating and marketing products and have created nearly 100 digital products, printand ink type books, membership sites, coaching programs and online courses to help others learn how to sell digital products online. My biggest joy has come through helping others to create products to enhance the lives of people.
The best part of my life revolves around my two children, their spouses, my three grandchildren and my girlfriend of nearly ten years. I love them all!
–Mike