First off, I am contemplating putting together some sort of E-book or guide to investing. It would be a simple start to finish guide that utilizes a lot of the information already present here on the blog within the stock education archives. It would be designed for new traders to gain enough knowledge and understanding about the stock market that they could atleast conduct simple research and trade in a simulator environment. Like everything else here it would be completely free.
Alongside the E-book or guide, I am considering kicking up a private stock simulator group setup for us over at investopedia.com (reviewed the simulator last week). It would offer traders new and experienced a way to hone their skills by practicing new strategies, or simply making their first trades.
The simulator group would have a focus on education:
- Allow new traders to learn alongside other readers in their same shoes.
- Allow myself and other more knowledged readers a place to simply test new strategies.
The whole idea is that by making it private, I can track everyone's results, continue to offer help to those with questions, and feature those within the group that trade well. It wouldn't be a competition by a community based learning environment.
Both the simulator and investment guide would not disturb the flow of content here on the blog. They would simply be an additional product for readers to utilize if they so choose.
The question is, would you guys use them?
I don't think it could hurt to try new things like this... why not give it a shot and see how it does?
I am really interested in the Ebook project. Sometimes it seems to be just too much work to surf for hours on a blog. Printing the E-book and reading it in the bus seems very interesting!
Do you think about selling it or simply giving it for free for promotion? (John Chow's way
)
definitely free, especially for an initial version. I am sure I will expand it and add more sections after the fact. Now I just need to write it
.
Nabloid, agree with that, might as well try it out, simulator group could be pretty fun.
I think both ideas would be great. I would be especially excited about the ebook.
Private game at Investopedia sounds great!!!
Haha, did you get the simulator group idea from me (My Hedge Fund post)?
It's a great idea regardless and wish you much success!
I agree with your initial ebook being free... but if it gets big and really in depth, you might be better off selling it later... If its a quality product your proud of, why not? It might make you some decent money for your efforts and it will allow you to earn some money to advertise the ebook (and obviously your blog) which can be very effective at getting more readers to the blog to help people out... you can help a lot more people out if your able to advertise on many sites and get the word out, but its too costly to do something like that unless your selling the ebook...
But offering it free for now is definetely the way to go.
Maybe Blain can do both
A free ebook with more general content and a volume 2 which would cost money to get once you have read and mastered volume#1 and you are ready for a bigger challenge.
Basically, if the first Ebook is a success, you will automatically make money with the second volume. On the other side, if people don't like your ebook (which I doubt), they can't blame you for stealing money away from them