I decided to start my own publishing company, Big Mouth Publications, because it was the only way to maintain complete control over the packaging and contents. Plus, I'd make more money -- with an outside publisher I'd receive only a fifteen percent royalty off of the five million tapes I was going to sell.

I duplicated 5,000 copies and hit a snag. As a small publisher it wasn't easy to get bookstore distribution even after spending months wooing potential distributors and begging the local bookstores to carry one copy of my tape on their already packed bookshelves.

Next I attempted advertising. For $1,800 I could get a 1/6 page advertisement in a national magazine. I compromised and bought $100.00 worth of classified advertisements in a local free paper. The orders that streamed in allowed me to lose only half of my money.

Then I considered direct mail, but it would require purchasing a mailing list, creating thousands of expensive brochures, and paying hundreds of dollars in postage in hopes of getting a one or two percent return. At that rate, I'd have to sell thousands to make up for the high cost of direct mail and the low cost of my tape.

One day over coffee back in 1993, an associate told me about this Internet thing and how it was going to revolutionize the business world. At that time I had never even heard of the word "Internet", so I felt as if a spaceship full of aliens had just landed in the middle of the coffee table.

Within months the Internet was the major topic of conversation at baby showers and business meetings, and URL addresses began lighting up the night sky alongside major freeways.

At an independent publishers meeting I learned about an Internet guru, Daniel Kehoe, who was designing and hosting publishers' web pages on his website: bookfair.com. For $895, Daniel would design and host an online multi-page brochure, featuring a book cover, table of contents, a sample chapter, author information, endorsements, an 800 ordering number, and even an online credit card ordering mechanism.

Each publisher would also be e-mailed a weekly activity report showing the number of visitors per day, the countries they came from, their Internet providers, and even a secret tracking code for determining how people found out about the site. I began to hyperventilate as I peered into what would become the future of book publishing and distribution.

I called Daniel and struck up a trade. I would handle a month of his overflowing sales calls in exchange for hosting my web page. To make the deal even sweeter I told him I'd design and program the site myself -- even though I knew nothing about how to do that.

I started by dividing my information into eight separate pages that would become links from my home page. Then I focused on writing quick, easy-to- digest copy, and I added an online "Ask Ms. Guts" question and answer column, plus a page of tips for taking intelligent risks.

Next, I bought the book "Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a week", by Laura Lemay. Within a few days I was producing and hyperlinking pages like a late night hacker. It was actually so easy I thought I must be doing it wrong. But upon e-mailing my finished site to Daniel, he reassured me I was "HTML-ing" like a pro.

My first week's activity report registered visitors from Brazil, Taiwan, and New Zealand. Several weeks later, I got my first order through the online ordering mechanism, and additional orders began to trickle in through my 800 number. What made these orders even more exciting was that I was able to charge the direct retail price instead of having to give a middleman, (such as a bookstore, distributor, or catalog) a 40% to 67% discount.

These orders were only the beginning. My site opened up a world of contacts. Within the first year a major state college system saw my site and requested to add Instant Guts! to their state-wide university library system.

Then several distributors contacted me about representing the tape to the gift industry, and a product marketing company asked if they could advertise Instant Guts! through their online marketing division. Within a week this company went out and e-mailed an Instant Guts! press release to over 300,000 addresses.

Instant Guts! was also picked up by a number of online bookstores. I logged on to Amazon.com, a giant online bookstore, and found that they were not only selling my tape, they were posting favorable reviews of Instant Guts! from outside listeners.

Next I was contacted by audionet.com, a high-profile audio site which hosts radio stations across the country as well as selling audiobooks. They asked if they could create their own Instant Guts! web page and make the audiotape available to listeners to try before they buy.

A while later my online tracking report showed that I had been getting a surge of new visitors. It turned out that Instant Guts! had been written up in Women's Wire, an online women's website.

Wait, there's even more... I received an e-mail message from an author who was writing a book on cyber-writing. He asked if he could use my site as an example of how to write for the Internet. As a result, a large portion of my Instant Guts! advertisement material, including the price, my address, and my 800 ordering number, was reprinted in his newly released book, "CyberWriting", by Joe Vitale, 1996.

And it gets even better! Mr. Vitale wrote that my Instant Guts! web site was an example of an "excellent cyberad." As a result, I have been getting requests to write cyberads for other companies -- which I am finding to be an exciting new occupation. I've always been a latent Madison Avenue Advertising Wanna-be anyway, so now I am getting paid to write snappy, fast-paced copy while drinking a latte in my home office, and listening to Beethoven in my pajamas. (No, Beethoven is not in my pajamas, I am.)

All of these benefits are the result of one week's worth of effort that have snowballed into new distributors, a growing number of orders, world-wide publicity, and a new occupation. And even though I haven't sold five million copies of my tape yet, the growing trend toward Internet commerce is bringing in daily sales and publicity that I would not have otherwise seen.

For those who are currently deciding whether to set up a web site or not, I say, join in on the fun! You never know what chance encounter will send your life spinning in a new direction.

Here are some tips for getting started:
Make your information fun and easy to read, and continuously emphasize all the ways your visitors will gain from using your product or service, instead of just describing the colors, sizes, and materials your product comes in.

Supply helpful information and tips pertaining to your field of expertise, and refresh it often with new facts to keep visitors coming back. Also add juicy testimonials and success stories about how your product or service has enhanced people's lives.

Provide an 800 number so that people can easily reach you or order your product, and give them a number of other ways to get in touch with you, such as a hyperlink to your e-mail address, plus your street address and fax number.

To get people to your site, register your URL with all the search engines you can find and put your URL on your business cards, brochures, and advertisements. Also get on newsgroups where your target market lays in wait, and tell them you have something they can use. For instance if you are selling exercise machines, invite weightlifters over to read about five ways to strengthen their trapezius muscles.

Go shopping for the best Internet host site and provider you can find, because prices and service vary dramatically. It may also help to locate yourself in a site where others can accidentally find you. For example a number of people who come to my Instant Guts! site, get there because they are visiting my host, bookfair.com, and then fortuitously click on my company name, Big Mouth Publications.

And finally, for inspiration and tips on intelligent risk-taking in business and creativity visit Instant Guts!