This is a quickie post.  I am in Seattle attending the Independent Online Sellers Conference.  I almost didn’t come because this event is largely a grassroots effort.  There are about 200 Amazon resellers here.  Interestingly, this event is acknowledged by Amazon.com.  I am looking forward to visiting Amazon HQ on Monday.

I also learned about micro-blogging today.  So, I set up a Twitter account.  My account is mattchan66.  The link to my Twitter site is http://twitter.com/mattchan66 It is too early to tell how or what I will be using it for.  If it is anything like having a Facebook or MySpace account, I will probably not do too much.

I want to keep this post as brief as possible because this announcement is not one I consider “good news” but it was necessary given the amount of inquiries and information I have been getting regarding the infomercial company, “Incredible Discoveries”.

As a brief recap, “Incredible Discoveries” came into my life around June 20, 2007 when they wanted to talk to me about marketing my books with infomercials.  The conversations ultimately led to a $75,000 fee they wanted me to pay.  I was immediate suspicious and I declined the offer.

A disgruntled, ex-employee, Robert Danoff, and another individual made contact with me feeding me insights.  With my suspicions and their suggestions, I followed up on their insights.  I made a few more blog postings regarding Incredible Discoveries updates as it related to Robert Danoff.  I posted them because Robert Danoff gave me information that I thought might be of public interest.

To make a long story shorter, I eventually put an end to discussing “Incredible Discoveries” because I did not want my blog to become overrun with this story that really had little to do with me or my business. If you want to know more, go visit these posts.

• “Incredible Discoveries” Sets Up Phone Appointment
• “Incredible Discoveries” Makes First Contact
• Highly Suspicious of “Incredible Discoveries” $75,000 Fee
• More Thoughts on Infomercials & Complaints
• Incredible Discoveries Lawsuit against Bob Danoff - Part 1
• Incredible Discoveries Lawsuit against Bob Danoff - Part 2
• “Incredible Discoveries” Submits Alleged Written Retraction by Robert Danoff

However, since these posts last year, this blog persistently gets traffic on “Incredible Discoveries” which means many people are interested and someone is reading.  But I also continue to get emails and phone calls from people wanting my opinion on “Incredible Discoveries“.  I also get a few complaints.  But I am not the Better Business Bureau.  Nevertheless, I keep my ears open to what people tell me.

The straw that broke the camel’s back is when yet another person called asking me my opinion.  I told them it was up to them and it was their money.  It was like they wanted me to prove or disprove that “Incredible Discoveries” was a “bad” company.  Quite frankly, it isn’t my job to be responsible for others.

As a public service, I shared my opinions on the blog already and if you think you can part with $50,000 to $75,000 and take the risk, fine with me.  It is your money.  But I keep telling everyone that my internal radar says to spend your money elsewhere.  You can do a lot with $75,000 on your own plus I think a lot of the infomercial business is one that offends my sensibilities.  That is why there are so many complaints.

• InfomercialBlog.com
• InfomercialScams.com
• InfomercialRatings.com

In any case, I did get curious enough to do more fact-checking on “Incredible Discoveries“.  After all, why does this blog get so much interest because of “Incredible Discoveries”?  Obviously, a lot of people are searching for information on them which led me to do some searching on my own.

And so, I am trying to put this issue to bed.  I dug out more interesting information.  I had some interesting phone conversations from various past plaintiffs and defendants against “Incredible Discoveries”.  I found information from the Florida Attorney General’s Office and Florida Division of Corporations.

With all of this, I compiled my findings into “The Incredible Discoveries Information Page“.  I have tried to be fair and I am upfront of my biases.  I give commentary and information but it is up to the reader to draw their own conclusions whether anyone should do business with them.

If you have additional meaningful information or corrections, I will accept them.  But I am resistant to taking any more phone calls on Incredible Discoveries. I got better things to do than discuss them.

To those who care, “The Incredible Discoveries Information Page” is a free resource. The direct link is:  http://matthewchan.com/incrediblediscoveries-info.htm. To those who don’t care, you aren’t missing much.

This was first posted on The TurnKey Publishing Blog.

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When I first received my Getty Images Settlement Demand Letter on Monday, June 16, I took prompt measures to be proactive.  One of those proactive steps was to face this issue head-on.  I called the phone number 800-272-4170 twice and left one message.  My voice message was professional and courteous.  I was letting them know I acknowledged their letter and was quickly taking corrective measures.  I also told them I welcomed a call to discuss the situation.

Chloe Surdyk called late Wed. afternoon.  It was actually a cordial conversation.  I did my best to find common ground.  I understand their need to protect their copyrights and go after people but I did not agree with their tactics.

I told her I especially did not agree with her rationale that victims of Indian web designers should have to pay Getty Images especially when I contracted for a web banner, not specific images.  I also had little or no say in the selection of any images, only whether I liked a web banner or not.

She offered me a lower settlement (from the original $1,300) of $800-something.  I told her I did not agree with her and it was likely we would have to agree to disagree.  In the conversation, I told her I was not ignorant of the law and due legal process.  I have been to court many times to be a plaintiff and occasionally a defendant.  I was not simply going to “roll over”.  I told her I did my research on the Internet on Getty Images and I was informed of their upcoming tactics.  I told her I was not going to sit still and that I would likely publicize my interactions with her and her company.

My sense of embarrassment over this is substantially lower than my sense of outrage at their attitude.  Surprisingly, during most of the conversation, Chloe was cordial.  Even towards the end of the conversation, she said she would put into her notes to give me another 14-days to consider her offer.  Chloe even gave me her direct phone office line:  206-925-6779.

In my mind, there was no way I was going to “settle” with them.  I mentioned to her that she would likely have to sue my company if she wanted anything.  For now, I told her we would simply agree to disagree.

My next move is to get my “official reply” sent out by Certified Mail within the next couple of days.  I am biding my time as I continue to do more research.

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If you want to learn more about this case, visit ExtortionLetterInfo.com.

This was first posted on The TurnKey Publishing Blog.

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In light of my unwilling involvement with Getty Images, as president of my publishing company, I have decided to take the proactive and defensive measure and gathering and reporting information relating to the Getty Images Settlement Demand Letter.

In fact, this whole fiasco is so outrageous that I have named this the Getty Images Settlement Demand Letter Extortion Scheme.  I think this term truly fits what they are doing.  The information I am finding on the Internet is simply outrageous.

I have launched ExtortionLetterInfo.com so that my blogs don’t get overrun with the Getty Settlement Demand Letter discussions.  If you are interested in what is happening with this, go visit the website.

I have a short announcement to make.  Despite my best efforts to keep my blogging efforts to a singular place (here on matthewchan.com), I have decided I will need to make some adjustments to my blogging strategy.

I will be adding a new blog to turnkeyinvesting.com and a new blog to turnkeypublisher.com.  The biggest reason for that is that I need/want to write information and updates that are industry and audience-specific to those websites.

For me to post some of the technical and industry-specific articles that I will write would be lost on the general audience that visits this site.  Quite simply, it would be unfair to readers who only care about one business segment of what I do to read issues that have nothing to do with the other.

Having said all that, there might be the occasional post that may apply to all the different blogs which I will simply cut and paste to them.

So, stay tuned for the announcements of the yet-unnamed blogs on turnkeyinvesting.com and turnkeypublisher.com.

Hello all,

It has been over a month since my last post. In fact, I missed the entire month of March. Writing blog messages takes a certain frame of mind to do. Not only does it take mental energy to write but there has to be an inner calling for me to share my thoughts and opinions.

Needless to say, during the month of March 2008, I simply did not have the inclination to publicly write or comment on anything. That is not to say there weren’t things or events that were not comment-worthy. I simply decided to go into a cave and hide for awhile to recharge my blogging batteries.

After being absent for over a month, I feel ready to come out once again and write some commentary. There are some ideas and thoughts swimming around in my brain looking for a release.

I am going to step back in at the shallow end and work my way into deeper waters. It feels nice to come back and blog again. Not only do I hope this blog will continue to be informative, interesting, and insightful to my readers, it is sort of therapeutic for me as well to step back out into “public view” again (or as much as any little blog will allow).

As we have crossed the New Year into 2008, I have been pondering the future direction of this blog. Week after week, I write posts about an assortment of subjects but most pertain to my business projects and business interests. Occasionally, I will write an editorial or commentary on subjects I think are relevant.

Overall, the purpose of this blog is to provide a degree of business transparency into what I am involved with and what I believe is in important. I think for any “unknown person” (such as myself) to survive and thrive business-wise on the Internet, you have to demonstrate credibility. If someone is going to invest money with or buy products from an “unknown person”, they have to know something about the person or company they are buying from. And so, my readers get to see what projects are being worked on and they get to hear what works and what doesn’t.

However, I wonder if it is too boring or plain. I have been reading Seth Godin’s books over the years but paying more attention to them lately in light of the major changes happening in the world and adjustments I am making in my business. Seth encourages entrepreneurs to push the edge. The risks are higher working at the edge, but the rewards are also greater.

I have to admit, I do not have much clarity as to how I can make this blog become explosive but I do know I cannot keep the status quo. Something has to change to make a big difference.

In that spirit, starting today, I will be taking more risks as to what and how I post messages on this blog. There may be more “nonsensical” stuff that gets posted. There will be more spontaneity. Having viewed my website statistics over the past few months, I have discovered I get traffic from unexpected subjects and topics I occasionally talk about.

Essentially, I have my base of core readers who seem to have a curiosity of what I do and the projects I work on. But I also get a whole bunch of traffic from people who are looking for opinions and commentary on subjects that have nothing to do with me or what I do. I am simply another blogger offering their view.

It’s funny. When I started this blog over 2.5 years ago, I did it as an experiment. I also did it to support my other business projects. But in mid-November 2007 at the 2007 NAR Convention, I realized that I was also a full-fledged blogger with a small but ever-growing, ever-changing audience.

As a blogger, it is my duty to not just report factual information. I should be bold enough to offer more editorials and commentary even at the risk of upsetting some people. I should be willing to entertain a little and be trivial. Not everything has to be “important”.  Not everything has to be “an article”.  Micro-posts are allowed.  Boring definitely has to stop.

So, be prepared. I am going to take some risks with this blog and my reputation. Playing it safe is too boring and too slow. It is time to “supercharge” this blog and branch out further and see what shows up. Google continues to regularly monitor this blog and so by writing more expansively on a wider degree of subjects, let’s see what my web statistics tell me in the next 2-3 months.

This is mostly a teaser post for the folks who are curious as to what is happening “behind the scenes”.

I am currently laying the groundwork for my next major publishing series, “The TurnKey Publishing” Book & Audio Series. It is modeled similarly to “The TurnKey Investor“Series. The TurnKey Publishing titles are slated to start rolling out in 2008, 5 years after my publishing company (Ascend Beyond Publishing) and my first book, The Intrepid Way, was published in 2003.

A lot has happened in the last 5 years and I have certainly learned a lot about the art and craft of creating and building a publishing business. It continues to grow at a steady pace. Although I like real estate, I like the publishing business even more. And so, I am looking forward to producing and releasing the titles.

If you visit TurnKeyPublisher.com, you will see it consists of one announcement page with some teaser information. I don’t typically release the names of the projects I work on until I am well under way. However, because it is an all-new book and audio series, I needed to experience the “look and feel” of the artwork by viewing it on a live website.  I will let it sit there for a few days to see if I want to keep the current design.

My disclaimer to what I am sharing is that EVERYTHING is subject to change. The titles, the projects, the cover art, etc. are all subject to modification or even scrapped if I don’t feel something is appropriate.

Having said all that, enjoy the “behind the scenes” peek and if you have any constructive criticism and feedback, feel free to email me.