I frequently hear from people who think they'll be able to pull passive revenue out of thin air...just set up a site and watch the money flow.

Just like a brick and mortar business, it doesn't happen that way.

And interestingly enough, these are often the same people who really try to bargain me down on the cost of putting up a sales page.

Tina says it best:

Doing business online is no different than doing business offline... the environment is different but the effort required is the same.

What does a person do if they plan on opening a local flower shop? They do their research, learn all about flowers, write a business plan, find the best location, etc... they *work* at it.

The exact same thing is required of any successful online business - you need to do research, become an expert, write a plan, know your market, etc.

To look at it quite simply, even if you write the best ebook in the world on a super hot topic you still need to:

• package it for online delivery
• setup a shopping cart system to handle orders
• create an effective sales page website
• drive traffic to your website
• test your results/conversion
• make changes to your sales page
• provide customer service

All of these things require management/effort on an ongoing basis, especially driving traffic and increasing conversions... which is the heart of any successful online business.

Just like in any industry, there are stories of people who have build wildly successful businesses online. But I guarantee you, 99.999% of the time, they did their homework. And the truly successful ones keep working to develop new intellectual property, as well as leveraging existing ones into new streams of income.