by Saeed Sehizadeh and Rob Schneider
It must have been nearly a year ago that I was awarded the first of several of these assignments. At the time, I bid on the assignment for three reasons:
- I needed the money.
- It was an interesting sounding topic.
- I was sceptical and saw it as a challenge.
By the time I finished the first assignment, I was much less sceptical. The service provider, Saeed Sehizadeh, was impressed with my work and offered me several more topics. Finally, he asked me if I would like to edit all of the articles, write an introductory chapter and a conclusion and collaborate with him on a book. I readily accepted. By then I was engrossed in the subject so deeply, I wanted to see it through to the end.
Other writers apparently hadn’t been as captivated as I had been and I ended up having to totally rewrite several articles. I could sympathise with them to a degree. Although I had been offered adequate compensation for the articles based on word count, on a per hour basis I ended up making far less than I do on “fluff” articles. Research was to blame for this. It wasn’t that it was hard to find evidence to back our argument; it was that there was too much evidence. In the end, I had an appendix that included over 200 authoritative sources. I could have included many more, but left out many of the fringe opinions and stuck with the more mainstream sources wherever possible.
By the time I finished, I was burnt out and when The Curse of the Internet was finally published on Amazon about two weeks ago, my level of enthusiasm had dwindled to near zero. I thought, “Here’s this great book that’s going to languish unread on Amazon” and got back to my regular assignments, trying to put it out of my mind.
Just this morning I got an email from Saeed, telling me that a couple of reviews had already been posted on Amazon. The book got 4 Stars from one reader and 5 Stars from another and both of them wrote very flattering reviews. Here’s one:
This well-documented gem of a book makes a convincing case for the devastating fincancial repurcussions of the internet. Not only does the book hold up under scrutiny but it warns of accelerating dislocation of our country’s and the world’s economy.
Some of the issues addressed include the the internet’s influence on several major industries; manufacturing, retail, and real estate. The authors trace the strain on these pillars of financial stability. Manufacturing requires fewer and fewer employees. Most retail operations have been scaled back and many now exist only in cyberspace. The book goes on to illustrate the internet’s influences on the current and future retraction of real estate markets.
The Curse of the Internet finally combines these repurcussions and reveals just how close we are to financial Armageddon, and also what we can do to help forestall this disaster and move forward to a more financially secure future.
If you, like me, see the internet as a blessing, The Curse of the Internet will teach you that we are in the minority. For every job created by the internet and related technologies, many more are lost. Where jobs are not lost, compensation is reduced dramatically. This is true throughout all major sectors of the economy. I was most sceptical about the retail sector, but during the course of my research, I learned that even the big department stores like Macy’s, after having to close doors and cut back staff as a result of the recession, were changing their business strategies and investing more in their online presence while making greater cutbacks in their brick and mortar establishments.
Take a look at The Curse of the Internet. I suggest you preview the introduction on Amazon. It tells the whole story in a nutshell. If you like it, please buy it or wait until the print version becomes available. Saeed is working with an agent now and they are both confident a publisher will be found.
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