Hardly a day goes by that I don't get an email promising me a fast track to riches if I only buy someone's handy-dandy ebook about selling information on eBay.

Can you really make money this way?

Sure you can. All you have to do is have information that's of such value that people are willing to pay you $10, $20 or even $25 for it.

How do you get such information?

If you're an expert in something, you can write what's known as an ebook (electronic book that can be downloaded). The experts will tell you this is easy, especially if it's an "how to" book. Oh, wait. You have to be sure that there's a market for that subject. For example, you might be the world's number one authority on training rabbits to race, but how many people care enough to shell out $15 or $18 to learn how to race rabbits?

You don't have to be a great writer to do one of these ebooks if you truly are an expert on the subject. But you do have to be a pretty good copywriter. This is because no matter how valuable your book is, you must first write ad copy so powerful, buyers will be frothing at the mouth to buy it.

After you write your book, you will probably need a software program that can create a good-looking book cover. You will also need Adobe Acrobat to "distill" your pride and joy into a ebook that buyers can easily download. And, oh yes, you will need to create a Pay Pal account so that all those anxious buyers can give you their money.

What if you're not an expert in something?

If you are not an expert on some subject, you can buy information for resale. That's right, there is a whole bunch of folks out there who would be just tickled pink to sell you resale rights to their ebooks. The trick is knowing if the information can be sold a a profit to a specific market niche.

For example, you might find you can purchase resale rights to a book on family finances at a reasonable price. This sounds good because, gosh, there are a lot of families out there and they all have finances. But ... how many books are already available on this subject and what do they sell for? With a little research, you might find there are dozens and dozens of books on this subject. However, with a little more research, you might find a better niche, say, finances for single Moms. Of course, you then have to find an ebook on the subject you can buy and resell.

You also have to determine whether or not the market has already been saturated. In other words, has the author already sold so many copies of that book on finances for single Moms that there just aren't a lot of people left who would buy it. The best way to check this out is to do a search on eBay to see how many such books are being offered for sale and what they're selling for.

You can make money selling information on eBay but I submit that it's not as easy as some of those experts would have you believe.

Here's something that's both easy and free. It's called HD radio, a new technology that enables AM and FM radio stations to broadcast their programs digitally, a tremendous technological leap from today's familiar analog broadcasts. These digital broadcasts provide listeners with radically improved audio quality, more radio channels through multicasting, and new data services. To learn more about this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, http://www.hd-radio-home.com, to get all the buzz.

Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio, old time radio and family finances.