From: Clair Sedore <927121@ican.net>
Subject: WELCOME TO THE INTERNET


My name is Clair Sedore. I am a 60 year old male who just had two heart
attacks in October, 1997. Other than finding out from my doctor how lucky I
was to survive (less than 30% survive the first heart attack), my whole
life changed as I was no longer employable, not that there were long
lineups previously. My entire career had been in retail, I was an
accomplished bookkeeper, and thank God knew how to type. I had never been
on a computer and knew absolutely nothing about them.
In February, as I was beginning to mend, a friend of ours gave us an old
Mac, complete with a printer, and I wrote a book on my 50 years of
theatregoing experiences, called "Give 'Em The Whole Razzle Dazzle (50
Years of Theatre and Footlights)." The book turned out to be some 258 pages
(with an extensive bibliography). I had been working on the book for over
three years, and of course a lifetime to collect the material. I wrote to
every publisher, but with no results, other than some very courteous
replies. If it had been a murder mystery, or a technical how-to book, I
probably would have had better results. So I printed a few copies myself,
thanks to my trusty computer.
In March, 1998, when I got my income tax refund, I bought a brand X
computer and got on the net, with unlimited time (courtesy of C.A.R.P).
There are some advantages to aging, although very few.
My whole world changed. I was completely self taught and learned how to do
html, but had great problems with imaging, and 90% of the time, in spite of
all the reading and research, and the downloading of just about everything
from Tucows, I would end up with a tiny square and three colour dots. But I
could create wonderful coloured pages and interesting text.
My next immediate problem was money, as I was living on Canada Pension, and
little else. I started working on websites, and at the moment have over 50
on the go.
The next step was getting advertising banners and links from various
reputable companies on the net, like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Art Today,
Big Star, CDnow, Magmall, Eads, Link Share, Web Position, Trellian, Pulsetv
,Download Mall, Gold Rush, Beyond Com, and Feature Presentations.
Needless to say I did not have the money to promote my sites properly, so I
used every free promotion site that I could find, not only the search
engines, but also the free for all types. I lived at sites like Add-It
Free, Submit Plus, Engenius-Add Url, Add Me, Add 4 Free, Submit-It,
Launch-it, and Submit Away.
I worked on the computer from early June,1998 until the present, from
approximately 5 in the morning, until 9 or 10 at night. It took me over 6
months of constant promotion to get to the point where my products were
beginning to sell. I will never be rich from this exercise, but now do have
some extra cash dribbling in.
On the net, one thing tends to lead to another, and my next series of
webpages were called "Make Money 4 Life," which started with one site and
ended up with four, on how to make top commissions with reputable companies
on the net. I had learned a lot from my experiences and wanted to give back
some of my findings to other new webmasters.
More time was now spent promoting these sites.
This was followed with the next logical step, a newsletter or ezine not on
making commissions, but on what I was an expert at, theatre. My first issue
was December, 1998, and with all my promotion, I have a subscription list
of just under 1000, and it continues to grow moment by moment. Each day I
am getting another 2-3 subscribers. I, of course, have listed my ezine with
probably 250 Ezine Lists, which include all-links, asphyxia, alco,
canlinks, catalog.com, canada.com, deterrnet, disobey.com, dominis.com,
ezine-news, etext.org, ezineadsource, ezinesearch, earthlink,
e.publications, foxcities.com, geocities.com, internetdatabase ,infobot
,inkpot, lockergnome, launchpad, list.city,  liszt, lifestylespub,
meer.net, newsletteraccess.com, newscentral, newsletter-library,
neosoft.com, onlinepromoter.com, oblivion.net, onelist.com, onekey.com,
reference.com ,sideroad.com ,shermanmedia.com, sleazefest.com, shaned.com,
taronga.com, ubl.com, web-star.com, welcome-list, whatsnu.com,
Worm-Hole.net, worldchat, worldwidenews.com,and worldsearch center.com,
wilsonweb.com, yotta.com, zring.hypermart, zinerack,zinelist
,zines@propagandist, to name only some.
I also discovered Eudora Light, the great email programme, which helps me
send out my newsletters. Just yesterday I signed up with a great free
service,  WebSite PostOffice.com, to maintain my subscriber list and send
out my ezines.
In my 9 months on the web, the length of a pregnancy, I cannot believe the
wonderful things I have learned. I am now up to a 333 pentium system, with
sound, a printer and a scanner, which I have not figures out how to work. I
copy photos, but when I try to send them, not only does the recipient get
just html mombo jombo, but the computer freezes. At least I have a
challenge for 1999, and a wonderful group of computer friends I have met
along the way.
I cannot believe how very helpful and unselfish computer people are. I
have lived at Tucows,reviewed whatever I could, as I felt this was the
price I could afford, have helped other people in whatever way I could, as
long as it wasn't imaging. I have joined Shareware, owe a large debt of
gratitude to a particular website:
http://www.poorrichard.com/freeinfo/ezine.htm, for help, not only on the
ezines, but websites as well.
I subscribe to most of the ezines, and learn something from each of them. I
hope mine is as interesting to my readers as they are to me.
After all the hours I have spent on promotion, according to Visibility
Analyzer, I have reached No. 1 at Planet Search, Magellan and Infoseek; No.
2 at Planet Search, Excite, Web Crawler and Infoseek, No. 3 at Planet
Search, No. 4 at Planet Search and Infoseek, No. 5 at Planet Search, No. 6
at Planet Search, No. 8 at Infoseek and Planet Search, No. 9 at Alta Vista
and No. 10 at Infoseek. It is nice seeing your websites appearing in print.
My computer dictates what is next. One letter from an interested theatre
composer, led me to my new ezine called "Curtain Up," which gives job
postings for actors,musicians,playwrights,designers and technicians. There
is no charge for theatres ,television stations, or clubs to post notices,
but there is a 20.00 subscription fee for members (30.00 snail mail). The
first issue is scheduled for March 15th, but I already have a large number
of postings, so we may go to press earlier.
I do not know yet what my next step with be, other than learning how to
scan, but rest assured, the computer will dictate the next move. One thing
we can all be sure of, our computers have lives of their own, and we are
just along for the ride. But what an exciting ride it is.



BIOGRAPHY
Clair Sedore
Webmaster
Dear Friends, Toronto, Canada
927121@ican.net

Started teaching in 1957 at the age of 18, went on to work in public
relations for Canada Life Assurance (when I started with Canada Life in
1960, the computer took up a whole room, had to be climate controlled, and
dust free, and the reels or disks were probably  three feet in
diameter--things have certainly changed), Shell Oil and opened my own
freelance bookkeeping operation, specializing in Interior Design accounts,
followed by my own  retail interior design businesses in Toronto, Aurora
and Goderich. Retired, but not by choice, and now work harder on my
computer than I ever would have worked for anyone else, and for little
money, but more enjoyment than any job I have ever had.