You want to beat me at my own game? You want to learn what I know and apply it to make big money? I don't blame you. The stock market can be a great place to make money. But what resources are you going to do it with? Are you going to try to beat me with the books that are out there now, the ones that clog the shelves and teach you what you already know or what you'll never even need to understand? I don't think so.

Ever since we started TheStreet.com five years ago, we have pushed to give you everything that the top professionals have to make money. We have attempted to level the playing field wherever it may be tilted in favor of the cloistered group of moneymen that has so long dominated Wall Street.

It's hard to believe that in a day when we see commercials about nail salons that are hotbeds of day trading or English-as-a-second-language classes that discuss low commissions, there was a time when it would have been plain wrong to even suggest that people control their finances themselves.

When I worked at Goldman Sachs in the early 1980s, I felt that the professionals had so many advantages over the individual that it would be financial suicide to do anything but turn your assets over to your betters. We had instant information about stocks. We had vast libraries where you could call up microfiche sheets with the latest financials. We had newspapers and magazines that contained new information about stocks that only true stock junkies would have the time and inclination to sort through. Plus, commissions were prohibitive, so individual trading costs were too expensive to justify.

All of that has changed. The Web has put everything I had at 85 Broad Street (the headquarters of Goldman, just a block from the New York Stock Exchange) at your fingertips. Commissions are rock bottom and at times nonexistent. There are whole Web periodicals devoted solely to making the individual equal to the professional when it comes to running money.Of course, not everyone has the time or the inclination to manage their finances. But we have also learned in the last decade that farming out your finances and forgetting about them can be plainly irresponsible. Clients who want others to handle their money need to keep the handlers honest. You have to be either a smarter client or a smarter investor. Ignorance is no longer an option. There is too much of your money on the line and too many ways available to all to be sure you are getting the best service.

Can you really learn options to the point of trading them? Do you understand what really moves stocks? Do you have any sense of when to sell? Most of the time, this stuff does fly over people's heads. But we at TheStreet.com have, from day one, made it our mission to demystify and democratize the process. This is the first plain-English investment guide I have ever seen. It is fitting that the folks who put investing in plain English on the Web would now do the same with the printed word.

Every day I communicate with hundreds of people, ranging from neophytes to grizzled vets, about the stock market. I can't tell you how often they have asked me for help in trying to understand the relationship between stocks and bonds, or the options and common stock markets, or the choice of growth or value stocks. I am always at a loss to say to them anything other than "read TheStreet.com Web site." Now, in TheStreet.com Guide to Smart Investing in the Internet Era, we have an easy-to-use guidebook to the markets, a one-stop summation of everything you need to outsmart me and all of the other pros battling to try to beat the market. You want to learn how to set up the ideal portfolio? It's here. You want to identify the best tech stocks? It's here. You want to understand how to examine balance sheets and sniff out problems or opportunities? It's here. You want to trade options like a pro? It's here, too.

Almost every question I've been asked is answered in these pages, and it won't take you more than a few seconds to find the passages that you need to figure things out. So many books tell you how to "get started." So many offer glib assertions and easy tricks and gimmicks that end up backfiring and costing you money. This book speaks in plain English about strategies that win. It may not teach you what you could learn if you sat in at my hedge fund for a good stretch, but you won't have the bruises and the heartache either!

What are you waiting for? Get in there and get dirty. Understand the concepts that can make you money or allow you to grade others who are supposed to be doing it for you.

Get started learning how to match wits with the pros. With TheStreet.com Guide to Smart Investing in the Internet Era, you have the game plan. Read it, put it into action, and let's go make some money together.