My October 2013 Online Income Report

October was a very positive month where all my recent hard work trying to recover from losing my 2 largest affiliate programs paid off. For the first time in the past couple of months I earned over $2,000 for the month.

Hard Work Pays Off

The most common belief I see from others is that if they write 5 product review articles and post it on their website, they will end up on the first page of Google and make thousands a dollars each month in commissions. I hate to rain on anybody’s parade but it just does not work like that.

When I started making money online I started with selling my services. I would write product review articles for $10 per 500 word article. Since I already had sites promoting Amazon products I knew how to write a very effective product review article. It didn’t take long but many people from the WarriorForum started to pay me to write articles for them.

I was writing articles before and after work and on weekends. It was not unusual for me to get orders of 10 articles or more several times a week. I was working my butt off writing these articles. Eventually it got to where it was consuming all of my time just writing for other people.

I mention this because it shows that I got started by working hard. I collected a very nice sum of money over about a six month period of time that I used to invest in my online business. This was the seed capital that I used to grow my websites. I took the money people paid me and then hired writers to create content for my websites.

Since the writers I hired worked for less money than I was charging I was able to get more articles written for my websites than I was writing for others. My hard work helped me to eventually grow to over 60 websites promoting different Amazon products. Now after two years of maintaining these websites they have grown to the point that they will provide a very nice recurring monthly passive income for my two sisters.

If you don’t have your own product to sell then consider starting off by selling your services. Warning you will not get rich by using just this strategy. The reason is that you cannot scale this model because there is a finite limit of time each day.

But you can definitely use this tactic to build a nice little nest egg that you can use to invest in other startegies that have a more profitable ROI than exchanging time for dollars.

Have you ever played the game Monopoly? Remember the strategy to winning that game? Buy property. Get all properties of the same color by buying or exchanging other properties for them. Put green houses on property. Collect rent. Exchange green houses for big red hotels. Collect much much much more rent. Win game.

You can start off with exchanging time for dollars so that you can start either buying properties. Then let the rents from your properties buy your little green houses. Regardless of what you do you are going to have to work hard to get started.

You have to ask yourself are you putting in the hard work necessary to grow your business or did you just write 5 product review articles and then expect to get rich off of them? You have to put in the hard work if you want to reap the rewards.

Affiliate Marketing

If you do not want to exchange time for money like I did then you need to create your own product and sell it. Do you own a dog that was very difficult to train when it was young? Then write about how you got your dog trained and sell it. There are millions of dog owners will difficult dogs that would like to know your secret on getting “Spot” trained.

Do you know wood working? Create a blueprint that shows you how to create a custom “Corn Hole” game that every sports fan that tailgates can use to entertain before and after the game. Better yet sell a kit that has all the parts needed and allow users to assembly it on their end.

Do you like to hike and climb mountains? Do you know how to make custom camp food that is a bazillion times better than buying preprocessed food in a bag? Can you put together a menu plan for a 2- 5- and 7-day hike where you can tell them exactly what food to buy and how to mix the ingredient? People hike and camp every month of the year and would love to get an alternative to preprocessed food in a bag. (Heck I would even buy this product)

So don’t ever tell me you don’t have a skill or specialized knowledge that people would not buy. If you don’t think you have a skill then go out and learn one.

My younger sister who is not very efficient in a kitchen decided one day she wanted to learn how to make those elaborate cakes you see at weddings and birthdays that have the fancy design and shape. She went to a one night a week, 4 week course offered at the local community college.

After the first night she was hopeless in creating even a basic swirl pattern. Everybody else in the class was an expert. She felt so embarrassed. When she got home from class she made a decision that she was not going to look like an idiot next week in class. She started watching YouTube videos on how to do decoration. She cooked cookies and cakes two to three times a day for a week and practiced her swirl technique.

Today my sister has taught her two daughters how to make custom cookies and cakes. People now pay her to make cakes and cookies for birthdays and other special events. The three of them are currently working on a plan to either open up a business or write a book with videos on how to do this. Yes you can learn a skill that people will pay for – but you have to put in the work necessary to learn how to make the swirl patterns. Check out her latest cookie creations.

 

 

 

 

 

While you are working on creating your product touting your skill, you can always get started promoting other people’s products. I mentioned earlier about writing about how to train difficult dogs. I don’t own a dog and will never own a dog. But I live 1.2 miles from Piedmont Park in Atlanta. I would promote your product and pass out information on how to purchase it to the dog owners at Piedmont Park that obviously could use the instructions. That is how you market somebody else’s product.

Affiliate marketing has been my primary method of earning money online. I find products that I think others will buy and then promote them as best as I can. As a result I earned $1,682.28 from Affiliate Marketing in October.

Book Royalties

If you have a special skill then you should create a product showcasing your skill.  You can write a book about your skill and sell it to others. One of the best ways to sell a book is through Amazon. Amazon is the largest online retailer. I bet everyone reading this blog post has purchased something from Amazon. They have built a stellar reputation which is why people have no qualms about purchasing from them.

Amazon allows you to sell books through their online store in either print or digital format for the Kindle. You do not have to write a 500 page book to get published. I have seen people write books that are only 10-15 pages long and sell them on Amazon. As long as your book covers the topic sufficiently then the length of the book should not matter.  My high school English teacher had the best analogy on how long your book should be – “The length of your book should be like a woman’s bathing suit. Long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting.”

I have several books that I sell on Amazon in both print and digital formats. In October I earned $55.34 in book royalties.

Adsense earnings

I have worked on my new niche site at iHvacZone. I am monetizing this website using Google adsense. There are many people that make several thousand dollars a month with Google adsense. They usually earn about $100 per month from a site and have several hundred websites. Well I only have one website being monetized with Google adsense. In October I earned $2.69 from Google Adsense.

Product Sales

I have said it before and I am going to say it again because it is worth hearing and committing to memory – If you want to control your destiny then you need to create your own products. I have created my own products and make income every time they are sold. I don’t ever have to worry about losing my income because somebody shuts down their affiliate program.

I own my own destiny by creating my own products. My most successful product has been my Amazon Affiliate Bible. I have sold over 700 copies in the past couple of years. That is not bad when you consider it is priced at $17 per copy. I am currently working on Amazon Affiliate Bible v2 which will include updates and changes in the environment since it was originally published.

In October I earned $352 from sales of my own products.

My October 2013 Online Income

October was a very good month for me. Here is my total for the month.

$352   Product Sales

$55.34  Book Royalties

$2.69  Adsense

$1,682.28  Affiliate Marketing

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$2,092.31  October 2013 Online Income Total