Sorry its been so long!

June 28th, 2008

Typical I finally get some readers and comments then I go and ignore this blog for nearly a month sorry! I haven’t been ignoring the internet: I have been writing and promoting all over the place just not here!

Now last month I wrote about my business goals Well that was then and this is now! It’s all changed folks! I had said I wasn’t going to be a freelance writer so guess what I am doing now: yes meet Elisabeth Sowerbutts: a freelance writer for a luxury destinations blog and also for an international property investment blog. This is definitly falls into “its not what you know” category. I wasn’t looking for writing work, in fact I have more than enough writing to do on my own sites, but I was contacted by some one I “know” (there needs to be a new word for people you have never physically met but have interacted enough with on the internet to know they are legit) from hubpages and offered the gig on both blogs.

Now thing is that both these blogs are areas of interest to me so it’s pretty easy to write for: of course if anyone want a really good write up for their luxury destination: I don’t mean a backpackers, please feel free to contact me - a site visit will be absolutely necessary! I also need some experience in first class on any major airline carrier too: preferably with a lie flat bed and separate cabin too!

You know that you often read that the internet is isolating us all and kids don’t know how to relate to others these days. For me the internet is the best thing that has happened in my lifetime. You know those local free community newspapers you get in New Zealand: most of the stories in those are written for free by journalism students trying to get exposure. Look at me : journalism experience zero, “real world” published author: no. Do you know how much the “editor” changed either article before it was published; not at all. The brief : write 3 posts for each blog each week. Choice of subject is entirely mine. I am really glad I never got to journalism school or even worse creative writing course (never really considered that one!)

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Technical Difficulties

May 30th, 2008

In case anyone was wondering I haven’t forgotten this blog but it does have problems: check out my other Making Money online blog for the explanation!

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Business Goals for the rest of 2008

May 4th, 2008

The Story So Far

What is this blog? I started this blog basically to get online and document our trip around Australia in 2007. At the end of the trip I still didn’t want to return to corporate IT so started to try and find a way to make money online, with only (very) limited success. Within a couple of months I had realised that making money online wasn’t that easy!

By January I must admit I had pretty much given up on the whole internet marketing thing. I’ve always been impressed with how good salesmen have always made excellent money but the way they did it was beyond my comprehension and just didn’t fit my personality; I’m not saying being pushy is essential, but being more out-going than I am is! I decided the selling thing wasn’t really for me, got a part-time job (2 in fact for 6 weeks which made me loose weight but slowed down things online!) and concentrated on writing: which I not only enjoyed but had some (non-financial) success with .

What I’ve Learned to Date

I don’t want to be an online copyrighter. I enjoy writing about things I am passionate about, but I really, really hate writing about something I have no interest in. Having no knowledge of a topic is easy: research is fun: but if plain have no interest I just cannot get it together to write without a whole lot of procrastination.

Writing good content doesn’t get you paid if you are using advertising. I found this one out by accident by myself I make more income from this short teaser than the from the full article. True - bizarre huh? Well no not really: if some one searches on something like “best GPS Receivers” they probably want to buy one, and the long article gives them all the information they might need. The short article doesn’t - so what happens: well I thought they would click on the link at the bottom and go to my long article: in fact quite a few click on an ad! (NO please don’t help by clicking on the ads! ).

Blogging like this with a general blog is fun: I think of it as sort of an on-line diary: I thought it might have been like an online chat with friends but seeing no one ever comments I figure at least I have the record of what happened and what I was thinking at the time. Blogging however doesn’t make me any money, but I will keep this blog as a hobby and online diary.

The Four Month Plan

OK so the for the rest of the year is something like this.

a) Get my 100 sites up and running. I have a number of domain names already and have now got 5 E-Bay stores up. Hoping by the end of August to be making $300 / month from them (average $1 for about 30 which should be showing up in Google by then)

b) Win the contest over at Bloggerunleashed This is basically a 4 month free mentoring program where Vic takes 80 of us thru setting up a money making blog. The person who gets the most traffic by the end wins. The prize is the trip to Las Vegas to attend a conference. Now Vegas isn’t on my travel to do list, but I would really like to meet this guy; what he is doing in the way of mentoring is really amazing: and I don’t even like mentoring programs! Even if I don’t win if I make enough money from the blog we start with him, say $2000, I may go anyway!

So basically by the end of August I want to have:

  • an income for August of $1000
  • potential to see that income in September could be 50% more
  • doing the maths I would like to see that by Christmas 2008 I should have an online income of $4500, month i.e. $1000/week

If I’m not even close I think I will find a new “hobby” - if I get close I will need a good accountant to sort out my tax situation! To be honest I feel more confident than I ever have of making money online. Wish me luck!

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April Earning’s Report

May 2nd, 2008

Well I broke my monthly income from Adsense again, only by a few $ but $24.76 for the month, and in fact the 1 May was a record breaking day : I made $2 in a day a first I think.  The vast majority of my income is from Hubpages but its good to see that the hubs which are actually making money keep expanding!

As I mentioned  I am building EBay stores and have 4 up and running so far with another 10 or so domains (that is www.mydomain.com names) waiting!  I have had  a bit of a learning curve.

My first store had actually got listed in Google in the first week: ie if you typed in “bestgpsreceiver.info” it appeared: and I was getting about 10 visitors a day (more than this blog!), but its disappeared from the index again -so no visitors.  Apparently this is normal for new stores and particularly domains ending in .info - and it will return - I just need patience (ROTFL for those of you who know me! )

In case you are wondering why I am not buying .co.nz names or even .com.au or .com domains: money.  A .nz or au domain are about $40, a .com is $10 and .info: 99c ! Yeah really - I quite like the .info as its country neutral too - I still think of a .com as American.  Of course all my stores are pointed towards the US version of EBay because they have the most listings, most buyers and pay the highest commission!

I am also a bit impressed :I got accepted into Ezines.com as an author.  They have real people review articles so you have to write English! And it took a week to get an article approved: but if you are interested in how to Choose the Best Dancewear for Ballroom Dancing They don’t pay me for the article, but the search engines like the links to my sites at the bottom of the article and other publishers who need articles may use the article (with my name on it !) and so the links get extended around the net!

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I’ve been tagged - easy post to write!

April 21st, 2008

Yeah Im procastinating - but meanwhile I have been “tagged” by Cheryl over at But What Now? A blog about retiring well I “met”Cheryl on hubpages because she wrote an article about Luang Prahbang, in Laos, not a normal topic for an American! Turns out she’d been to Sri Lanka too which is still on my to do list!

The rules are following

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share 4 things in these themes.
4. Tag 4 random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Four jobs I’ve had

Geologist working underground in Australia and in mineral exploration in Canada.

IT Manager for Registry services at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

IT Contractor for various government departments in New Zealand working as a test manager, project manager, and pizza co-ordinator.

Geological database manager responsible for assay results - that’s the current one!

Four movies I can watch over and over

Well I don’t really watch movies over and over but here are some of my favourites:

The Life of Brian by Monty Python- should be compulsory viewing for anyone who is considering a religious conversion!

Casablanca I have seen a few times: its generally on TV on Christmas afternoon when you are too drunk and overfed to do anything energetic - and it has the advantage that you can chorus the famous lines: here’s looking at you…

2001 A Space Odyssey - yeah Im a sci-fi nut from way back and yes its a bit slow, but it was the first of this type - put out way before anyone had heard of CGI !

The Lord of the Rings: in the boring bits you play count the New Zealand locations :-)

Four places I have lived

Australia (Broken Hill, Canberra, Perth)

Papua New Guinea (Bougainville)

New Zealand (Wellington)

Canada (Vancouver)

United Kingdom (London)

sorry that was 5!

Four TV shows I love

Torchwood - the dark spinoff from Dr Who: with a leading bisexual character whose sexuality is not the main theme of the show: fantastic doubt that it’s made it to US TV though!

Dr Who - well I was banned from watching it at age 4 after a nasty incident with the Daleks, coming to get me and the door getting locked at the fireman really coming to unlock the (2nd story) door. I do like the new Dr Who!

Michael Palin’s travel series : currently its New Europe - he’s a bit older than when he was the Roman Governor in Life of Brian but probably more interesting.

Life on Mars: another odd UK drama about a cop who gets transported to the 1970’s - scary for those who remember the 1970’s !

Four places I have been on holiday

You only want 4? Lets just do the long term holidays then : most recent first:

Australia: That’s where this blog started 30,000 km my 4WD over 6 months in 2007.

Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos: 6 weeks in 2005/6
Spain/Portugal/Greece: 7 weeks in 2000

South America: 6 months in 1993

India/Nepal/SE Asia: 6 months in 1989

Four of my favourite dishes

Fresh seafood.

Chocolate

Sushi

Most Italian pasta dishes

Four Web sites you visit daily

gmail

hubpages.com

bloggerunleashed.com: interesting money making Blog

stuff.co.nz: NZ news

Four places I would rather be now

Actually Im fairly content at the moment - though the weather has cooled down to the low 20’s in Perth (thats C not F!).

However on my to do list is still:

Mauritius

Eastern Europe and Russia

Philippines

Seyshelles

Four bloggers I am tagging.

Sewing Mom

RetireYoungWealthy

NerdyNomad

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BANS Niche Stores - the Way to make Money

April 14th, 2008

Well I am now the proud owner of my very own store: Best GPS Receivers .

So you didn’t think  I was a shop owner - not even a virtual one! This is true -  so no the spare bedroom  isn’t full of the latest and greatest GPS units! No a BANS (don’t even ask) is a store stocked with items from EBay - a few of the words and the choice of domain and items are mine.   One of my top earners on hubpages has been article on  Top 10 GPS Receivers so I thought it was worth a go to start with - though more are in the pipeline - keep an eye out  for the Ballroom Dancing Supply store coming soon!

The business model is rather cunning, and not mine just copying someone who seems to know what he’s doing, the idea is that when someone gets to my store - they aren’t distracted by my great content they just click straight onto an EBay item.  It doesn’t really matter what they buy once there - if they buy anything withing 7 days I get the commission.  EBay pays me not the buyer, it costs them nothing, but the EBay commission is quite good.  The idea is to aim for US$1 / day per a store -yeah a buck.  Think about it  -build 100 stores - you build them once you promote them, they keep on giving you a $1 / day each, that’s $100 / day if you have 100 stores, that’s $3,000 / month or $36,000 / year - that’s real money!  What’s it costs: well the domain “mydomain.info” are 99c/ year, the hosting  I was already paying for so that’s no extra, the software cost $97 - no ongoing fees.  So watch this space  - lets see if it works!

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April Earning Report

April 4th, 2008

Well Adsense hit a magic figure in March - no not the $24.12 I earned in March -even though it was a record Adsense month for me. No the magic number was that the total that I’ve earned on Adsense is now US$102.28 - which means I have reached the US$100 limit and they will pay out the money this month! Good thing I wasn’t hanging out for the cash, giving that I starting earning with Adsense in February 2008. I am kinda hoping though that the next $100 payout won’t take quite as long!

Also last month a dance music lover found me and bought not 1 but 10 ballroom music CD’s ! The % is not great on Amazon - but March was my best month with them so far: $6.98! So remember if anyone wants to buy something at Amazon - and you can buy just about anything there please feel free to click on the amazon pic on the righthand side of the screen or even here: or even here: BOOKS

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Is there really a Labour Shortage?

March 20th, 2008

You do have to wonder about some employers. I have resigned from the cleaning job and her’s why. I had been there long enough to accumulate enough time to have a day off. The geology admin job I had got was paying for me to do a one day course on one of the software packages we use. The course was in Fremantle which is a bit awkward to get to in peak hour. I decided to take the day off the cleaning job to make sure I got to the course on time. Asked for leave - oh you probably won’t get it because other people are on leave and we are short staffed anyway - this is with 2 weeks notice BTW. OK I told him why I wanted the time off - fair enough he said. Do I get a no from management? Not even an answer. More fool them the contract meant that I only had to give a week’s notice to resign - so that’s what I did of course! Naturally I could of just thrown a sickie but to be honest I couldn’t be bothered! So now they’ve lost a reliable honest worker who had been there long enough to be useful - over a day’s leave - which of course they will now have to pay to me in my final pay! Go figure!

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Another Writing Win

March 18th, 2008

On the Sunday morning we were heading out to the Dance Competition I wrote about yesterday I also discovered that I had won another daily prize over at HubLove contest - this time on the unlikely, for me, topic of “religion”.  One of the “features” of sites such as HubPages is that they are dominated by Americans and HubPages in particularly have a number of “ethusastic” Mormom members - who got a bit upset when copying their “scripture” word for word got them poorly scored - nothing political its just duplicated content regardless of whether you consider it copied from the big man himself!

I had a bit of fun with the topic, I happen to know lots of Christians with great senses of humour so I am sure that I am not offending anyone I know by my writing!

Life of Brian - A Review  believe it or not a new version of Life of Brian is coming out on DVD -  this hub took me ages to write because of watching all the clips on youtube - lets face it who can ever forget the crucifiction scene s the ultimate optimists view on life!

Top Religious Sites of the World yes I’ve been to them all and they all impressed me! Unfortunately not all the photos are mine though - have never got around to scanning my old photos! Might have to add a few more this article

An Atheists Guide to Religion  Was the winner for the day!It as an interesting bit of research actually - I may follow it up with a Dummies Guide to the Different Christian sects!

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First Perth Dance Competition

March 17th, 2008

The 9th March was our debut ballroom competition in Perth. We have only did ballroom and New Vogue - latin lessons start in a few weeks. We have to dance in “street” dress in Level 1 (E Grade) here which is a bit of a pain - but the running order of events is published a few days before the competition so we know what to wear when!

Unfortunately there wasn’t much competition in our age/grade - but we did come away with a swag of trophies, a set of beer glasses and a set of coffee mugs for our efforts! We didn’t try the open grade yet as we would have to dance all 5 dances including Viennese Waltz. Its interesting to see the difference of the competitions where over 35’s can choose to dance with the adults or in their own age group but not mix and match within the same comp. I am sure that the timing of the masters (seniors) is worse than their timing in NZ, especially in NZ, and i think that’s because they don’t dance against the adults all the time like we are used to. Conversely the adult’s floor craft in the lower grade is rubbish and that I am sure is because they don’t have the seniors on the floor with them to knock them into line (literally if required!).

Someone at the comp has put some videos up on YouTube, none of them feature us but check out Level 1 (E Grade) Standard Adult and Adult Open Latin

oh and for anyone in NZ who wonders why our kids don’t do well in Australia Juvenile Level 1 (E Grade) New Vogue

Just a warning if you are on dial-up these youtube videos won’t work - make sure you check them out at work!

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