Day 15.2: Halfway Point

Well, tonight marks the halfway point in my 30-day experiment. Money earned is about $15, money earned from this blog is zero. Here's a list of what works and how much, from my experience the past two weeks:

• Clixsense--over $9.
• Other PTCs--over $3 combined.
• Protypers--about $2.
• Amazon--about 20¢ (practically no work involved).
• Writing articles--nothing.
• Traffic exchanges--nothing.
• Fiverrs--nothing.
• This blog--nothing.

So patterns are starting to emerge, and I am thrilled to say that some things are working, though not the things I thought. Honestly, when I started I thought that for sure any money I got would be from this blog and from other articles I wrote.  But I guess I just don't have the touch there.

Please follow me on Twitter for more tips and updates, and by all means check out Clixsense! It's an awesome opportunity, and you've got nothing to lose!

Day 9.1: Setting Standards, Setting Limits

Two things that are especially on my mind this morning are the importance of setting standards and the importance of setting limits. Since I started this blog, I personally set a standard for myself that I have practiced every day since then--write three posts per day, share it on the right websites and search engines, look for ways to improve the system. I've said again and again that it's a lot of work. You could easily make a full-time job out of doing exactly what I've been doing, and if that's something you can't afford, then you'd better look out. The Internet is a vast and growing whirlpool. If you have Facebook you know what I'm talking about. It draws you in, and before you know it, hours have passed and you've hardly done a thing that would help. Hence, the importance of setting limits.

Hopefully you already know the grand rule of bidding. When you're bidding on something from Ebay or Amazon, you need to decide beforehand how much you're willing to pay. If you don't, adding just a few more cents and a few more cents becomes all too easy, and before you know it you've paid $65 for something that should have cost $40. Ouch. You need to set limits, and you need to stay with them. It's the only way to get a genuinely good deal on business sites, and it's also a vital tip for any form of freelance work online.

Let's say you decide to start up a blog, like this one. You'll go for one post a day and get all the publicity you physically can without paying. You travel from site to site, search engine to directory, posting links to your blog article everywhere. You investigate all of the different methods of publicity, join more programs than you can keep track of, and sign up for all the newsletters. You do your homework, and you're not going to leave any stone unturned. You've got patience and you've got grit, and you're going for it! While I have to say it's a brilliant start, and I have to applaud you if you can keep up with that for even so much as a week, let's get realistic. Do you have time for that? What about your actual day job/homework, family, social life? What about giving your mind a break from it all and just playing a dumb game or reading a book for a while? You need to take care of yourself. You can't stop living all for the sake of a program.

Fortunately, there are solutions to this, and they're easy. The first is to plan. Decide what path you'll follow, and stick to it. You'll save a lot of time and energy if you don't even bother with alternatives after a certain point. Does it fit in with your goal? Include it. Is it a bit different? Don't even bother. The second is to set limits. How much time are you willing to put into this daily? An hour or two? Before opening or turning on your computer, look at the clock. Pick a time you'll be free, and work diligently until then. When the time's up, exit your programs and go on to enjoy the day.

You can be an Internet entrepreneur without selling your soul to the Internet. Remember--you shouldn't work for it, but rather make ways for it to work for you. That's how it's supposed to be, and that's the best way to succeed.

Please follow me on Twitter for more follow-up tips and updates, and check out my strategy by visiting Free Internet Money today!

Day 5.3: Amazon Turk and Fiverr

If you're interested in making a few bucks for a bit of honest work, you're in luck! For this entry I'm going to take a look at Fiverr and Amazon Mechanical Turk, two different options to sell your services to people who want them around the world. Whatever you do--writing, singing, messing around with Photoshop--there's a market for it. Let's take a look at how these two popular systems work and what to expect from them.

Fiverr

Fiverr is very straightforward. Basically, you can offer to do anything you want for five dollars, and people pay you to do it. It's not guaranteed income. You have to be creative in coming up with your offers, and you have to offer things that people will like enough to pay five dollars for. However, there are some people who do make a lot of money doing very simple tasks repeatedly. If you have a special talent that will help someone out, you should definitely check it out.

Amazon Mechanical Turk

I'm a big fan of Amazon Turk. It takes a while to get fully registered and approved, but from there it's easy to generate a small income. There is a large and constantly changing list of hits to do that include everything from clicking links to transcribing messages and taking surveys. When you start out, you're confined to very low paying tasks, but depending on your skills, you can easily get approved to work on the ones that make it all worth it--up to $150 per task. I've put about two months of work on Amazon Turk myself and now have $70 earned from it. Not much of an income, I'll admit, but some people make a full-time job out of it, and you're working under a very well-known name.

Both of these sites are worth checking out if you have random skills that you feel you could make money on, and if you're wanting nothing more than some good pay for an honest day's work, this is one of the best ways to do it.

Well, I'm now five days into my blogging experiment and have over 500 views--amazing compared to anything else I have written. I've learned a ton about publicity in these past few days, and also about the work required to go anywhere with my writing (hint: it's much more than I would have guessed!). Money-wise, well, I haven't earned a cent. I'm still waiting on that, but from what I understand, only about one out of a thousand viewers actually goes so far as to click the link... and even fewer than that actually go through. I guess I'll find out! In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter or join forces with me on Clixsense or Swagbucks! It would be incredibly encouraging and won't do anything except  benefit you!

Day 4.1: What I've Learned about Monetization

If you've been following this blog for several days, you have probably noticed how I keep changing the ad/monetization format. When I started, I thought it was simple: I'd go with Google Adsense. But I also decided that I should take a look at the alternatives, especially since the process of becoming monetized through Adsense can take a while. After scourging the Internet, I found a site called BidVertiser. The premise of BidVertiser is intended to be a win-win. Other companies bid to put their ad on your site. You get the money both from the bidding and from clicks. It's a free and easy service, so I decided to go for it.

Two things I've learned about monetization is this:

1. If visitors are annoyed, they won't click your ads.
2. If I'm annoyed at my own site, it won't stand a chance against visitors.

Off the bat I was suddenly bombarded with pop-ups and flashing ads and everything that I hate: most of all, ads for the very scams that I've already warned against. I was not happy, and of course, didn't make a cent. These ads were in direct opposition to what I'm saying, and there's no way that it could work.

Today, I'm trying a new approach: only advertising for things I personally use and recommend. Amazon's been there from the start, a fabulous way to buy anything online at a good price. I've had those widgets there this whole time and am going to keep them because it really is that awesome and I want you to see what I recommend.

The other ads? Clixsense is a site that I joined recently, the best PTC site that I've found so far. I haven't  made much from it, but in addition to viewing ads you can play games and enjoy yourself. Even if you didn't make money it would be a fun site, so I decided to support it. I also left one more of the Bidvertiser ads running, just in case. But one thing I do not want to do is to force things on visitors that I myself won't support. I want to help you avoid scams, not lead you to them.

That being said, if I support something that turns out to be a scam, I'll be getting scammed first. I am sorry if the old ads annoyed you as much as they annoyed me, and hopefully you're still willing to give me a chance!

Day 3.2: Different Methods of Self-Publishing

There's a lot more to self-publishing than simply signing onto a self-publishing website and clicking a few buttons. The kind of book you want to publish, the distribution and audience, and how much you want to pay or spend all must come into account. For this blog I'm mostly going to examine mass distribution methods, but right now let's just go through all the options.

First is the production of the book itself. Do you want to make the copies yourself or have them printed professionally? If you have a computer, a printer and a stapler, then art books or small booklets can be produced easily at home and then distributed. You can ask local businesses if they would be interested in carrying a few copies, and pass other copies out to your friends. For a more formal copy or a longer book, other types of binding may be needed. The book Indie Publishing by Ellen Lupton has everything you would ever need to know when it comes to self publishing and binding, so if you wish to take a more formal route in making your own books, then I really highly recommend it. The hardest thing I have experienced when it comes to making books is arranging the layout. I've tried several design programs to help formatting the book to make it look professional, and so far the only one that is not a total nightmare is Adobe's Indesign. Even with that, however, it helps to have an Indesign manual or booklet at hand. Take a look at the links below for more info!



Using the services of a professional printer and/or distributor is highly recommended if you want to make a profit from your book. As I mentioned earlier, I'm a big fan of Createspace, but whatever publisher you go with also depends on what you want. If you're going for the best of the best, some companies, like Wine Press Publishing, offer professional cover design, editing, and marketing tools. It's a bit pricy, but the results are incredible.

Whatever you decide to go with, make sure it's in your budget. If you're not an artist or designer, then ask a friend who is. Createspace offers many opportunities for quality self publishing at a low cost--even free, if you're desperate (though you should at least order a proof, for editing purposes).

Day 3.1: Five Reasons to Consider Self-Publishing

As I mentioned near the beginning of this blog, I'm a writer who would like to remain a writer. I want to be able to work on a good novel all day long every day and not have work get in the way. I also want to have some means of getting an income. Hence, this blog. I am out to explore the possibilities!

Today's topic is self-publishing. As a former English major, I know that self-publishing is largely still frowned upon in serious writing communities. There aren't any quality requirements for publishing your writing yourself, it's expensive and a lot of hard work for little acclaim. However, I've noticed that much of the same could be said of published books. I've seen horribly written published books, books that looked bad on the inside and out. Getting a book published professionally doesn't seem to depend so much on being a good writer as it does on being in the right place at the right time and having the right editor getting his hands on your manuscript. It's a hard world out there, and even if you do get successfully published, you must cater to the publisher's every whim and forfeit the rights of your own book. If it's a small publishing company, it will probably give a higher priority to your book, but most bookstores will likely not bother carrying it. If it's a huge and well respected publishing company, your book will probably be a the bottom of their priorities. It's time for a different strategy.

When I first decided to self publish a book, I was a skeptic. Actually, the only reason I decided to go for it was because of the code I got after completing NaNoWriMo that year. That was how I discovered Amazon's Createspace, a stunningly high quality self publisher and distributer. I would have taken it for a scam if one of my friends hadn't already used it, and I couldn't resist. When I got my copy of the book in the mail, I was shocked to see that not only did it look nice, but it looked better than several published books I had seen.

I'll save the details of Createspace for a later post, but for now, let's just focus on why you should give serious consideration to self-publishing if you want to be a serious writer:

1.  There are a ton of options. What do you want to make? Do you want a solid, physical book? A blog? An e-book? Something to sell on Kindle, or something that will invade all sorts of media? You got it.
2. You save time and anxiety. Traditional publishing includes a lot of waiting and a lot of rejection. Writers often spend years going from agent to agent and publisher to publisher without any success, and often it takes months until you learn that you were rejected in the first place. If you hate rejection, you're not going to like this.
3. A testing ground of inspiration. If you have a manuscript that you'd like to be published, but you're not sure will make the cut, self-publishing is a great way to see for yourself what it would be like. With Createspace, you can order a test copy of your book to review before officially "publishing" it, and trust me--it's fun to see your own book in print.
4. You're in charge. You can do your own publicity and make sure that the book is going where you want it to go. Yeah, it's work, but it's better than no publicity at all!
5. It's fun. Seriously, I love going through the different templates available on Createspace and working out something that really fits the book. Whether you want to do everything yourself or just slide around pre-made options is entirely up to you.

I have self-published several books now, some more casual and some more serious. My biggest problem has been the fact that even though I've been at it for several years, I've never made more than about $20 income from it. I'm terrible at publicity, and again that leads me to why I started this blog in the first place.

Self-publishing is an awesome way to make an income from home, and it's easy to go about. First of all, however, you need to be able to sell your book! Get the word out there. And speaking of which, here are some links to the ones I've written, if you want to take a look.

The Chrononaut was my first. Not the best story or cover, but considering how new I was to the whole thing, I was very pleased with the results.

Temporation is the sequel to The Chrononaut, though also readable on its own. My designing is still below par, but the writing is much better.

The Star Chronicles is the first book in a set of six, though I have not yet decided whether to publish the other five.

Anyway, those are some of my other projects, and I encourage you to take a look if you're considering self-publishing. It's a fun and easy process, I can assure you!

Day 2.3: Bargains Online: A Summary

My last two posts today have contained a lot of information, so tonight I figured I'd boil it down. This is going to be a short post, so rest easy, and if you want more detail, please read the last two! Here's a list I've compiled of questions to ask when you're hoping to walk away with a bargain:

1. Is this a site I know and trust?
2. Are the shipping and handling expenses reasonable?
3. Does the fine print say anything about completing offers or getting references?
4. Is the seller promising a "special deal" if you buy right now?
5. Did you learn about this bargain in a trustworthy manner (i.e., not from a popup)?
6. Is this site claiming to have a new and amazing way to make things affordable?
7. Do I have to purchase something else before moving on with this bargain?
8. How are the sellers making their money?
9. Does anything come up if I search for the bargain as a "scam" on Google?
10. Is this deal too good to be true?

Personally, I do all my online shopping at Amazon and Ebay. I can find what I want, compare prices or bid, and I don't feel bad pulling out my credit card. One more note about online shopping, especially if it's at one of the more trustworthy bidding sites like Ebay: don't bid unless you have already decided on a fixed price. Wait until the last moment before bidding so that the price isn't raised early.

There's a lot more to say on this topic, but I'll save that for future posts. Please come back tomorrow, when I'll talk about the possibilities of independent publishing, both on and offline. It's a fascinating, growing field and offers a lot of potential for profit!

Day 2.2: What's in A Scam?

Ok, if you've been on the Internet at all in your life, you've probably experienced a scam: an unbelievably good offer that turns out to be worthless. If you're smart, you know not to click on the links they offer or to believe anything they say. That's how I was… until I got curious. How do scams work? Is there any truth to their offer, and if so, what is it? Why don't I want to bother with them?

It might interest you to know that when I was investigating scams, I really did win a functioning iPad 2 for twenty-four cents. So why did my family bother paying hundreds of dollars to get me another one six months later? I'll get to that in a moment. For now, let's take a look at the scamming mentalities, and hopefully this will help you to know what to look out for in the future.

1. Congratulations! You won! Every time I hear that annoying message on my computer, I mute the sound and try to ignore the dramatically shaking or blinking popup saying I'm someone special. But what would happen if I clicked the link? (Note: I have a Mac for a computer, and even though Macs are not entirely virus free, I almost always feel safe when online. If you have a PC, please don't try this at home!). Clicking the link takes you to a page congratulating you and asking you what you want as a prize. A usual prize will be an iPhone, iPad or $1000 Walmart gift card. If you're still gullible enough to stay with it, you can click on the link of whatever you like. This takes you to a page asking for your mailing address and further specifications as to what you want. After breezing through and agreeing to the terms of use and privacy notice, you can take things one step further before your prize is officially mailed to you. And then the trouble begins. You are brought to a page of offers, mostly to subscribe to and buy things or get quotes--car insurance, Netflix, coupon deals, soap, whatever. In case you feel overwhelmed, you don't need to worry here--you only need to do one before moving on and getting your prize! After scrounging around, I managed to find one that was free. Mission accomplished. Then they take you to the next page, a page similar but with more offers. You need to complete about six of these. And after that there's another page where you need to complete about twelve offers or maybe more. Ouch. That isn't worth it. One site that I went to was much nicer about the whole offer deal--if you wanted, you could do only one offer yourself and then get nine of your friends to sign up and do one offer each. Easy peasy! I could practically hear the prize arriving at my door. I was in a college dorm at the time I found this, and right away went around to everyone in the building, getting people's contact info. I got about twelve people to say that they would positively do this for me, and a few more who agreed to help out if needed. I had it made. Unfortunately, out of everyone who promised to join me, only three people went on the site. Not one of them completed an offer. Ouch. In the end, it was impossible. Maybe the claims on YouTube are true once in a while, but don't bet on it.

2. Order now and save big! This is a common scam on TV, but it's also common for online stores such as Amazon. The price is right, and much lower than you can find anywhere else. The website is one you trust and use regularly. How could there be a scam? Hint: it's in the shipping and handling. Every time I compare the regular price of an item on Amazon with a cheaper price from one of its suppliers, the shipping and handling skyrocket for the cheaper one. If anything, the items are the same price, adding the shipping and handling to the cost of the item. So before you complete your offer, please be sure to check these prices and make sure you really are getting a bargain!

3. How I won an iPad 2 for 24¢. Let's face it, this is what you've been wondering. Something works? You can actually get something good that cheap? This scam has been growing in popularity recently, and it's so convincing that my fiance and I both fell for it separately. Penny bidding. I know I've mentioned it before, but it's so convincing that it needs a separate look. What is penny bidding? It's a form of online bidding where you can bid only one cent at a time. When the timer's running low, you can keep it going by adding a cent more to your bid and outbidding everyone else. In the end, you get an unbelievable price for a fantastic product! When you first join, many sites will give you a good number of free bids to start out with. Even though you have to pay for later bids, if you wanted to get one thing and only one thing, why not sign up? When I joined one such site, I was thrilled to see an iPad 2 going for only two or three cents. Now that's something a poor college student can afford! I programmed my account to automatically outbid everyone else and use up almost all of my bids if necessary. Several minutes later, I got an exciting e-mail. I had one the iPad 2, and it had cost me only twenty-four cents. All I had to do was claim it, and it was mine! Oh, and one other thing. I'd have to pay an extra $700 to actually buy the iPad and pay for shipping and handling. Yes, I won it for twenty-four cents, but I'd still have to buy it. And that was the case for everything on the site. Win it for a low price, but then buy it for a high price. Not cool! Obviously, that was one purchase I'd never make. Now, not all penny bids are the same. One that I came across more recently didn't do any of that beating around the bush. If you win something for a few pennies, it's yours. I was stunned at first, checking all of the rules and not finding anything clever or sneaky to wheedle out my money. Then I found out. It was the bids. Each penny bid cost about fifty cents. There were no free bids, and you had to buy bids in packages. After winning an auction, you would pay about the exact same price that you would if you bought it in a more conventional manner.

However you go about Internet shopping, you need to realize that nothing comes cheap. Read the fine print, find the hook, and then decide if it's something you're willing to go through with. You'll find that the best bet is conventional sellers, like Amazon and Ebay.

Day 2.1: Shopping for Deals Online

Hello, Blog-world, and welcome to day two of my account of saving and making money from home! Yesterday I talked largely about how to make money online, but today I figured I'll focus a bit more on online shopping.

Buying things online is now one of the most popular ways to save money, time and effort. Cyber Monday is almost as big as Black Friday in November, and the Internet is flooded with bargains of all types. The biggest downside is that you can't see things for yourself and try them out, and sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're getting an extremely good deal on a product or just getting a piece of junk, or outright getting scammed out of all your money before laying your hands on your prized purchase. How can you tell which is which?

1. Read the fine print. About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to buy a tablet computer and that I wanted it to cost as little as possible. I scoured the Internet for days hoping to find a miracle bargain or giveaways, because with so many sellers out there, surely there was at least one decent bargain! I was disappointed many times before I found a way to check for suspicious activity early on: reading the fine print. It's easy to ignore so much boring legalize, but if you see anything about completing offers or making other required purchases, chances are it's a scam. Why? Each "offer" costs money, and generally for things you don't even want to begin with. And you have to complete a lot of them, enough to make you sick and tired of looking through them for something that might not ask for your credit card info.
2. Check the URL. Is it a domain name you trust? Sites like Amazon or Ebay are generally safe sites, trustworthy and simple. If the URL is suspicious… well, that's when you read the fine print!
3. Search for scams. Search. On Google. If you think you've found a terrific bargain online but are worried it might be too good to be true, then type it in your search bar and follow it with the word "scam." If you get a lot of results, then you should probably keep looking. It'll save you a lot of grief in the end.
4.  Beware of unusual approaches. 
11. 1. I've come across several sites that offer new approaches to getting what you want without money. Often these approaches include earning points, referring friends, or "penny bidding." In short, I can tell you that each "point" you earn will be only worth a few cents at best. Referring friends is much harder than it sounds (though maybe if you're a good salesman you could give it a try). Penny bidding comes back to haunt you, generally in the form of buying bids (for much more than a penny) or having to pay the full price of the product after you've won to claim it officially.

Basically, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. This doesn't mean that there aren't any really great bargains out there; I'm saying only that you're best off sticking with sites you know and trust to deliver you the best. You won't regret it!

Day 1.3: Marketing Tips for Introverts

"Make money online by selling things? Get rich by being a sales affiliate? No thanks. Not for me." Anyone who knows me in real life can testify that I'm quiet, shy, and nothing like a salesman. As a kid I hated fundraisers of any kind, and later when I worked in my parents' bookstore I would intentionally try to look busy whenever a customer came in. Let's face it: I'm lousy at telling people to buy things, even if they're things I love.

When I first read about being a sales affiliate online, I didn't click on the link. I acted as if I hadn't seen it because there was no way I would ever be able to sell anyone anything. But I was wrong in my definition of marketing things online--so wrong that even now I'm shocked to find that it's so much easier than I thought it could ever be! Let me show you some of the tips I'm learning...

1. Amazon. Amazon has everything. Buying, selling, cheap deals or quality purchases, you can find it all on Amazon. My fiance goes so far as to even by shampoo and razors from Amazon, because it's so awesome. Why do I bring it up now? It's easy to become an Amazon Sales Associate. I just became one today, and it took no more than a couple minutes. Through Amazon, you can sell anything you want to and get part of the profit for every sale. You don't even have to advertise or do anything. Just put up a couple widgets and let the customers do the rest!
2. Sell what you love. It can be daunting for some of us to decide what to sell. If you don't associate yourself with any one product to begin with, then how can you start now? But there's a simple trick to it. Are you an artist? Sell your favorite brand of tools. Do you like to travel to exotic places? Sell travel guides. Don't worry about obsessing over your products; just pick products that will compliment you!
3. Windex. One of my favorite movies from about ten years ago is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Simply put, it's a story about a girl with a very Greek family who falls in love with a guy whose family is very, well, not Greek. One of the quirkiest characters in this movie is Toula's dad, a passionate Greek... who's also passionate about Windex. Seriously, this guy believes Windex is a cure for anything. Whenever someone gets hurt, out comes the windex. If something needs work,  apply Windex. It doesn't feel like watching a commercial, it feels like watching a hilarious character pulling a brilliant gag throughout the show. But it worked. To this day my family still jokes about "Windex!" and the brand has been cemented in my mind as something that every home should have. You don't need to sell things so much as you need to like them. Have fun with a product. Bring it up and recommend it just as you would to a good friend.

Keep in mind that I'm still very new to this and have a lot of learning to do. It's very possible that I've made mistakes in my points or that this whole thing will totally flop. But hopefully I can spare a lot of people grief over learning what not to do as well as what to do. This is a learning experience, after all!

So ends day one of my money-making adventure. So far I've had about thirty visitors to this site, which I'll admit quite astounds me. With my previous blogs I'd be amazed if I could get ten visitors in a day, and those blogs were much better established! I'm excited to see where this is by the end of the month.

P.S. I know it helps to have a picture for each post, but I'm tired and Clipart isn't behaving tonight. Hopefully you can forgive me.