Dec 31, 2011

Looking back at December

When I go on my Google AdSense account and look at December's earnings, everything is green (except HubPages). That means that on every website (except HubPages) I have earned more in December than I earned in November. HubPages I'm earning with HPAds and not much with Google.

When I add what I'm earning with HPAds to money from Google for HubPages, it's about half what I was earning with just Google in December 2010. HubPages is not a good money maker for me right now and most probably through 2012.

I'm not moving hubs. Most of them are so intricately backlinked in a very complicated way that it would be a lot of work to move them somewhere else. I'm leaving them all where they are and just not expecting any decent earnings from them right now.

I've been hearing good things about Wizzley. If I was moving hubs, I'd move them there, but right now I'm more interested in building webpages and getting all the earnings than writing on revenue sharing sites.

My top earners with Google in December were:

WebAnswers
Best-Reviewer
InfoBarrel

I now have 6 Kindle books published and they earned me about $150 in December.

Dec 22, 2011

Inspiration for Kindle Books

The inspiration for Kindle books came from this thread on reddit

It's a bit of a read, but well worth all the information. I put my first Kindle book up just to see if I could, but the writer here suggests many Kindle books for sale will help others sell. Let's see how many Kindle/Nook books I can get listed soon as the big selling month is January when many people have received Kindles for Christmas.

Dec 20, 2011

Make Money Online with Fiverr



Fiverr is a website where you can earn money by doing jobs (called gigs) for $5. The only limit is your imagination.

Making Money with Fiverr is a short Kindle book explaining how to get started on Fiverr. Then it tells you the ways to maximize your earnings there and gives you ideas of gigs you can create. It also tells you the best way to list gigs that will sell.

Dec 18, 2011

Make Money Online with Best-Reviewer



Best-Reviewer is a website where you can earn money with Google AdSense by making lists (called tops) and writing reviews. Or, you can write about a celebrity and show their earnings in real time.

Making Money with Best-Reviewer is a short Kindle book explaining how to get started on Best-Reviewer. There are links to two videos that you will be able to watch if you read the book on a Kindle Fire.

Dec 1, 2011

Looking back at November

November has been a really good month. I published not one, but two Kindle books. And youtube offered me Google ads on my 50 youtube videos. I saw a trickle of money from Amazon Associates and my HubPages earnings from HPads were the highest ever. I seriously thought about giving it all up, but fortunately not for long.

This month's Google money is really not worth reporting, but my top two earners there were HubPages and WebAnswers. However, if I add my Google AdAsense money and my HPAds money, it's about half what I earned from Google in December 2010.

Here are the two new Kindle books




I did a little experiment with pricing on my first Kindle book. At first I listed it at 99 cents. For the month of November I changed the price to $2.99 and it's hardly affected the number of sales. The difference in money is huge because at 99 cents, I get 35 cents income, but for the $2.99 book I get about $2 in sales money. I don't think I'll sell books at 99 cents in the future, I think my lowest price will be $2.99

For December I'm planning a series of 5 Kindle books. There will be 4 individual books priced at $2.99 each and then all the four books together in one book for $9.99. I'm aiming to get them out for Christmas Day, but I'm being held back by family commitments during this busy season!

Nov 29, 2011

eBay Selling Kindle Book

I've sold on eBay for a number of years, and written how to hubs on the subject. So I took 6 hubs I have written and put them together into a Kindle book. Here's the result:


Nov 27, 2011

Living Simply Kindle Book

I've been writing on BellaOnline since February 2011. The writers on BellaOnline will write articles for a while and then put them together into an ebook. That's what I did and then I loaded my book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords.

Here's the Amazon link

Nov 1, 2011

Looking Back at October

On October 3rd I got an email from Amazon to say I'd got my Amazon Associates account back. Basically, it took me 2 solid weeks of not doing anything else to move my links FROM Amazon, so it wasn't like I could switch my Amazon income back on again. Nevertheless, I procrastinated and then started putting Amazon links in a few places again. It will be nice to have some Amazon money back as the last few months have been pretty low without it, but I know it will take time to build it up again.

I sold 96 Homeschooling Boys books on Amazon and am very pleased with that.

My Google money is definitely dwindling compared with this time last year. I'm embarrassed to say my highest Google earner was again WebAnswers (just because it's not a quality site), my other three earners were InfoBarrel, my own webpage and Best-Reviewer.

Oct 14, 2011

Webmasters Ultimate Resources

I've just discovered a website that is a wealth of information about writing and earning money online. Webmasters Ultimate Resources chronicles one person's journey of earning money online. She talks about HubPages, InfoBarrel, WebAnswers and other places where you can earn money online. She also has a youtube channel with many videos explaining how to do things. Have a look at the website for a wealth of information.

And here's her blog freewriterevenuestreams.blogspot.com

Oct 1, 2011

Looking back at September

September was a busy month, just not a busy writing month. Homeschooling restarted which meant less time to write. I went to visit my son in Seattle for 5 days, so that took a chunk out of my month.

I sold 69 Homeschooling Boys books

My top two earners for Google were WebAnswers and InfoBarrel. My other earners (including HubPages) are too small to mention.

Sep 19, 2011

Delightful Whimsy, Creating a Tangible Happiness

Not quite on the subject of making money online, but here is a video I produced for my friend's blog.

Sep 3, 2011

SEO Chemist

SEO Chemist is a new site dedicated to bringing together some of the best SEO advice for new and experienced SEO'ers alike. If you are slightly interested in earning money online, I suggest you join up for the newsletter, or follow the Facebook page.

Sep 2, 2011

Looking back at August - part 2

Yesterday's post started to get a little too long for a blog (I figure my readers don't have the concentration for longer than about 200 words). So this is part 2 dealing with the money side of things.

Since I lost my Amazon account, I've been using Shareasale and LinkShare to try and earn affiliate money. I put a few adverts out from July 1st onwards then waited and didn't see any sales. Finally this week I had my first sale from both Shareasale and LinkShare. On ShareaSale I sold a $60 backpack and earned $7.20. On LinkShare I sold a 99c book and earned 6c in commission.

I had actually put my Amazon code in many, many places across the Internet and put Shareasale and LinkShare in just a few. Getting my first sales on each has inspired me to put the codes in a few other places. I was just about to give up with them, and now I am inspired to keep advertising their products.

Here are my Google earnings for August from highest to lowest

WebAnswers
HubPages
Best-Reviewer
Pleasanton Blog
My Own WebPage

My book Homeschooling Boys sold 75 books in August, having sold 15 in July (although it was published during July, so that was not a full month).

I'm unsure what to do next. Maybe I'll amend all my hubs, or maybe I'll work on my next book. i'll let you know at the end of September what I decided.

Sep 1, 2011

Looking Back at August - Part 1

August must have been my worst month ever for earning money online. Traditionally August is a low month for people to be online. When I used to sell on eBay, the only things that sold during August were school supplies. As soon as September hit, sales just went up.

HubPages traffic went way down and then started to rise. Is this because it's August, or because of the next edition of Panda? We mortals will never know. There's been some speculation about the fact that traffic on HubPages is rising, but earnings are still at an all time low.

I have 3 accounts on HubPages. Let's call them A, B and C. A is my main account, with 128 hubs and a variety of topics. B and C have one topic each and 36 and 21 hubs respectively.

When Panda happened in February 2011, the traffic on A dropped slightly and then stayed steady. When the accounts were split into sub-domains my traffic increased by about 20%. Not back up to Panda levels, but it looked promising. The traffic on B stayed at pre-Panda levels and then dropped slightly when sub-domains were rolled out. The traffic on C, which is pretty low anyway, stayed pretty low.

Now, something happened mid August because people on the forums were all noticing something drastic. While the traffic graph on A went vertically down, the traffic graph on B went vertically up. And there they stayed.

I reasoned that the quality of my writing in both accounts (I'm only really comparing A and B here) must be about the same. I'm not sure why one account is doing so well and the other so badly. I do have a few more RSS feeds in A, and am thinking of removing them to see if traffic improves. There have been many talks of quality, of RSS feeds, of writing an introduction to our hubs, but no one is definitely saying, "Do this and things will improve."

People say hub scores don't have much to do with earnings, but my hubs with higher hub scores are in my opinion the better hubs. At the bottom of the "my account" page is the average hub score. The average hubscore of account A is 65, the average of B is 71 and the average of C is 66.

I just used A, B and C for ease of reference, if you want to read them, A is TinaAtHome, B is TinasTreasures, and C is Cyber Scribe

I'm now about to make the decision of what to do with my hubs. Here are my options:
1. Do nothing
2. Remove RSS feeds
3. Write introductions
4. Remove some bad hubs
5. Try and improve some of my worse hubs, as in make them longer

I just don't want to amend about 170 hubs unless I'm certain it's going to work. I have lots of other things I can be doing, so for the immediate future I'm going with number 1.

Aug 22, 2011

The Art of Looking into the Future: The Five Principles of Technological Evolution

It's not quite on the topic of writing online, but I've just read a fascinating book about how technology can solve some of our world problems in the future. I just wanted to share.


Aug 19, 2011

What you need to know about tax form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments


If you sell online or earn money through paypal you need to be aware of a new form that’s coming soon. Starting in 2011 many small business owners and online sellers will receive a new tax form, called a 1099-K. This form will report money received by debit cards, credit cards and online services like Paypal. If the total amount you receive through your Paypal account is over $20,000 then you will receive a 1099-K starting with the tax year 2011.

Up until 2011 the money received through these methods has not been visible to the IRS. Starting from the tax year 2011 the amount received through these methods will need to be recorded on the new form, 1099-K. The IRS is trying to encourage small business owners to report all their earnings by sending out the form.

If you currently report all your earnings then you really need not worry. It is not expected that the figure on the 1099-K will match the figures on the tax returns exactly. But if there is a big discrepancy, you need to be prepared to explain the reason why.

So, from the start of 2011 start recording not just your profit, but the total amount of money received in accounts such as your paypal account. I’m sure there will be an influx of accounting software you can link to your paypal account before the start of 2011.

This is a draft of what the form will look like http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-dft/f1099k--dft.pdf

The service provider who makes the payment (eg paypal) will record the gross amount of third party payments on the new form, 1099-K. There will be no adjustments for chargebacks which some people are currently saying is a problem.

The 1099-K form is actually very similar to the 1099-INT and the 1099-DIV used by banks to report interest and dividends.

The form won’t be required until taxes for 2011 are filed, which is by April 15th 2012.

The IRS welcomes comments on this form. You can send an email to *taxforms@irs.gov and put the text "Draft 2011 Form 1099-K" in the subject line. Yes the * really is part of the email address. Or you can send a letter on paper to CC:PA:LPD:PR (REG-139255-08), Room 5205, Internal Revenue Service, P.O. Box 7604, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044.

Aug 16, 2011

200 Articles and 1 Year of Learning How to Write Online

Last February I wrote my 200th article at about the same time I celebrated writing online for a year. So I wrote this article. I must say though, I have learned so much since then.

200 Articles and 1 Year of Learning How to Write Online

Aug 15, 2011

Aug 13, 2011

Mechanical Turk

You can earn residual money, or you can earn money directly. Mechanical Turk is a way you can earn money immediately, although the rate of pay per hour is somewhat low.

Here is a blog about Mechanical Turk

And here are some articles on Best-Reviewer from people who claim to make money there and there are some good techniques too.

Aug 12, 2011

Ideas for Good Ways Kids can Make Money Online

They have seen mom or dad make money online and kids want to do it too. It's a little harder, but it is possible. Read this for more details.

Ideas for Good Ways Kids can Make Money Online

Aug 11, 2011

One Page Articles

One Page Articles is a new site for people to write unique and original articles online.

You need to write about what you know. If you have experience of something, or run your own business then you can write about it on One Page Articles. It's good to show your expertise with articles related to your business and then people know they can trust you.

This article directory is just beginning and anyone is welcome to submit original articles on any topic, but keep it G rated.

One Page Articles

Aug 8, 2011

Freelancing At Home

Here is a really good blog post about earning money at home, with a long list of different places to earn and different methods. Take a look at the other posts on this blog too

Freelance Writers Wanted: How I Work at Home

Aug 7, 2011

Seekyt - another good revenue sharing site.

Here's information about Seekyt from Simey's blog. Note in the comments Simey seems to do really well from writing articles on other people's sites.


Seekyt - another good revenue sharing site.

Jul 31, 2011

Looking back at July

July was my first month without Amazon income and as such my income plummeted. I've been searching for an affiliate to take its place and so joined Linkshare and ShareaSale. I've put a few ads up in various places, but have yet to make my first sale with either.

The great thing about Amazon was that you could advertise a book and someone could click on the link and buy a computer. With Linkshare and Shareasale you have to advertise one small company or another and people basically have to buy what is offered. Some of these companies are fairly unknown, whereas many more people have Amazon account.

Still floundering about what to do with online writing, I gave myself 3 weeks to publish a book on Amazon Kindle, and I did! Here's the story Homeschooling Boys

My traffic at HubPages was half its pre-Panda levels and HubPages introduced subdomains. I changed everything to subdomains and saw an increase of traffic of about 10%-20% and a tiny increase of income. I'm not sure it will have any long term effect.

Here are my Google earnings for July from highest to lowest

WebAnswers
Best-Reviewer
My Own WebPage
InfoBarrel
HubPages

I did go over 200 tops on Best-Reviewer and am currently the top publisher there. On WebAnswers I mainly ask questions to help with my other online work, especially this month with my book.

Jul 30, 2011

I published a Kindle book!

When I was 10, a teacher in my school put a poster of a competition on the outside window of his classroom. It was a picture of two bikes, one was perfect and the other had unsafe faults on it. The competition was to find the differences. Every lunchtime people would gather round this poster pointing out the faults. I got a piece of paper and wrote down the differences, there were well over 100. Many people made suggestions and showed me some differences I hadn't noticed. I handed in the paper and eagerly waited.

I won the competition, I can't remember the prize, but I remember it was a really good one. The thing is, although it was really easy to spot the differences, mine was the only entry.

Writing a Kindle book was like that. When I mentioned I was writing a book many people said they wanted to write a book. I'm convinced that almost anyone could write a Kindle book, but few will actually do it.

Here's my book

Homeschooling Boys - Gaining Maximum Success from Minimum Cooperation

Jul 22, 2011

How to Increase Traffic to Your Hub

It's not enough just to write your article and sit back and expect Google to find it, you have to advertise and promote your articles, here are details on how to increase traffic to your hub.

How to Increase Traffic to Your Hub, Blog or Website with Bookmarks

Jul 20, 2011

How Do I Get Started Writing Online?

I earn money in many different places. The phrase is "multiple streams of income". If you want to do so too, you can read my blog or look at my webpage and wonder, where do I start? My friend recently asked me to help her get started earning money online. I had a think for a while and then advised her to sign up for Mechanical Turk and WebAnswers and here are my reasons why.

There are two main ways of earning money online. One is to directly earn money, you do a job and you get paid. The other is to earn residual money, you do work now, there are adverts on the page and you get paid for the adverts for as long as the pages stay on the Internet. It's very hard to work and work purely for residual income because it can take months or even years before you start to see much income. Many people give up. At the same time, although Mechanical Turk doesn't pay much per hour, to start with it's better than residual income. When the residual money starts to come in, you can stop Mechanical Turk.

Here are two articles I've written about WebAnswers, the first is an introduction to the site, the second gives you tips on how to earn reasonable money there.

Easily Make Money Online with WebAnswers and Google AdSense

How to Really Make Money Online with WebAnswers and Google AdSense


And this is a top I've written on Best-Reviewer about Mechanical Turk, or MTurk as it's more often known. I found 3 really good articles about MTurk (not written by me) and I've put them together in one list.

Top 3 Best Advice About Making Money With Amazon Mechanical Turk

Jul 18, 2011

Method for Writing Articles

This is the method for writing articles, using the Google Keyword Tool.


If you wish to start Writing Online, email me at CyberScribe457@gmail.com

Jul 17, 2011

Online Writing and the World of Change

A few months ago Xomba decided to stop their referral program. A referral program is a way that you can earn money by telling your friends about the site. When they sign up, you get a percentage of their earnings. This is a way that the site can say thank you to you for telling your friends.

One day Xomba had their referral program in place and the next day they didn't. I fully expected they would continue paying out for past referrals, just stop future ones. But that is not what they did, they stopped paying everyone for all referrals. Some people had put effort into sending people to Xomba's site and had many people join under their referral code, but they lost that stream of income overnight.

I thought this was very unfair, but the moral of the story is that it is Xomba's site and they make the rules. That's why it's a good idea to write in many places and not just one. At any time the sites you write on can change the rules or even disappear. If you write 1,000 articles on one site and suddenly it's not there any more, then you have lost all your income. If you wrote 500 articles on one site and 500 on another and one site disappears then you have only lost half of your income.

The world is changing and the online writing world more so. Just be ready for the changes when they happen.

Jul 15, 2011

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic

I read this person's blog all the time, there is great information in this article and in the other things he's written.

4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic
by Daniel Scocco

Jul 14, 2011

HubPages Plans to Loosen Google “Death Grip”

Subdomains on HubPages. Is that the answer?

I've moved my 3 HubPages accounts over to subdomains. I guess only time will tell if it helps traffic, but my question now is, why would we write on HubPages where we get a share of the earnings, when we can write on Blogger where we get all the earnings?

Jul 11, 2011

All About Google Part 1 (and a Bit About Amazon)

There are many ways to earn money online, but the top two have to be Google and Amazon. This is part 1 of all you need to know about Google (warning, it's a bit complicated)

Make Money with Google AdSense on HubPages Part 1 (and Amazon too)

Jul 9, 2011

Explanation of Google Analytics

This video explains Google Adsense, Adwords and Analytics, as needed for the online writer.


Jul 7, 2011

Get Started Writing Online

I sold on eBay for 5 years and then started writing online. With selling online, you have a product, write a listing, sell the item, make some money and it's gone. But the beauty of online writing is that you post your article to the Internet and it can stay there potentially earning you money for ever.

Read this article for more information.

Get Started Writing Online with HubPages and Google AdSense

Jul 6, 2011

How to Earn Money Online if You Live in California

How to Earn Money Online if You Live in California, Colorado, Illinois, North Carolina, Rhode Island, or Connecticut. These are the places Amazon no longer has their Affiliates program.

I've signed up for ShareASale.com and LinkShare They both deal with affiliate sales for a number of companies. For the last few days I've been changing my Amazon links to ShareASale or LinkShare products. Barnes and Noble is an affiliate with LinkShare, so if previously I advertised a book with Amazon, it's being changed to an affiliate with Barnes and Noble.

Right now, I haven't touched anything on HubPages. The staff there say they are talking to Amazon and may have an announcement soon. I really don't want to change all my adverts to something other than Amazon to then find out Amazon has a "B" plan. So I've been changing the ads on my own webpage, InfoBarrel and LivingSimply.

The best things about Amazon were that they sold almost everything and that most people already have an Amazon account. I would often advertise one product, someone would click the link and then buy a different product. You wouldn't believe how many books I advertised and how many laptop coolers I sold. Eventually I got the hint and wrote articles about laptop coolers and sold even more.

Now I'm advertising with one company for books and another for laptop coolers, I don't see how it can be as lucrative.

I've also struggled a little with the ShareASale and LinkShare sites, neither of which are as easy to use as Amazon. I spent all of one afternoon working out how to get a link for a Barnes and Noble book with LinkShare. But finally I managed it, and then made a video to show others how to do it. The thing about LinkShare is that you don't get the affiliate code in the same way for all merchants and that's why it's a little confusing.

Anyway, I loaded Barnes and Noble affiliate codes on Living Simply and recorded myself doing so. You can view the video here.





If you want to join ShareASale, please use this link
ShareASale.com

If you want to join LinkShare, please use this link
LinkShare

Jul 4, 2011

Google Suggest and Keyword Tool

This video explains how to use Google Suggest and Google's Keyword Tool in your online writing.

Jul 3, 2011

The Concept of Residual Income

The idea of writing on the Internet is that of Residual Income. You write something today and it keeps earning for as long as it is up on the Internet. That's an awesome concept and one that has encouraged many writers. You can learn more about residual income here

The Concept of Residual Income

Jul 2, 2011

Looking Forward to the Future

The beauty of earning online is that knowledge gained is never wasted. When I learned to add HTML on my eBay auctions many years ago, I didn't realize that I'd need that skill later in the online writing world.

In the last month I'd heard rumors about Amazon canceling their Associates program and started to wonder how I would earn online income if I lost that stream. I discovered shareasale and had started using it, but have yet to earn something from it.

I've been offering gigs for a while on Fiverr. One of the gigs I offer is to write a HubPages article advertising a product. This is very popular, it makes me do 2 or 3 hours work and I receive $3.92, which is not much. But the reason I offer it is that I find out what products people want to promote and they are usually the same ones that advertisers pay google to advertise. Also, if someone pays me and I have a deadline, I find it helps with the motivation.

Many of my Fiverr customers are repeat customers as they sell many products. I realized there is a need for people like me who can write English well to advertise products that people want to sell. With that in mind I updated my website to offer my writing servies to advertisers. You can view that here

Tina's Treasures

so next time someone asks for help I can point them in the direction of my webpage, complete with paypal buttons.

The other thing I'm using my webpage for is to offer consultancy by email. I write about organization and decluttering and teach classes in real life, so it's a skill I can help people with. Offering help by email is as easy as updating my webpage and adding more PayPal buttons. You can see my page here

Reduce Clutter

Anyway, with the loss of my Amazon earnings, I sat down and listed all my options and it looks like this (in no particular order):

1. Write a Kindle book
2. Join Keyword academy
3. More on InfoBarrel
4. Aim for Google money
5. Shareasale
6. Take a break
7. More math classes
8. Increase ebay
9. WebAnswers
10. Join something new – Wizzley, Excerptz
11. My blogs

The way to income involves two things, knowledge and action. There's no point reading about how to make money online without doing anything, and also you shouldn't just blindly load content online without some knowledge and a plan.

I did consider taking the month of July off, but not for long. At the start of the summer I set myself an earnings goal for June, July and August. I really don't want to change my mind one month into that plan, even though I don't expect I will now reach July's goal.

I have enough presence online to keep adding to my content, especially on Best-Reviewer and WebAnswers. Mainly though I will be replacing my Amazon ads with adverts from shareasale. However, right now the Kindle book looks like a good option.

Just remember the phrase multiple streams of income.

Jul 1, 2011

Looking Back at June

May 2011 was my best month ever for online earnings. Then June came and I beat that figure. I was very pleased with myself until Amazon closed my Associates account because I live in California. I don't expect to earn close to that figure for July as Amazon Associates was 74% of my June earnings.

Earning money online is not easy. The only thing that is true is that it is a rapidly changing world.

Back in January I had been writing online for a year. I confidently thought I knew what I was doing and I was starting to see some progress financially. But when Google Panda rolled out in February my HubPages articles views dropped by 90% and my earnings dropped by more than that.

So, I decided, I would concentrate on Amazon. I put my Amazon Associates code everywhere I possibly could and my Amazon income tripled from January to June. About a month ago, however, I realized that most of my eggs were in Amazon's basket and if I ever lost that I would lose a large amount of my earnings. And this week that is exactly what happened.

Tomorrow I will tell you what my plans are for the future without the help of Amazon Affiliates, but today I want to tell you a little about June's earnings. People are always asking if one site is better than another and if they don't write on HubPages, where is the best place to write?

While Google rules don't allow me to tell you how much I've earned, I can tell you that during June I have earned from the following websites in order from highest to lowest.

Best-Reviewer
WebAnswers
InfoBarrel
My Own WebPage
HubPages

Now, tops on Best Reviewer, answers on WebAnswers and articles on InfoBarrel and HubPages are not the same, but I can tell you I have 150 tops on Best-Reviewer, answered 7,000 questions on WebAnswers, have written 28 articles on InfoBarrel and 185 on HubPages.

If you are looking for a new place to write, I would certainly recommend InfoBarrel. You have to write 10 articles and they have to be accepted before your articles upload automatically. That raises the quality and keeps out the spammers.

I'm especially surprised with low the HubPages earnings as I have added 6 new hubs this month. Google earnings on HubPages has consistently decreased every month since January. Most of my articles on InfoBarrel have been there over a year, but I did add 2 new ones during June.

Tomorrow I will tell you my plan for the future without the help of Amazon Associates. But in the meantime if you want to join any of these, please use my referral codes above.

Jun 30, 2011

Notice of Contract Termination Due to Potential New California Law

Yesterday Amazon Associates sent this email to all its Affiliate sales people in California.

Hello,

For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers - including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you - even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state.

We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action.

As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com , Endless.com , MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com . Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule.

You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here . And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program.

To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com , Endless.com , MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com .

We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available.

Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team



Well I'm in California so got involved in the discussion about this. Then last night I got another email from Amazon to say it had passed and my Associates account was being terminated. It is believed this affects all affiliate income in California, not just Amazon.

My main comment is to have multiple streams of income then if you lose one, you don't lose all. For me, however, Amazon was by far my biggest.

Here is the HubPages discussion about it. I am TinaAtHome on HubPages.

I found many comments about this, they all say similar things, this is just one I found.

Jun 29, 2011

BookMarking with LoveBlinks

LoveBlinks is a new backlinking site where you can put a group of backlinks together. The backlinks must be URLs and not product links. I've written a hub about LoveBlinks along with a similar site, Best-Reviewer.

Best-Reviewer and LoveBlinks - Two Great Places to Bookmark Your HubPages Articles

If you do open a LoveBlink account please use my link

Jun 27, 2011

Earn Money By Writing

Here is my friend Simey's blog. He writes in a number of places. His blog is definitely worth following if you are wanting to earn money online.

Earn Money by Writing

Jun 23, 2011

My Experiences Writing Online: Hubpages, One Year On

An interesting hub written after one year of writing on HubPages. My experiences were very similar in my first year.

My Experiences Writing Online: Hubpages, One Year On by Eleanor's Words

Jun 22, 2011

How to Find Clothing to Sell on eBay

Every category in eBay has its cheap items and its expensive items, and clothing is no exception. I learned the brand names of all the expensive clothing, then when I saw them at garage sales and thrift stores, I knew what to buy and resell on eBay. Clothing is one area that has become very difficult to sell, especially used clothing, but there are still some sellers who do well selling clothing. Here are my suggestions on how to find and sell clothing on eBay.

How to Find Clothing to sell on ebay

Jun 21, 2011

How to Find Children's Items to Sell on eBay

When I first started selling on eBay, when my children finished with their clothes I would list them individually and they would sell. But soon it became more difficult, so I started selling then in lots. Now it's even difficult to sell children's used clothes in lots.

Here is an article about the best way to sell children's items - toys and clothes - in the now difficult to sell eBay world.

How to Find Children's Items to sell on ebay

Jun 20, 2011

How to Find Books and Magazines to Sell on eBay

I spent 5 years of my life earning a living selling on eBay. I spent every weekend going to garage sales and I went to thrift stores in between. I found the same things to sell over and over to the extent I could do repeat listings. There are things that people always want to buy on eBay and I put my suggestions of how to get them in three HubPages articles. The first one is about books and magazines that will sell on eBay

How to Find Books and Magazines to Sell on eBay

Jun 19, 2011

How to Make Money by Selling on eBay

For the next 4 days I will be talking about selling on eBay. To start with there were few sellers and many buyers and people bought things just for the fun of an online auction. Now it's harder to sell there because there are many sellers and fewer buyers, but it is still possible to earn a living selling on eBay. Here is a basic, how to get started article


How to Make Money by Selling on eBay

Jun 18, 2011

How I Earn Money with Fiverr

I've currently earned about $100 with Fiverr. That's the place where you do something and get paid $5. In reality Fiverr takes $1 and PayPal takes 8 cents, so you are really working for $3.92.

If you want to see what I am prepared to do for $5 click here.

Let me tell you about a few things I do with Fiverr.

I wrote an 1800 word article listing all my secrets about selling on eBay. I earned my income from eBay for about 5 years before deciding to dedicate my time to online writing. When I decided to quit eBay I put all my secrets into one document and have sold it a number of times on Fiverr. This, in my opinion, is the way to sell gigs on Fiverr.

In my real (non Internet) life I am an organization and decluttering expert. I offer unlimited advice for one week on Fiverr in the area of organization and decluttering. Now, as a rate per hour it could be about 10 cents, but I work with real people with real problems and I find I can answer their questions easily. When the week is over I take all the emails and turn them into articles and put them on one of my sites about decluttering.

The most popular gig I have on Fiverr is that I will write an article promoting a product or website and put it on my HubPages account. I claim you can give me a topic and I have the ability to write about anything, although some articles have been more challenging than others. The advantage of this is that I am advertising a product that someone wants to sell, and chances are they are not the only ones. So, I assume I will get good Google ads on a range of topics. Given a topic I can usually research and write the article in 2-3 hours. If I do research I can often write more than one article, making my research time more profitable.

The limit on Fiverr is how creative you can be. I've also been told that if you keep adding new gigs then the gigs that you do have will stay near the top of the search. If you list a lot of gigs and sit back and wait, you won't get many sales.

So, the best way to earn money on Fiverr is to have a product where you can complete the sale as soon as you get the order. Or, as you can see from the above gigs, have a product that benefits you more than just the $5 (or really $3.92) that you will earn on Fiverr.

Let me know in the comments section if you have any great Fiverr ideas.

Jun 15, 2011

Google Adsense Ads

When you put Google ads on your page of writing, it's important to make sure they are relevant to the topic you are writing about. This video shows an example of when they are not.

Jun 13, 2011

Amazon and eBay Capsules on HubPages

This video shows how to apply for Google Adsense and Amazon Affiliates, and also talks about eBay Affiliates.

Jun 12, 2011

What time and the Internet can do

This video shows you what time and the Internet can do. It shows you the number of views I had on my Amazon Listmania lists over a period of 5 years.

Jun 10, 2011

People I Have Helped Start Writing on HubPages

I have helped a number of people get started writing on HubPages. You can read about them below.

People I Have Helped Start Writing on HubPages

If you would like me to help you get started, just use the contact button to send me an email.

Jun 9, 2011

Hubpages, Xomba, Infobarrel and Writing Online Articles

I started writing online in January 2010, I joined HubPages in March of that year, then in April I opened accounts with InfoBarrel and Xomba. I liked HubPages much better at first and wrote a lot of articles there, but I kept the same number of articles on Xomba and InfoBarrel in order to compare them. I also added a lot of bookmarks on Xomba, which kind of spoiled my experiment.

Anyway, InforBarrel got more views and Xomba got more money. This article was written about a year ago, since then Xomba have terminated their referral program.

Hubpages, Xomba, Infobarrel and Writing Online Articles

Since the Google changes in February 2011, I have had a lot more traffic on InfoBarrel and my earnings on Xomba have become insignificant. While I still prefer to write on HubPages, if it was a choice between Xomba and InfoBarrel, I would now choose InfoBarrel.

Jun 8, 2011