Jan 24, 2012

HubsAcademy

HubsAcademy is run by Sunforged from HubPages. There are many articles about HubPages and writing online.

Jan 21, 2012

Write for Examiner.com

Examiner.com is a news and lifestyle network and they are looking for writers, and they pay you to write.

Would you like to write for the Examiner? Follow this link for more information.

Jan 9, 2012

Learning about Amazon Associates

This year's resolution is to earn more with Amazon Associates. But first I need to be educated. I'm sharing that journey here.

First I went to Amazon to see if there are any books and Kindle books that might be useful. There are only two books on Amazon about how to earn money with Amazon.

This is a book I'd like to buy, but haven't yet. I'm trying to gain knowledge without spending anything first. The book is currently $9.99, so it's a little high. I know Zen Duck Dave (in an online knowing sort of way), so I trust the information he will give. I'm just not ready to buy the book yet.

This is the first in a series of books by Ryan Stevenson. I hadn't heard of this author until I found his books. This first book in the series is available for 99 cents or free for Kindle owning Prime members, the rest are $6.99.

Ryan's blog is supertargeting.com. If you sign up on his blog for his newsletter, you can get one of his books for free. You can also buy his series of books on his webpage either singly or as one $37 purchase.

Having read 2 of Ryan's books I decided not to get any others, just because I don't like spending money and I'd like to try and get some information free first.

Then I watched a few youtube videos. I just searched for Amazon Associates and watched lots of videos. On some of them, you can actually see their earnings. You can read a book and not know for certain if someone is earning money or not, so it's nice to see the screen shots in youtube videos.

Finally I browsed Warrior Forum for Amazon Associates threads and learned all I could there.

There was this one blog post that was advertised on Warrior Forum that contains a lot of great information.

Here are some of the things I've learned (in no particular order):

  • Don't put Google ads on a webpage where you want people to click on your Amazon ads.
  • People are more likely to click on ads if the webpage is wider
  • The best webpages have about 20+ pages
  • Aim for a quality webpage
  • If you find a niche where the product manuals are online, that can help you write reviews
  • Amazon product webpages, like everything else, will become saturated. That's good for Amazon but not good for the online earner.

Now, here's my comment, there are many ways to earn Amazon Affiliate money, but all I've read suggests setting up a product based webpage. One person on the Warrior Forum thread mentioned that he has other ways of earning with Amazon, but didn't say how. Setting up a webpage isn't the only way.

Jan 3, 2012

Portable Toilets

In an effort to earn more Amazon Associates money, I've designed a site about Portable Toilets.

I used Weebly and designed the whole site in about 3 hours. I found Weebly very easy to use. I'm someone who has designed a webpage using my imac, but haven't yet ventured into building one with WordPress. Weebly allows you two free webpages. When once you have done that you can sign up for their Weebly pro program from $3 per month. Of course you'd need to register a domain on top of that.

Why portable toilets? Well, I wrote an article about portable toilets a while ago and sold a few and also sold a toilet tent to go with one. So, it seemed like a good niche topic. While everyone else is writing about electronics and competing for the top places in the Google search, I may be one of the few writing about portable toilets. Selling one toilet or tent on Amazon can get about $4-$10 commission.

Jan 2, 2012

New Year's Resolutions 2012

Here are my New Year's Resolutions fo 2012 as far as writing is concerned:


1. Finish Make Money Online Kindle Series

2. Start a book club blog

3. Work on Amazon Associates account to get $1000 per month by December.

4. Use more in-text Amazon Ads on HubPages



5. Write a Kindle book from scratch on homeschooling

6. Record homeschooling boys audio version

7. Get print version of homeschooling boys book with CreateSpace

.

8. Build a product based WordPress site, earn money from it

9. Learn Pixelmator or similar so I can produce my own book covers

10. Join Keyword Academy for at least a month

Jan 1, 2012

Plans for 2012 - Amazon Associates

In 2011 I started doing well with Amazon Associates and then I lost my account for July, August and September. When I go it back on October 3rd I already had plans leading up to Christmas and didn't really plan to make much money with Amazon. But knowledge gained is never lost and I believe that for me, earning money with Amazon Associates is the best direction for me to go right now.

So, this is my New Year's Resolution for 2012. I plan on getting $1000 a month from Amazon Associates by the end of the year. I wonder if I can do it.