My Amazon Sale

When I was new to online writing and had just started writing on HubPages, someone suggested writing an article advertising products. My first attempt was this hub

Electric Scooters for the Handicapped and Slightly Disabled

What was funny to me was how little I knew when I wrote the hub (honest, I know a LOT more now).

Anyway, month after month it was my highest earning Adsense hub and I never sold one scooter. I was always amused by that fact. 

Anyway, finally in July I sold a scooter, and the irony was that it didn't come from this hub. Here's the scooter I sold

DRIVE MEDICAL Phoenix 4 Wheel Compact Scooter

What a Crazy Summer

I guess nothing goes to plan. I had a plan to write a book in May and another one in July. The May book hasn't been touched since May and the July book hasn't been started. With 4 children in the house over the summer, I just don't get much time to do any writing. More than anything, I'm looking forward to the routine of school starting again in a couple of weeks. Two will be in college (one home, one away), one in high school and my homeschooler is starting school two days a week. This I hope will give me more time to write.

Nevertheless July was my highest month ever, thanks mainly to Amazon Associates (see yesterday's post). I don't know why I report on Google earnings, compared to all my other income streams, it's not much. But the top three this month were WebAnswers, Best-Reviewer and YouTube.

And Kindle sales which dropped in June, went back up again in July. They seem to be steady income with little fluctuation. Now, if only I could write some more.

July Went Wild

Earnings have been going up every month, there was a slight downward trend in June, but July WENT WILD!

Most of the increase came from Amazon Associates which reached $430. I also made 4 sales with Shareasale which made $135 commission. This is really surprising since when I sold on eBay the summer months of  June, July and August were the slowest months, with July being the worst selling month of the year.

Remember I am trying to increase my Amazon sales to get to $1000 residual with Amazon by December.

Now let me tell you that over 90% of my Amazon income came from one site. My question is, should I try and increase that amount, or use my time building up my other sites?

Leveraging the Power of Slide Decks to Boost your SEO, Social + Content Marketing - Whiteboard Friday

Posted on The Daily SEO Blog In this week's Whiteboard Friday, we are going to be discussing how you can use slide decks for web marketing. I've been leveraging the power of slide decks for quite some time now and would like to share a little bit about what I have learned. The Daily SEO Blog

How Much Residual Income Did I Make?

If you saw yesterday's post you'll know that I spent June listing on eBay and Amazon and didn't do much in the direction of residual income, so everything I earned really was residual.

Every month since November my income has gone up, this month it dropped by 16% compared with May. The main reason was the Kindle book sales for my best selling book dropped 28%. Everything else was pretty much the same.

The only surprise was that my biggest Adsense earner was YouTube. My second biggest was WebAnswers and third was Best-Reviewers.com, the sister site of Best-Reviewer.com.

Amazon sales were $170. I have yet to break the $200 barrier in any one month. But I'm sure that will come soon.

What Happened to June?

It's July and I wonder what happened to June.
This was my plan: May - write a Kindle book
June - publish the Kindle book
July - write another Kindle book

But it's not happening, and here's why.

My planned 20,000 word book for May got stuck at 12,000. I haven't written anything there for about 3 weeks.

A client of mine is moving. I have clients with clutter problems and they give me stuff to sell or freecycle. As time goes on I'm trying to earn residual income and not direct income, so I'm not actively seeking new clients, but the people I've helped for years still give me stuff to sell. As a result, I've unexpectedly spent the month of June listing on ebay and freecycling. I made about $1000 and a lot of stuff has been listed and will sell in the future, so it was definitely worth my while doing that, but I'm having to push back my Kindle books a little.

Looking Back at May

Firstly, May figures beat April figures. That means that every month I have made more than the previous month, since November 2011, so I feel I must be doing something right.

My biggest earners were my Kindle books. Second biggest is Amazon Associates at $150, but in May I also made $75 with 3 sales on Shareasale. I'm starting to like Shareasale more and more, it took 74 sales to get $150 on Amazon, but only 3 on Shareasale to get $75. I'd still like to make over $1000 per month for Amazon regularly, but that seems a long way off.

For Adsense, my biggest earner was WebAnswers, nothing else was significant. I still struggle to make anything half decent with Adsense.

I spent May writing my next Kindle book. I was aiming for 20,000 words in the month of May, and I wrote 12,000. so, while I still have a way to go, I'm pleased at what was actually written.

I also started a website, Audio Bible Tube where I read the Bible. Many people have said to me that they like my voice, and would I read scripture, so that is what I am doing here. At first I thought I'd not monetize it, and just put a paypal button on if anyone wanted to make a donation. I didn't like that, so there are Christian books linked to Amazon down the side of the page. I'm not doing this website primarily to make money, but thought I might make the occasional sale.

June is free for me, the homeschooling having stopped, so I plan to do a lot of writing and marketing, mainly work on my book as I'd like it ready for publication byt the end of the month.

Oh, I have jury duty too. Let's hope that doesn't last longer than a day.