A week into the new year and I haven't published an update

I try and write a post in the first few days of each month. But suddenly it's January 7th and I realize I haven't summarized December, or 2012, or said of my goals for 2013. I know I have a lot to write and it took a while to start. I find it easier to write short blog posts than longer ones, so the more I have to write, the more procrastination sets in.

Anyway, my excuse for not writing sooner in the new year is that I spent a few days at the California coast. Hubby and I are celebrating 25 years of marriage this week, so instead of going back to work on January 2nd like the rest of the country, we went and spent 3 days in a hotel with great views of the sea. I tried not to open my laptop, but just did a quick check of emails each day and certainly no work. Isn't that meant to be the point of residual income that you can take a few days off and the revenue keeps coming?

Here are my favorite photographs from our time away:

So, let's start with December. If you've been reading this blog for more than a year you will know that I resolved to make $1000 with Amazon Associates in December 2012. I didn't, I made $290. A year ago I thought I could easily make the $1000/month if I just built enough sites and advertised enough products. While $290 is more than many people make in a month with Amazon Associates, I can just say that it's harder than I thought. The good news is that it's about double what I made a year ago in December 2011, so the money is going up, just not as fast as I had hoped.

Tessa Schlesinger Leaves HubPages

Tessa Schlesinger left HubPages this week after announcing her departure in the forums. This is her story of what happened.

And Finally, a HubPages Review, “Up Yours."

Report on November

October's earning were the lowest in over a year. I was particularly concerned because I know from the years I was selling on eBay that October is the month people start spending for Christmas. I can announce that November improved considerably on October, mainly because I spent a lot of October fixing what was wrong on my main site. I think I'm about 80% finished and I'm slowly recovering from being sandboxed.

Given that Google is the King of the Internet, I'm liking more and more the sites run by Google. In particular, blogger and youtube. For November my youtube earnings were the second highest earnings with Google adsense. So just this month I have now monetized all of my youtube videos instead of just a few, and I am trying to add new videos daily.  None of them have gone viral, but I live in hope.

Kindle books are very slowly trending down, November 2012 sales were 80% of November 2011 sales. I'm not worried because I'm expecting a huge peak in January. So I'm expecting that the seasonal low is now and not that Kindle sales are dwindling.

I'm finding that it's just getting more difficult to earn money online. I'm building real estate all the time and at the moment the rewards are not worth the effort I'm putting in. One answer is that I'm doing it wrong, but I actually feel there's a lot more competition. The more people who build websites, the less of a share there is to go round. The challenge for me is to see if I can get a larger slice of the share.

My "Make Money Online with HubPages" book has a new cover. Many people follow my links and look at the book, but few buy it. I'm hoping a new cover might help sales.

November's Amazon rewards were $260. A lot better than October, but not where I hoped I would be by now. My best sale in November was a sewing machine for nearly $1000, this one

And here's the link:

Brother PE770 (PE 770) Embroidery Machine w/ USB Flash Port and Grand Slam Package Includes 63 Embroidery Threads with Snap Spools + Prewound Bobbins + Cap Hoop + Sock Hoop + Stabilizer + 15,000 Embroidery Designs + Scissors (,170 Value)

The commission? $58.37. I just hope they don't decide to return it.

Taking a Break - Really?

Last month I mentioned about thinking of taking a sabbatical. But during November I noticed that a blog I started 18 months ago was getting some traffic and earning some money. First I bought a proper domain, then I spent a lot of November improving the blog, writing posts and scheduling them. I may reduce what I'm doing, but I'm not sure I could ever give this up, or even take a decent break.

Here's my blog. I now have big plans for it.
www.PleasantonNow.com

My Method of Choosing Products

I advertise and sell a number of products. I thought I'd write about how I choose products to advertise.

If you sell on Amazon, you can advertise something and if someone buys anything, you get the commission. So you can get commission on things that you don't directly advertise. This in turn gives you ideas of what people are actually buying.

I used to sell a lot of books, and if you write an article about Kindle books and then sell a book for 99c, you can get 4-8 cents in commission. But if you write an article about products that sell for $100, you can get $4-$8 commission and you have done the same amount of work for a larger commission.

I have been advertising products that sell for between $50 and $200, but recently I've been aiming for the $100 to $200 price range.

So, if I sell something on Amazon that I didn't advertise and it's between $100 and $200, then I write an article about it and advertise it more. If this leads to more sales, then I might eventually make a webpage with many of those type of products. If I'm going to the effort of making a website, then each individual item needs to sell for over $100.

Why do I cap it at $200? The reason is that if a product is worth more than $200 the buyer will often do more research before buying. Amazon only has a 24 hour tracker, so the buyer really needs to click directly from my site and then buy something. I don't get commission if he looks at lots of sites before deciding to buy.

I use Pinterest for market research too. I will often pin a variety of something (eg shoes or clothes) to see which one is repinned the most. Then that item becomes the most advertised on my site.

Electronics do not follow the usual patterns. If people are looking for electronics they are often looking for more specialized knowledge which I don't feel I can give them. Therefore, I really stay away from electronics because it is a more specialized market. Often the commission is capped at 4% because the profit margins are too narrow, although near Christmas is the time that many people will buy electronics, so it's still worth while writing about them from time to time.

I do write articles about electronics occasionally, and do get sales. But as far as big screen TVs and printers go, I have yet to sell my first one.

Thinking of Taking a Sabbatical

I worked at selling on eBay for 3 years. I think I became a really good seller. I learned the business and how to make money selling on Amazon and eBay. But at the time I got fed up doing it, eBay suddenly became a more difficult place to make money and then I heard about earning money by writing and Internet Marketing. So I decided - 3 years ago - that I would give the earning online 3 years to replace my eBay income. The bottom line is that I'm still not earning more than I was earning in those eBay years.

The Jews of the Old Testament had a principle of a Sabbath year. They would work for 6 years and then take the 7th off. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of me taking a Sabbath year. The daily grind is much of a struggle and I don't spend much time with my family. My third child will graduate next year and my youngest will be in 8th grade. Soon they may all have left home. So, in an effort to spend quality time with the family I'm thinking of stepping back from all this crazy effort to earn money online. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think I could take my daughter traveling. But then I know I'd blog about it. I guess blogging and writing never leaves you, even if you take a Sabbath year!

I know many people earn a living online. the question is, not, "Can someone earn a living online?" But "Can I earn a living online?"

So, watch this space.

October - The rest of the results

Google Adsense rules prevent me from telling you how much I earned, but compared with the rest of the year, October was very slightly higher than average.

Kindle book sales are pretty steady, in fact Kindle book sales are way more stable than websites. Maybe I should move more in that direction.

My overall total was the lowest it's been since October 2011. Here was I in July thinking I knew what I was doing and was about to make my goal, but now at the start of November I realize how little I know about what I'm doing. And thinking deep thoughts about my future direction.