Making Money
Blogging Income Report: November 2008
If John Chow can make money by telling others how much money he makes, why not give it a go! 
Heheh….just kidding. But, seriously.
People like to read about how much money you make. Part of it is voyeurism, potentially. But mostly I think it serves as motivation. We’d all love to make as much money as possible. The beauty of doing it online is the freedom that can come with it. When we read about the success of others, it leads us to strive harder, to learn and to make it come true for us.
So, what follows is my income report. Note that hardly any of this income comes from this blog. It almost exclusively comes from PCMech.com. While I’ve been making money as a blogger for years, I’ve only been talking about it for a short while which is why I have not yet pursued income from this particular site.
Total Blog Income for November 2008 = $14,893.54
The general breakdown is as follows:
- Advertising: $5,753.41
- Affiliate Commissions: $2,642.53
- Membership Fees & Ecommerce Sales: $5,599.24
- Consulting + Misc: $898.36
Advertising revenue comes primarily from IDG Tech Network (via Adify), Adsense and Kontera.
Membership revenue was up this month due to some specials and announcements I ran. PCMech University is one of the best values out there in terms of a membership that provides a LOT of content every month, plus covers the gamut of the high-tech lifestyle: both computer and Internet how-to, but also how to use them to generate an income online. We cover a broad mix of stuff because it reflects myself. I am a technology guy who makes my living online, so my membership program on PCMech is borne out of that experience.
There is some additional income for this month that hasn’t yet been collected, but that’s business. Just as I said in my last income report, this is gross income. From this are all expenses, including the cost of labor, hosting, etc.
A few quick tips for today on developing an income from blogging:
- Learn how to market and sell.
- Build up several different income streams for the same site. You don’t want to be dependent on any one or two companies.
- Develop a product/service which you directly offer and market it. This way you are not completely dependent on outside companies.
- Spend a lot of time specifically promoting your blog. This includes comments in the social media space and other blogs. It includes outposts. Check out my list of 50 tips on power blogging.
We’ll see how things go in December!
Chitika – A Good Way To Make Money With Your Blog?
I recently got an email from the folks at Chitika which informed me that I could make referral commissions on anybody I refer to Chitika for a full 15 months. They even provided me a shortcut link to send my referral link out to Twitter. But, is Chitika really any good?
I have been using Chitika for some time over on PCMech.com. I do not put very much into the program and it has been very much one of my minority income streams. But, even without putting much into it, I have been making a couple hundred dollars per month with it. It might not be much, but considering how little “face time” it gets with my readers, I’m not complaining. And surely, if I took the time to optimize it, I could probably increase my monthly income fairly easily through Chitika.
If you’re not familiar, Chitika is a company which delivers search-targeted ads. The ads are completely compatible with Google Adsense and does not compete, so you don’t have to worry about running Chitika and Adsense on the same pages. Whenever a user clicks into your site via a search engine, Chitika will deliver that user a targeted ad block based on the keywords used to find your website. So, it is super-well targeted. And as of just a few days ago, they are no longer auditing traffic using these types of ads. The auditing process has been a source of frustration for publishers because it usually means your actual monthly income ends up being less than what your stats showed. Click Here To Continue Reading »
$4,800/Month – Sit And Let Checks Roll In, Right?
Several days ago, I noticed that Jeremy Shoemoney posted about an email which offered him $4,800 per month. This weekend, I got the same email:
Hi,
We’ve seen your website at http://www.pcmech.com/article/instant-indexing-search-tool/
and we love it!We see that your traffic rank is 30672
and your link popularity is 1032.
Also, you have been online since 2/18/1998.With that kind of traffic, we will pay you up to $4,800/month
to advertise our links on your website.If you’re interested, read our terms from this page:
www.cashsystemsolution.comSincerely,
Alma Stewart
The ContactThem Network
When comparing this email to the one Shoemoney posted, the red flags should be waving all over the place. Well, actually, the red flags were waving way before I saw Shoemoney’s post. It has form mail written all over it. As if a single article on pcmech.com could be called a “website”.
When you actually visit the site, it is clear what this is: a multi-level pyramid scheme. A few observations:
- They make it sound as if all you have to do is place their links on your site and in comes a wave of checks. Look, if anybody thinks that making money online is that easy, you probably believe in the tooth fairy, too.
- The $4,800 per month figure is designed to get your attention. It is a high figure, and if they rounded it up to $5,000, it wouldn’t have the same believability to it.
- The $4,800 per month is bullcrap. The big asterisk on their website says that this is based on referring sales commissions. So, like any other affiliate program in the world, you actually have to SELL things to make any money.
But, the worse thing is the sell job they throw on this site:
We take care of everything; all you have to do is add our links to your webpage, sit back, relax and cash in our paychecks.
Yeah, right. You have got to be an idiot to believe that. And you’ve got to be a raving idiot to send me this email. Especially when you send the same email to so many other bloggers. Do you think we’re all going to sit here and not make fun of you in public? Idiot.
A little more information about this ContactThem Network.
Buying Internet Marketing Products – Don’t Make These Mistakes
I am an evangelist for this fact: The TRUE professional blogger needs to know how to market things – and do so – in order to make money.
As I’ve said before, it is one thing to write quality blog posts and hit the Publish button. That is the core of blogging, of course. But, you’re simply not going to make very much money at that. MARKETING is the key. You have to not only know how to market your own blog so as to get traffic to it, but you need to know how to market products in order to turn that blog into a full time income.
Good marketing requires real knowledge. You’ve got to learn that knowledge somewhere. As you’ll quickly find, there are TONS of people out there selling information about internet marketing and making money on the Internet. All claiming to be “gurus”, but few really are.
The market of “making money online” has huge price ranges, ranging from the $27 e-book to $2997 full information and coaching products. Stompernet charges a whopping $800/month as a membership program if I’m not mistaken. I am personally involved in a $97/month membership program.
So, it is easy to throw tons of money around in this space in an effort to learn how to do it. How do you know you really need what they’re offering you? Click Here To Continue Reading »
Is Magpie a Good Way To Monetize Your Twitter Account?
Be-a-magpie is a way to “convert your tweets into bling-bling”. In other words, make money from your Twitter account. It first came across my radar because I was seeing tweets with the #magpie hashtag. When I checked it out, I was momentarily surprised but realized that it is inevitable.
In short, it works like this:
- Advertiser approaches Magpie to purchase advertising.
- Magpie matches the offer with Twitter users who are signed up to Twitter.
- Magpie tweets the ad out on your account in a ratio of 5 to 1, tweets to ads.
- You get paid.
Any businessperson can immediately see the theory behind Magpie. We know that social media and “going viral” are killer when it comes to promoting online. Twitter is huge and it makes sense (from the business standpoint) to use it to get out commercial messages. Just like PayPerPost and ReviewMe for blogs, Magpie has come in with a way to pay for tweets. Click Here To Continue Reading »
My Income Report – Just To Mess With John Chow
I have a lot of respect for John Chow. I’ve met him a couple of times and I read his blog (like a lot of folks). One of the things he does is post monthly income reports of how much money he makes on his blog.
Now, I’m not a guy who thinks that kind of thing is really necessary. Personally, I find it to be a little like flashing a wad of hundreds in the face of starving kids. I mean, we get it. You make good cash. Flaunting it seems like little more than an ego boost for John. It does, of course, give him credibility and I’m sure that’s why he does it.
I do not make as much money as John Chow. Nor do I give a shit. I’m not going to parade a breakdown of every little source of income because, to be blunt, it isn’t supposed to be broad public knowledge. However, what I will do is give a few months of income, and then I’ll give you a list of my primary income streams.
So, here is a total of gross income for the last 3 complete calendar months:
July 2008: $9,761.42
August 2008: $11,553.89
September 2008: $8,794.92
October isn’t over yet, obviously. Mind you, as it bears repeating, this is GROSS income. Out of this comes all business bills, including paying Rich. Then, what’s left goes to my personal bank accounts where I pay personal bills (which are fairly substantial right now). All in all, I’m living a comfortable life, however those figures might lead to the conclusion that I’m sitting here on a pile of cash. I’m not. Most of what I make ends up going right back out again. That’s just reality.
Click Here To Continue Reading »
Why This Slowdown Is An Opportunity
The news is full of doom and gloom these days and it is, quite frankly, pissing me off. The problems in the economy are real. People are feeling it. However, the problem is that people might start to feel as if it is all outside their control.
It isn’t.
Now is the time that people should be looking into new opportunities. And the Internet is perhaps the best platform out there right now for the average person to make a supplemental or even a full-time income. I’ve been making my living online for years. And I’ve seen people get started after me who are now doing much better than I am. The Internet is a truly open medium with pretty much no barriers to entry. Take it from me – ANYBODY can make money on the Internet. All it takes is a drive to do so.
When others are looking at graphs like the one above and just hoping for the best, you could be moving forward in new directions. There are always people who come out the other end of a recession richer than they were going into it. It is because they don’t screw around. They put forth strategy. They learn. And they do.
In that light, I have decided to re-focus this blog on this subject. In addition, I have some other projects which have begun taking shape that have to do with this idea.
Of course, this also means I’m putting myself into the so-called “internet marketing niche”. And that niche has a LOT of players – some actually successful, and others fakes. There is a lot of hype in this field. What makes me different (at least in my eyes) is:
- I’m not a hype kind of guy
- I actually DO make my living online and have done so ever since I graduated from college.
- I’m not a whore and you’re not going to see me sell myself out for a buck.
- I have built my reputation on plain-English talk over at PCMech in the world of tech. I feel I can bring the same fashion to showing people how to make money.
- I have a solid understanding of blogging as well as a good knowledge of the principles of Internet marketing. Those who know both can make things happen. Many of the so-called internet marketing gurus do not really understanding blogging. Their blog is just a brochure used as part of a product launch strategy and that is underuse of the platform.
So, here’s my take: screw the recession. Screw Congress. I’ll make my own golden parachute, thank you. And I hope to play my part in the market by helping others do the same.
Why Bloggers Should Start a Mailing List
Anybody in Internet business who is having any success at all will attest that a mailing list is VERY important. A well-maintained and ethically collected mailing list means you have a list of interested parties who signed themselves up to be contacted by you. That single act makes them a much better prospect for you in the future.
Often, however, I find that bloggers overlook this. They think that a mailing list is something that “those other people” do. But, if you are giving any thought at all of trying to generate some money with your blog, then a mailing list is something that YOU need to do.
How To Proceed
What you do with that mailing list is up to you. At the bare minimum, set it up so that they will get your latest posts sent to them via email. Not everybody knows how to use RSS. I have this problem at PCMech.com, where we have a pretty sizable audience but generally one that doesn’t know how to use an RSS feed. That’s fine – give them an email sign-up. Everybody knows how to use email, and you can have your latest posts sent automatically. Feedburner and FeedBlitz both do this for free.
Another option is, of course, to do a newsletter. As a blogger, this shouldn’t be very hard to do. You write all the time for your blog (hopefully). So, just write something else which is unique and send it to your email list on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. It is important that you maintain regularity in the frequency to which you send your newsletter. If you do not, your subscribers may forget who you are or begin to find you annoying.
Now, both Feedburner and Feedblitz will allow you to build a list for free, however if you can spring a little money up front, I HIGHLY recommend you sign up with Aweber. I have been using Aweber for quite some time and the deliverability of your email campaigns will be top notch with these guys. They also support blog broadcasts so you can send your latest posts automatically. Better yet, anybody who signs up for your updates via Aweber will be counted toward your subscriber count on Feedburner. BONUS!
But, the beauty of Aweber is that you can ALSO use the list to send out occasional promotions to your email list. This is something you cannot do on the free services. Also, if you start on a free service and later switch to Aweber, you will be forced to re-confirm all of your opt-ins. I learned from personal experience that you can lose half your list or more during that transition. So, starting out with Aweber is usually best.
So, bloggers, start a mailing list. That is, if you ever intend to make any money with your blog.
Can Blogging For Money Weather The Recession?
If you watch the news, you’d think the sky was falling. Big investment banks are filing for bankruptcy and, worse, the federal government is stepping in for takeover. This is not good news. Instability in the economy mixed with a knee-jerk reaction to bigger government and you have a very bad mix. This country has made this mistake before I can only hope it doesn’t repeat.
These issues do affect our world on the Internet. Seesmic is having to lay off some of their employees. It is suspected that Ebay could lay off around 10% of their workforce. But, it is also affecting bloggers. Network bloggers for Gawker, B5 Media, Federated Media and others are also feeling the pressure.
The big question is how advertising revenue will be impacted. The big blog networks are like any other media entity – they depend on volume of traffic and their ability to serve high-paying advertising to that traffic. On the expense side of things, they have to pay their writers. Blog readership has really skyrocketed in the last year, but the economy has tightened at the same time and that means cuts in expenses. A story over at Blog Herald reports that B5 Media is feeling the pinch and is currently re-evaluating how it pays bloggers. They talked to CEO Jeremy Wright about it:
One major challenge is paying bloggers fairly while keeping operating costs as low as possible. “Our biggest priority is to take care of our bloggers, but we also have to be a business and sometimes those two things collide,” says Wright.
It is really a shame that companies usually knee-jerk react into cutting advertising in tough times. In my view, they should do the exact opposite. When stats are on the decline, you should advertise MORE. That is what will bring in business. But, as long as companies react by cutting advertising, it is inevitable that network bloggers are going to feel a pinch sooner or later.
For bloggers who write for a company, the worry would be job security. And in my view, there isn’t much a network blogger can do about the situation other than really produce and do all they can to add value to the company they work for. Some bloggers might lose jobs, however others are likely to do quite well because the company simply can’t live without them.
What About Independent Bloggers?
I am a professional blogger, but I own my own company. I don’t blog for a network. So, for me, its all about keeping on top of things and being nimble. I don’t have to answer to anybody and that means I am free to make any adjustments that are needed.
The big worry, even for independent bloggers, would be cuts in advertising. But, my suggestion is to do all you can to create income streams for your blog which are not advertising based. The need for information isn’t going anywhere. People will still buy things. And the beauty of the Internet is that you have access to a global marketplace. There are plenty of opportunities to make money with a blog outside of advertising.
Blogs Are Well Positioned
This business is bound to feel the pinch of an economic downturn, however I think that this business is perhaps better positioned than most others to weather it out and even do very well.
Our overhead is pretty low. Speaking for myself, I have web hosting, internet access and one employee and that makes up the bulk of my business expenses. I have no outside office space to pay for. My utility bills are the same as my house because I work from my home. So, compared to many other businesses, expenses are low.
On the income side of things, the need for the Internet isn’t going to subside in a down economy. In fact, it would probably increase. If people aren’t traveling as much, or are looking for deals, or are looking to learn and discover their next opportunity – they are going to turn to the Internet. And if you provide value to that demand, you’re going to win.
As one last note, this job can also be performed pretty much anywhere. If you needed to move for some reason, you can still work. All you need is a computer and an Internet connection.
So, yes, I actually think this business is ideal for weathering an economic storm. It might not be easy, but done correctly it would work out pretty well.
Be Nimble, Be Quick
Things can change. The younger generation often thinks things will always be just as they are right now. The older generation mostly knows that is wrong because they’ve seen the good times and the bad.
I’m only 30 years old and the United States has enjoyed a prolonged period of prosperity for pretty much my entire life. But, I’m up on my history. Things have been much worse and, yes, it can all happen again. In fact, the one thing certain in life is change.
The key, as I see it, is to remain constantly plugged in with what’s happening and be able to react quickly. I intend to keep my business lean and mean. I intend to be flexible. My business will evolve as needed. And what’s more, I intend for my business to grow. If that means I change the way I do things or that I need to shift focus, then so be it.
New York Screws Affiliate Businesses
As a lot of people know, selling products and earning affiliate commissions is one of the leading ways to generate an income online. I, myself, have made quite a bit of money by selling products as an affiliate.
We also know that government typically has a reverse midas touch – everything they touch turns to shit. And now New York state is taking that shit and smearing it in the face of affiliate business in the state of New York.
According to Domain Name Wire, New York has decided that any business which runs an affiliate program and has affiliates in New York then has a business presence in the state of New York. Of course that means they’re trying to collect sales taxes on the sale. So, for example, if I run an affiliate program and I have affiliates in New York, I then have to pay state sales taxes in New York for any shipments I send to New York – even though I am based in Florida.
As a result, we are sure to see a host of affilliate programs out there kick out all of the New York affiliates. Internet Retailer is reporting that Amazon.com and Overstock.com is filing a lawsuit against the state of New York. As the story says:
But Amazon, charging New York’s new tax law is “invalid, illegal, and unconstitutional,” filed a lawsuit against New York in early May seeking to have the law thrown out. Overstock followed by telling its more than 3,400 New York-based affiliates that, as of the law’s June 1 effective date, Overstock would no longer place ads on their sites for customer leads unless New York changes the law or the courts declare it unenforceable.
One thing is super clear: government doesn’t understand business. These people in Albany want to raise more taxes to pay for all their pet projects. As a result of this act, they’re just going to kill the income of any good affiliate marketers in New York and this is going to result in LESS taxes.
Idiots. But, this is the kind of crap you get when you elect tax-and-spend politicians to government.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
