Friday 29 November 2013

Webzine Launched


Not a whole lot of time to spend on this site this week. Focused most of my attention on launching my webzine. Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road is now out there. The big job right now is promoting it and building a readership. I don't expect this to happen over night.

The site url is http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/. I will be publishing monthly. This edition is the December one so I'm planning to put the second one out there either right near the end of December or the first week of January.

I will continue to tweak the site and pursue advertising. The hope is that advertising will bring in enough income to make this whole exercise worthwhile. If you are a writer and a cyclist this site is designed for you. If you like to read come and have a look.

Friday 22 November 2013

Forum Content Writing Does Pay



The first online work I found that paid me any money was forum content writing. It did pay and as far as effort went it wasn't that far off what I do right now through Bubblews. The work isn't as easy though. It requires good creative writing skills and researching skills. I would consider going back to supplement our income, but I'm hoping to do better with the time I have.

I started with Kickstart Your Forums. They still exist but I haven't been active there in years. No complaints from me about them. I worked and I got paid for my work. There are other similar programs out there. Use Google to find them. Most of them follow a similar mode of operation.

To get started you have to sign up for the site. You will get limited access to their internal forums where you are required to make some posts before submitting your work for evaluation. This will give their administrator a chance to make sure that your written language skills meet their standards. It will also give them an idea of how well you write and how well you follow instructions. Get it right and if they have room for you, you'll have a job.

To maximize your earnings potential you'll have to create multiple pseudonyms complete with their own email addresses. As a writer I found it useful to write a brief bio for each. This will allow you to take more than one job slot on each program. My maintainable alter egos were two men and two women of different ages and distinct personalities. I found this part of the job challenging and fun. I did carry on an online argument with myself on one occasion. The object is to appear to be real people. Great exercise for creative fiction writers.

The main downside was claiming job slots. When they were announced, they were up for grabs. You snooze you lose. The problem is, I didn't know when they were coming and with a full life beside that work, I just didn't have time to keep checking for jobs. People with smartphones have a clear advantage. They can set their account up to send them an alert the moment work comes available and then get on their Internet, check it out and get first choice of the job slots. I don't have a cellphone at all and I don't think I can justify getting one so that I can excel at this. The work would have to pay for my cellphone plan with data on top of making me additional income because right now those are expenses I don't have. The result was that I ended up working a lot of leftover jobs and waiting on the sidelines for other workers to screw up, so I could take over their slot on the contract. Nice to be considered a go-to writer by administrators, but I'd like to get prime picks as well.

If you can work for more than one site and already have a smart phone, you can make a modest consistent income. Like any real job they will expect reliability or you'll be out the door.  For what it's worth: Forum content writing was at times a lot of fun.

Thursday 14 November 2013

Creating Blogs to Make Money Online


This is the beginning of a longer term experiment for me. I scratched the surface in the past but this time around I want to raise my game to a whole new level. I do start out with a handicap, but so what. I think I can overcome that and add a stream of income that will make a big difference toward this blog's stated goals.

What I have done is create blogs and websites (that I can manage) and am in the process of finding good advertisers to add. I did in the past start working with Google Adsense and I would recommend them but be careful. They will cut you off if they even sense a glimmer of cheating their system. They don't forgive and forget. My downfall was advertising exclusively by word of mouth at work. At work we have an Internet cafe and most of the clicks I got came from that one IP address at least that's what I think the reason was because they never clearly explained their actions. A lot of other Adsense users have suffered a similar fate. I could get around that all but I don't have the time to put into rebuilding everything from scratch again. There are alternatives. My aim right now is building my traffic some and then pursuing a few worthwhile affiliates. For this site Capital One is in my sights amoung others. For one of my other blogs Bike Nashbar is a no brainer.

Besides this site I currently have three other sites that I can put advertising on.

The first one is my personal author's blog. As Pico Triano I am a published author with Inknbeans Press. My first book Let Sleeping Dogs Lie was released in May of this year. Available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Let-Sleeping-Dogs-Pico-Triano/dp/0615823939/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t

The link for my author's website is: http://picosplace-pico.blogspot.ca/

For anyone interested in my daily musings. I usually post daily on Bubblews. My profile link is http://www.bubblews.com/account/34385-koopharper and my wife's is http://www.bubblews.com/account/32591-daisy We earn a penny for every article view, like and comment.

I did create a twin to this site that is envisioned as a bicycle touring/road cycling magazine. Intention is to publish monthly with five articles 500 - 5000 words with pictures. I am looking for contributions from other interested authors and contributors. I do allow writers to include their own advertising and website links. Unfortunately I can't offer financial remunerations for articles at this time.

The link for this is: http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/

Finally my wife has an art website called Francine's Fine Art. We are working to make that website more effective. To date her artwork gets a lot of attention but no sales. Been very frustrating for her but we aren't giving up hope. We could make a winner out of that yet.

He site address is: http://francine-heykoop.artistwebsites.com/

I will update how we are doing with this whole project along with everything else. This should slowly build up as traffic increases and the quality of the advertising improves. I look forward to seeing results in our pocketbook.

Comments on this are more than welcome. This is an area where I frankly have very little real experience. I just know there are people out there that are quite successful at this.

Saturday 9 November 2013

Mylot - A Lesson Learned


One of the few sites where I successfully made money before writing on Bubblews was Mylot. I actually reached payout twice. Not spectacular but I did get paid.

The important lesson I learned there was not that most writing sites provide minimal pay for a great deal of effort. What I learned is that the rules of the game can change at anytime. If you're trying to make money online these changes can make a huge impact on your online income.

Mylot let us know that big changes were coming. The site was going to be bigger and better than ever. The whole system was getting updated from top to bottom, new look and functionality. When the anticipated changes arrived the biggest difference was that we would no longer be paid for our participation. Upsetting hardly began to describe it. I wasn't getting any kind of stable income from Mylot but I had friends who were and this was a kick in the teeth. That is when quite a large group of us migrated over to Bubblews. We're still friends over there.

One of my friends on Bubblews had a similar experience on another writing site. She was making $5000 dollars in one month on that site (yeah I'm still in awe) and then changes were made that dropped her monthly income to $1000. That is not the kind of stability that any of us are looking for. Don't get me wrong, I'd take the five grand but my goal is a stable income.

What do I take from that? Bubblews is building up for me steadily. I have fun there. It gives me an excuse to practice my writing daily. I want for that site to be one part of my online income. Yes, I make money faster there right now than any other work online I've ever done. There is a temptation to devote all of my efforts there - and then what if the game changes. I don't want to be in a position where I'm counting on this one opportunity only to have the rug pulled out from under me. I'm glad Bubblews was there to catch my friends who had been counting on Mylot for part of their income.

I'm going to write there while the getting is good. It might stay that way for a long time. I'd love that but I'll keep looking for other irons to put into the fire. Niche websites is one I'm working on. I might go back to doing some forum content writing. This way if one online source dries up, I'm not left completely in the lurch.

My cliche advice is to not put all your eggs in one basket. Incidentally my Mylot account is still in good standing. I rarely visit but I may be able to market my niche sites there. I did my best to avoid cheesing off their administrators even though I was not happy with the changes.


Thursday 7 November 2013

Bubblews: A Great Place to Start


If you are new to earning income online, I recommend joining www.bubblews.com. The reason is simple. I make a stable $50 per month there in the little bit of spare time I have and my wife makes $25 per month. I have a friend who has made $500 in a month there. This is a link to her profile: http://www.bubblews.com/account/56223-adriennejenkins. While I don’t believe this is the whole answer to our stated online earnings goal, I think it’s a great place to start.

What is Bubblews?

Bubblews is a social networking site with a difference. They share their revenue with their contributors. In my view anyone who can follow simple rules and put in a little effort will make money on this site.

How do you make money on Bubblews?

Get a username and password and write posts within their rules. You will be paid a penny for every view your post receives and another one for every “like” and comment on your post. To be successful you need to make friends on the site and interact with them. In other words find other contributors whose writing you like. Read, like, comment and share their work and they will start doing the same with yours. Those pennies can really start adding up.

You will also be paid for referrals. Not the most lucrative referral program I’ve ever seen but as with everything on the site it all adds up. If you need to be referred here is my referral link: http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51f5bbc90f3fe9.59547344.

What about those claiming Bubblews is a scam?

I’ve researched it and in my opinion most of the crying is sour grapes. Most of the whiners broke the rules and got deleted or didn’t get paid.  These are the basic rules: http://www.bubblews.com/terms. Make sure you understand and follow them.

There are other things that can get you into trouble and I will touch on a few of them.

You are only allowed two accounts per IP address. Yes a husband and wife or parent and child can participate.

Make sure if you are using pictures or images as part of your posts that you have the right to use them and you give proper credit in your post. I keep it simple. I generally only use images created by myself or other members of my immediate family.

Don’t expect to stick around if you are constantly criticizing and complaining about the site in your posts. Think about it. If you have a job, how long will you keep it, if you keep telling your boss you don’t like him or his company?

Don’t harass the staff. Their staff is limited and mistakes get made. Send them one message through the proper channels and give them a chance to get to it. I have never failed to be served though it may try my patience.

If you make a mistake and get deleted or not paid, suck it up and try again. Spending hours posting hate about Bubblews on other sites isn’t going to pay you one thin dime. Unless you’ve really managed to cheese them off, they will let you try again. Consider it all experience and start over if you need to.

There is the potential for something to go wrong. You might not get satisfaction. I’ve seen it. I don’t believe for a minute that they are selectively ripping off random users. If you really want to make money online get over it. Try again. You won’t make money complaining. I’ve been paid every single time I’ve hit that redeem button and so has my wife. I might move on to better opportunities in the future but for now we’re $75 dollars per month closer to our $1200 per month goal.

Conclusion


Bubblews is not the whole answer to our quest. I’m not stupid. There are not enough waking hours for me to make $1200 per month on this site. Besides we are looking for stability in that desired income. Site rules can change. I’ll cover that in a future post. I don’t think it’s healthy to put all my eggs in one basket. Spending all my available time there will mean that other good opportunities will never get developed.


If you aren’t making money online, by all means give Bubblews a try. You can make money there.