Tuesday, November 30, 2010

End of the Month Rant

I spend the past 24 hours working on a great holiday article for the contest so I can get my 5% rev share. I went to submit it today and it says it has to be approved. It's about Christmas cards so I have no idea why it needs to be approved first. Ugh!!! It has to get accepted today or I won't get the 5% rev share. Maybe I should write two more holiday articles as back-up. I have a huge school project due today so I don't really have time to write any more articles.

The second thing I need to rant about is two-faced liars. There is someone on Infobarrel that I HATE with a passion. Every time I see one of their posts on Infobarrel, I want to kick their ass. I really hope there is an ignore button on the Infobarrel 2.0 forum. It makes my blood boil whenever I see this person's avatar. They think they are posting helpful advice but it's stuff that people already knows anyways. Sometimes I want to tell this person, "Really, it took you this long to figure that out!!" There is someone else who I don't like but they don't post very often. I would just stay away from the forum all together but Travis and Ernie are very inspiring and I learn a lot from them. I should stay away from all forums but I wouldn't be where I am today without forums.

Here's an example of stuff I hate: I belong to two forums: a Bonnaroo forum and a Rothbury forum. There's this girl on both forums named Clair. Clair will go on the Bonnaroo forum and says how much she loves Bonnaroo and how she can't wait until the next festival. She also tries to tell us how awesome Rothbury is. She will then go to the Rothbury fourm and say how much she hates Bonnaroo and how she will never attend ever again. She will completely bash Bonnaroo. She is a two-faced liar and I hate her. What's worse is that everyone on both forums like her and they will defend her if someone says something bad about her. I finally hit ignore on the Bonnaroo forum but she's the mod on the Rothbury forum so there is no ignore function. I was so mad at her one day that I tried to spam her email and got banned from the forum. Oh well, at least I don't have to see her ugly face anymore.

Anyways, I think there are people like that on all message boards. I just need to learn to deal with them. That's why I love the ignore function. In the next week or so, I'll post my November earnings and my December goals. I'm very happy with my November earnings and I think they will surprise many people.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

My First Order on Amazon!

I woke up this morning and checked my Adsense, expecting another click, like I do every morning but there was a big fat zero. So I went to check Amazon and there it was. Someone ordered something using my referral link! I couldn't believe it. I immediately went to see what they ordered. It was a sewing machine that was only $20 but I should still get 80 cents (if my math is right). I'm thrilled and I hope I see more orders soon. Maybe I should write some articles on expensive items instead of cheap items;)

How is my Adsense going? It is going great! I've had at least one click every day this week even though I'm only on track to make what I made last month (unless I get some really high clicks). I'm currently at $7.28 for this month. I'm up to 65 articles.

I got accepted to Chikita last month so this was my first full month with Chikita. I have had two clicks for a total of 19 cents. Both clicks came from the bottom ad block. This means that people are reading all the way through my articles which is great but it makes them less likely to click on the Adsense ads. After I get to 150 articles, I'll experiment with some shorter articles.

How's the contest going? The contest is going okay. I'm working my butt off trying to get caught up. I took a day off to do homework and fell behind. I'm almost back into first. I just have to keep writing the same amount of articles as the first place person and try to do one or two more each day. You are probably wondering how I'm writing so many articles each day? I've decided to stop doing keyword research and SEO until December. I pick a topic and I search for it on Ezine Articles. I choose three articles about that topic and I quickly read through them. I close them and open a word processor and start typing. I type the article based on what I had just read. I can get an article out in an hour this way. Before it would take me at least two hours to research and type out the article. That time doesn't include the time it took to find the pictures and add links. I don't really expect to make much money off these articles but winning the $100 Amazon gift card and getting 50 achievement points for winning a contest would really be awesome.

I'm going to be really busy this week. My professors apparently don't care about Thanksgiving and they piled on a ton of homework this week. I'm going to my aunt's house in Iowa for Thanksgiving so I have to get all my homework done by Wednesday. My aunt doesn't have Internet. It's going to be crazy. I'm still going to keep writing articles for the contest. On Thanksgiving, I'll write articles on my laptop and just save them on my computer. I'll have to wait until I get home on Friday before I can post them. I'm getting stressed just thinking about all the stuff I have to remember to do. I probably won't update the blog until after I get back next weekend. I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and a wonderful Black Friday!

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Back on Track

As you can tell by the last post, I got distracted from why I'm doing this. I'm not giving up on the contest but I'm not going to stress about it anymore. I'm going to write as many articles as possible and whatever happens, happens. I'm doing this to build up a passive income - not to win a contest. It looks like I should get at least 3rd place in the contest and I can be happy with that. I think I'm going to try to write as many articles as I can each month and save whatever winnings I get. Someday, I'll be able to use my winnings to buy a netbook. Here's the netbook I'm going to buy with my winnings: HP Mini 210-2050NR 10.1 Inch Netbook Lavender. I should have enough to buy it around March.

Another thing I wanted to mention is that I'm planning on going on a cruise either during spring break in March or next November. I'm hoping to get a nice passive income built up by then so I can still make money while I'm on the cruise. The power of passive income is awesome!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

It Makes Me Sick!

 Warning: Rant
I am so very annoyed right now. I really want to win the contest bad so anytime I'm not doing homework, I'm writing Info Barrel articles. I've written around 24 1,000 word articles so far this month. It seems like I'm writing from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. What makes me sick is how others can post 20 or more articles a day. I don't get how they can write articles this quickly. I don't even have a job and I can't even write that many articles in a day. I'm beginning to think that they outsource their articles. If they do then I can't keep up. I'm barely keeping up as it is. I didn't write any articles on Tuesday because I was behind in my school work and I fell from 2nd in the contest to 5th. I'm trying so hard but I'm still failing. It makes me want to cry. I actually did cry when I saw I fell in the points. I want a netbook but I can't afford one. I might be able to get one if I can win the contest but there's no way. A couple months ago, someone could easily win the contest with 30 articles but now, I'm not sure if someone can win with 60. I know I said I was going to write articles to build up my library and not worry about the contest but that netbook is calling me. Anyways, I need to write 7 articles tomorrow to get caught up with AJ and that's if he or the other 3 people in front of me do not post any articles. The most I've written in a day is 4 and that's when I got behind on my homework. Ugh! Why didn't I try to win the contest back when I actually had a chance to win:( I guess I'll get to bed since I need to write 7 articles tomorrow and I have 3 assignments due for my Graphic Design class. This sucks and I'm getting sick of it.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Power of Passive Income

A lot of people, including my parents, have a hard time understanding why someone would want to work without knowing exactly how much they are going to be paid. Whenever I tell my parents that I'm writing an article, they ask me how much I'm going to get for it. I always tell them that I don't know and that I hope it's a lot. They look at me like I'm crazy. Passive income is a powerful thing that most people don't understand. If everyone knew what you could do with a passive income, everyone would be doing it.

I'm assuming most people reading this blog know what passive income is and what it can do but if you don't, here's what it's all about. For example, let's compare two articles. One article is a guaranteed $20 and another article is revenue share. Let's assume you make $2 a month from that article. After a year, you will have $20 for the guaranteed article but you will have $24 for the revenue share article. In two years, you'll still have $20 for the guaranteed article but you'll have $48 for the revenue share article. In five years, you'll probably have spent the $20 for the guaranteed article, however, you'll still be making money on the revenue shared article which will be at  $120. So what would you choose to do? Write an article for $20 or for $120. Remember that the revenue share article will still be earning past the $120.

Most people on Info Barrel have concluded that it takes 150 articles to earn $100 a month. I've seen a few people with 250 articles and they seem to make around $300-350 or more per month. They will make this amount for the rest of their lives. It's like the Publisher's Clearing House prize of $5,000 a month for the rest of your life. If you write enough articles, you could easily earn that much money. I am plan on making $5,000 a month off my articles within 3-5 years. I will diversify with a thousand articles on Info Barrel, a thousand articles on Hub Pages, a couple hundred on List My Five and a couple hundred between the rest of the revenue sites. With $5,000 a month, I can retire (or at least not have to work if I don't want to) and actually start living my life. Who knows how much I could actually make - far more than $5,000 a month is possible. I'm motivated by the thought of being able to do whatever I want without having to worry about money.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

November Goals & Contest

My goals for November are to write 2-3 1,000 word articles a day and to keep up with my school work. So far, my goals are doing well. I have a ton of homework to get done today so I'm not sure if I'll have time to write any more articles. I've written 8 articles in 3 days and made $0.91 so I'm doing very well. So well that I'm thinking of going for the November contest. I'm currently in second place - AJ is in 1st place. He wrote a ton of articles on the first of the month and a few smaller articles on the second and third. If I keep up this pace, I might be able to win the contest. It would be nice to get an extra $100 and it would give me motivation to keep going. Plus, I would get 50 achievement points. I would love to get into the top 100 for achievement points someday and 50 points would help me out. If I'm still in the top 5 on November 15, I'll step up my game to try for first place in the contest.

Side note: I've closed the comments on this blog. All comments so far have been great but I've got social anxiety when it comes to comments on blogs. I'm always worried about comments that will derail me and cause me to give up. Instead of worrying, I thought it would be better to just close comments. If you still want to comment, you can email me by clicking on my name on the right.