Still Working on the $50 a Day Challenge

As I stated in my previous post, I am taking the $50 a Day Auction Challenge.  Right now, I am still getting my products together. So far, I have 7. It is taking me anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour to put together one product. I don't think that's bad at all. I just wish I had more 20 to 60 minute time blocks in my day. But until our homeschool is over in 2 weeks I will ust continue to try to put together at least one product each night after the children go to bed.

It really isn't that hard to compile ebooks for the CDs that I will be selling. I label folders on my desktop, one per subject. Then I search for that subject and put all of the ebooks that I find in the appropriate folder. I found a few great public domain sites to use from The $50 a Day Auction Challenge ebook. There are even some videos explaining how to the most beneficial ones. Once you know where to look you can start gathering material right away.

I started keeping a list of possible subjects for ebook CDs. I'm just working my way down the list as time permits. Right now I am just writing down whatever topics come to mind that are of interest to me or that I believe are of interest to others. The list is already getting surprisingly long.

Anyway, I'm still waiting on my seller's permit so hopefully I'll have my goal of 10 - 15 products completely ready to list on eBay by the time it arrives. I'll keep you posted.

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I'm Giving the $50 a Day Auction Challenge a Try

As I've stated before, the first place I ever earned money writing online was on Associated Content. But the first place that I ever earned money on the internet - period - was on eBay. That was back in 2002. I started selling a few CDs that I no longer wanted. And eventually my husband and I were running a christian bookstore on eBay. We were pretty much clueless about the right way to go about things. But in the beginning we still made a little bit of cash despite our inexperience. However, eventually the bookstore did not seem profitable enough to continue operating it. So we closed our doors in 2004.

But I recently started thinking about eBay again once my residual income streams started to dry up. I enjoyed selling on eBay until it became unprofitable and a big headache. But I know that many people sell there and are quite good at it. So I started doing some research into how I might be able to run a successful eBay business. And that is when I came across The $50 a Day Auction Challenge.

Seriously?
The premise of the challenge is to take the necessary steps so that you can earn approximately $50 a day on eBay from selling books, images, video, and audio that are freely available in the public domain. I have been using PD materials for years to homeschool my children. But the thought never occurred to me that people used these resources to make money! That concept was completely new to me. But it makes sense to do because works in the public domain belong to the public (you and me) and we are free to use them in any way we please.

It's Not Complicated
The Auction Challenge ebook teaches you step-by-step how to set up and run your own successful PD business on eBay (and other auction sites are listed as well). The instructions are very thorough and easy to understand. And there are even videos that you you can access to walk you through several of the steps that you'll need to be successful.

So Far So Good
Right now I am in the phase of my business where I am putting my products together. I have decided to focus on selling compilations of ebooks on topics that are of interest to myself and many others. As soon as I got The $50 a Day Auction Challenge I wanted to start selling products right away. And you pretty much can be up and running within a very short time after reading the book. But in my state you need a resellers license to sell products. I haven't sold physical products in years so I had to reapply for mine and I am waiting to receive it in the mail.

In the Meantime
Since it will take about  2 to 3 weeks before I will be legit, I have set a goal for myself to have 10 - 15 quality projects ready to go by the time my license gets here. I'm already halfway there. I'll keep you posted once I actually start some auctions.

My Opinion of the Ebook so Far
I like how Steve Poke does a great job of explaining what the public domain is and how you can profit from it. Once that concept is explained the book immediately gets down to business, no fluff involved. The one downside is that several of the sites listed for PD works are UK ones and I had difficulty accessing the books on those. But their were enough sites listed that I can use to get me started.

Of course, I will not know the true worth of The $50 a Day Auction Challenge until I actually start selling on eBay. But the steps in the book have given me the confidence to give selling public domain books on eBay a try.

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Residual Income has Trickled to Pennies

In just a few months time the majority of my residual income from writing on the internet has vanished. About 2 weeks ago, eHow finally completely did away with payment for the Writer's Compensation Program. Google made changes a few months back and my adsense earnings dropped to under $1.00 a day. And last month Yahoo Contributor did away with the Featured Contributor program. So the earnings that I reported  in January has been reduced down to just a few dollars a month. 

But I do not see this as a time to be discouraged. I am so happy that I ACTUALLY made several thousand dollars between 2009 and now, strictly from writing for residuals. And I have learned a lot about how to operate in a profitable way online.  I know that money can be made on the internet because I have done it! And I know that I can continue to do it. I just need to change to a different business model that is profitable now and that will continue to be for years to come.

I actually have already started working on doing just that and I will share step-by-step what I am doing to continue to earn money online.

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Info Barrel Glitches - Why I'm Not Putting All My Eggs in One Basket

Photo by Tamás Schauermann

A few days ago Info Barrel updated their site and launched their 2.0 platform. Overall, I like the new interface a lot and I think that it is actually going to make posting articles on IB a lot easier.

Glitch Time
Of course, with most technical changes come some glitches. And to their credit, the admin at Info Barrel has been working diligently to work out the bugs. They even have a thread in the forum where you can list any issues that you are having. And admin is posting all of the bugs in the first post of the thread and also posting when a particular issue has been resolved. So, I feel very confident that IB is working hard to get the site running smoothly again.

I posted a few glitches myself on the thread and am holding off on posting anymore articles until the bugs get worked out. I write my articles in batches and then post them all at the same time. And I didn't realize there were any issues until I went back and tried to edit some of the articles I had just published. But, no biggie. I'll just check the thread on Monday and see if the issues have been resolved.

Adsense Earning Plummeted
Most of the issues are minor as far as I'm concerned. But while on the forum I did read a few posts where people stated that their top earning Info Barrel articles have disappeared from the front page of Google. When I checked Adsense this morning my earning were very low but I didn't think anything of it since it was very early. But after I read those posts I went back and checked my Adsense account again, and sure enough, I had no earnings from any of my Info Barrel articles.

So, I checked Google and none of my articles are showing up there either. Needless to say, this will probably make for a pretty low earnings day for me since currently most of the money that I make on Adsense is from Info Barrel. I have been reminded that it is definitely NOT a good idea to put all of my residual income earnings into one "basket."

Temporarily Moving on to Plan B
I am hopeful that the Info Barrel staff will figure out the issue and that it will be resolved as soon as possible. But in the meantime I am moving on to experiment B, The HubPages Experiment. I will give the details of that one soon. It's funny because I just thought about focusing a bit on HubPages yesterday before I realized that there were issues with IB. Maybe that unction came from the Lord. So, on Monday I'll start working on my HubPages articles and allow time for the Info Barrel issues to get worked out.

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January 2011 Earnings from Residual Online Income

January 2011 is one of the highest earning months that I have had in awhile. Hopefully by being faithful with my Info Barrel Experiment, I will see even higher earning next month.

I will always list my earnings for Yahoo Contributor Network (formerly Associated Content) and eHow although I don't write for them anymore. I don't write for YCN any longer by choice (not worth my time) and I don't write for eHow any longer because they did away with their Writer's Compensation program. Actually, I had stopped writing for them long before that because they treated writers unfairly. But that's over with now.

This year, I am focusing my efforts mainly on Info Barrel and I'm going to see how far I can go with it. Anyhow, without any further ado here are last month's earnings.

Adsense - $109.67 ( combined earnings from Info Barrel, Xomba, Hub Pages, She Told Me, and my blogs)
Chitika - $12.29
eHow - $199.90
Yahoo Contributor Network - $8.65

The money from YCN is always around the same amount. For the first time in several months the Chitika earnings went down by $10. Normally, they're always around $22. eHow usually isn't more than $150. And, this is only the second month in a row in a long time that I have made payout for Adsense in just one month. Hopefully, that trend will continue.

So, I'm looking forward to February and to see how things go. How did you do with your earnings in January. Feel free to leave a comment about your earnings. Or, you can leave a link to a blog post about your earnings if you have one.

Have a blessed day!

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I Got Preapproved on InfoBarrel Today

Well, after publishing 16 articles I was finally preapproved on Info Barrel. That means that I no longer have to wait for my articles to be reviewed before they can go live. I'm not sure if 16 is a good number or not. I have read in the forums that it takes some writers more articles and some less. But either way, I'm happy about it.

I didn't mind the review process that much. I'd prefer my articles get checked and approved up front, rather than looked at after the fact and then deleted. But I have to say that it does feel nice to know that the Info Barrel staff feels that I'm trustworthy enough to fly solo. I hope not to disappoint.

According to Info Barrel, one of the criteria to be preapproved is that your articles need to have diverse subjects. I looked back over mine and this is how the subjects break down:

• coupons - 5 articles
• health - 2 articles
• beauty - 2 articles
• music - 4 articles
• finance - 3 articles

Those are categories that I just made up. I'm not sure if that's exactly how Info Barrel categorized them or not. But, you get the point. 

Here are the official guidelines to get preapproved on Info Barrel. Most of the steps are very easy to accomplish. 1, 2, 5, and 6 are very straightforward. I think that 3 and 4 are probably where people get hung up in the process. But with a little time and effort those challenges can be overcome.

Today was definitely timely in getting preapproved because I recently started my Info Barrel Experiment. And not having to wait for authorization of my articles will allow me to track my progress a little quicker. Speaking of progress, at the beginning of February I will post my January earnings. I plan on doing this each month so I can get an accurate picture of how my Info Barrel Experiment is working.

Make sure to sign up here if you are interested in writing for Info Barrel as well.

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Resources

Here is a list of resources that I use for my online writing.  I only recommend resources that are tried and true. And all of them are free except for the ones marked otherwise.

Calendar
U.S Holidays for this Year - This is a great resource if you plan on holiday themed articles. It's a good idea to write those a month or two ahead a time so that the articles will already be in place by the time people start searching.

Do Follow Link Information
Dofollow Sites - good list with a lot of sites

HTML
Using Basic HTML in Squidoo Lenses - This article is written specifically for Squidoo users. But basic HTML works the same on most sites, I think. Anyway, I've  used the code for Blogger, Info Barrel, and other sites with great success.


Keyword Research
Live Keyword Analysis - This is a keyword density calculator. I copy and paste my articles into this tool to check the KW density before I post them live.
Nichebot - This is a paid keyword research site but the tutorials alone make it worth the small investment. Plus, over time the income that you generate from proper keyword research should more than pay for the monthly fee.
SEO Chat's Keyword Density Tool - I paste my URL into this tool to check the density after I've already published my article. The density goes down a bit once you publish the article because the other words that are on the page besides your article count toward the total number of words on the page.

Word Processor
Google Docs - I learned the hard way to write and save all of my articles there. That way you will still have them if a site ever decides to delete my work or if the site itself disappears. You can pull up Google Docs on any computer. And it also doesn't insert junk into your articles if you copy and paste them onto a site, unlike Microsoft Word.

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