Why did I Change the Cover?

I realize from the popularity of the posts on this blog that people want to earn money. Some people want to learn about the ins and outs of the blogging industry first and then make money, but more folks want the cold hard cash.

My book provides the fundamentals of blogging (according to Felicia) and how to get started making money. I share some of my tips and methods for monetizing my blogs. I truly believe the information contained therein is helpful.

Did the Content Change?

No. The content is the same except for the footer that previously read No Job for Mom’s Blogging for Beginners and now reads Make Money Blogging.

What Did I Use for the New Cover?

For the old cover, I used a free online service. All you need to do is upload your 350 x 400 pixel photo and it will create a book cover image for you to copy and paste onto your book.

For the new (and more professional looking) cover I used eCover Creator 3D Software.  It’s an online software which costs $47 (one-time charge for unlimited use). eCover Creator offers a basic selection of modifiable book covers which can be used to create CD, DVD, soft or hard book covers and more.

You have the option to use their templates or upload your own image. I chose to use their template because it was quick and easy. Within a few minutes I had several book cover options to choose from.

Why I Chose eCover Creator 3D Software

I chose eCover Creator 3D because it’s inexpensive and easy to use. There were so many robust, Photoshop-compatible programs, but I don’t use PhotoShop. I’m still using an old version of Paint Shop Pro (version 8). I didn’t think it was necessary to purchase PhotoShop just to make a book cover.

The downside to using eCover is the image size. The cover image size of 298 x 354 doesn’t always make a smooth transition to the Kindle 600 x 800 pixel format, but that’s something I can work around.

Affiliate Program

Since I used it and liked it I decided to become an affiliate for eCover Creator. They offer a 50/50 split with their affiliates. Yes, the above links are affiliate links. Just a heads up, the software creator, Business Jolt, doesn’t allow you to purchase the software using your own affiliate link (bummer).

As freelance web content writers, we are always looking for ways to add to our revenue streams. After all, it all falls on us to keep our freelance writing business moving forward. Often we look at revenue sharing sites, up-front pay sites, private clients and selling articles through various avenues. One avenue of creating an income stream that is not considered very much is Internet marketing.

Now I know when someone even mentions Internet marketing or affiliate marketing, they automatically think of scam artists. Unfortunately, the sad truth is there are a lot of scam artists out there. But what I am talking about has nothing to do with “get rich quick schemes” or anything like that. I am talking about Internet marketing that is promoting products and services from well known brands. Products that you would purchase yourself, or would recommend to friends and family.

What Freelance Writers Do

Think about this for a minute. As a freelance web content writer, you create quality and informational articles to get people to click on ads. Private clients hire freelancers like you and me to create content for their sites promoting products or promoting the benefits of the products. Since you are doing the work, why not cut out the middle man and build sites promoting products directly?

It is not difficult to add this into your  freelance writing business model. Think of it as adding another private client…you. There are some excellent affiliate marketing superstores that offer a wide variety of products and services. Well known name brands over affiliate opportunities through Commission Junction and Share-A-Sale. There is also Amazon, which in my honest opinion is one of the better sites. Personally I would stay away from places like Clickbank and RAPbank which offer only digital products. As I matter of fact, there are only 2 that I promote and that is because I have purchased both myself.

Internet Marketing: A Viable Income Stream

Don’t disregard Internet marketing as another income stream in your freelance writing business. Think about this for a moment. We judge how well our articles do by the amount of revenue they generate. Imagine just having one sale a month from each article that generated on the low end, $5 in revenue. Compound that by the articles you write every day strictly for Adsense clicks or page views. That is a nice chunk of change.

It is work, and sometimes there is more in depth research. However as a freelance writer this is what you do anyway. Start out small on someplace like Hub Pages or Squidoo promoting an Amazon product. Write about the benefits or how it solves a problem. Add a couple of links to a product or a range of products. Once you get that first sale, you are going to want another.

Of course after a momentary celebration, I had to take a more detailed look at how I did it and how I should approach this residual writing stuff going forward.  Here’s how I got there this year:

• eHow 49%
• Suite 24%
• Google 16%
• Infolinks 4%
• Text Link Ads 2%
• Amazon 1%
• Chitika 1% (I’ve since dropped Chitika)
• Affiliate sales 2%
• Kontera, Orato and AdBrite 1%

Earning $20,000 in residual income is especially exciting considering how much it cost for me to do it.  My top two money makers cost $0 to join.  Most of the rest of my income is tied into my own sites which cost me about $100 per year in hosting and $10 per domain name (I’ve registered about 5 domain names this year and only used 2). When I renewed my existing domains last year, I renewed them for multiple years so I didn’t incur the expense this year.

So far in 2010, I spent about $150 (although, this doesn’t include purchasing a new USB headset when my other one crapped out on me a couple of weeks ago).  When I compare my current expenses to the expenses I incurred driving to a part-time job 5 days a week, I’ve got to say that quitting that part-time job and working from home was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. After all, the part-time job only paid $8.38 an hour.

My Goals Going Forward

It is quite obvious after looking at the percentages that I’ve got a lot of work to do. I need to balance my numbers a bit more and add one or two more revenue sources.  In addition to more diversification, I need to beef up my numbers all around.  By increasing everything else, my eHow percentage will have less of an impact on my income. I’m not comfortable with them being the lion share of my revenue source.

I also want to invest in my money making resources.  I need to do things like upgrade my computer software, blog themes and some of my computer hardware.  My existing software/hardware has done a fine job in getting me to where I am, but I’d like to ramp things up a bit going forward.

In addition to the physical ramping up, I’ve got some mental ramping to do.  I’ve got to spend more time studying, learning and improving on what I’ve done in the past three years.  The Internet is constantly changing and if I want my earnings to grow (I’m still aiming for $10,000 per month in residual income), I’ve got to change along with it.

Well, there you have it, $20,000 in residual income.  If I can do it, I KNOW you can too.

From the Beginning

As you know, my true online freelance writing journey began in February of 2007. Back then I needed to get money coming in and fast because I had quit my part-time job. The part-time job was barely above minimum wage and I realized it just wasn’t worth the time and travel expense. I knew I could do better working online.

A Little Employment  History

Prior to the part-time job, I had worked both in the insurance and technology industries. I was a full-time employee/contractor and made a nice salary. I hated every minute of it. The hours and the commute was a killer (5 hours a day commuting). The money was nice, but was it really worth it?

As fate would have it, my last full-time job moved south by about 1,000 miles and I was unemployed. Not wanting another job for which I had to spend half of my day commuting I worked a few local part-time jobs.

I just couldn’t get my mind around the slightly above minimum wage part time jobs. I mean, my clothing and gas costs chewed up a bit of my meager salary. Oh, and I won’t mention the cost of weekly contributions for office baby showers, going away parties, retirement parties, etc. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

Enough is Enough

I had been dabbling online playing around with websites prior to taking the last part-time job. In 2006 I earned $16.25 online from my dabblings. That meager $16.25 made me realize there was money to be made online. I just didn’t have the confidence or knowledge to know what to do and how to make the $16.25 grow.

After being forced to work the day after Thanksgiving and explaining that I already had plans for Christmas before I took the minimum wage job, I knew this job was short lived. Let’s face it, I was only making $8.35 an hour and after taxes, benefits, etc. I average about $125 a week, hardly enough to be worth the aggravation.

Throwing down the Gauntlet

I threw down the gauntlet and resigned. My last day of work was Friday, February 9, 2007 and that was the first day I started to take this online freelance writing stuff seriously. My initial goal was to replace my part-time job income.

So the Journey Began

Still having the work mentality, I found as many upfront paying gigs as I could find. I earned $5 per article and wrote until my fingers dropped. I also managed to land a magazine gig which did much to boost my writing income, but magazine gigs were few and far between so I concentrated on online writing.

Burn Out

I reached the burn out stage real fast. I was bringing in money, but I was working like the dickens. I managed to earn a little over $4,600 the first year but most of it was from up front pay sources. Only $1,400 of my income was residual income.

When I evaluated the numbers I knew I had to spend a little more time building up my residual portfolio. I wanted money, but I didn’t want to work my fingers to the bone to get it. I was beginning to feel that I traded the traditional job for a work at home ‘job.’ I didn’t want a job. I wanted money, but I wanted to enjoy my life too.

Working Smarter

The second year, I tried to write a host of residual articles. I also took on assignments for up front pay because I needed quick money, but I knew in my heart residual was the way to long-term happiness. I worked hard, and my hard work started to pay off. By the end of 2008 I had earned $10,000 of which $7,000 was residual income.

By my third year I almost doubled my prior year’s income. I earned $19,000 of which $16,000 was from residual sources. $19,000 is a far cry from my $8.35 an hour part-time job, but it still doesn’t match the salary I used to make as a full-time insurance broker or a tech writing contractor, so the journey continues.

Time of Reflection and Re-evaluation

Now that I took you through that long and drawn out journey, here’s the reason for my post. My own history tells me that residual income is the way to go. Over the years I have diversified my sources. I write in varying degrees for content sites such as Suite 101, eHow/DS, HubPages and Orato. I also have 11 websites/blogs of varying popularity (most of them are not very popular but they still earn money).

On my own sites I use various ad programs such as AdSense, InfoLinks, Amazon and Text Link Ads. I also endorse a couple of books and a few affiliate products.

Going Forward

I’m going to continue to do more of the same. I intend to continue writing for the content sites I currently utilize but I’ll spend more time and effort in building up the content on my websites/blogs. I’ll probably start a new site sometime within the next few months and get back to writing my book. I want my own sites/blogs/books to make up the lion share of my earnings.   I’d hate to build up several thousand dollars in residual income from a site that can one day pull the rug from under me.

My regular readers know that my goal is to increase residual earnings by $167 each month for the next 4 years to reach my $10,000 per month residual earnings goal. The wonderful thing about residual income is that if you put in the time and effort early on, it takes off on its own with little additional work

The Online Writing Secret?

From what I can see, the secret to earning money online is to keep writing and re-evaluating,  Time will handle the rest.

Don’t get me wrong, I do earn some money here, but just about all of my other writing venues bring in more money than NJFM. It’s not a complaint, it’s just a fact. I enjoy writing here so I’ll continue to do it, but if I were ever to give up all of my other writing venues to write for NJFM exclusively, I would starve.

Trying Something New

That writer’s question and Apple’s release of the iPad got me to thinking. There’s the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod, and a host of other “i” products, I decided to create iNJFM. I’ve got nothing to lose and possibly something to gain (25% of all proceeds are being donated to UNICEF).

I created a No Job for Mom Zazzle store for NJFM products. Will they sell? Who knows. All I know is that I’m sipping coffee from my new iNJFM mug while wearing my iNJFM T-Shirt.

You gotta love the internet. You can do/create just about anything.