There’s something to be said for adversity. Personally, I don’t like facing too much adversity at one time, but every time I do I come out on the other end stronger.

The power outage was an inconvenience and an experience to learn from. There were several action items I took away from the experience. I’ve taken care of two of the action items and currently working on the next 3.

Unexpected Adversity

During the power outage, as I was accessing WiFi and sipping my calorie laden latte at the Bad Ass coffee shop, I discovered a Google AdSense hiccup. Well, to me it’s more like a cough, but in the grand scheme of life, it’s a hiccup.

It appears there’s a glitch that is affecting some AdSense publishers. The glitch is preventing us from getting paid. According to their interface, the affected publishers earnings didn’t exceed the $100 threshold in September to warrant payment in October. It was worded as follows:

“Unpaid finalized earnings prior to October 1, 2011. A payment will not be issued this month. Your unpaid earnings prior to October 1, 2011 was calculated to be $0.00. Payments are issued within 30 days after the end of the month in which your unpaid earnings reach $100.00.”

In my case that’s untrue. My unpaid finalized earnings prior to October 1, 2011 was well in excess of $100.

Here We Go

So, here I am in the coffee shop with caffeine coursing through my veins realizing that my usual AdSense payment that I send to the mortgage company will not be coming in. I’ll have to dig into my pocket to pay my mortgage this month (bummer).

I later found a few forum threads on the Google AdSense forum from fellow publishers affected by this glitch. In that forum thread I found a link to report the problem. If you are affected by the glitch and haven’t reported it yet, here’s the link:

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/request.py?contact_type=payment_history_issue

Google’s Response

I submitted the form and received the following response:

Hi,

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention. I’m currently working as quickly as I can to investigate your concern and I’ll be sure to send you another email as soon as I have any more information. Thanks for your patience, and please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with in the meantime.

For additional payments related information, visit our Payments Guide at http://www.google.com/adsense_payments . You can also visit our Help Center at http://www.google.com/adsense_help for common questions and optimization tips.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

What Can I Do?

Until Google finds and fixes the problem, there’s not much I can do about it. It is annoying, but fortunately, I’m able to work around it. What this piece of adversity has done, however, is kick me in the pants (again). You see, Google kicked me in the pants with the first Panda when my income dropped by 50%.  In all honesty, Panda wasn’t fully responsible for the 50% drop.  A large portion of the drop was because eHow closed its WCP, but the Panda sure didn’t help.

I worked hard to get my income up to pre-Panda levels and then Panda two struck. As I analyze my numbers, my income took a minor hit with the second panda (about 1 or 2%), but it was a hit nonetheless.

I get it this time! You don’t have to hit me again; I get it. When a whole month’s worth of earnings (close to $1,800) is lost in the shuffle, it’s up to me to get into the cheese manufacturing mode. It’s time for me to create new cheese.

Going Forward

Now that my power is back on, and I’m able to continue working on the items I was near completing before the outage, I fully intend to devote 100% of my time on my new cheese. Well, maybe 95% of my time on the new cheese and 5% on some of the other online moneymaking ventures that I enjoy.

Having the income from Google is nice, but having 100% control over my financial future is nicer. Again, I must thank Google for the swift kick. They told me back in March to work on my own ventures, but I didn’t listen. I’m listening now.

This was delivered to my inbox this morning (how appropriate):

“I am grateful for all of my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties.”
— J.C. Penney, businessman

11/2/2011 UPDATE: Update:  If you’re experiencing the same problem that I am (or one of the two other variations of the problem), here’s a link to an update: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdSense/thread?tid=17c610a849512e85&hl=en

Here’s another link to a forum post in which the person copied and pasted a response from the Google AdSense Team advising that there’s no guarantee the problem will be resolved prior to the next payment cycle.

So there you have it. No sense in holding your breath waiting for them to fix the problem this month.  It’s time to go to Plan B.

The Plot Thickens: Update Part 2

Apparently I’m being penalized because I had signed up for the Google Affiliate Network (GAN). I signed up quite some time ago and have earned a grand total of about $1.50 with it over a period of a year. I’m not very active in the network.

Active or not, it seems to be the culprit in not receiving my September earnings. There’s a glitch with the Google system for GAN publishers that is preventing earnings from displaying on the Payment Page and also prevents Google from issuing the earnings check. Big time bummer!

If you haven’t signed up for the Google Affiliate Network, don’t bother. That small commission of $1.50 is the reason for this holdup. Even worse, some publishers haven’t earned a dime in the Google Affiliate Network and are having the same problem as I am.

You can either learn by making a mistake or learn by someone else’s mistake.  Consider this a lesson.

All Ads/Sites Not Created Equal

Because of lack of knowledge, I used a one-size-fits-all approach to ads and websites. If I used Google AdSense, Infolinks and Chitika on one blog, I used them on all blogs. When ever I set up a new blog, I’d go down my checklist to make sure I didn’t forget anything.

Over time, I realized that some ad campaigns did better on some blogs than others. This isn’t a secret or a revelation; it’s just that in the beginning I thought everything was created equally. So, when my Chitika ad revenue diminished (because they made a few changes to their program), I got annoyed and removed them from all of my sites.

That was real silly.  It’s better to get 25% of something than 100% of nothing!

Re-Evaluating my Ad Structures

Sometimes I’m not too quick on the uptake. As I looked at my various ad revenue sources, I realized that my existing ad campaign portfolio didn’t work. So, I removed AdSense and Infolinks form NJFM. The amount of money I earned from AdSense and Infolinks here at NJFM was hardly worth the effort of installing the ad code.

[smartads]

When I removed AdSense from NJFM, it seemed that my Google AdSense earnings improved. It could be coincidental or there may be a reason for it. I’m not sure and I’m not about to try to figure it out. I’m just going to enjoy the earnings increase.

Adding Chitika

As far as Chitika goes, it took me a while to realize that Chitika does much better on certain niche blogs/articles. If your blog falls into the gadget, electronics niche, you can do well with Chitika. If your blog is about health and nutrition, you would probably do better with Google AdSense (just an observation).

So, instead of punishing myself by removing Chitika across the board, I tried to better match the advertising campaign with the website subject matter. To that end, I’ve re-installed Chitika on one of my blogs the other day. So far, Chitika is performing better than my pitiful Bukisa earnings.

Chitika’s monthly payout is $10 if you elect PayPal as your method of payment and $50 if you opt for payment by check.

Three days after installing the Chitika code, I’ve earned 25% of the $10 required for monthly payout. In that same period of time, I earned $.90 with Bukisa.

Lesson Learned:

• Having a hissy fit and getting angry with Chitika did nothing but hurt my financial bottom line.
• Blog advertising, just like freelance writing, is not an all or nothing situation. There is plenty of room for mixing and matching.

Side note to Elvenrunelord: I thought about you when I wrote this post. I think your new blog might be a nice fit for Chitika.

Another side note: Chitika has a referral program, and the links in this post are referral links.

Abandoning a Blog

One of my newly created blogs has been taking quite a long time to get off the ground. I never expect too much in the first year, but this particular blog wasn’t showing the same signs of life early on in the process as my other blogs had. I figured the topic was a dud topic and that it just didn’t pay. Some folks don’t believe in placing ads on a new blog, but I do. It’s my measuring stick to see if my efforts are paying off.

The traffic to the blog is minimal, which is to be expected. What was a bit unusual was that in the several months that the blog has been up, the ad clicks were just about non existent. That was a little unusual even with minimal traffic. So, I made a mental note to abandon the blog. After all, in the space of 5 and a half months I earned a whopping .03 cents.

Changing the Ad Size and Location

Before totally abandoning the blog, I decided to change the location and the size of the ads. The color remained the same, but I increased the size of the ad and placed it within the content instead of above the content.

The flow of traffic remained the same but in less than a week, the blog earnings increased from .03 to $1.92. No, I won’t get rich off of $1.92 but it did tell me one thing…don’t abandon the blog. After not having a single ad click since August, I’ve had ad clicks several days in a row.

Getting Back to the Basics

I guess I was falling into the “disposable society’ syndrome. If it doesn’t work, throw it out. Instead, I realized that I didn’t need to get rid of the blog, it just needed some tweaking.

Lesson Learned:

If your blog’s income seems flat or barely existent, play around with the ad placement, size and/or color. You might be pleasantly surprised at the results.

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.