The Niche Think Tank » Earnings report

Quitting The Day Job, Finally.

Larry C. — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:16:10 +0000

I am way behind in my posting for the past 2 months, as I have been preparing for the arrival of my new daughter Hannah June, so I owe you all a July and August Income Report, and I have some exciting news. In my June Income Report someone asked if I was able to commit to doing this full time yet. Well…Yes, now I am. That and Hannah was born August 22nd, 2010 at 11:49am.

I basically quit the day job August 1st, 2010. You could say I was forced to or I did it willingly. I think more willingly than anything. I do, or did, I.T. consulting for my day job, and this economy has taken my company down the tubes, so to say. In the past two years my income from the day job has gone from 65K+ per year in 2008, to 28K+ in 2009 and down to about 9K for 2010. Yes that’s right, only $9,000 from my day job this year.

That coupled with a wife, a child and one on the way, I was in a tight bind to make money to live and support my family on. So I had to do something. My longest standing client of 10 years, has failed to pay their past due amount for the past 10 months. since the first of the year, and that amounts to about $6,700, which I could really use. After numerous attempts to collect and numerous lies as to when the checks were coming I decided to file a small claims against them. They were not happy. Well guess what, neither am I to have to go this route to get the money they owe me.

So they were my biggest, and longest standing client, and a large chunk of income for me, but obviously they haven’t been paying so theoretically I committed to doing online work since the first of the year, but I think now officially since August 1st, 2010. I’ll break it down a little and then my next two posts will be income reports.

I started Yaro Staraks Blog Mastermind program on 08/27/2009, and haven’t looked back since. In starting in that blogging program I’ve met some really awesome people, and some of them have helped me out so much I don’t know where or how to pay them back. Because of the help I have received, I’ve taken one site(my main dating site) that was making almost $100 a month in Adsense revenue, and almost $200 a month in subscription payments, to making almost $400 a month in Adsense revenue and over $1000 a month in recurring subscription payments, and it keeps growing.

In my next post, which will be my two late income reports, I will show you how my income has started taking a sharper upward turn. As Srini says from http://blogcastfm.com it’s doing the hockey stick thing, a sharp upturn increase. It’s also abit sudden and I think finally I am getting some of the clutter cleared off my plate, to focus on the 20% that’s making up 80% of my income online.

I’ve been very bad with this blog, and i had high hopes for it too. I wanted to share my learning and insights to online internet marketing, but I have been terrible at posting. I also have to say I am a bit scared, as I am not an A-List Blogger, and sometimes feel I don’t know what to talk about. I mean these other guys pick little things up and turn then into these awesome blog posts, and I am just afraid that I would be spewing gibberish or regurgitating content said elsewhere.

The fact is, I have been making a decent chuck of change lately and it’s doing nothing but growing. I’ve refined my technique for many of my sites and blogs, and I’ve also refined my technique for my niche sites. I’ve even flipped a website finally. Didn’t make alot of money on it, but I did learn alot and will be using what I learned to sell another one soon. Hopefully for alot more money.

My intention is to be fully location independent by two years from this date, and at least traveling the destinations I want to see here in the USA, if not Europe and Asia by that time. Like one of the success stories from the 4 hour work week, Kids as Reason TO travel. Like I said previously in this post, I have a 2 year old toddler and my second daughter was born three weeks ago today. So I have a little time to learn and grow some more. Hopefully along the lines of the 4 hour work week, and location independence.

I just wanted to give a shout out to some people who have made a huge impact in my life recently, mostly because of the positive notes in their voices, their podcasts and blog posts. They’ve been instrumental in me growing my blogs and niche wesbites to the point of making over $2000 a month in income. I know that’s not much, but it’s WAY more than I was making when the economy took a dump!

http://blogcastfm.com – Srini and Sid

http://www.heroicdestiny.com – David Crandall

http://www.lifestylebusinesspodcast.com – Dan and Ian

http://www.seanogle.com – Location 180 with Sean Ogle

http://www.smartpassiveincome.com – Pat Flynn

http://www.thrillingheroics.com – Cody McKibben

http://entrepreneurs-journey.com – Yaro Starak

http://podcastanswerman.com – Cliff Ravenscraft

http://www.tyroneshum.com – Tyrone Shum

http://www.viperchill.com – Glen Allsop

Thanks folks for tirelessly and freely giving of yourselves and helping me. (There’s many I probably didn’t list, but will as I remember all of them)

I said I wasn’t going to work anymore past 7-8 pm at night, but sometimes I get all mushy and I HAVE to write. I guess that’s part of being transparent in this whole blogosphere. Again, I’ll say I have some fear going forward from here on out because THIS IS my primary source of income now, the Internet.

In case some of you want to see one of my other blogs, my photography one, go here: http://www.darkmansdarkroom.com, it’s my blog where I talk about Old Hollywood Glamour Photography and other things like fetish, artistic nudes and Pinup. Beware there are nice ta-ta’s.

That blog makes a nice chunk of change from amazon affiliate sales and the affiliate sales of photography ebooks.

Ok, off to bed and see you tomorrow.

Larry…

Oh yeah…

My 2nd Daughter and I, August 22nd, 2010

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My Office, The Coffee Shop

May Income Report

Larry C. — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:10:56 +0000

May’s income report was a slight increase from April, for a total of 1002.88. May was the month to start reorganization of my thoughts, my workflow and my direction in Internet marketing and making money online. I started the focus on writing my own product. I’m doing 2 to start with, a photography book on my style of photography, Hollywood Glamour Photography, and the second on my new way of monetizing websites, the fastest way I have found to do it so far.

While all the marketing and money making programs I have done have been good in their own way, for one reason or another, they do not monetize fast enough to help pay the bills.

Like I said This month saw a slight increase from last month, and I am forecasting a gradual but steady increase from here on out. I have a few new sites I’d like to talk about, one being a Kindle Forum. http://www.thekindleboard.com.

I am hoping to make a community of people chatting away about their Amazon Kindles, Apple iPads, and Barnes & Noble NOOKs. If you are one of my readers and wish to help me out, I could use more people signing up and posting on that board. As we all know, no one posts to an empty board. Eventually it will be monetized so if you all stick around maybe you will watch it grow?

I have also decided I have a Domain Addiction. I buy domains with the intentino of monetizing them, but I have way too much on my plate to really do anything about it. So I have decided to start a 12 step program called domain buyers anonymous. For those of us afflicted with Domain Buying Addiction. I almost bought 2 domains today but decided not too, I have tons of domains I can monetize, but just need to sit down and do it.

Do you, or someone you know, suffer from Domain Buying Addiction? We can help…hahaha…

BTW I own over 350 domains, is that sick or what? I ‘d like to know.

Anyway on to the report for this month:

Amazon – 48.43

Dating Sites – 465.17

Affiliate eBook Sales – 47.50

Text Link Ads – 57.67

Google – 284.11

Advertising – 100.00

Total – $1002.88

last month (April) – 977.53

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April Monthly Income Report

Larry C. — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:54:38 +0000

It’s been almost 2 months since I posted to this blog, only because I am busy with my other sites and niches, that I have a hard time writing to this blog at times. I’m so busy at times that I forget to post to this blog. My apologies, I will try to post at least twice a week from now on.

So the last income report I gave was totaled at $1,356.91 for the month of March, and I posted this on April 1st. The previous income report was for December 2009 and that amount was for $1,294.78. This months income was about $350 less than the last income report coming in at $977.53. Depressing? Not really, I’ve only been doing this for almost a year now and my income before this was pretty much maybe $100 per month, if I was lucky, from Adsense.

The main difference from the last report to this one is the lump sum from Clickbank of $348.35 for affiliate products I sold. This months income report lacks the sales of clickbank as I am not using it that much at all now. Some here and there but I am working on new ways of monetizing my sites and it’s actually been pulling in a steadier stream in my opinion, than pushing and hyping clickbank products. Next month we will see a new column for Amazon.com and showing a growth in income from there, again it’s part of my system I have been working on.

What I have done with my clickbank stuff is added them to the end of the autoresponders for all my dating sites. I’ve added ebooks for dating tips for men and women, from clickbank so it’s pretty much on autopilot if they sell or not.

Aprils income breaks down like this:

Amazon – 18.00

Dating Sites – 542.16

eHow – 16.18

Pixelated Image – 15.00

Text Link Ads – 60.32

Contextual Links Ads – 325.87

Total – $977.53

Like I said before, it’s missing a chunk from clickbank sales, but I am ok with that for now. I’ve been working on a system of monetizing sites that give good content, information to people and are fast to monetize.This project came about because while many of the programs I joined to learn their strategy were good, they were effectively too slow for making money. I say this because while my day job was going down the drain because of the current state of the economy, I needed something to supplement my income so I could continue to pay the bills and feed my family.

I am putting together my own information eBook product detailing this system. I will be revealing it soon. May’s income will show an improvement due to this new system I’m doing. I just need to Lather-Rinse-Repeat, to increase income exponentially. Members of my email list will get a copy for free, and the members of Blog Mastermind will also get a copy for free.

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Compounding Online Income Streams and December’s Income Report

Larry C. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:07:15 +0000

Compounding Little Income Streams to make Bigger Income Streams.

I’d like to go over Decembers earnings and how Compounding Little Online Income Streams can help to form Bigger Streams of Income. This post is meant to encourage those having a hard time with making money online, by seeing how it’s working for me. Decembers income report is much better than the last one I put up, about $450.00 better than the last one. The last one was around $800.00.

Decembers Report.

So far the figures from December of 2009, which total $1,294.78, are as follows:

Dating Site I Run – $338.89

TLA(Text Link Ads) – $52.19

Direct Advertising on my www.RockabillyLifestyle.com website – $250.00

Photography Sales (I’m a photographer too) – $150.00

Various Affiliate Sales – $173.70

Contextual Ad Placement on 5 sites – $330.00

Again the total of all these is $1,294.78 which is pretty darn cool if you ask me, it’s gone up about $400 since my last earnings report, that I actually took down a while ago.

Compounding effects of little income streams.

In Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind Program, which I am enrolled in, he talks about compounding: “The traffic secret that every blogger knows is the power of compounding.” I am now seeing the effects of compounding this month and I’ve only been doing this for about 7 months now. I think Iam doing pretty good considering I have been totally flaking on a couple of my blogs. I have several blogs I run, most of which are hobby related and stuff I am very interested in. I know some people do blogs on topics they could care less about, but I just can’t do that. I have to have a passion in order to write about something, otherwise people will see right through me and know it’s fake.

So above I have 6 different little income streams. Each one alone, is not much money, however the effect and power of all of them together is worth $1,294.78 per month to me. That’s most of my rent payment right there. In today’s economy my day job is going downhill. I am an IT consultant and I manage 6 different companies networks and computer systems. Several of those companies are in debt to me by 3+ months, and I haven’t been paid in those 3 months by them. That’s several thousand dollars that I am out each month and needed to supplement that somehow.

Where and How I started.

I got my start accidentally through Ebay. I sell Hellraiser Puzzle Boxes on Ebay and I was also interested in Costume and Vintage Jewelry. I educated myself on the jewelry and I make and sell the puzzle boxes on Ebay. I realized when things weren’t selling that well on Ebay lately, that somethign was terribly wrong. That’s about when I realized the economy was going downhill fast and I needed to find a way to supplement.

Looking for an alternative.

I started looking around, bought a couple things, several bottles of Snake Oil as I was still learning what’s legitimate out there and whats not, and that’s when I stumbled upon Blog Mastermind, For Desperate Buyers Only, Niche Profit Classroom and Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate by Chris Rempel. I also stumbled upon 31 days to Build a Better Blog which is the best 19.95 I’ve spent on a product in a long time. If you want to learn about blogging and making an income, I suggest reading that. If you’ve got $97.00 a month you can spare for 6 months, then I Highly Suggest Signing Up for Yaro’s Blog Mastermind. That is a COMPLETE course in and of itself and I highly recommend it. If you don’t know anything at all about Blogging, what it is and isn’t, then I would suggest checking into Yaros “Become a Blogger Course”. This will teach you what is blogging, how to set it up completely and how to star blogging and make your first money, even if you have NO CLUE about blogging.

Optimizing what I already had going.

I had been running a dating service for people with a certain health issue for 13 years, when I started blog mastermind. I was making some money with it monthly, but not as much as I am starting to make now. In the blog mastermind forums you will meet all kinds of people willing to help you out for free. They are all in there for several reasons, to make money, to learn more about making money online, and helping others make money online too.

I found a few people who helped me to look at my dating site, optimize the keywords to pull in more traffic and helped to optimize the contextual advertising on the site to bring in more money from that as well. This was about 4 months ago and I posted about the site and my findings. It’s been 4 months now and the income from the site keeps going up a little bit each months, as does the income streams from my other little streams.

The Most Supremely Ultimate Important thing.

The most supremely important thing I’ve found about all this making money online stuff is being consistent. Through consistency we built discipline, and through discipline we are able to push through the times when we feel like giving up, and putting the blog down. I hit a little bt of burnout a few Weeks or months ago, as I have been doing this on several blogs for a little while now. Through consistency I have been building traffic which is the other most important thing about making money online. Traffic Traffic Traffic. Without it you have NOTHING. It is where all sales are generated and where all word of mouth comes from and all incoming links come from. If you don’t believe me, try selling something to nobody. Then you will understand the importance of Traffic! That and good content.

Enjoy your week!

Larry

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The Niche Think Tank » Earnings report

Quitting The Day Job, Finally.

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