Wednesday, December 28, 2011

New Post of Hub, Late but Complete

It has been a few weeks now since I actually posted a hub.

The main reason has been that I have been working on my Master's Degree a very intensive course which took up all of late November and Early December. Well classes ended on the 17th December and here twelve days later I found myself at a loose end and decided to fininsh off a hub which has been waotong since September for finalizing.

The beauty of HubPages is that you can work at your own pace on several projects at one time coming and going as you please.

This hub was about the Gunfight at the OK Coral in Tombstone AZ on October 26, 1881. It seemed fitting to have it posted by the 130th anniversary, but sadly I missed that with school work looming. So late, but non the less complete here is my take on the iconic western gunfight.


Read the Hub HERE

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Book Review - Stealing the General

If you love stories about railways and/or the American Civil War. The Book Stealing the General is well worth the read.

Book Review - Stealing the General

Saturday, October 22, 2011

HubPages On the Back Burner

For a few weeks now HubPages has gone to the back burner in my life.

At the beginning of September things got a little busy for me.

  • With possible changes at work, I was looking into other areas to move my employment future.
  • I was also looking into going to graduate school to take a Master of Arts in History.
  • I also had some health issues which were taking up lots of time and effort.
So for a while things got a bit hectic.

The employment issue worked its way through. I have found and plan to start my graduate studies in a few weeks and the health issues seem to be receeding.

So what has happened to my HubPages account, well basically being dormant does you as a writer no favors. It took about one week for my readership of hubs to fall from four digits to double digits per week. The world of the the online writer should have the Roman slave whispering in the ear of the vain, self impressed writer, "Readership is fleeting." much as they warned the heroic general of his glory in victorious battles.

My Hubscore has also slumped a little, though with less variation than when I posted articles. At it's height it was at 96, now I slowly fluctuate in the 84-87 area.

My evergreen posts remain the most viewd, blindness, history and money are always popular. My experimental writing fairs less well.

So for the budding writer, be aware once started you must be able to keep up some sort of output. My Yahoo! viewings continue to rise steadily, so look to adding variety to your publishers

Don't spread yourself too thin, but make work specific to various publishers. That way when life, as it tends to do, interferes, you can weather the threat of reduced income.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Halfway to the First Millenium!

Today I passed the 500 views mark on my Yahoo! Contributor Network pages.

This comes a little over three months after my first post on July 6, 2011.

Since then I have made 43 posts and earned a few dollars from a couple of posts which were paid up front. Those upfront payments don't count towards views, so I have 40 posts counting towards views.

Yahoo! Contributor Network pay out after each 1,000 views, so if I gain views at the same rate, we are looking for a payout around January or February 2012. That payment would give me $1.50.

I reckon that on average a post takes an hour, to produce so $1.50 for 40+ hours work over about six months and you can see that is not a lot of money.

This is not a grumble though, it is just to show the reality. I have produced a post every four days or so. That is not too many and I have produced several poems, not the best payers over all. A couple of restaurant reviews, those got the up front payments, political opinions and recipes. How to make money at the library was my best viewed work at this time, with over 10% of all views.

So if you are looking to make cash online writing is a good source, but you need either lots of time or lots of good content, to produce rapid results.

To read Make Cash at the Library CLICK HERE!

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Amazon Is Back in California

A few days ago, Amazon.com e-mailed me to ask me to return as an affilliate.

They claimed that the California Online Sales Tax Act was repealed by Governor Gerry Brown.

It appears repealed is a little strong of a term. Other sources say the Act is merely suspended in lieuu of a possible Federal Sales Tax Bill.

If the Federal Sales Tax passes it will supercede the Califfornia tax and if the Federal Tax fails Amazon will peobably pay the California tax.

Given that the Federal Sales tax may be argued unconstitutional and fail it seems possible California Sales tax will be paid by Amazon in the future, but it may be several years or a decade or more before we actually find out.

Until then I will resume my affiliate status, but continue to consider any income from that as extra pocket money. Of course now I also have to pay additional business taxes for a licence to be a fully legal affilliate.

Oh Well, nothing ventured nothing gained.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Upfront Cash or CPM Payments? What is right for you?

When writing on Yahoo! Contributor Network you have the choice of whether to submit items for upfront payment or to opt for Performance payment only.

What you choose is very important and affects how you will be paid.

With the cash upfront payment, you submit items for editorial consideration, this is then either accepted and a cash offer made or rejected for several reasons.
Yahoo! will turn down your work for several reasons, especially if the work is time sensitive such as news or sport based. Editorial consideration can take two or three weeks so you need to consider if you really need the two or three dollars quite so soon.

If you do want to sell your work outright, it appears, in my experience, that items sold for cash then never receive any performance payments. You only get the sun that was offered in the first place.

From my calculations performance payments or CPM (cost per thousand) in the first few months on Yahoo! Contributor Network receive a payment of about 1 cent per 5 or 6 views. so it can take a while for your cash to build if this is your main means of income from writing on the site. They pay out when your performance views reach about 1,500 views. ($1.50) In the early stages you get less cash per view than later as you get closer to 1,500 your payments are supposed to increase.

Taking cash if you can in the early stages seems to make sense if you can, but if you want to use those items to increase your CPM payments then maybe if they are good subjects that you are certain will bring in readers over time you may be better off foregoing the upfront payment and the editorial delays and opting for performance payments only. This means your work if you publish immediately for performance payment is available to readers for anything up to four weeks sooner than it would be if submitted for editorial review.

If it is a popular item you could have 2-300 views in that time if the item is well publicized.

That way as time passes your work will continue to contribute to your income for the longer term.

As you write more items your required number of CPM views actually falls, so one item requires 1,500 views to pay out. 100 items only require 15 views per item on aveage to reach the payout level.

Believe you me, the level of 15 page views per day is very achievable above the 50 items posted level.

This is something well worthwhile in considering as you look into making cash from your writing.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Two Years On: What I have Learned on HubPages

This weekend I celebrated my second anniversary of my first article (Hub) on HubPages.
I took the time to create a hub which describes my feelings and share my ideas of how both I and my writings have changed over that time.

This hub also talks about some of the tips and discoveries I have made over my time on HubPages.

There was actually a wonderful response from many of my readers. Thank you to all who have commented so far. This Hub has actually been my fastest viewed hub up until today, 98 people read it in the first twenty-four hours. That rate is twice as fast as my previous record for my Gettysburg Ghost Photograph.
I believe this single hub has also added 10% more followers to my following in the first twenty-four hours too. My following was 51, this time yesterday, 57 now.

People seem to love HubPages experience stories.


Read the full Hub for yourself here: Two Years On: What I have Learned on HubPages

Monday, August 29, 2011

What does "A" Mean on My Hub List? How To Create a Hub Summary

In recent days, you may have noticed a mysterious letter "A" appear on your account page after a hub title.

What does this "A" mean and How do I fix it?

The "A" tells you that your hub has no summary. Plain and simple.

How to Fix it.

  1. Click EDIT next to the Hub title.
  2. When the hub appears scan down the right side of the page, above the Tags area you will see an option for summary.
  3. Click Summary option.
  4. Write a brief summary of the hub, up to 160 characters including spaces is recommended.
  5. When completed click on done editing to save the changes.

HubPages say that this summary should appear when your hub  appears in the search engine window. Giving the reader a brief enticing summary should bring you more traffic.

You need to allow yourself time to create an enticing summary, create a hook to bring the reader to your hub, don't tell them the whole story or they have no need to come.

Tease but don't Relieve.


I now have 40+ hubs so I think it may take me a couple of weeks to complete all summaries. It is an important job, so don't rush it.

Your summary is an advertisement for your work. Don't sink your ship for poor workmanship on your summary.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Succeed as a Student: Finally Published.

As I mentioned over the weekend I was waiting on the publication of a couple of my articles on YAHOO! Contributor Network (YCN).

One of the articles was finally published today, after three weeks waiting. 

The article is "How to Succeed as a Student" some of my easy to follow tips from my experience of gaining my Honors Degree with a 4.0 GPA.

You can use the tips to improve your grade at any time during the courses, which you are taking, but if you are able to start early, I believe that you too will achieve a 4.0 GPA (grade Point Average) and you too can become an Honors graduate.

To read the full article CLICK HERE!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

How the Cash Grows

Of the online publishing sites which I have joined this year: Yahoo Contributor Network; List My 5 and Squidoo. There is a noticable disaster.

Squidoo has not lived up to it's expectations. I have had constant trouble logging in. For some reason my password keeps getting corrupted. I am unable to use all the functions when I do log in. It is just too complicated to get a lens (post) up that I lose patience and there is no real incentive to work through, the community there seem self interested and unwilling to help out. So Squidoo is not a place I like to go.

The other two publishing sites are very good for me.

List My 5 produces a good stream of views, now coming up to 10,000 in six months. I also now have a little income stream coming in from them. My lists are maturing and people are now clicking through on my links.

Prior to the Removal of my Amazon Affilliate status along with all the other California Affilliates my Amazon aStores were doing well with click throughs on List My 5, better than on my blogs or HubPages. I was really hit badly in that area with the closing of my account. But as I say I am seeing increased traffic through pay per click revenue at this time.

Yahoo Contributor network is doing very well. I have a couple of articles under review before posting. These can take a couple of weeks to be processed and one was time sensitive. It is on preparing for school and so evergreen but has missed the boat this year, hopefully it will bring some revenue over the rest of the school year, as there are ongoing improvement tips. But we have to wait for Yahoo! to publish it.

The network is also producing good viewing figures, I have risen in the contributor rankings which will pay me a higher rate per view, if current view rates are maintained by the end of the year.

Most of my articles I post directly. Waiting for review can be frustrating as I mentioned. I am now aiming to have 100 items posted on both List My 5 and YCN by the end of the year. That will triple my number of items and will need to be in addition to all my blog and HubPages work.


For YAHOO! Contributor Network articles   CLICK HERE!

For List My 5 articles     CLICK HERE!

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Edit. Re-Write or Leave Alone? What to do with aging hubs.

Recently my friend on HubPages davenmidtown asked about the keyword menu option on his hub pages.

The keyword menu comes up on the edit hub/stats for hub menu.

When you first write a hub the keyword menu is blank, and appears useless. Go back after a couple of months however and you will find the keyword menu full of interesting phrases and words which Google has linked with your hub.

This then raised the question, What do you do with this information?

You can use the information in several ways. You can edit and re-write parts of your hub to include one or two of the keywords and key phrases that Google has provided you with.
You can write a hub on a similar topic and use the keywords already supplied with Googles report.

Personally I like to go back and tweek my hubs after about four months. By this time they are maturing and the longevity is making them appeal to Search Engines they have often been read by several hundred visitors and you can also incorporate some of the comments into the hub to add extra interest or answer questions in the hub itself. This saves the new reader having to look at all your comments for a interesting tit-bit of information.

Sometimes I have found that I have the makings of another hub, the list of keywords is useful to tag the new hub and also build a good framework to expand upon it.

I would always advise looking over older hubs, they are a good source of information to help you find out how Google has seen your hubs. But always use keywords and key phrases sparingly.


Use of Keywords CLICK HERE!


How to use keywords to bring you an audience and ads Think Like a Hunter Click HERE!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Views Increased since the New Domain Changed.

At the Beginning of July, 2011. I changed my hubpages to incorporate the new sub domain URL.

At the time I was receiving most of my views from within HubPages itsellf, only 9% of my traffic according to Google Aanalytics was coming from the search engines.

Today my search engine traffic has increased to 34% of my overall viewing figures.

This overall improvement in traffic via the search engines has come at a lean time for me as to writing new hubs. I have written just two in the last month due to going on vacation and other time constraints. 

Overall Google itself has produced 59% of my global traffic. Since the changes to HubPages and the sub domain were to counter the effects of the Google PANDA update in April I think this is a good sign that HubPages has done a good job and that traffic volumes are now moving in a positive direction.

Other Search Engine Traffic is also increased overall but to a less marked extent.

If you have not yet updated your HubPages to take advantage of the new sub-domain  I would suggest that you seriously consider doing so. 

  If you need instructions to create your HubPages Sub-Domain CLICK HERE!

Saturday, August 6, 2011

What a Wonderful Day!

There is little doubt when a day like today happens it is wonderful.

As a writer somedays can be tough. Days when doing anything is better than sitting in front of a keyboard and staring at a blank screen with an equally blank mind. Those days are HELL!

Today I woke about 6am, a warm and sunny morning here in the Central Valley of California. The crickets were still chirping their last from the night and the birds were fluttering in the fronds of the palm tree outside my window.

I got up and showered while the coffee brewed. Then came to my computer and logged on to the web.

Late last night I posted my first hub for several weeks. I had seen my hubscore fall from 96 to 86 in the last three weeks.

I knew the answer was to write something but had no firm convictions so I posted answers and comments and watched my hubscore flutter downwards. Ideas in my mind would not become concrete enough to actually do any work on them.

It was a lazy time and I just allowed myself to drift.

Last night energized with one of my hub ideas, I sat down to type and publish. This morning my hubscore had jumped back to 91. First positive. I then wrote to my Cafepress blog to expand on an idea. Then went to Yahoo to write a short piece for them that had been circulating in my mind. That is now waiting to be scrutinized for upfront payment, and I have been back and too to HubPages to post answers and comments. All this while sipping my coffee from my Barcelona Starbucks mug.

There is actually a story behind that particular mug, maybe that could be used in a hub, or maybe just posted as a topic of conversation somewhere.

Anyway today things are good. I think that I have done some good work, I feel happy that things are moving around my brain again. Having been log jammed for a few weeks. It is a really good day.

And the coffee is great too!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Why is Posting To Community Pages Important?

Many people when they join HubPages or Squidoo just concentrate on creating their own pages and ignore the community pages such as Forums and Questions and Answers.

While it is good to get a few hubs or lenses under ones belt. Many newcomers then rapidly complain of a lack of visitors to their pages. Then leave. All too many have ignored the Community pages provided by the major sites.

As with many things the community pages seem to be the poor ugly sister of the online publishing sites, but in reality when properly used the community pages are the Cinderella regions. Posting good quality content to these areas is as important as posting quality content to your hub or lens.

It is not for nothing that Community Postings are given prominent positions on the likes of HubPages. The site providers are giving you a small window to advertise your work. Use it well and use it often.

A good post to someones comment area or to a Forum or Q&A section can bring you lots of traffic. People read your postings in these areas and then click through your links to see if they like the rest of your work.

Using my Google Analytics account, I can see as much as 20% of my traffic has come from postings on other hubbers comment areas and from answers I have posted in the question and answer section.

Remember 20% that is a big chunk of traffic over the long term, and for possibly a lot less work.

REMEMBER

  • Use Community Areas
  • Post Quality Answers.A quick "Good Post" does nothing to add to the posting, make a real comment, explain why you think it is good. In depth answers promote YOU
  • Your comments are important to both you and those commented on. Comments add up in your search engine visability.

Being active in the community areas is important for YOU. They are not provided to fill extra memory on the server. USE THEM!

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Free Entree at Famous Dave's Barbecue.

This is one of my occasional information posts not related to making money online but to saving money in the real world..

If you enjoy BBQ and are named David or Dave, look to eat at Famous Dave's Barbecue on August 14, 2011.

That is Dave's birthday and as a present anyone named Dave or David get to eat a free entree If your middle name is David or Dave you get an entree for half price.

For those who have never eaten at Famous Dave's read my review CLICK HERE


Sunday, July 24, 2011

Make Money at Your Local Library

In this article published on Yahoo Contributor Network, I tell you how you can make money from your local city library.

Click the link to read How to Make Money at Your Local Library

Limerick: This Five Line Verse

As a hobby I enjoy writing Limericks. The simple five line poem is not easy to write, but in writing for Yahoo Contributor Network it has provided me with some higher volume of traffic in my first few weeks.

Fast to write and publish it has allowed me to build a quick portfolio of twenty posts for viewers to see, My plan now is to work on producing less Limericks for YCN and add more solid content.

The Limericks are my pot boilers, they provide me with a little income, keep my name to the fore, allow some traffic to build from SEO and hopefully will allow my better more serious work to be recognized more quickly.

It's an old tactic, successfully used throughout his career by Steven Spielberg for one. He used to direct one or two family movies and then one movie with a message. E.T. The Extraterrestrial , Amistead. etc.


To Read My Hub on Limericks, their history and a few examples, follow this link Limerick: This Five Line Verse

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Patience was Once a Virtue

It is a noticable fact that we writers are a pretty impatient bunch. Maybe we always have been, waiting for our manuscripts to be read in the past, hanging on the postman's knock, ripping open letters of acceptance or rejection.

Today, well, we send a post to our favorite platform, in seconds there it is and we then start looking at the AdSense clock to see how many clicks we have, how much each click was worth and God forbid there is a hiccup in the system.

Then we are on the techies like a pack of ravenous wolves. Why are we not getting feedback? Why is my click rate not being measured? I need to know how many views I had in the last five minutes.

OK people. Relax, so we have technical problems. We are not in a life and death situation right at this minute, unless the stress is giving us a heart attack. Call 911 someone. Writer down!

The speed of our world as online writers has meant that we have become used to almost instant gratification. Gone are the long waits as a letter moved from place to place. Please, every letter today seems to have a tracking number included. I can see the instant it arrives at my local post office and almost tell if Charlie the mail man stopped at Starbucks for his frappacino, iced, low fat mocha latte.

We need patience back in our lives. Take a deep breath when things stall, think nice thoughts about the view outside your window.

You know having not checked your stats for the last ten minutes might be good. You might have a movement in your views instead of a single viewer, who bounces out of your article on the invention of vulcanized rubber because it was not the kind of rubber item he had in mind.

Yes folks I am in a contemplative and somewhat flippant mood today. It's summer, the sun is burning down and I just want to rest easy, by a cool lake and enjoy good company over dinner. Not stress myself into the emergency room.

Patirnce should be a virtue again.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Writer's Block

You know those days?

You sit by the computer, you go to the grocery store, to the post office, the library. You come back and stare and stare at the computer again. There is nothing. You don't have a single idea.

You long to post a new hub, a lens, a post to Yahoo Contributor Network. You sit until sweat pours from your brain and drips onto those still fingers placed upon your keyboard.

You know this is terminal. A terminal case of writer's block.

The more you try to think, the more coffee you drink, the more the cursor winks. 

Ah! The muse has struck.  :)

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Creating Your HubPages Subdomain: A More Individual URL on HubPages.

Recently HubPages introduced a two click method to create a more personalized URL for your hubs.
In the past a URL might have been

 hubpages.com/hub/whatever-you-want-to-call-it

Such URL's were found to penalize publishers after the Google PANDA update and so many hubbers found their traffic falling after the April Google update.

Now a hubber may go to their My Account page and click  Profile on the drop down menu. Then click on subdomain tab and you will be offered your own sub domain URL link.

My account is under the name Bretsuki so my URL's now read

hubpages.com/bretsuki/hub/whatever-you-want-to-call-it

When you click on your chosen subdomain the process takes a second and all your hubs and links are updated to take advantage of the new  URL.

This is hoped to increase traffic as now individual hubs will be seen as independent units, rather than a part of the whole HubPages network.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Technorati

What is Technorati?

Technorati is a blog catalogue and index.

How Can it HELP Me?

If you register an account with Technorati you can then register your blogs and webpages with the index site. Whenever you update your blog Technorati receives a ping of new content via your Atom or RSS feed and then updates its files and index to allow people searching for items of interest and direct them to your blog.

If you also link your blogs to your hubPages you can direct people from all direction to your desired pages.

Because Technorati uses RSS or Atom feeds you do not have to do any work other than register the blog with the index site. All further updates are automatic after that.

Technorati also receives search engine requests and so if a search engine misses you on its own search your updates are passed on by ?Technorati.

The indexing site is free to join, registering blogs takes a few minutes, you need to provide URL's for the main page and also the feed, add tags and select areas where you see your viewers coming from.

You then submit a claim and receive a claim token, a series of numbers and letters which you place on the blog for technorati to crawl. When they find the token they then check the claim manually and in a few days or weeks the claim is processed and your position in the index is updated.

For you as a publisher it is a win, win situation. You gain SEO visibility, increased traffic and hopefully increased revenue for little work other than the original set up, plus updating your blogs.

Try it and see.


To Create a Technorati account CLICK HERE!

Friday, July 15, 2011

Use RSS Feeds to increase traffic across websites and pages.

As you increase your numbers of pages, with HubPages, Squidoo and your blog posts you should consider Really Simple Syndication(RSS).
For a while now I have used RSS feeds from my HubPages account to feed to this blog. It initially increased my traffic to my HubPages account by 10%. That is a good return for two minutes work setting up an RSS feed. Of course without a twin site with no RSS feed I cannot tell the effect on subsequent viewing figures.

Today I entered a new phase, linking some of my blogs to relevent hubs. Those hubs will now receive an updated through my RSS feeds as I add to my blogs.

Blog traffic on some blogs has increased ten fold in a few short hours. This blog hasn't seen that increase but it has doubled its viewers.

These views may also not be human views, they may be a rush of "Spiders" checking for relevence But spiders are good because they mean the Search Engines are following the links. Increasing SEO.

We will need to see if the spike of views today mean an increase of voews in the long term.

I will keep you posted on this technique.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

First Improved Squidoo Lens

My first Lens, publication, on Squidoo was a bit of a rushed affair. It was ok as a first attempt but after three weeks I felt I knew enough to go back and improve on the original.

Luckily this was easy to do. The modular design rather like HubPages does allow you to quickly adapt your articles.

You can also as you gain points add modules and widgets to your article so it is to your benefit to consider increasing the user value by adding some of the items you have access too.

My latest widget was an Amazon widget. OK so does that work if I am in California?
To be honest I don't know but I added a couple anyway. I want to create a page for the reader, Amazon have a product, so in my view I may as well learn how to use a widget and give readers the choice, even though I now personally cannot benefit. Maybe you might see that as hypocritical of me? I would be interested to know what you think?

Playing with new lens capsules also adds photograph elements and increased discussion areas.

I like the point system that Squidoo use. Basic programs and capsules are available to the beginner. As you visit you gain points, as you comment you gain points and as you add tools you gain points. Points add levels and levels give you a higher level of interface options.

In short as you use and learn, you gain more options so increasing your ability to produce high quality articles. This prevents the initial shock of too many tools being used too quickly in a jumble of unco-ordinated capsules spoiling your work. Or the shock of too many options too soon scaring you into writers paralysis. as you wonder. How do I use this program?

To see my newly edited Squidoo lens on Gadgets for the visually impaired CLICK HERE!

Monday, July 11, 2011

History Files: "Peterloo" Manchester August 1819.

As the days of summer proceed towards August, I generally ask myself.

"What would it have been like to have been in Market Street, Manchester on the afternoon of August 16, 1819?

That date and time are perhaps synonamous with one of the most infamous and despicable events of English political history. The crowd of 60,000 mill workers from Cheshire and Lancashire mill towns had made their way to Market Street and St. Peter's Field by the Manchester Quaker Meeting House to here Henry "Orator" Hunt speak against taxes on food including the "Corn Laws" and call for universal male suffrage.

The charge of the Manchester & Salford Yeomanry, sabres drawn hacking, slashing and dripping blood into the crowd is told on this page.

Read the story of "Peterloo"

History Files: "Peterloo" Manchester August 1819.

Will there be a Tax Referendum in California? Amazon latest

Amazon.com today, backed a referendum call for California voters to remove the tax legislation from the books over the next year.
It was widely reported from Sacremento today that California legislators may face their recent online tax legislation being disapproved in a popular referendum. Amazon at the end of last week filed a paper proposing removal of the law by popular ballot sometime next year.

The proposal was accepted by the State government last week and now faces a preliminary vote where nearly 450,000 Californians need to support the proposal or proposition. If this number of supporters is raised the proposal will or should be written up for application on the November 2012 ballot.

Given the current situation, this proposal will, even if it passes, mean many California affilliates will have been without Amazon for over one year, there is little possibility of a stay of execution in anticipation of the proposal succeeding. With over a year of lost business many California affilliates will possibly not survive.

This is a good step for amazon.com to have taken. I will look forward to supporting the proposal during the next few months.

Given that many Californians already feel they are oppressed I think the proposal could succede. Though many proposals for extended sales tax finance proposals are also on the books for re proposition. In my own county, Fresno, we have a Measure B proposal which supports the public library system up for a continuation proposal. Even though the Public Library system is a popular system to support, continued support of Measure B is unlikely. This will turn a very small percentage of sales tax back to county coffers for other items.

The amazon.com proposal could face one problem.

In its original tax legislation, sales tax in California was to be reduced by 1% with the decrease being filled with the online taxes.
State legislators could demand an increase in overall sales tax to levels above  the June 2010 level in part to compensate the state for lost revenue and in part to punish or disuade the voters from accepting the abolision proposition.


Financial Times Report

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Creativity Acknowledged

Sometimes, we writers not only need to receive validation from our peers. Sometimes we need to have our work supported by the validity of cold hard cash.
A few days ago I created a poem for Yahoo Contributor Network. Called "The Moon's a Piece of Cheese" it is a nonsense poem but it was the first poem I have had accepted by another for payment.

This is the story:

Creativity Acknowledged

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Amazon Affilliates: A Conspiracy Theory

In a world full of conspiracy theories, admit it there everywhere on the internet and in the media.

How about a new one involving the Amazon affilliates, California government and Amazon's bottom line.

The conspiracy goes.

Amazon is rapidly moving away from its affilliates. The company has found it valuable to move into electronic media, MP3 downloads and the massively successful Kindle e-book market and now video on demand. These items have massive profit potential and Amazon likes that. Up until now they have been out of reach of affilliates, the affilliate may link to such media but receive no commission payment for the sale.

Well the company sees the backlash of future payments when affilliates realise the matter and amid falling revenues from traditional items, books, hardware etc they demand payment for the new media. Well Amazon's margins are tight on those items anyway, but as they announced a few weeks ago, Kindle book sales now exceed traditional book sales.
The affilliates are losing their incomes anyway.

So along comes the California legislature, broke, unpopular with many, a shambles at best, but with a nugget of gold in their budget law. Not a nugget of gold for the affilliates.

The legislature agree to enforce sales tax legislation. Put the Bill to be enacted and Amazon see the nugget fall into their lap.

Now Amazon scream foul. The out of state big box companies want to destroy us, this is an unconstitutional move. By the way all you CA affilliates are dumped.

Amazon look good they stand up for the over taxed American consumer, they get a dig at WalMart and Best Buy, they also look slyly at their bottom line. All that affilliate pressure that they would have had to deal with over the electronic media sales has just disappeared from California. 100,000 lots of 4% possible claims for commission has just disappeared from the bottom line.
Profits rise with no affilliate payments.

So who gains? Not the California affilliates, not the California legislature but no-one really cares about those two groups anyway.

But Amazon comes out winning on both sides of the equation!

Either someone at Amazon did think of this already or I bet they wish they had.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Dark T-Shirt Men's Shirts Tweet Me Bretsuki

One of my most popular pages on HubPages was "Gettysburg Ghost Photograph"

I have also created a collection of tee-shirts and items using the photograph.

This is a link to the best selling item of the collection please feel free to come by and browse.

Dark T-Shirt Men's Shirts Tweet Me Bretsuki

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

What the? Amazon Threatens to Sack ALL California Affilliates

I, like thousands of other Amazon Affilliates based in California today received an e-mail saying that if Governor Jerry Brown signed the new internet sales tax bill into law, they (Amazon.com) would terminate our accounts.

Jerry Brown did sign the law later this afternoon and so affilliates are now in no-man's land. Do we continue to post Amazon ads on our hubs, lenses, blogs or do we say good riddens to Amazon?

I for one have earned very little from Amazon in the couple of years that I have been an affilliate. That is not Amazons fault, but I did still post links and we can never know how many sales are created by just seeing repeated good reports on Amazon products, then people just log on through their own accounts and buy without using an affilliate.

It seems to me that Amazon has shot itself in the foot. For a company which prides itself in doing things right, for me it has got things badly wrong. Now as a customer, I am angry to be treated badly as an affilliate. The company is punishing me for the actions of a politician. In the event it does not close my account, it has shown it does not truly respect me as an individual or my fellow California affilliates as a group.

This was a slap in the face which we did not deserve. So Amazon why should we come back or even stay loyal when your loyalty has been so lacking?

The article below is from the San Francisco Chronicle and reports this afternoons events.


Amazon Affilliates Take Hit for the State

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Looking Around the Market Place




Last week, I was looking around and found a site which has quite a good reputation for publishing items. It is called Squidoo.

I signed up Monday using Facebook rather than inputting my data myself. The problem with that was my Facebook accountfor some reason keeps resetting my default e-mail address to an old and out of date account.

This is annoying in this case because I cannot get access to that e-mail anymore and so did not receive an e-mail verification code.

I can write posts, lenses as they are called on Squidoo, but I cannot post anything yet.

I did write to inform them of the problem Monday and Friday, their first reply, received Wednesday, only addressed changing the default e-mail in their system, since the staff is small at Squidoo I waited till Friday, just in case someone else would answer the verification part, no-one did. So I wrote again to request a new verification notice be sent but despaired of hearing before next week.

I have however been writing a couple of lenses there and edited a little. I do not want to do too much just in case I have to close the account and go back to the beginning.

There model is interesting you receive fifty percent of their advertising revenue from several companies such as Google and Amazon. The interesting theory is that you should come out about equal with them compared to HubPages or your own website. They are able to push the big advertisers for better terms, so with Amazon they get 8% so you still earn 4% on your Amazon ads. You can also advertise with Zazzle and Cafepress merchandize from your own store or elsewhere and receive commissions on sales. You may also choose to take all of the cash you generate for yourself or you may asign 50% to Squidoo's own choice of charity or you may choose from a list of charities to share your income for all or some of your lenses. There is a wide variety of charities you can benefit. Giving from a few cents to 100% of your income.

As I mention this is all on hold at the moent as I wait on my e-mail address to be verified before I post a lens.

Additional Comment: At About the same time this Blog was Published Squidoo, manually verified my e-mail account. I am now able to post and Thank Squidoo's staff for dealing with the matter in a professional and curtieous manner.

Free Sign up to Squidoo here:

Squidoo

Thursday, June 23, 2011

What are your Hubs for?

Many people when they first join sites such as HubPages do so because they see writing a few posts and getting GoogleAdSense to advertise as a route to easy money.

Who can blame them? Over the past few years I have seen articles in the press that make it sound that easy, come up with a post, place ads, wait for the check.

The reality is of course very different for most, it is work. They have to work at things, hubs are one part of the process, you write them and they take their place in cyberspace. But away from the hub writing if you are in it for money you need to work on the social aspects, support fellow hub writers, work on side businesses, such as being an Amazon Associate, or writing a blog, maybe creating an online store.

The hub is a central feature of your online presence.

You can of course just write a hub or many hubs for pleasure. That is a wonderful thing to do. I do that myself for the most part. I write when I get a inspired thought or an event triggers the idea for a hub. You will earn income from that method, and it may be a significant income if people like your hubs on a continuing basis. But most of the time these will earn very little.

You get a pleasant feeling when you see your readership grow. But you need to have a realistic view that this is not going to be more than a paying hobby.

On the other side if you want to earn real income, you need to set yourself up for a long ride. You need to see HubPages as a job. You need to discipline yourself to plan and build your business.

To succeed you need to see it as a business. Set yourself goals.

  • Set the number of Hubs you will write per week or month.
  • Set a goal to increase readership.
  • Build on other resources to drive traffic. (Create a Blog, Make Comments on others Hubs.
  • Work at being a member of the community.
Notice non of these goals mention income!

Income for the beginner is an intangible asset. You can increase your income 700% if your first click pays 2 cents and your second click pays 14cents.

You should not measure yourself against such unpredictable factors.

Make your initial goals at least for the first year, ones that you can achieve and are in control of.

You can write one hub a week or seven, you are in control.

You can learn what your readers enjoy and write for your market. Increasing your readership by controlling your output.

You can work on non HubPages ideas, such as this. Write a Blog and share it with the world. It's link increases your SEO and it is another outlet for your creativity.

You are a social being, support others in the HubPages community, offer advice, join the chat, do whatever but don't spam your community. Being involved gets you noticed and brings you followers.


To succeed with sites like HubPages you need to decide what you want it to be. If it is an income creator, you need to make it a job. If you want a hobby don't be upset if it earns you very little.

Both though require you enjoy the experience. That way you will keep going back and doing more.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

MP3 Music Downloads Now Available Here

Many writers say that to increase traffic to your pages that you should offer your readers and item or service.

I have looked aroiund for you and came up with some MP3 Music downloads. You can go to the Amazon store posted here and look at the top downloads.

If you purchase a download Amazon pay me a penny or two for my link,

But here is something nice for you. I included some FREE MP3 Music Downloads for you.

That's right, no strings, as a thank you, you can take away some MP3 music for $0.00

My MP3 Music Spot includes FREE downloads

Hubpages Writer Shirt from Zazzle.com

I have seen some questions asking if there are Hubpages shirts available anywhere online.

Well as it turns out there are some designs available in various styles.
This is one item from zazzle.com it will take you to a link where you can see other similar items.

I hope this helps

Hubpages Writer Shirt from Zazzle.com

Monday, June 13, 2011

Blind Designer Working

This hub follows on from my ideas set out in my hub Increase You Wealth :Multiple Streams of Income.

There are two streams of income active and passive. Income from online selling or AdSense is passive after the original time invested creating a means ofincome. Active income is direct selling of your time with such actions as doing a job paid for as either piece work or receiving a salary for doing some work or task.

This will be a long term experiment, with cafepress.com and zazzle.com, which I foresee lasting until at least Christmas 2012. No I am not a believer in the Mayan theory of the end of the world. LOL. I plan six months to learn the businesses, then one full business cycle from Christmas 2011 to Christmas 2012 to see if they are worth continuing with.

I hope you will continue to follow my progress and maybe we can learn together.


Blind Designer Working

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Think like a hunter

When posting any article online it is essential to plan if you are to get the results of bringing in traffic to click your advertisements.

You need to plan the project of posting like a hunting trip. What hunter would go out with a slingshot to hunt a bear or take a fishing rod to shoot deer?

Just writing an article off the top of your head will work, someone will read it even if that is only a friend, parent or spouse. They might praise you then massage your ego for a while then move on.

As a publisher of written work, you have two kinds of prey, the advertiser and the advertisers customer. The advertiser will be there if you only post a few words on your web page. They will appear because you call them with your keywords. They will hop around happily and safely, not spending one penny on your precious site because you have not attracted the readers who will click on their ads.
To bring in customers you can use the advertisers tool, Google AdWords. AdWords will tell you what both advertisers are buying in terms of keywords, it also tells you what customers are looking for in terms of keywords, because those keywords are the ones advertisers are buying.

Search keywords on AdWords and you will also see additional keyword choices for your topic keyword, these choices also show what people are searching for.

In terms of hunting, AdWords is like a map to the hunting ground. You see exactly where your prey, advertiser and customer are, you get to pick your weapon; the topic; the ammunition; the keywords or key phrases; and you make your way off to your computer to write your article armed and ready to bag both of them.

Again a little planning will help, research keywords and key phrases. Study the behavior of both the advertiser and the customer, research is rarely wasted, like the hunter studies their favorite prey, you will soon become able to adjust your ideas in order to obtain the results you desire.

For books on SEO go to:

Bretsuki's SEO aStore

Monday, June 6, 2011

Some Days Stink!

This weekend was a stinker. It all began Friday night. I was hoping for a good nights sleep as I closed up the house but then ...

Well I'll let you link to the full story.

Some Days Stink!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Using Keywords

The use of keywords is an inexact science when publishing hubs or lists. Some people think to flood their posts with dozens of keywords, in every posibble combination they can think of. This tactic is ok in terms of bringing in traffic, but it leaves the reader lost. bewildered and frustrated as they search through a long list of keyword rich material or just bounce straight back off your page.

One can equate such use of keywords as like a hunter using a shotgun, he or she might hit everything in front of the gun, but do you want to kill the tree, rabbit, squirrel, and the prey all at the same time?

Better use one precisely defined keyword or term in a few well selected ways. You then write strong content around the keyword and produce a much tighter controlled article, which the search engines like and also a reader might like. They might even click on your advertisements too, or seek out your other articles.

This approach is more like the sniper with a rifle. One shot and one target. Getting the right keyword will bring your reader to you, by the search engine, the reader finds what they want and you have done a perfect job. They might even click on an ad to reward you.

Writing online should be just as much about providing the reader with what they want. OK you want earnings so place advertising on your site but if you do not provide the reader with anything more than meaningless words with no real information or entertainment, Why should you be expecting a reader to stay, read and look at your work, let alone click on your ads which you spent hours researching keywords for.

Remember keep the use of keywords down to a minimum. I have deliberately loaded this post with a particular keyword just to give an example. See if you can be your own search engine on this article, read it as English prose then consider it as text for a search engine looking for keywords.

Anyone care to tell me what the keyword for this article was?

I have also created an Amazon aStore which sells items intended to advise you about optimizzation of your website and posting to bring potential customers to your pages. You will find books (both paper and Kindle) along with DVD's and MP3 downloads. This aStore is linked to my Amazon Affiliate account and I receive a small payment from Amazon if you decide to purchase any item. I do not record any personal information about you, the aStore is connected directly to Amazon.com and all purchases are guaranteed by them under their normal terms and conditions.

Bretsuki's Search Engine Optimization Store

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Hubpages says Goodbye to Kontera

This month, June 2011, Hubpages will cease to allow Kontera contextual ads on its site.

There has been some discussion over recent weeks regarding Hubpages own introduction of an advertisement payment system. I believe the Hubpages system is a CPM model, so revenue is paid for display of advertisements, usually just a few cents per thousand views. Many Hubbers have complained at a loss of revenue, though the Hubpages advertising program is voluntary and Hubbers can return to just using Google Adsense if they wish.

It is well known that Google has downgraded sites with contextual advertisements over the past few years. One might ask if that is just out of a spirit of fairness for the consumer who might be duped into clicking a contextual ad in a blog or post or if it is just a means of pushing their own advertising revenue up with their own advertising program AdSense? Anyone care to comment?

With the removal of Kontera advertisements from Hubpages it will be interesting to see if Hubpages as a whole and individual Hubbers will see an increase in their Google search positions and if they will in turn see an increase in their AdSense and maybe Hubpages income.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Traveling Around London



Traveling Around London

With Memorial Day here in the US thoughts turn to summer and vacations.

A great place to visitt is London. For many people the vast array of transport options while staying there is overwhelming, my hub friend Lindestar has written a wonderful introduction to travelling around London. It is useful for any visitor to England's capital city. She also has produced some hubs as guides to British food and tips for a first day inLondon.

Anyone interested in visiting London would be well advised to take a look.


Monday, May 23, 2011

List My 5

This month has been very quiet for me on List My 5. With lots of work elsewhere, I had a hard time finding time to post there.


This is a link to my recent posts at the site though.


http://www.listmyfive.com/bretsuki

Making Money on Hubpages With Google AdSense: The Unanswerable Question

One of my latest Hubs covers the use of AdSense in providing income. AdSense is possibly the most common provider of income for publishers online. But because it is so common people misunderstand its proper use.

Many think that just having Google AdSense will bring in the revenue or cash stream. Finding out about Google AdSense and how it works is a key to earning real money online.

Writing focused and original content is vital for your own success.

Making Money on Hubpages With Google AdSense: The Unanswerable Question

Friday, May 20, 2011

Online Cash for Students

If you are a college student looking for some extra income. Online publishers like Hubpages and List My 5 are a potential source of income.

They will also provide income in the long term too. Long after your student days they will continue to bring residual income. All you need to do is to open accounts with Hubpages and / or List My 5, then open an AdSense account and write a few hubs and lists.

Ok you need to keep writing too, not just hope that your one hub or one list will bring in good income, it won't.

So you may say I don't know anything! What can I write about? The answer is most things. Keep in mind they must be legal and keep some things private, you don't need to publicize a Spring Break escapade , then in a few years have a potential employer Google you and find it.

REMEMBER: Anything put onto the web is there FOREVER, even if you think it is deleted it is still out there somewhere.

I would stick to evergreen subjects that will continue to be searched for a while. Coping with school and homesickness etc. If you want to make lists select topics like the best things to do, best sportsmen or women of all time, the lists are endless.

Bear in mind revenue will be slow, don't try to get friends to click ads by the way, that gets you banned from AdSense and there is no way back. Google has all the power and if you lose Googles goodwill they are not going to make it possible for you to earn AdSense income again, and you even risk your friends losing potential income too if they want to write online.

Where to write?

If you like lists, have lots of ideas, then List My 5 is quick. After planning I can get a list together on the site in about twenty minutes. So a list a day could be possible. You need About thirty lists to earn some income returns. But sticking to evergreen subjects will payoff, in a year you could potentially have 365 lists and at the end of a four year College you would have 2905, if you write one per day and include the leap year.

Writing Hubs takes a little more time, I am not a typist and take about two hours per Hub, but they offer more information and also a wider range of advertising revenues. But even at one per week after a College career you would have 208 if you wrote one per week.

The income can also be increased using Blogger to market your hubs and lists.
You may not see a great deal of income as you write through college, but bear in mind the residual income will be there to help you pay off student loans and boost income forever.

Consider it like that boring thing Retirement planning the earlier you start the larger your income will be, plus if you do begin early you will have a portfolio of thousands of income sources throughout your life.

Any Questions or ideas?

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Histrory files: Operation Mincemeat

Early in World War Two a young British Royal Navy Officer in the Naval Intelligence Department, wrote a memo to his commanding officer outlining a plan using a dead body to carry documents to the Germans in order to deceive them. The commanding officer dismissed the plan as ridiculous and sent it to be filed away. The young naval officer returned to his desk and dreamed of other plots. His name was Ian Flemming and little did he know his plot would be used in a deception which would rival the plot of his later creation, James Bond, agent 007.

Flemming's memo was uncovered months later by Lieutenant Commander Ewan Montague, Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve and Flight Lieutenant Chalmondley of Royal Air Force Intelligence.

Together Montague and Chalmondley created the fictional Royal Marines Major William Martin. Martin's one and only mission was to carry secret plans to the German Military Intelligence to Brief Adolf Hitler as to the plans by the British and Americans to invade Greece and the Balkans in 1943.

The Histrory files: Operation Mincemeat

Monday, May 16, 2011

Hot Topic

One of today's hottest topics on Hubpages was regarding the amount of income one can expect. One of my favorite hubbers, Sharyn's Slant, posted a good hub on her recent experience.Many new hubbers come to the site with high hopes of creating a good income.

They are often surprised and disheartened that sometimes two or three months work does not bring the reward they had hoped. Working through the slump between initial enthusiasm and the final reward can be tough. It would be nice if one could see instant high income of a thousad dollars per month at the beginning of ones writing career, but the common experience is to see sometimes two or three years as the real timeline for such income. By then sadly many good writers drop by the wayside and miss on a portfolio building opportunity.

In online publishing quality counts very much towards income,If you write well the readers come back over and over again.

Quantity is also a big play. Imagine the scenario you need one hundred dollars to get home, do you go to people and ask everyone for one hundred dollars? How successful do you think you would be? Maybe you might hit it rich but probably not. Now imagine asking for a dime towards your fare? Maybe some would refuse but someone might give you a dollar, someone a quarter. OK it takes longer and is more effort but you stand a better chance of making your goal. This is how AdSense revenue works, you produce work which asks for dimes and the occasional dollar.

The additional benefit to writing online is that each post or hub becomes an independent clone for you. It asks for a dime along with the ten or twenty, hundred or thousand other hubs, twenty-four hours per day every day of the rest of your life. Now that is why patience is a virtue when writing online. :)

Sharyn's Hub can be seen at:   http://hubpages.com/hub/Trying-to-EARN-MONEY-WITH-HUBPAGESCOM-ONLINE-Makes-Me-Hungry

Saturday, May 14, 2011

A Surprise Reaction

In my time writing on Hubpages I have been surprised by the popularity of one particular post.
Living With Disability: My Life With Blindness, was posted a couple of months ago. It was about the time I decided to return to seriously writing hubs after the end of my degree courses left me at a loose end.

In the weeks since it was published it has far outstripped all of my other hubs in terms of views. In fact it now alone contributes 10% of my total viewing figures. The major surprise for me is that this hub was written in a couple of hours, little research was required because it was a response to personal circumstances. This was a very personal post, most other hubs I distanced myself from the topic at hand to some degree My Life With Blindness is about how I see the world. I describe how my vision has deteriorated to leave me in a permanent white fog.

To me the response shows it is not necessarily picking subjects that generate search engine traffic, most views come from other sources, facebook, twitter and non search engine referrals.

Personally, it is also not im my opinion the best of my work, I am much happier with other posts which I researched and put a lot of effort into, outside posting on hubpages, my History Files Series for example. But still the viewers come. Showing that sometime breaking the rules of search engine optimization, looking for high revenue posts is not always the most satisfying and rewarding part of online writing, but opening ourselves to our audience and taking risks and sharing a brief glimpse into ones life can reward us as writers even more.

To read the Article My Life With Blindness click here:   http://hubpages.com/_2zz5qui0m5ngg/hub/Living-with-Disability-My-Life-with-Blindness

Monday, May 9, 2011

If You Already Post on Hubpages

If you already post on Hubpages, feel free to post a link to your Hubs on this Blog. You should also use your own publication tracker code.

Why Should I Advertise Here?

One simple reason you should advertise your hub here is to give your hub an outside source for new visitors. Creating a new source outside Hubpages will help increase your Search Engine visibility and so increase your traffic to your site.
More viewers might increase your own revenue stream.

Why post my own tracker code here?

Posting your individual tracker code will mean if your Hub is selected by a reader to go to Hubpages and they decide to register, you will be credited with their introduction and may receive income from their posts and income stream later.
You can only win if you use this facility.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Talk the Talk

Sometimes we're asked to do something way outside our comfort zone.
For me that was to give a public speech on how to succeed as a disabled student and how to best utilize the services available to students in College.

I know I can write on the subject, so did the people who invited me to speak; but when the time came could I Talk the Talk

Saturday, April 30, 2011

List My Five Update

In Mid April 2011, I joined List My 5. This hub reports on my experience so far on that site and talks of an experiment to bring fresh traffic to my List My 5 pages.
List My Five Update

Friday, April 29, 2011

Am I Not Getting Some Message?

There are times in one's life when it seems everyone is telling you something. Is this one of those times?
Am I Not Getting Some Message?

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Should a Man Wear a Wedding Ring?

I asked this question a few weeks ago, in part inspired by the announcement by Prince William that he will not wear a ring after his marriage to Kate Middleton this Friday.
What are your views?

Should a Man Wear a Wedding Ring?

Monday, April 25, 2011

Succeed as a Disabled Student

This Hubpage has been highlighted this week. Given my experience as a disabled student it seemed fitting to share some advice.
Succeed as a Disabled Student

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Is the Future of Internet Writing Going to Include the Hispanic Community?

The United States is at almost 80% internet usage today. That is four out of five people use the internet at anyone period. With this in mind it is easy to see why the US is falling in the indices whixh show internet usage growth. Latin America though has seen rapid growth in Internet usage recently.

I live near a large Hispanic community, here in California. It seems though that few people in that community see opportunity to break into the Hispanic market for writing.

I as an English only writer am competing against thousands of others in a US and worldwide market which has matured and is near saturation. There is a real opportunity in my mind for Hispanic article writers to expand into Latin America from here in the US and build a solid following.

The demand for Hispanic writers and their work will also have increased demand over the next few decades at least, here in the United States. By 2050 the Hispanic community is estimated by the US Census Bureau to be a majority community in this country. That community if it becomes bi-lingual in English and Spanish could dominate the internet publishing world for the whole hemisphere. That is exciting!

But what we need now is to encourage the Hispanic community at all levels to build a foundation of good writing. 

Look to the English market to level off in the coming years. People will always speak a form of English, from native to English as a Second Language at all levels. But I believe that speaking to a people in their own language is much easier on the internet. For this reason I would say to Hispanic and non Hispanic alike, now is the time to look to Latin America and the probable Hispanic majority US as a potential market for the next forty years at least.

We should begin to support Hispanic use of the internet today, supporting the networks of the future now.  While the market is open, not wait for the markets to fill and we have to compete on a uneven playing field that advantages others.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

When will I earn "Real" Money?

Probably the question asked most often by people looking to write online with sites like Hubpages and List My 5 is, "When will I earn 'Real' money?"

When I answer I try to be honest, there is no saying how much or how soon anyone will earn money, I can feel the disappointment in the room. Many see online writing as a quick fix, they need a hundred dollars to fix their car. They have heard of someone a friend knows who earns $20,000 a year for a minute or two, typing something on a computer which Google then plasters with ads that people click on and Google pays them lot's of money. They know this, their friend wouldn't lie about such things.

Their friend is not a liar. They just misunderstand. The person who earns $20,000 per year is not just taking a minute or two to publish one thing and earning money from that. The main portion of online income comes from residual income. That person might write one or two articles per week, have a catalogue of a couple of hundred older mature posts which are present and earning several dollars a month, it is not much compared to the headline thousands. But it is real money.

I always equate earning income from writing as like a singer songwriter who gets just one hit in their lifetime. Sure every recording sold or everytime their song is played on the radio they earn a few cents. Compare that singer to 'The Beatles' they wrote hundreds of songs, some they didn't record themselves but allowed others to use. Their hundreds of songs mean there is a chance that one of their songs is being played anywhere in the world at any particular time. They too earn a few cents per play or sale, but the sheer volume of cents rapidly builds to hundreds of dollars.

The beginner writer then needs to consider the long term, maybe a minimum of two to three years. In that time they will learn the trade of online writing, how to use links and publicize themselves effectively. As their portfolio of work grows they will see a gradual growth of income from cents to dollars. It all takes time though. The hundred dollars next week for the car repair may be a pipe dream, it may happen for a few lucky people, just like the one hit wonder of the singer/songwriter. But for most the slowly building catalogue that will leave you with lots of sources of residual income is the more common route.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Then the Ostrich Pooped!

Then the Ostrich Pooped!

A visit to the eye doctor,

Let's see.

Today I was reading an interesting list on List My 5; it suggests ways to write posts for the new Google Algorithm:

http://www.listmyfive.com/07fe54c2/The-Top-Five-Ways-to-Write-With-Google's-New-Algorithm-or-Apparently-So

Anyone interested would do worse than to read it. I didfind some of the ideas interesting and a little irritating if Google is dumbing down the internet.

I also took a try at trying to follow some of the suggestions in the post. My post followed misunderstandings around the St. Patrick's Day holiday and we will see if I got the key word thing right. So far over 50% of my viewers go to my list on holiday destination in the US, but somehow I think they may be looking for Disneyworld rather than my choices.

St. Patrick's Day List:

http://www.listmyfive.com/cd17abca/The-Top-Five-Misunderstood-Facts-About-Saint-Patrick

Tourist Destinations:

http://www.listmyfive.com/dd220d02/The-Top-Five-Travel-Destinations-In-the-United-States

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Latest Five

Yesterday I worked on a list of five eating places around Santa Cruz California, they also share the distinction of being within two or three miles of Highway one (Pacific Coast Highway or PCH).

See my list at:

http://www.listmyfive.com/67e042b7/The-Top-Five-Places-to-Eat-Around-Santa-Cruz-California

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

What posts are on my mind?

Writing seems such an easy thing to do some days. At the moment I have a few research ideas coming on.

  1. A Hub telling the story of the "Jayhawkers" and "Bushwackers" of the Kansas/Missouri border war from 1855 till the end of the Civil War (1865).
  2. Staying with the Civil War Theme a hub on CSS Alabama the Confederate States Navy Commerce Raider.
  3. A Hub on choosing a new puppy.
  4. Updates on my List My 5 experiment.

Today though is a rest day, I am taking things a little quiet just allowing my thoughts to circulate in order to see if a moment of inspiration might come.

Wait! I might have an idea. :)

Monday, April 18, 2011

So What is Hubpages?

Hubpages is an online publishing site, where you can publish a post or Hub on a wide variety of subjects.
I have been a member for almost two years now. For most of that time I did not publish. Mainly due to my workload, I was studying for a BA degree and working part-time too. With the increase of available hours I have resumed writing om Hubpages.

Hubpages uses a modular system of capsules from which you choose text, maps, affiliate programs such as Amazon.com and Ebay. About one rhird of the pages space is left for advertising from Google Adsense, and some in text advertising is allowed and supported by Konterra.com.

You can link to a variety of website or other Hubbers pages which increases your Hubkarma, a measure of how efficiently you are using the resources. Hubbers are also ranked according to how well huvs are judged by visitors. There are also several competitions for writing hubs every year, many competitions give cash prizes. There is currently a cash prize for the two best hubs published every day in April 2011.

When you first join, your hub score begins around 30 but can rapidly rise to 90, the gap between 90 and 100 (the maximum) seems much harder. Generally the higher your hubscore the more your hubs will be offered as links for others and so the more chance your posts will be visited by visitors and so increase the possible income from your hubs Google AdSense or Konterra accounts.

Hubpages is great fun as a platform for writers and many report residual income from hubs in excess of $1,000 after about three years of publishing. Hubpages is not a source of get rich quick cash but does provide opportunity for some long term cash generation.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Online Business: a New source of Cash from PPC?

Online Business: a New source of Cash from PPC?


Is there a new cash source for writers at List My 5?  Read my hub as to my exploration of their new site and see how easy it is to set up a new account.
Definitely worth a try.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Living with Disability: My Life with Blindness

Living with Disability: My Life with Blindness

It is hard to imagine the world of a visually impaired person. It isn't necessarily a world of blackness. One cannot close ones eyes and know what it's like to be blind.

Blindness is as individual as those who experience it. Some retreat from the world in an attempt to escape. Some step out to greet the world in all its variety. This is my experience of coming to terms with slowly becoming a new person, the Blind man known as William Elliott

Gettysburg Ghost Photograph?

This weekend I have published a photograph taken by me over the Columbus Day, holiday in 2002. The never before published photograph of what might be a Gettysburg Ghost.

You can find the picture on my Hubpage linked below. Please feel free to leave comments and vote on my poll at:

Gettysburg Ghost Hub

 Gettysburg Ghost on Cafepress