making slow money

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:22 am

I've been really into the idea of passive internet income for a while now. I'll share some of my good and bad ideas and I hope this will turn into a sharing and brainstorming thread.
Things that've worked:
- I had a popular blog and when I got tired of broadcasting my life to the whole world I started charging $5/m for subscriptions. It did pretty well!
- Selling digital products that people can buy again and again and again without me doing anything.
- Being in a small niche.
- Being an "expert" in a small niche.
- Being an affiliate for good products.
- Being interesting and personable.
- Getting awesome reviews and referrals.
Things that haven't worked (tho there's always the possibility I'm doing it wrong):
- Having a popular blog with 5k visits/day.
- Making a porn site I thought was what everyone wanted (it only had one sale).
- Great ad copy (obviously it should be good, but once it is tweaks don't make a difference).
- Adsense - I never made more than $50/m from it on any site. And that would be a good month.
- Writing for other people.
Things I'm going to try:
- ebooks
- stand alone authority sites I hardly ever update

jennypenny · Post by **jennypenny** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:28 am

@porn site--we know a couple that run a successful site. They have their whole house wired up with cameras and mics. He runs the tech and business part, and she does her normal daily routing on camera--nude. It got so popular that they had to hire women to come in and do what she does in her absense. I'm not even sure if it's porn because the bedroom's not wired (he doesn't appear on camera). Maybe you could develop ERE-themed how-to videos (wasn't there already a thread on that?) but do them nude? I'm kidding but in a way I'm not--that couple is making BIG money.

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:40 am

Yeah, I know a few people who are successful with spycams, but it's way far from passive income.

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:43 am

hi riparian
i have a popular blog and published 5 e-books and some software. These are my cashcows and passively tick over generating income. The interesting thing though is that now my blog has been around for 3 years the majority of my income is now coming from taking students online to teach them what i know, and through consultancy which is increasing slowly but steadily. The income is less regular but once i get a hit it easily takes over from the book sales.
so currently its a 30 pct books, 50 pct students and 20 pct consultancy..
re jenny penny idea. i often post on my blog in the nude - maybe i should film this??? Just kidding and yes its kinda creepy. Im currently wearing shorts and a tshirt so you can ll relax.

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 4:43 am

hi riparian
i have a popular blog and published 5 e-books and some software. These are my cashcows and passively tick over generating income. The interesting thing though is that now my blog has been around for 3 years the majority of my income is now coming from taking students online to teach them what i know, and through consultancy which is increasing slowly but steadily. The income is less regular but once i get a hit it easily takes over from the book sales.
so currently its a 30 pct books, 50 pct students and 20 pct consultancy..
re jenny penny idea. i often post on my blog in the nude - maybe i should film this??? Just kidding and yes its kinda creepy. Im currently wearing shorts and a tshirt so you can ll relax.

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:46 am

Aussie that's awesome that you've built such a successful business. Do you do any e-junkie type things to promote your ebooks or is it all blog?
I like the consulting (er, individual hypnosis sessions) too. I put a call out on twitter yesterday and ended up with fun and money.

Emanuel · Post by **Emanuel** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 2:44 am

Slow Money is king and AdSense the crown jewel

Spartan_Warrior · Post by **Spartan_Warrior** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:24 pm

Writing for other people (freelancing/ghost writing) works great for me, but I wouldn't consider it slow money. It fits more into "quick cash". At 5 cents a word, I can make $50 in about two hours on most assignments. The tricky part is finding the good assignments--that is, the ones you can write quickly with minimal research.

simplex · Post by **simplex** » Mon Jan 09, 2012 10:38 am

Hi aussierogue,
send you a pm, but got no reply. Can you check on your pm's?
thanks

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Sat Jan 14, 2012 10:44 pm

Hi guys been on holidays. Very ERE. A caravan holiday using my inlaws caravan. Big difference in coin compared to 2 weeks in Fiji!
@riparian - yes i use e-junkie. Love it..
Hi Simplex - just saw pm will revert..

palmera · Post by **palmera** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 6:39 pm

Does anyone recommend a platform for publishing and selling ebooks? One that doesn't cut too much into profits, if at all?
I'm going to write an e-book, use my online marketing expertise and sell boatloads, I hope.
This isn't a typical "lifestyle design/get rich quick" e-book, though I think it's fine for some to make money off of that concept if they want. My e-book is a how-to guide in a very niche topic.

tac · Post by **tac** » Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:51 pm

I also do the how-to guides on a niche topic. Sales are pretty variable, some months I'll bring in >$500, some months <$50. Given that the guides are basically an enjoyable hobby that I happen to make money off of, even $50 is nice, though $500+ is obviously much nicer. I put out a new guide every couple of months, probably averaging a few hours a week on production. Some I sell through my own site, some I sell through third parties. In the case of third parties, they do take a cut, but I've found that I typically also sell more units through those outlets, so it evens out and is worth it as a sort of free marketing tool (getting my brand out to a larger audience). I've been putting guides out for about 2 years now and the general trend of income is going up, despite the monthly variability.
My goal is to keep going at a very low PT level for another few years, at which point I'm hoping I'll fairly reliably be bringing in 50% of monthly expenses. Then, if my savings plan is still on track, I should be able to consider either quitting my day job or taking it down to PT, and start doing the guides as more serious PT work. The real key to making it work is going to be cutting expenses as well as increasing income, surprise

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 12:17 am

Hi Palmera
i think it depends on how easy it is for people to find you. I have a blog and its niche so the good news is that i rank very high on google key words. I am first second and almost always first page on the top 30 key words and phrases..
i paid someone 20 bucks from "elance.com" to optimise my site. I also paid someone 20 bucks to make me 3 e-book covers which look like real books...
therefore i sell everything direct via my own blog. No affiliates and nothing via ebay or amazon or the like. I do use e-junkie platform whihc hosts my books and i do this for security and privacy reasons. They (and paypal) take about 5pct in total.
A friend of mine is a best selling author. In australia best seeling is more than 5,000 copies. She is with penguin books. I make more money than here selling 800 books....purely because i take home 95 pct...and she gets 10 pct i think...
good luck

Spartan_Warrior · Post by **Spartan_Warrior** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 5:43 am

I never understood how ads could be a very profitable avenue. I would think most savvy net users would avoid anything like that. I literally never click on ads, out of simple fear of malware and phishing schemes and other internet nasties on the other side of the Flash animation. Even if it catches my interest, I will type the site into Google before I click an ad. It boggles my mind that there are people out there who go "ooh, ad" and click away. Is this simply a case of "suckers born every minute" or am I alone here? I do work with information security, so maybe I'm biased.
Same thing with porn. People still pay for that? It's everywhere, for free. Not that I'd know or anything...

tac · Post by **tac** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:14 pm

@Spartan_warrior, a lot of people don't click on ads. If you are getting an click through rate >1%, you're doing pretty well. The folks making serious $$ off it have huge traffic coming into their site, so even a low click through rate results in a lot of clicks. A rule of thumb I've heard is that you typically need at least 10000 visitors/day to your site to generate major ad revenue. Personally, I've found it much more profitable to focus on selling a product and use my "ad space" to promote my own products. I can make $$ off of that with traffic of <1000 visitors/day, no way is that going to happen with adsense, etc.

Chris L · Post by **Chris L** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 8:28 pm

I'm working on my second ebook company. I've blown through 3 partners and no one can market my material. It's academic in nature, well researched and on popular topics. I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong, but suffice it to say that it hasn't really been lucrative. I'm hoping that my new partner can crack into the market. It's been almost a year and he's tried a few things without real success. I would guess that I make about $200-$300 a year with many hundreds of hours invested. I suppose I have created value, but it's always a matter of capitalizing on it that matters. I'm going to keep working on it though. I'm not sure if we're allowed to publish links here, but I'd be glad to if anyone is interested.

aussierogue · Post by **aussierogue** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 1:13 am

chris maybe i can help you...why do you need an e-book company? Do it yourself.....
send me a pm if yu interested...

Chris L · Post by **Chris L** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 5:02 am

bodylanguageproject.com was revamp by my now partner to RHB (that's why it redirects). He's still working on some ideas. He was planning to turn it into kindle and sell it for a few bucks then increase the price. My existing site was less "direct marketing" but he thought making it more to that style would help it sell.
My other hasn't release yet so it might still do okay.
I wasn't clear I guess, but I didn't hire a company, been working on it for a few years with partners but nothing really seems to work. It's been pirated MANY times though

Just have a poke around on the torrent sites.
I've written 2 other books in the same sort of body language niche that I've been hesitant in releasing due to a lack of confidence and risk of piracy.

riparian · Post by **riparian** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 6:24 am

Chris I'm curious too. I'm pretty sure it's okay to post links? At least I have and I haven't gotten in trouble.
Spartan Warrior, mostly personality driven sites and little niches these days.

Chris L · Post by **Chris L** » Wed Jan 18, 2012 8:44 pm

I posted a reply, but it's missing now, so I guess it's because of the link. Anyone interested can PM me and I'll pass it along.
The genre is body language, pick-up, but I do have 2 other unpublished on the same topic for a general audience. I've had the original ripped off through torrent so much I haven't released the others.
Right now the current project has been "reinvented" with my new partner, but it's doing worse than before. He's tried to make it more "direct marketing." Mine was aimed more academically as I used a lot of research in writing it. More University vs. regular joe.
Anyway, it hasn't done as well as I thought. I was thinking about making more of it free and ramp up traffic, then sell the same sort of material, just more indepth. Just ideas I had.