I released my first ebook yesterday on Amazon!
So far it had about 50 sales yesterday and 10 today. There'll be more marketing deployed over the next few days. I'm trying to play the game where I generate enough consistent sales for a few days to get highly ranked at amazon so that it generates sales for me. And it's sort of a serialized deal. So far 14 of the readers signed up for an email about the next book!
It's too early to tell, but hopefully this'll be a good passive income source. If not the reviews are a great ego boost.
Wanna see? http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009X2QQ0 ... 374&sr=8-8
making slow money
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skinnyninja
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Oct 19, 2012 4:46 am
In my experience, online income is more accurately labeled as "residual" rather than strictly being "passive."
To me, the money from my capital investments fits the label of being truly "passive." But residual income is still great for ERE.
About 7 years ago I built a website from scratch and put a TON of work into it. I monetized it strictly with AdSense and it peaked at $2,250/month in income. This was actually very passive and the overhead was less than $100/month, and I did NOT have to post new content to keep this rolling.
However, the income (and free search engine traffic) was not terribly stable. It fluctuated, and thus made me nervous. This is why I jumped at the chance to sell the site for 200K. That windfall is now earning much more "passive" income for me (in paper assets) rather than the residual income from the website.
That said, I am now working to build up another passive income stream online, and I see the value in having even a tiny side income when combined with frugality. This is also enticing because then I would have potentially two streams of income, one from my capital investments and the other from my website (not really passive, but fairly residual, mobile, etc.).
I recently told my story on Pat Flynn's blog (SPI) and it got a nice response from his readers. You can easily Google my name (Patrick Meninga) and find lots of stuff that point to my story (and also to the website that I sold for 200K).
Right now I am excited again because my latest project produced 3 dollars yesterday, and also the day before! Sounds like small peanuts compared to 200K, right? But frugality makes it exciting to me. I love the mobility aspect of online income as well.
The idea of creating truly passive income may be an impossible dream, but in my opinion creating residual online income is still a goal worth pursuing. Besides, if you work hard and get a bit lucky (as I did) then might one day turn your income generating website into a huge lump of cash instead.
By the way, most of my Internet marketing friends have jumped on the Amazon bandwagon to sell eBooks. I know one guy how is doing 10K per month with a single book! No, he will not reveal his niche to me or others, darn it! But that is not typical of course. Most people are making less money than that and some speculate that it all may come crashing down eventually (if Kindle decides to do some quality control and cleans up a huge portion of their inventory).
It is a ripe marketplace and putting together eBooks and creating cover designs is not that difficult. But I did not jump on this opportunity myself this time. I am hanging back and just doing the website thing, trying to create a solid website with helpful information. A bit old fashioned I suppose but I wonder too if the Kindle stuff will last. Not that eBooks are going away or anything, I just think the quality hammer is gonna fall pretty quick here. If you have 10 eBooks out there at they are 30 pages each and you are not a real expert, do you really deserve to earn $3,000/month from that? I'm not sure, but I guess I am not willing to risk it at this point.
Therefore I keep my content more under my own control and just continue to put it up on my own websites. It might have less bang for the buck in the short term but I think it will be more stable in the long run.
Anyway I am excited to be pursuing more passive income streams, even though I am only averaging 3 bucks a day right now. I believe I can put in some serious effort and get that number to rise pretty dramatically (for the second time).
To me, the money from my capital investments fits the label of being truly "passive." But residual income is still great for ERE.
About 7 years ago I built a website from scratch and put a TON of work into it. I monetized it strictly with AdSense and it peaked at $2,250/month in income. This was actually very passive and the overhead was less than $100/month, and I did NOT have to post new content to keep this rolling.
However, the income (and free search engine traffic) was not terribly stable. It fluctuated, and thus made me nervous. This is why I jumped at the chance to sell the site for 200K. That windfall is now earning much more "passive" income for me (in paper assets) rather than the residual income from the website.
That said, I am now working to build up another passive income stream online, and I see the value in having even a tiny side income when combined with frugality. This is also enticing because then I would have potentially two streams of income, one from my capital investments and the other from my website (not really passive, but fairly residual, mobile, etc.).
I recently told my story on Pat Flynn's blog (SPI) and it got a nice response from his readers. You can easily Google my name (Patrick Meninga) and find lots of stuff that point to my story (and also to the website that I sold for 200K).
Right now I am excited again because my latest project produced 3 dollars yesterday, and also the day before! Sounds like small peanuts compared to 200K, right? But frugality makes it exciting to me. I love the mobility aspect of online income as well.
The idea of creating truly passive income may be an impossible dream, but in my opinion creating residual online income is still a goal worth pursuing. Besides, if you work hard and get a bit lucky (as I did) then might one day turn your income generating website into a huge lump of cash instead.
By the way, most of my Internet marketing friends have jumped on the Amazon bandwagon to sell eBooks. I know one guy how is doing 10K per month with a single book! No, he will not reveal his niche to me or others, darn it! But that is not typical of course. Most people are making less money than that and some speculate that it all may come crashing down eventually (if Kindle decides to do some quality control and cleans up a huge portion of their inventory).
It is a ripe marketplace and putting together eBooks and creating cover designs is not that difficult. But I did not jump on this opportunity myself this time. I am hanging back and just doing the website thing, trying to create a solid website with helpful information. A bit old fashioned I suppose but I wonder too if the Kindle stuff will last. Not that eBooks are going away or anything, I just think the quality hammer is gonna fall pretty quick here. If you have 10 eBooks out there at they are 30 pages each and you are not a real expert, do you really deserve to earn $3,000/month from that? I'm not sure, but I guess I am not willing to risk it at this point.
Therefore I keep my content more under my own control and just continue to put it up on my own websites. It might have less bang for the buck in the short term but I think it will be more stable in the long run.
Anyway I am excited to be pursuing more passive income streams, even though I am only averaging 3 bucks a day right now. I believe I can put in some serious effort and get that number to rise pretty dramatically (for the second time).
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secretwealth
- Posts: 1948
- Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:31 am
I'm #48 in women's memoirs today!
Secretwealth, the truth is I've been trying to write that book for like 5 years and so far I can't. I think this is more business smart tho - they get a chance to give me their email address at the end so I can email them about the next installment and I get to have a book release every month.
Secretwealth, the truth is I've been trying to write that book for like 5 years and so far I can't. I think this is more business smart tho - they get a chance to give me their email address at the end so I can email them about the next installment and I get to have a book release every month.
You guys have some weird hobbies 
. I'm quite familiar with pickup, and IMHO it's overrated and requires a lot of hype. The people I've seen who are successful at it generally do a lot of videos and run camps and things. Body language is easy stuff, and generally you can find that sort of info for free, and/or in non-pickup books. I'm sick of that whole attitude in general, though.
Someone mentioned hypnosis, is someone here actually doing that??
. I'm quite familiar with pickup, and IMHO it's overrated and requires a lot of hype. The people I've seen who are successful at it generally do a lot of videos and run camps and things. Body language is easy stuff, and generally you can find that sort of info for free, and/or in non-pickup books. I'm sick of that whole attitude in general, though.Someone mentioned hypnosis, is someone here actually doing that??
I put up my own site selling a self published four page ebook back in 2006. It has just about dried up. I made $500/mo at the peak. Basically it was a book that would help people under special circumstances take advantage of an obscure subsidy. Those who were part of the eligible group would search using google and find my site. I would email a PDF. Read a dumb book on SEO at Microcenter Books and the site was top ranked in a week. Got the idea decades before reading want ads in the paper for 500 cookie recipes send $2 SASE.
Before that I sold a circuit board that did a special signal processing trick for a small group of customers who could do their job faster with my card. It was worth $600 to them. I punched them out like cookies at a contract manufacurer. Dried up after five years. Was good for about $10k a month. Finally somebody reverse engineered me. For years people tried to hire me as a consultant to divulge my mathematical algorithm burned into a chip. Although it was hardware, it in essence was digital content embedded in flash.
I fixed a piece of high priced test equip for my employer when they were too cheap to send it out for repair at $1000 a pop. We had a dozen units and they all broke exactly the same way. I documented the fix, made a how to guide and made a website. No sales for two years. Just guys trying to get the trick out of me for free.
After these experiences I winnowed down my potential ebook list to things that got you paid or things that got you laid. The successful ones all seem to be I'm gonna make you rich or I'm going to make you a sexy beast. Basic needs. Pretty sad statement about humanity.
Before that I sold a circuit board that did a special signal processing trick for a small group of customers who could do their job faster with my card. It was worth $600 to them. I punched them out like cookies at a contract manufacurer. Dried up after five years. Was good for about $10k a month. Finally somebody reverse engineered me. For years people tried to hire me as a consultant to divulge my mathematical algorithm burned into a chip. Although it was hardware, it in essence was digital content embedded in flash.
I fixed a piece of high priced test equip for my employer when they were too cheap to send it out for repair at $1000 a pop. We had a dozen units and they all broke exactly the same way. I documented the fix, made a how to guide and made a website. No sales for two years. Just guys trying to get the trick out of me for free.
After these experiences I winnowed down my potential ebook list to things that got you paid or things that got you laid. The successful ones all seem to be I'm gonna make you rich or I'm going to make you a sexy beast. Basic needs. Pretty sad statement about humanity.
@sclass: true that. If ERE hadn't been linked by permies.org I don't think I would have even bothered. I'm about sick of Napolean Hill and Rob Kiyosaki (although RDPD was a good book), as you mention how to get paid and how to get laid both seem to go together in one big egotistical lump. I like ERE specifically because of the how qualitatively different it is from most of that stuff. ERE reminds me much more of "Grow Rich With Peace of Mind" than it does of "Think and Grow Rich".
About the pickup thing: www.seductionmyth.com
But it's a nice place to earn some money. Many people still fall for this stuff.
But it's a nice place to earn some money. Many people still fall for this stuff.