Early Retirement Extreme Forums

I use transcribeme for beer money. It's $0.33 or so for every minute of audio I transcribe.

I also run an editing business online.

Boilerplate meaning: In information technology, a boilerplate is a unit of writing that can be reused over and over without change.

Setting up a website with the sole purpose of making money is setting oneself for disappointment. It is better if you pick something you know about, think there could be sufficient interest for and do it until to surround your site with a critical mass of visitors before you even consider monetization.

Almost all people never make enough to reach the break even point where the site pays its own hosting costs.

Also there is a conflict of interest/ cognitive dissonance to deal with: What is your main role as the owner of the site? It sell visitors to advertisers or to spread word about whatever you know about?

If you know something about some topic then content creation should take top priority.

Having a bifocal goal (see Contingency Goal Setting in the ERE book) will be better where:

Goal 1: Something you know about>> Website >> Visitors >> Repeat/Return visitors

Goal 2: Visitors (repeat and new)>> Advertisers >> Break even.

Goal 2 doesn't kick in (it won't work if you force it in) unless you've acquired a critical mass of visitors in Goal 1. This critical mass should be large and active enough that when a percentage of them get put off due to the ads or don't return, the remaining should generate enough activity to pay for monthly website expenses.

Also, most people never do the math behind it. Getting people to visit your site is difficult, getting them to stay for more than a minute is even more difficult, getting them to come back often enough is even even more difficult, and then you have to wait till they click on an ad.

The Click Through Rate (CTR) on each of the above steps multiplied by your Pay Per Click (PPC) minus your spending on advertising (if any) and hosting gives you your profit. This divided by the hours spent on the project is your hourly wage. This is in reality so low that those people that do make any money, if ever, don't consider it worth their time to continue.

Lastly, be wary of the people who will 'teach' you how to make money. If they knew any better than you do, they wouldn't need you to but whatever they are selling at all.

Scrubby wrote:I think the only thing that is certain is that it's not possible to make much money if you follow a make money fast recipe.

The engineering triangle strikes again:

Fast
Easy
Sustainable

Pick two.

Scrubby wrote:I have been trying to figure out ways to make money (besides normal work) since I was a child

I made a total of $17 online after countless number of hours before deciding it wasn't worth the time for me when I was 15 years old.

"Make money online" is too ambiguous. It sounds like a scam. It's like saying "make money fast" - when in reality "make money online" isn't really different "make money in real life" - there's endless opportunities. You can take on contract work on sites like oDesk, you can build some sort of business shipping real products, or information products, or affiliate income, or an information site monetized by ads, or writing Kindle books, etc.

In that sense, don't be discouraged if you're really gung-ho. Even before graduating University, my only source of money has been via the internet.

workathome wrote:"Make money online" is too ambiguous. It sounds like a scam. It's like saying "make money fast" - when in reality "make money online" isn't really different "make money in real life" - there's endless opportunities. You can take on contract work on sites like oDesk, you can build some sort of business shipping real products, or information products, or affiliate income, or an information site monetized by ads, or writing Kindle books, etc.

In that sense, don't be discouraged if you're really gung-ho. Even before graduating University, my only source of money has been via the internet.

There are tons of people making money writing kindle books, but the market is tough so you have to do something to stand out.

I deleted this posting in protest of how a fellow Internet entrepreneur (memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=5108) was abused by many people on this forum.

Good thread. Even just $500/month from online income would allow one to ERE SO MUCH sooner. Assuming it doesn't take ridiculous hours to make that amount.

From what little research I've done, there are basically four ways to make money online: programming, vlogging/blogging, selling a product, and digital marketing. DM seems the most promising for the average person.

C'mon, let's figure this OOOUUUTTT.

FrugalFred wrote: ↑

Wed May 17, 2017 9:52 am

C'mon, let's figure this OOOUUUTTT.

If you are interested in people doing the grind, check out reddit.com/r/juststart . There's very little to figure out.

@jacob And the second in your list. See your four hour work week article!

Do high quality work for an employer that you could telecommute for. Then, you make money through the internet.

If I recall you getting into finance correctly, then you may have some room for telecommuting.