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December Earnings



While it is a few days late, I still wanted to get this up. With all the projects I have been working on lately (5Currencies with a great team of people and launching Enlivened Heart Jewelry) I am behind on several other things. December wasn’t such a great month and definitely didn’t show any growth (even though I was really hoping for at least a little).

November was an odd month. In some ways I did a lot better than October, but my eHow earnings took a dramatic dive which has changed things up for the month. Here’s what I earned though.

eHow

eHow is making less and less money for me. While it stinks it isn’t really all that surprising. Back in September there was national news coverage on the bed bug problem. My earnings jumped dramatically and have slowly gone down from there. The articles that earned significantly were the bed bug articles. For the month of December I made $33.32. That’s just a little more than half of what I made in November.

Helium

I missed ten days of Helium earnings because of their darn rating stars. So, Helium earnings were $56.56. November I made more than $70 while also missing some time so this is a little disappointing. However, that’s just life and I am still looking forward to the day when this isn’t on there at all because I have other things to do.

HubPages

I still haven’t written very much on HubPages as of late. I think I wrote one article last month. I have started doing a little bookmarking though. The month of December I made $59.25. This is around $8 less then last month so it isn’t a dramatic fall and considering the Christmas holiday it really isn’t that surprising.

InfoBarrel

I did quite a bit more backlinking for InfoBarrel and wrote about 15 articles, but most of them were Valentine’s day articles. December was a sad month though and I only made $22.23 compared with $29.27 last month.

Xomba

Because I don’t have very much posted on Xomba it has significantly less stability than the other sites. While the other sites do rise and fall they are always around the same with a $10 -15 difference most of the time. However, at Xomba I see crazy differences. In October I made more than $5 and in October I made $0.27. Last month I made $2.29.

Triond

I didn’t earn anything from Triond on my Google AdSense and earned a whopping $0.20 on their site. I have started bookmarking the few articles I have there and also writing additional ones. I recently hit 10 whole articles on their site (I always tell everyone to write at least 150 before you decide about anything so I have a long way to go!).

InfoPirate

I didn’t use InfoPirate near as much this past month, but I really do love them. I made $4.06 for the month of December.

RedGage

I made a lot more money with RedGage last month because I was featured. This month, no feature. However, I made $1.07 from this backlinking site.

Amazon

My Amazon earnings were $3.22 for the month. Each month I have been selling stuff with Amazon. Nothing real exciting, but consistency is a good place to start. Not long ago I read that if you can make $1 then you can make $10 and so on. So, earning every month is a good place to start.

Chitika

I have now been using Chitika for a little over a month and I made $1.26. I probably won’t be writing home about it, but once again earning is earning.

Blogs

I own this blog (which doesn’t have ads on it), The Phat Diaries, and Enlivened Heart Jewelry (which also doesn’t have any ads at the moment). I also have a secret blog that I am not yet ready to share with everyone that blog has started to make a little tiny bit of money. Last month it made $1.81.

Total

Before I get into all my thinking and thoughts about the matter I figured I would tell you what the total is. Drum roll please…$185.27. This is $63.51 less than last month and even less than my goal of $300 for the month. However there are several things to consider.

The Holidays. Webmasters everywhere tend to hate December because earnings are lower, especially for the second half of the month. Even looking at my numbers, they dropped dramatically after about December 20th and are just now starting to pick back up.

The Project. My plans were to do a ton of bookmarking in November and December and to get ahead on some of my blogging goals. This just didn’t happen because we were helping my husband’s family repair and remodel their kitchen, dinette, and utility room. Sometimes life definitely has a way of getting in the way. :-P

Special Project. I joined a group of dedicated people working hard to earn money online. Our goal is to share what we have learned and to help teach others be be wealthy in all areas of their life and not just financially. This huge undertaking started a couple of weeks ago and has taken up nearly all of my time the last couple of days. I am definitely excited about all that we have accomplished and where we are going, but it did slow me down even farther on the rest of the stuff I was looking at doing.

So, December definitely didn’t turn out as good as I had hoped. I am hoping to make the $300 for the month of January. I won’t have a whole lot of time to write on revenue sharing sites, but I definitely need to work on that soon to increase those earnings!

Earnings    ,

5 Reasons I Have Failed



I have been writing online for more than three years and before that I searched for ways to make money online and even tried eBay for awhile. All in all I have had a tiny amount of success. Some people are amazed because I make around $300 a month and there have been times that I made a lot more (when freelancing). However, when it boils down to it my earnings and my online successes have really been limited. While calling it “failure” is probably taking it a bit far, knowing my short comings is going to be very important here.

1. I Failed Because I Didn’t Stick To It.

It is incredibly important to stick to things. I knew that writing articles could make you more money, but at the same time I didn’t write enough articles in enough locations to really prove this. Sure I make some money from the nearly 1000 articles I have written for Helium and some money here and there, but I knew that you needed a lot of content on high quality sites like HubPages and InfoBarrel.

2. I Failed as a Blogger.

Not sticking to it is important for writing articles, but it is extremely important for blogging. In fact, to make it as a blogger this is the number one thing that you need to do. Sure it helps if you can write in a way others like to read. Sure it can help if you have something to say and something to share. However, there are a lot of pretty successful blogs out there that are really proving that content and regular posting are much more important than any other factor. I have done a horrible job sticking with my blogging. This blog doesn’t show it much since it is pretty new, but other blogs I own (or have owned) have gone down the toilet because I am not good at posting regular content (see <a href=http://www.thephatdiaries.com>The Phat Diaries</a> if you really need an example).

3. I Failed to Learn From Others.

In the three years that I have been writing I have tried a lot of different things and learned a ton. In the process most of my learning has been done by trial and error with a dash or research. I have avoided most forums and avoided learning things I really did know were important. This failure to learn has hindered my ability to earn. The things I know now (in concrete rather than as a vague idea I never touched) should increase my earnings and make it possible for me to go so much farther. They include items such as:

  • SEO (search engine optimization).
  • Promotion
  • That I do need others to increase my knowledge and understanding. With these things will come an increase in earnings.

4. Failure to Expand and Explore.

Writing content for websites (revenue sharing ones) and creating blogs or websites of your own with great content can be great ways to earn. However, there is so much more out there that has people earning so much more money. These include niche sites, affiliate marketing, writing eBooks, and so much more. These are all areas that I need to explore in order to really make it online.

5. I Haven’t Gotten Excited Enough.

It is so easy to get excited for a moment in time and so hard to really push past that and get to where you need to go. I have definitely tasted excitement before. I love to get excited. However, I haven’t really maintained that excitement. I am like almost every other American out there who wants results now and gets deflated when those results don’t come as fast as I would like.

By looking at my failures I have been able to go a lot farther in my head. I am excited about what all the new year has to offer and I am looking at a whole new world when it comes to my earnings. I would really like to see my earnings take off as they have never done before. One goal that I have for the next year is to make $1500 for the month of December 2011. I have a long way to go from about $300 to 1500…

So…1200 to go…

What about you?

I love hearing about what others are up to. How have you failed or succeeded at earning a living online or even earning a little extra cash?

Web Writer    , , ,

November Earnings



November was an odd month. In some ways I did a lot better than October, but my eHow earnings took a dramatic dive which has changed things up for the month. Here’s what I earned though.

eHow

My eHow earnings are sliding downward. For the month of October I made $150.44, but the month of November only brought in $60.64. There isn’t much I can do about this since I no longer work at eHow. I am just going to be thankful for what I have and keep moving forward with other sites.

Helium

I messed up in my Helium earnings. In order to keep earning at Helium you have to do ratings. Between helping my in-laws with their kitchen repair/remodel, backlinking, and trying to figure out all the stuff that I am wanting to do on my blogs I forgot all about rating at Helium. So, instead of earning everyday for the month I probably only earned for the first couple of weeks. In October I made $85.20, but I only made $74.85 for the month of November.

HubPages

I only wrote one article at HubPages this month and I haven’t actually done any backlinking there. However, my earnings did go up just a bit. October I made $51.24 and for the month of November they were $67.98.

InfoBarrel

I have worked hard backlinking on InfoBarrel and it seems that it is starting to pay off. I earned $13.08 for the month of October and $29.27 for the month of November. I also learned a tiny bit from Chitika (just started using it on InfoBarrel half way through the month) and a bit on Amazon (that may be from HubPages and or InfoBarrel, but I am currently unsure of how to tell).

Xomba

I don’t do much on Xomba and this month really shows that. My earnings for October was $5.38 and in November I made a whopping $0.24.

Triond

I did earn a bit more with Triond this month than last. October earnings added a whole $0.39 to my earnings and  in November I made $0.77 on Triond and $1.37 from Google Adsense earnings from Triond for a total of $2.14 for the month of November.

InfoPirate

The month of November had me backlinking. One site that I backlinked on was InfoPirate. This site brought me in an additional $4.31.

RedGage

Another backlinking site I joined is RedGage where I made $5.17 for the month of November.

Amazon

My Amazon earnings were $3.07 for the month. This isn’t really amazing, but what is nice is that I am starting to earn a little each month. I didn’t add it to my earnings, but last month I made $1.22.

Chitika

Chitika is new to me. I just added their code to my InfoBarrel about half way through. None the less, it earned me just a bit for the month of November with a total of $0.41.

My totals aren’t incredible, yet. However, I am going to keep working at it and hopefully I can get it up there. I do have good news and can let you know that I made more than $100 on Google Adsense. If I can keep that up I will be getting a Google check ever month and not just every other month. Unfortunately I actually earned less this month than last month. However, this is really because of the drop in eHow earnings. The total for November is $248.78. I would like to make $300 for the month of December.

Earnings

InfoBarrel



I joined InfoBarrel last year, but haven’t done enough there. This is the site that I am focusing on for the next year. I will write a little here and there, but I am hoping to get 1000 articles (in addition to the 183 I already have) in the next year. If you are completely unfamiliar with InfoBarrel then read on for why I like InfoBarrel.

  • Excellent Revenue Share. Many sites offer a share of revenue with you. Often this is 50-60 percent of the page impressions using your Google Adsense or other accounts. InfoBarrel shares 75%, but offers you the chance to write for as much as 90% of the page impressions.
  • Disclosure. Not only does InfoBarrel offer a great revenue share they make you feel like they are being completely open and honest with you. This can be important when you are writing because some sites later change their policies in favor of themselves and leave their writers high and dry.
  • Easy. Some systems are easy to use, others hard, and some in between. InfoBarrel is easy to use and should only get easier as the administration is working on many updates for the future.
  • Friendly. For most sites I have written for there are some friendly community members and many who aren’t so friendly. Here at InfoBarrel there is a very friendly community which makes it fun and exciting to write and to visit the forums.

There are more reasons that I like writing for InfoBarrel and I will share them in the coming weeks. For now, stay tuned for more great information! If you are interested in joining InfoBarrel then check it out!

InfoBarrel