I want to do this

[Daisy]

Trust me, I've seen people make buckets of money who know next to nothing about proper English grammar. If you want to make money writing, I guarantee you've got more than enough skill to do so, and I'm not just being nice.

Thanks. It is a bit reassuring. I will have to see. At the moment, it's not at the top of my passions to pursue though. But it could possibly fill a gap when needed.

 

 

God I hope you're right; if I can't make money writing I will be on the streets again. I've had fourteen or fifteen jobs since I got out of the army three years ago and it's become painfully clear that I will never be able to hold onto to one. I don't want to anyway. If I can't make a living as a writer I don't want to make a living at all. Fortunately, there are many different kinds of writing, so if I fail at writing novels I can write songs, if I fail at writing songs I can write articles for magazines, if I fail at that I can write advertising copy, etc. Actually I have a folder called "PROJECTS" on my desktop that has folders for every kind of writing you can imagine, and each one is filled with projects underway. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, right?

 

I read that it's best to start a travel blog long before you start traveling. You can talk about your preparations, your plans, etc. That way you build up an "archive" and hopefully a readership even before you take the first step out of your house!

 

Blogs are much easier than websites, though some knowledge in HTML and CSS, and preferably PHP is definitely advisable. I've built a bunch of websites, each one for the purpose of learning the trade and each one got better and better, but then I went and made my first blog and I hardly used any of the things I had learned. If you can keep a profile on myspace or facebook you can run a wordpress blog. The more you know about web design the better your blog will be, though.

 

Affiliate marketing is much harder than PPC advertising. With affiliate marketing your revenue is based on conversions, i.e. people you've refered actually buying something. With PPC, (pay-per-click), advertising, you get paid every time somebody just clicks on the advertisement you have posted on your site or blog. Obviously, affiliate sales generates a higher income per payment, but it's therefore much harder to make the first dollar. Some affiliate programs pay hundreds of dollars just for one sale, but getting even one sale is not easy. If you affiliate with Amazon, like I do, you make a percentage of the sale that you referred. I write reviews on my blog for DVDs and link to Amazon so people can purchase the DVD, and if they do I get a commission. I also have Google ads on the site, so if anyone clicks on the ads I get a small payment. With the PPC revenue, every click is extremely small. It takes a lot of clicks to generate enough revenue for it to be worth the effort. It's all about traffic, and therefore it's all about marketing. Marketing your site and generating traffic is the hardest part of the business, and unfortunately it's where I've fallen short on my sites and blogs. I had some great websites up but after all my hard work of making them I was too lazy to do much marketing and they've all but dissolved.

 

It's hard to find a proper way to make money online, but once you do I'm sure it's worth all the effort! I haven't found my luck in that respect yet, but I've got my fingers crossed. Best of luck to you, too! Maybe we'll bump into each other in Iran next year!

 

It's all about the preparation, right?!

You sound like you are working hard.

And can't wait for Iran .

 

I'm sure by the sounds of all that you are doing with the writing you'll find something that works for you.

Sounds about right with the advertising. The other thing with advertisement is the organisation paying a simple sum to be there for a set amount of time (or I hope, that seems the simplest thing to me - though working out a price plan is taxing).

I'm working on, or will be when I get down there soon, keeping the traffic high. I never thought I'd be working in marketing. Bloody family .

You need something that people need or will use. Fortunately my sister had a brilliant idea. I've just got to keep it that way. Real world stuff, I can do that . And so far it's been a success without a real effort, so hopefully when I apply myself it will really fly (or at least not sink). (and thank goodness someone else has already designed the thing, well ... )