What I learned?

1. 60

   karpouzianposted 14 years ago

   Well, I started the 30day challenge on the day I started HB, so I guess I didn't learn much doing the process except for keep writing.  I have had some earnings on all but my first few days (which I hear is unusual).
   
   I don't get it still.
   
   I have one hub that gets between 100-200 visitors a day, 1 hub that gets 20-30, 1 hub that gets 15-20.  The rest vary between 0 and 10.
   
   I am almost at $10 in Adsense...
   I want to take this to the next stage by buying a domain name and hosting, but I'm getting more and more frustrated trying to find a niche that has a low enough competition and a high enough revenue potential to pay for said hosting.
   
   I don't mind supporting my habit for a few months, but this hobby of mine is supposed to support itself.
   
   My wife is trying to be supportive, but I still don't think she understands fully.
   
   I guess I need support/encouragement.  I know I've made some big leaps while I've been here, but $8.50 seems like such a little amount of money, and my 'big' hub seems to be slowly losing its viewer base.
   
   Sorry for the whining.  I don't want to be one of those statistics that quits this in three months.  I will go look at that screen shot of me being on the front page for an hour

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   1. 67

      darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      It's an art more than a science. Results will vary. Length, quality of the content, extra promotional effort on your part... it all gets mixed up with a big cup of luck and sometimes it works spectacularly well, and sometimes it doesn't.
      
      
      
      It's a big ask, to expect a hobby to support itself within 3 months. If woodworking was a hobby and you wanted to be able to sell your stuff and make money, and you were new to it, it would take a while before you'd see some kind of level of quality before you'd venture out and expect someone to buy it. The same goes for writing.
      
      You've got to hone your craft. You've got to research and read and absorb all the information. And practice.
      
      If you get into doing your own blog or blogs, then pick a topic about something that you honestly love. Something that you'll stick at even if there is little or no money coming in.
      
      The late 90s, even the early 2000s and most certainly before Adsense came out, people built popular sites. Or I should say, they built sites they loved, and were passionate about it, and if it was a medium that struck a chord with others, they became popular.
      
      If you want an immediate return on investment then getting a second job will be the best bet. On the other hand if you want to do something you love (by picking a topic you enjoy) and have the chance of making money while you sleep, it might be a little or with luck it could be a lot, then blogging can be a lot of fun.
      
      The ones that make a lot of money stick to it and are always learning. They get a feel for it and make changes to their course as the winds change. But it's not something you can learn or get the feel for in less than a year.

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   2. 64

      Silver Roseposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      It takes time. I kept a diary of the first hub challenge, which you can read here.
      
      By day 30 I had made 17 hubs and $6.11 - not that far off where you are now. I continue to track the hubs from that challenge in that hub diary, just to see how the income from them changes over time, if at all - and it starts to jump quite a bit.
      
      The important thing to note is that you are not done at the end of the 30 days when you have finished writing the hubs. You have to continue to build backlinks, and where applicable update the hubs with new information that might be useful to your readers. It's a continuous journey.

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2. 71

   AEvansposted 14 years ago

   Keep your head up , listen to Darkside and it will all be just fine. Patience simply patience.

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   1. 60

      karpouzianposted 14 years agoin reply to this

      Well, I intend to be patient, and to stick with it (as long as my wife lets )...  It is just...  well...  now that the 30 day challenge is over, and I am strongly considering doing a new one, I am just kind of.  I don't know, I suppose I should be pretty pleased.  I'm doing a lot better than others
      
      And I know what darkside's saying is true, it is just hard for me to justify things to my wife when money is tight.  I am probably just going to keep sticking to 'free' writing until I can make some consistent revenue.  Maybe I should give another look at Associated content, or one of those spots that pay per article.

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      1. 67

         darksideposted 14 years agoin reply to this

         Strictly speaking, doing a hobby costs a person money and people never count the cost of the hours involved, it's mainly the materials or other costs that is the main concern.
         
         So tell the wifey that writing is going to be your hobby, and as long as it doesn't cost (much) then you'll plug at it in your free time. And besides, you're making a little bit of money from it. In fact, $10 for one month and no financial investment is a good start.
         
         While surfing the internet isn't so much a hobby but a past time, many people can waste hours and hours on it, and here you are actually learning from your time spent online.
         
         When you make your first $100 use it to buy her a dinner or gift from Amazon or some other online retailer. Either would be good but if it's an online purchase you can talk about how funny it is that you earned some easy money online, and used the money to buy something online for her. If it happens to be something you can review, lets say you bought her a DVD box set of her favourite television series, then write a hub about it as a review. Not sure how the taxation system works over there but doing that might mean that the money you've earned and being used back in the business, is possibly tax free.

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