Is Hubpages your largest source of online income

1. 59

   sid_candidposted 13 years ago

   Is Hubpages your primary source of income. If yes what do you intend to do after the recent Google smack down. If no what is your primary source of online income and how is it doing after the Google updates.

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2. 83

   Pcunixposted 13 years ago

   No, HP is an insignificant source for me.
   
   At my main site, traffic is not down at all - in fact, it's up significantly this morning.  The CTR is right where it usually is, but RPM is tanking.
   
   I don't know why - people must be cutting ad budgets?

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   ryankettposted 13 years ago

   My eCPM also tanked, but yesterday it was huge, so I hope that those ad budgets have returned in anticipation of easter.

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4. 0

   Nelle Hoxieposted 13 years ago

   No, HP is less than 20% of my income. My personal websites are doing fine. Honestly, I would never ever put a majority of my online earning potential under someone else's decision making.

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      livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      I agree 100% Nelle.  My HP earning are roughly 20% of my total online earnings.  The majority comes from my own niche sites and roughly 40% is through adsesne, which has taken a dip this week but I expect it to rebound soon as my traffic hasn't seen too much of a drop.

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5. 0

   ryankettposted 13 years ago

   At the moment it remains my largest income source, my second largest is one which is fixed and can't be increased.
   
   The aim from however is to create a variety of income sources this year, through diversification, which may well see Hubpages remain the single largest income source but not large enough to form a 'majority'. In order to do that it will have to provide less than 50% of my income, preferably as a result of my other income sources growing rather than my Hubpages income falling yet further I am shooting for 40% this year, 20% by the end of next year, until it becomes nothing other than a minor source just like Nelle.
   
   Sid, you have told us all that you rely on Hubpages. One word: Don't. By all means continue to build on Hubpages, but you must find other ways to make money too. The more you rely on something the more you miss it if it goes.
   
   It's all relative anyway, it did bring 80% of my ONLINE income, it now brings around 70%, but I want that to be reduced by growth not my contraction. My online income probably accounts for 60% of my total income, as I have a few investments offline. My wider gameplan is actually to develop an exit strategy, which will see me build saleable assets online and then walk away having liquidated them and increase my offline assets to the point that I don't need online stuff at all.
   
   Ultimately my area of expertise is real estate, I have three undergraduate property related qualifications, so that is where I want to build.

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6. 65

   Mishaposted 13 years ago

   No, never was and never will. And thank you, I am doing just fine both with HP and my own sites.

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7. 0

   ryankettposted 13 years ago

   My first moves into diversification will be a number of eBooks. I recently researched sales stats and found that it is possible to earn just as much through Kindle sales alone as it is through Hubpages, using almost entirely the same promotional techniques. I can simply transfer my skills to that industry pretty much immediately. Websites take a bit longer to establish, but they play an important role in my diversification plans too, at least 4 medium sized and 1 large sized website by the end of the year. If I can make those profitable I have a further 10 domains to build on in 2012. The aim of the game for me, quite simply, is to support myself without the need to work for somebody else. But, that doesn't necessarily mean that I wouldn't consider going through the standard career route in the future

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8. 61

   Don Simkovichposted 13 years ago

   Glad to read this and learn from everyone here. I have more than enough material to start publishing ebooks / hard copy books. I do have a publisher for some of my initial fiction. Have worked with two good editors.
   
   I'll look forward to your updates, Ryan, as often as you post them. Ryan, will you use a graphic artist for your ebooks or are you a graphic artist yourself?

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      ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      It depends what kind of book. I am testing the formatting process with a mere book of quotes, and for that I simply purchased images which were free to be used commercially. As it was only a tester, I simply knocked together something on Paint.net (which looks like it was knocked together on paint.net).
      
      For more significant projects I suspect that I will at very least be seeking somebody with talent to produce the front cover, the most important marketing tool that any book can have. Dependant on the nature of the book possibly also some internal illustrations. If publishing only in eBook format I would probably prefer to find an illustrator to work on a royalty basis, getting credited for the work and recieving a proportion of the sales of each book.
      
      Not sure where to find those to be honest, but there are a few great illustrators around on Hubpages! And no, I have no artistic ability whatsoever, so at very least I will be finding somebody to do front covers!

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      1. 72

         livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Just for future reference there are plenty of talented ebook cover artists over on Fiverr.com.  I'll be using one of them on my next kindle book.  I did it myself using a purchased image  and photoshop but, like you, it was a test run.  You can see it on my hub "Google Front Page Tactics."  I published it in mid December and I sold just a dozen copies. 
         
         I was going to publish it on Smashwords too but I kept getting formatting issues.  My documents are saving as a .docx instead of .doc and I can't figure out why or how to change them so I gave up.

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            ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Simply open them up, then save them as Microsoft Word 1997-2003 file
            
            I assume that you have Word 2007 or 2010, the .doc format is quite simply the older format. It shouldn't alter any formatting when you save as a different file type.

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               livewithrichardposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               
               
               LOL Thanks, that was easy enough!  Think I'll head back over to Smashwords later.

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         Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Yes, I went the pro route for my covers. The cost is really minor compared to the income potential and I also took those same graphics and use them in my advertising for the books.
         
         For the same reason, I didn't hesitate at all to pay someone $45 each to reformat for Smashwords.  They know the guide back and front and guarantee acceptance (well, not for content rejections, of course) so it's a no-brainer for me.

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            ryankettposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            When my major book is ready I would be grateful for the contact details of your formatter Because $45 sounds like a fair price, subject to you being happy with the results of course.

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            1. 83

               Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               Just send email to that list@smashwords.com responder - they send back formatters and cover design people.

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            Pcunixposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Oh, and I also tried hiring someone to write better sales copy but that did not turn out as well as I hoped and I went back to my own.  Probably just got unlucky with the wrong person - they had good references but not for this type of book. 
            
            But it is something I keep turning back to in my mind..

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9. 64

   simeonvisserposted 13 years ago

   So far yes, mainly because I started out three months ago. I'm learning the ropes so to speak. I realize it's important to diversify and I'll certainly do that in the future if I can determine a few good niches to focus on.

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10. 73

    Bill Manningposted 13 years ago

    HP only accounts for at most 2% of my online earnings. I'm just here to learn more and apply it to my own sites.

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    Janet21posted 13 years ago

    No, Hubpages makes up about 20% of my total earnings. (Squidoo makes up another 25% or so).  My largest source of income is my own domains.

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