Last post of the year, inevitably

As I don't post so often on here I reckon this will be the last post of the year.

I just want to wish you all a great Christmas and New Year and hope that I will be more active on this blog next year.

I am looking at making a central page and then using my various blogs that I have acquired for different materials.

The intention of this blog though was always to discuss earning so hopefully I will be doing that by at least publising reports on a bi-weekly basis.

If you can't take the cold.....

Cold, cold, cold.

Just a few days ago it was nothing like this but Montreal has been suprsingly cold today.

I am hoping for the mountains of snow that I am being promised.

I actually earned some money last month so may be in a position to start publishing some earnings reports soon.

Also I am planning Christmas so gotta keep saving up for presents for my lovely partner.

If you can't take the heat.....

Montreal has been treating me well and my blogging is keeping me well and truly occupied. Obviously most of my posting is done over at my main blog but I need to make sure that I get back here a little more regularly and start publishing some earnings (when they start).

I have been working in an Irish Bar in the kitchen and things have been pretty easy and straightforward, although it can be stressful some days.

Gotta keep chugging along though, especially with Chrimbo on the horizon.

Finally on Montreal

So at last I am here and living in sunny Montreal.

Things are hard right now with limited funds, no where to live and trying to find a job.

Of course though..... Blogging keeps me sain!! Yeah Right.

Montreal is seeming like a great city to love with interesting colourful peoples and plenty of restaurants to try and spend money that I don't have!

Holiday and other blog news

Currently holidaying in the UK.

As usual the weather isn't up to scratch but it's fun and am looking forward to going to the cavern , you know? It's the place where the Beatles first played in Liverpool.

On other news The Random Forest is definitely taking over as my main blog so posting is going to be most regular over there.

Pics from the holiday will be available in a few weeks.

Forest's Reviews - Name Change

I finally did it, I was easy!

Forest's Reviews and Randomness has become The Random Forest and even has it's own snazzy domain name www.therandomforest.info.

It was a very easy change using bloggers help pages and I purchased the .info domain from Big Daddy for only $1.99 for the first year, BARGAIN!!!!!

I actually own the domain for this site but purchased it from a company that I have no clue how to change the cname settings so when I get time i'll investigate further.

What I'm going to do!

Just thought that I would put a little update about what I am thinking about doing over the next few days.

I started my new blog very recently and it's going quite well in terms of it being a place I can dump various random posts and bits and I know it will be a lot more interesting for the random visitor. In fact I have had more visits over there than here but I have been promoting it more heavily.

I now want to get my other blog it's own domain as this will enable me to take more paid opportunities on pay per post I think! I also need a new template. It's feeling a little ugly and unoriginal (same here on this blog).

I've been doing lot's of reading and ideas are starting to stream into my head. There are a lot of very interesting blogs out there and it seems like the blog community supports itself mainly with a little help from random visitors (mainly bored office workers I bet).

My next move is to try and think up a few niche blogs and as I have seen a lot of people using word press I will make sure I try this on my next one. I have a few ideas which I will ask my friends about and hopefully will manage to find out which ones are worth taking a plunge into and buying a domain name and all that.

I have a lot of work ahead of me!

I always feel the posts on this blog suffer a little from boring info so hopefully with all this reading and research I will find a better voice for my info and make reading of my adventures much more fun.

Thanks for reading.

Earnings Report No. 1

I've seen others doing earnings reports so finally decided i'd publish my first one. Now as I have been earning very little and went through some time of inactivity I am going to just give my earnings since the blogs and internet stuff started back in April. Hopefully I will then report once weekly, probably on Tuesdays to keep the trend going.

Earnings April - Present (Tuesday 11th July 07)
Adsense: $12.54 ($2.77 this week)
Helium: $0.02
Pay Per Post: $0 (pending acceptance)
EVO: $0 (Pending Launch)

TOTAL THIS WEEK: $$2.79
TOTAL SO FAR:$12.56

Hopefully the list of earning avenues will grow and the earnings too so please watch this space.

If anyone can recomend any schemes then i'd be interested.

Another Blog? Time for more schemes?

I've started another blog as have noticed that one common thing with all the people actually earning money on the net is their multiple streams of income from more than one blog.

The purpose of my new blog is to allow me to post reviews and randomness so I can be abit more free with speech and talk about things I like and hopefully eventually use it to review products and services in exchange for even a few cents or pennies!

The address for the new blog is: http://www.forestreview.blogspot.com

I know none of my blogging ideas or posts are original right now but I just need to keep plugging away and hopefully gaining friends who will help me grow and find my niche or potential.

My next post will be a post of my earnings. I'll try to do it once a week right now as i'm hoping that my renewed effort will mean that I start to earn more than 0 and increase steadily. I'll estimate it like this.

WEEK 1 report: 1cents
WEEK 2 report: 2cents
WEEK 3 report: 4cents

and something like that. Hopefully for Week 10 i'll be earning almost 12cents a week!

Wish me luck for the week ahead!!!!

Helium - My first impressions

Yesterday whilst playing around with my blog and trying to get my new business website up and running I finally visited a site that I had seen in Adsense adverts for a long time called Helium.

As i'm sure many of you already know Helium is another review site where anyone can contribute and theoretically earn cash for doing so. I was intrigued so signed up immediately and so far have written 2 reviews. The reviews are rated by other users and go up or down in the overall rankings of the subject you have chosen to write in.

I know I won't be able to earn much from this site as have had a quick flick around the net and found that other people have said that it's more of a fun thing so I hope it will be a great opportunity for me to write on fun subjects read other peoples reviews and hopefully, the ultimate goal, improve my writing.

My articles so far can be found here:
http://www.helium.com/tm/443465/firstly-sauce-revelation-mighty
http://www.helium.com/tm/441955/transformers-movie-first-movie

The Pasta sauce one started out at number 10 of 19 yesterday and to my surprise has already leaped up to number 4 so maybe i'll earn a few pennies for this!!
The Transformers review was an off the cuff not really thinking about it jot of text and has stuck fast at 11 of 33 since it was written.

So i'll make sure that I definitely keep everyone posted of my new articles (probably will post 5 or so at a time) and any earning I receive.

This has also renewed my thoughts of going back to a site that I posted reviews on a few years ago called www.ciao.co.uk so when I get a chance i'll have to find my old login details and see if I have earned any money there and if it's still a good site to post on. If anyone knows of any other good sites for this kind of thing please let me know as right at this second I feel that I just wanna keep writing small things but am lacking a little in inspiration.

Bye bye for now.

Yet another template change!

I'm having trouble working out what I want my blog to look like.

I'm never happy with it. This is a standard blogger template for now and i'll try and keep it for a while until I work out how to properly customise it or find a really good template to upload.

Anyone have any idea where I can get a wordpress style template for blogger?

Oi Parks

Location: Williston, Vermont, USA

Where on earth have I been?

Well i've been quite lazy of late and my life has been all over the place but if i'm genuingly going to unconstrain my life then I really do need to get on with things.

I really didn't know what to do with this blog so it's been very neglected. My partner confirmed my suspicions that this blog was a very boring read so I was going to scrap it and try to start again but I think i'll give it another shot!!!!

So I have been up to bits but no where near enough. I'm currently in the states and have been enjoying mself loads but the point that I was going to get all my online activities really going hasn't happened.

I have been working on my new website though www.oiparks.com where people can buy prints of my photos/art or send me their own images to be printed. I want to target photographers and families who need imagery blown up. This service is only availbale ion the UK at present. I'm yet to get any sales as have not been pushing the advertising of it and am only just starting to get the site near finished. Any comments or suggestions for the site would really be appreciated. Also if anyone knows of any good ways to market this kind of product again I would be very interested.

To go along with this i've also just started putting images back onto ebay and my current images can be seen here.

My Adsense has been earning absolutely nothing here as I have been going against the main rule of blogging and have not been posting or trying to get links from other people.

I promise I will try and post most days from now on!!

Thanks for reading.

Been Away

Just a quick post to say I will be back posting regular updates very soon.

I'm currently in the process of selling my house and going to Amercia for the summer so am very busy.

I'll be back posting daily I hope in less than 3 weeks.

Thanks for reading.

Ebay Again and Again

LOCATION: Pause Cafe, Montreal, Canada

Sorry for the severe absence of posts. I'm still currently on holiday in Canada but i'm still doing a few bits with the ebay side of things.

My first atempt of 2 abstract images on ebay turned out with no sales but then I put them back up with some additional bits. I managed to sell 2 images at a very low price but I should more or less break even which is a good start.

So i'm on my third stage where I have put all the images I have back up for sale. You can check out my current auctions here.

I'm trying to work out what sells. The two images I sold were both of Skylines. One was a black and white photo of Montreal the other was an abstract art piece of London.

I'm hoping that this holiday in Montreal will get me another few images to sell on ebay and I will also start putting together some art pieces when I get home.

I'm finding the ebay stuff fun but have not put enough time in yet to really push stuff. As i've said before as soon as I have enough imagery it would probably be helpful to open a website portfolio and i'm trying to work out the deal with ebay shops.

Hopefully i'll sell a few more images this time round.

The Ebay to Go

LOCATION: O'neils Pub, Heathrow Terminal 3, London, UK

As I mentioned in my last post I had found a good supplier for printing and distribution of my images and have now eventually done something about trying to sell a few.

I have always had an account with ebay so I just logged into this as normal and have put up two images for sale. I've decided I will try different styles of imagery over the next few weeks and maybe play with different size prints. My first attempt is 2 abstract images printed to A1 size and supplied rolled in a tube ready to frame.

IMAGE 1 LINK
IMAGE 2 LINK

I have started them at a relatively low price and have put them up for 7 days.

I don't really know much about pushing ebay sales so for this instance i'll see what happens

I'm now off away to Monreal for 3 weeks and have taken my camera and laptop with me. Any decent photos I take and I will probably put oe of two of them on Ebay as photos are the next thing I want to try.

If anyone has had any experience selling imagery on Ebay any tips would be extremely helpful. I will be trawling the net when I get a chance looking for ideas and see what others have had luck with.

Will post again soon,

Ian.

The Fact of Online Life.....

LOCATION: Uk, London, Plumstead, My Flat, In Bed!!

My first post for 10 days!

So what happened and what have a learnt..

Basically my life took over for a bit and with work / trying to sell my flat and general things I just have not had time to pay attention to the blog or my online businesses.

I'm not giving up though!! Everything still is happening, I guess it's just inevitable that every now and then a few days will be missed. I'm off on holiday to Canada for 3 weeks on Tuesday so posts will still be sparadic for a few weeks. Best thing to do is subscribe on the top right of this page (if on the website) and then you should get any posts via email.

What have I learnt in my absense?
• No blogging / promotion = no traffic
• No traffic means that I have not had 1 click on Adsense for the whole week. So no cash earnt

My ideas are still just as active.I need to return from holiday and start making them real. Like I said cafepress is on hold right this second but i'm still starting my links website for which i'll post some details soon and i've just arranged some prices for print and distribution of my photographs so I can sell these through ebay and eventually through my own website and hopefully this will be a really good and fun way of linking in my love of imagery and photographs with the money making online.

Ciao for now. Will blog soon.

forest.........

Update

LOCATION: UK, My Flat, Plumstead

As you can see i've updated the header but friends have been asking me what the site actually is when i direct them so I have to think of a new strapline so it's obvious what the this site is all about.

I've also been reading various bits, swapped a few links and gained some help and tried installing various bits from feedblitz including a very handy subscription tool, so please subscribe if you want my blog by email. I'm still trying to fully work out what and how to use the blogroll and syndication list.

On donation... I decided to add this little link. It's hidden down under my profile at present and will stay there out of the way until I feel I have any content worth donating for then I will move it up near the top. The whole side bar is getting cluttered and unorganised so soon I will smarten everything up. The donation tool was easily added using paypal and since I already had an account I just set it up straight from that. The blogger template tool makes it really easy to add in code and stuff so i'm grateful that I don't have to fully undestand things at this early stage.

The Google Adsense and Textlink Ads buttons that have been newly added are more revenue making buttons. I don't know much about them as yet and not sure if i'll keep them. I guess if they generate anything they can stay.

Statcounter is working great. I open it about twice a second just so I can stare at the map and see where people have been looking from!!

I tried to contact the charity WWF about getting a free banner on my site but sadly they replied with the following email:

Thank you for your email.

We are happy for you to link to our website, however due to the many
requests we receive, we are unable to set up a reciprocal website link.
Please note that you are unable to use our logo, and that your link must
not imply any endorsement of your website on WWF’s behalf. I am sorry,
but we are unable to provide banners or photos for you to use for your
link.

Thank you for your interest in WWF.

Yours sincerely

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Supporter Relations Coordinator

Supporter Relations Team

So I guess maybe what i'll do is start a small charity links column in the sidebar as i'd imagine most charities will reply with similar rules.

Hopefully this weekend i'll set up the Cafepress site and upload my first design. When this is in place i'll make sure to write a post about the signing up process and uploading and how I plan to promote my items.

I guess that's it all for now, been a pretty boring few days for blog info but interesting for my knowledge expansion. It's great to be getting comments and help from people I don't know. It means that the blog is working.

Blog soon,
Forest.

Bye Bye Sitemeter

Debbie from Blatherings left a comment pointing to her article showing that Sitemeter was acting with a third party to track users so i've switched right away from that and taken her advice to use statcounter.com. On the face it looks pretty much the same as Sitemeter. My favourite bit is viewing a world map and seeing where all your recent visitors have come from!! I'm sure the novelty will wear off. At present my visits sit at around 30 and i'm sure i'm at least 10 of them, ha ha!!

My First Steps, Adsense, Stats and some small promotion

LOCATION: UK, Train from Hastings to London.

Adsense was my first port of call so I went to work setting this up right away Joining was easy, setting up was easy and now i've been accepted and showing ads on this blog, as you can see.

The fact that blogger has simple links to set up Google Adsense made it a a breeze and even checking my account now i've started to reel in a tiny amount of revenue although I can't tell you too much about it apparently because of the Terms and Conditions. I don't want to be kicked off yet now do I?

I tried going to various Charity websites that I would like to support such as WWF, Born Free and Amnesty International and did not have any luck finding any banners that I could use for my website so I will need to decide which one I want to display and will email them today in the hope that they will send me some HTML code to put it. Blogger makes it really easy to add in little banners and things because the templating system just displays all this in boxes. I'm considering starting my links site in the form of a blog as the pages are so easy to create but i'm not sure if I can use a blog for this purpose, i'll have to read their Terms and Conditions, again obviously!!

I also spent some time reading various articles. Two articles on the blogger help were useful, the links are http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42377&topic=8934, http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42376&topic=8934 and an article by this guy http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from-your-blog/, again here is the link gave me a better insight into a few things and the need to keep track of visitors and stats kept arising. After some searching around and reading a few forum posts I decided to join www.sitemeter.com and www.google.com/webmasters which both seem to give me quite detailed reports about various hits and things. I guess i'll write more on this when I fully understand it all.
Google also offered me the chace to submit my web page so that it's search engine could add it to the database and it's stats will let me see how many times people have hit it through a search and things, I think!!

Lastly I started the promotion on a very small scale. I posted my blog on the blogger forum here http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-share/browse_thread/thread/c91ee5f12fb7dcd6/92fbd71c7bf96ed6?q=brand+new+blog&rnum=2#92fbd71c7bf96ed6 and logged into my myspace.com account and sent ot my first bulletin asking people to come and join my blog.

The fact that after a very little amount of effort I have managed to earn a small amount has given me the immediate hope I need. Maybe this fantasy can be acheivable.

Next job is working out how people can subscribe to my blog and how I can tell who is subscribed. I'm becoming obsessed with who is looking at me. The article by Steve Pavlina also suggested I add a donate button, i'll have to decide if I think this is too cheeky at this early stage.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Forest.

£0

LOCATION: UK, Train between London and Hastings.

So here it is! Hopefully the start of my new online life. I'm going into this blind. If the stories are to be believed alot of hard work will eventually pay off with the possibility of earning an income online.

I'm 25 now and have been working since I was 16 as a Graphic Designer for print work and have only briefly scratched the surface of anything web related. Obviously like most 20somethings i'm fairly addicted to checking my email and surfing the net. My dream is to find a way of working from the internet with no office, no one to go and see and no ties as to when I work. I hope that I will be able to take my work anywhere where a wireless network or internet cafe lurks. The streets of Bali, a North American Lumberjack town or a sleepy Somerset village. I no longer want constraints of where I work but I am willing to work.

So I know I now have an extremely steep learning curve. It's going to be in my nature to steer towards ideas that somehow relate to imagery and graphics but I am hoping to try out various different money making strategies and hopefully put fingers in several pies to try and spread the chances of hitting on something good.
I guess my aim will be £1000 per month, if I reside at my mothers house in Liverpool (uk) then this should be enough to enjoy travellinga around and give me the freedom I crave. If I can acheive this (ever) I will have amazed myself but who knows, you just have to try these things. For now i'll make my next few weeks an aim to get something above £0.

As you can see this blog needs a lot of formatting and designing to make it more than just the template and that will definitely be one of my first jobs. I've also been surfing around the web and on first inspection it seems that Google Adsense seems to be the number 1 earner for most people so i'll be looking at incorporating that into this site and hopefully any other sites I start working on. I've also made a promise that wherever I feature money making advertisements I will always feature a free advert to one of the charities that I care for.

So, How exactly am I going to start. I have a swarm of various ideas blowing around my head and have been reading snippets here and there. So firstly I need to nail down a few serious ideas and start implementing them.

One of the first ideas I will work on are a few designs on a site called cafepress.com. Cafepress let's you sell merchandise featuring your designs and place a mark up on there product. They give you the webspace, print and distribute your items for free or a small premium cost depending on what kind of service you want from them. I particularily have one T-shirt design in mind but will try and find a few others around the theme and upload them, then start the promotion. Actual earning from this site seem to be sketchy from reading testimonials but if it's a few dollars as a start and becomes pretty easy to maintain then it will be a start.

I also have an idea for a links website for which i'll post more details later. This will be a basic site manually run by me at the start and featuring Google Adsense and a few other affiliate and pay per click schemes if possible. Details will follow when I have purchased the web address and started putting everything together.
Right now, i'm full of all the enthusiasm and none of the knowledge! Research will be key to this being a success and hopefully if anybody else reading this is interested in pursueing the same destiny then maybe my coming posts will be a help and maybe they can point me in the way of some helpful information. I will also be searching around and linking to other blogs and articles that I find helpful.

Wish me luck!!!!
Forest.