A Buck A Night

Well now, that was interesting…

I have made over 12 dollars via google’s adsense this month ( today’s the twelfth ); that’s a buck a night. And when I score a sale through ebay, I’m making another dollar or two. Which implies to me that my methods are good but my targets are small. Hmm… What sells for a pile of money on ebay…

So I’m bumping my goal from one dollar each for seven days to seven days, fifteen dollars (total). That’ll bump my yearly extended goal from $366 (it’s a leap year) to $780. Not a bad chunk of change ( but my end goal is higher than that. ). I’d like to see several days of 5 bucks in there but my weekly goal will be $15 whether or not I peak into five dollar days.

Mmm, donuts, I mean, five dollar days: that’s over $1500 in a year, that’s enough to pay off a bill or two. Five dollar days then fifty dollar weeks? Interesting plan of attack.

What’ll that take?
Well, first, let’s stop dicking around with twenty dollar sales, or one sale a month and let’s start looking for some more frequently searched categories that sell for a few hundred dollars a pop. Something that I know … something that I can have fun researching…

That’ll be interesting, won’t it?

It’s also occurred to me that scaling would be an easy way to bring that dollar amount up; if I currently have ten “eBay RSS Blogs” and I’m making a buck a night, then if I had a hundred of them, then I should make ten bucks a night, right? And with a hundred sites, a fluctuation of a few topics now and then wouldn’t give me palpitations in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, as I said below, Repitation is Boring.

Some people don’t understand what “markov” content is. Basically it’s text that’s randomly regenerated to look like normal text, but since it’s automatically generated, it probably won’t make sense to a normal human. It is a method for defeating bayesian filters, and it’s a method for generating lots of “random” content.

Markov content is a quick way to turn this:

SONNET 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Into this:

Love is not with his height be error and weeks,
But bears it alteration finds,
Or bends with his height be taken.
Love's not to the star to the remover to remove:
O no! it alteration finds,
Or bends with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it is the star to the marriage of doom.
If this be taken.

Love's not to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not Time's fool, though rosy lips and upon me not Time's fool, though rosy lips and upon me not love
Which alters not Time's fool, though rosy lips and upon me not Time's fool, though rosy lips and weeks,
But bears it alteration finds,
Or bends with the star to the star to the remover to the marriage of doom.
If this be error and is not to.

Here’s an example of a markov function written in php, taken from a popular automatic site-building tool.

function markov($source) {

 $min = 100;
 $max = 350;

 $words = explode(" ", $source);
 $nonword = $words[count($words)-1];
 $w1 = $nonword;
 foreach($words as $word) {
  $wordpairs[$w1][] = $word;
  if (strpos($w1, “.”) === strlen($w1)-1) $capitals[] = $w1;
  $w1 = $word;
 } 

 $nw=rand($min,$max);
 $tt = array_rand($capitals);
 $nonword = $capitals[$tt];
 $w1 = $nonword;
 $output=”";
 for($i = 0; $i <$nw; $i++) {
  $suf = $wordpairs[$w1];
  $t = array_rand($suf); 

  $ttt = $suf[$t];
  if(rand(1,5)==3) $ttt = preg_replace("/\./", ".\n\n", $ttt); 

  $output .= $ttt." ";
  $w1 = $suf[$t];
 }  

 $output = trim($output) . ".";

 return $output;
}

I’m trying a slightly different eBay tack now. Rather than following the bluehat seo suggestions, I’m ponying up for phpBayPro, a plugin / tool for creating eBay based sites. I’m looking at this new recipe. He says all ya need are domain names, hosting (see side bar for the best damn webhosting package I’ve ever seen ), this software, wordpress, and an endless supply of niches, which eBay generously provides. So let’s see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted.

This new recipe doesn’t use a RSS feed, but uses the phpBayPro software which does a search. It’ll be an interesting thing, and I’m looking forward to it.

I’m recommending this “Secret Classroom” tool to you. However, I’m actually recommending that you register for the giveaway by Alok Jain and Jon Leger and get the five free toys they’re giving to all people who register. And, of course, also purchase your copy of the secret classroom.

Of course, if you purchase the “Secret Classroom” for $497 ( it goes up from there on a time-basis. You know the routine, they’re generating quick buzz for a short time, and they’re promising that this “special price” is “limited” ) … you get some cool toys too.

Buy the package through Jon Leger’s links at the Classroom GiveAway site and you’ll get these cool freetoys:

1. A 1 year account at 3 way links.net (asking price is actually greater than the $500 you’d be spending on the classroom. If you don’t even use the classroom, you’re getting your money’s worth right here.
2. A copy of Instant Article Wizard (hot! It’s 70 bucks itself!)
3. A copy of the Site Super Tracker Software ( another 70 bucks!)

But wait, there’s more! (Hah, I always wanted to say that. (Not really) That’s what you get for buying the secret classroom package. What do you get for registering for their giveaway? Maybe I’ve had too much coffee this morning, but this is really cool;
You get five more free things for registering for the giveaway…

1. A copy of the “viral profit machine” (this is an affiliate site you can set up yourself and make yourself a super-affiliate of other affiliates. It must be seen to be believed!
2. A copy of “1000 visitors in 24 hours”
3. A copy of “Write that report” ( which is actually a step by step process of finding keywords through writing that report )
4. A copy of “two minute profits” with a great idea to make some quick money
5. A copy of “on demand profits” with another great idea!

And this giveaway? It must be seen to be believed; Jon Leger is giving away all of his commissions from the secret classroom — giving away gratis, free, no strings attached. You really should take a look at the giveaway!

Just feeling totally discouraged this week. Could be the weather, could be more sinister.

Totally bombed out on PPC advertising on facebook. Nothing coming in on my MFA sites, zero zilch, nada.

I’ll bounce back … tomorrow.

On the advice of some friends and fellow profit finders, I’ve registered with NeverBlue Ads. It should be pretty much like clickbank or Commission Junction, but the searching-for-campaigns appears easier. Affiliates can use a combination of marketing methods, including search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, contextual advertising, incentive marketing and banners. Affiliates may specialize in one or more of these effective online marketing methods. Pretty swell, huh?

I think I found the answer to this weird spike. I’m pretty sure that this site sent some users there. It’s the only place I can figure out. The Best Selling Guide website was using a generic amazon tag, so I added a new one and am tracking those hits.

I think that $19 whole dollars might be enough to justify treating the other categories like the books; if you click on a genre it shows a list of best sellers if you click on a book, it takes you to a detail page, but if you click on a category and then on an item it takes you right to Amazon. If I keep some of the item info and use item detail pages it should help my keywords and searches. Since I don’t really think people are searching for best selling electronics, it should help people when they search for specific items.

And if I add RSS feeds for the categories, that’ll probably help too, with link bait.

Not that I think anyone’s searching for “best selling books” though

I took the adsense ads off the autoblogs; specifically the Tila Tequila one and the Kim Kardashian ones.

Google doesn’t allow adsense ads on blogs with adult content. And since most people looking for those sites are looking for porn, I could get my adsense license yanked. It’s not making much at the moment, but it could. So off they go.

No closer to my goals. Nose to the grindstone and all that rot.

Sometimes people repeat themselves and really irritate me. Like Jon Leger, who revealed in one of his “dollar deals” a method for gaining a lot of backlinks very cheaply. And then the night after, I got the same method in an email from him where he said the tip was worth $67 but he gave it to me for free for re-opting-in to his email list.

Sheesh.

Anyway.

If you’ve suffered at the hands of a bank, I recommend you tell the story to US Bank Sucks, and get their free pdf on resolving your problem.

I must have been sleeping last week- Google has acquired feedburner.

What’s that mean for me? And this site?

You can integrate your feedburner feeds with your adsense account!
Got a hot feed with lots of readers? Bam! Lots of ad readers!

Yay for ads!

Sometimes I’m sad about the encroaching monetization of our lives. But then I go to feedburner, select a feed, go to monetize, and connect the feed with my adsense account. That makes me feel better.