Nextebizguy
Exploring Ways To Make Money Online
Archive for November, 2006
Learn How To Make Money As A Writer
Nov 17th
If you’re wondering if you can make a living as a writer, you can soon learn from a group of five freelance writers (Denise, Jenn, Rebecca, Rob, and Zainie).
They have an ambitious goal: each will try to earn over 100,000 dollars in one year from writing or editing work. You can follow their progress on their website: www.sixfigurewriters.com This is no insignificant challenge. Many writers face a bleak market that suffers from a glut of “talent” that is willing to work for a poverty wage of 0.01 – 0.03 cents a word. Even respected writers are struggling. Well known author, Bob Bly, recently announced his retirement from book writing saying:The shelves are too crowded, and it’s harder for worthy titles to stand out. Advanced for midlist and backlist authors, meanwhile, have declined to a new level of poverty. And publishers are having authors turn out formula books like machines.
A major publisher recently asked me to write a complex 120,000-word book — in 3 months — and for a lousy $10,000!
So while it isn’t an easy market, this group is out to prove what can be done with some dedication and hard work.
If you are at all curious about making money from freelance writing, this is one site you will not want to miss.You Only Have 4 Seconds
Nov 11th
Do you want to keep your users happy and purchasing? You’ve got a mere 4 seconds.
According to research done by Akamai, your website must load within 4 seconds otherwise the customer will abandon the site. The report also notes:The consequences for an online retailer whose site underperforms include diminished goodwill, negative brand perception, and, most important, significant loss in overall sales.
Another lesson learned is that a site can’t be too fast. The faster the page loads, the better the customer response. Even differences like a half second make an impression.
You better think twice about tons of flashy graphics and AJAX scripts. This is truly the instant gratification generation.Selling An Ebook on eBay
Nov 3rd
Always one for adventure in ebiz ideas, I recently have tried selling an ebook on eBay. Admittedly, ebooks are a dime a dozen on eBay, but this ebook is a quality product and I think has great value to aspiring webmasters.
I first tried the suggested category: Everything Else > Information Products > Other The listing had sales copy but no pictures. All listings in this area failed to sell. Ebook priced at $9.99. I then tried listing it in: Business & Industrial > Other Industries > Websites & Businesses for Sale > Internet Businesses, Websites > Other Internet Businesses The first listing had text only sales copy and again no sales. I had someone make me an ebook cover and relisted the ad. This time the ebook cover version sold (same ad copy and still priced at $9.99). The amount of interest judged by page views is quite low (< 20 views). I am still going to try experiments with sales copy to see if I can boost page views. Overall, I think that eBay is saturated with ebooks. I can also try pricing changes but I don’t have much interest in selling ebooks for 99 cents. As a side note, when I do research on completed auctions, the only ebooks that are selling well and for lots of money are the ebooks for police auctions that say things like “Xbox 360 90% Off Police Auction Ebook”. It appears people aren’t paying attention and somehow think they are buying an Xbox 360 at 90% off. Some of those ebooks are selling upwards of 100 dollars! Scratching my head on that one.