I’ve been working on other projects and shamefully ignoring this blog. I guess because I’ve named it eBay Diaries, I tend to overlook it when there’s so little going on at eBay, at least where my business is involved.

Sales are slow, probably understandable with the economy in the shape it is, although there have been spurts of business. I thought the ebooks about making money online might become more popular, but not so. I just took a quick look at completed listings using the “make money” search term, and there weren’t very many sales.

I confess that I’ve not been paying much attention to my eBay biz. As I mentioned last time, I’ve decided it’s a very good idea to try to develop other sources of income. So, I’m working at building small niche sites, adsense and Clickbank sites, with the hope that they’ll generate regular revenue streams, even though they may be small revenue streams. The key is to have a lot of sites, so I’m working at getting a lot of articles. I’m actually finally being forced to look at and organize the gajillion or so article packs I’ve accumulated, as well as all the private label rights books.

I am so far staying away from the internet marketing niche, so that eliminates a ton of the stuff I’ve accumulated, but I have found some useful information in my collections, especially for the natural healing site, and I’m finding that I have lots and lots of the same packs. I’m rewriting some and tossing a whole lot more.

Since my last post I’ve also had some small success with Kindle listings. I’ve only made a few dollars, but then I only have a few listings. I am rereading my Kindle Profits book; I do think Kindle is a good place to put some priority. Amazon is pushing the newest Kindle, and the owners are buying books. I am paying attention to getting the index done right; I’ve seen a few negative comments about messed up or non-existent indexes or tables of content. It takes a bit more effort, but this is a do-it-once and you’re done kind of deal, so worth it.

I’m going back to my article packs and sorting. It’s tedious but has to be done. As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of junk. But then when I get to a point of thinking all I have is junk, I find a jewel. So it goes.

Be well and just keep plugging away.

Well, they’ve been very quiet for me. Sales are waaay slow. I thought for a minute that the trend in the books I am selling was toward the “make money online” kind. But then I sold some cookbooks, so who knows? I also admit I’m not giving enough attention to my listings. Definitely need to look at listing titles and see if I can’t do a whole lot better. And, as is always the case, I need to continue adding new ebooks.

And, of course, I’m continuing to work on diversifying my online stuff. I have several new blogs that I hope will draw in some adsense revenue, and I’ll be looking to add affiliate products there.

I stumbled across some information about a new system for getting started online that looks quite interesting. It’s called The Guru Assassin, and it’s being released on Thursday. I was very tempted by it, but then I remembered my promise to myself not to buy anything new until I got my blog system completely in place. I did ask for a review copy, and I’m very impressed. (They vary with each marketer and product, but review copies are generally more of an outline or part of the program so a reviewer can get a sense of what the product does.)

Anyway, not to take too much of your time, The Guru Assassin looks to be a pretty near perfect vehicle for folks new to internet marketing to get started, and get started making money quickly. The developer of the course, Jonny Andrews, says the “gurus” have it all wrong, that they tend to just rehash and recycle old information, and don’t really help folks. Having purchased a number of these new shiny things, I can attest to the truth of that. Andrews approaches this whole thing differently – even backwards according to the guru common knowledge – and gets results. If you’re struggling with how you want to get started, take a look at The Guru Assassin. It’s pretty inexpensive for all that’s being offered, too.

I’m off to work on my other blogs, hopefully to be more productive that I’ve been in the last few days!

Be well.

I’ve been working on a new site, so I apologize for ignoring the Diaries. In my continuing quest for diversity, I’m going to be setting up more blogs. The idea is to find the small niches that aren’t being serviced very well on the web and filling that need. The trouble for me, though, is my complete and utter lack of imagination! I know there are folks who can look at a long-tail keyword and instantly see dollar signs. I get hung up with my research – and distracted by following a new trail for more information! Oh well, as with all things, I’m reassured that all it takes is practice.

My new blog is http://www.glutenfreelifeonline.com, started because my sister and niece have both been diagnosed with celiac sprue disease. I’m still working on the long-tail, underserved keyword thing. I am working on incorporating video, pictures, articles, and other blog posts into it. It’s built around the FirePow system I told you about last month. Check that post here.

One note about keyword research. There are tons of ebooks and tutorials out there about how to do it, what tools to use, how to find profitable markets, etc. But the one I’ve found to be an absolutely fabulous tool is MicroNiche Finder. It’s from a fellow named James Jones, and he really knows his stuff. This tool gathers together all the niche/traffic sources, gives you the traffic counts, the competing pages both for broad and exact search terms, and even has a red-yellow-green light feature to tell you whether the keyword looks profitable. Although I bought it some time ago, I’m just now finally using some of the features that go way beyond simple keyword research. I’ve gone on enough about this, but I did want to suggest you check it out. At the very least, watch the free videos; they’ve give you some good keyword hints (and James is fun to listen to).

So finally to eBay. If you’re signed up with them, you’ve probably received the email about their fee specials. If not, here it is: for the month of January, the fees for 1 and 3 day auctions are half off. They’ve also extended their free subtitle offer through March. You are also reminded that your payment method can no longer include accepting checks or money orders. If you ship books, music, DVDs & movies, or video games, be sure that your shipping charges are in line with what eBay now allows. This has been a bone of contention for buyers, and eBay has responded by setting maximum charges. They say if you violate their new guidelines, they’ll remove your listings.

Back to my research. Be well.

First, a warm and hearty wish for a good Holiday season to all of you.

We have lots of snow here, very unusual for our part of Oregon. We’re part way up a hill, with just enough elevation that we get more snow than the valley floor, and it’s very pretty. We haven’t been able to get out for several days, but we’re warm and have plenty of food, so life is good!

I wanted to share some words of wisdom from John Reese’s blog. In this post, he talks about a concept of “time units” for getting things done. It’s basically the concept that you look at the tasks involved in a project rather than the overall giant package that can be daunting. It’s not a new concept at all, but as usual, he pulls it all together in way that sticks.

http://tinyurl.com/736smu

This really resonated with me. I know, intellectually, that the only way to get anything done is to take that first step and just keep going at it. But I do find myself staring at the directory of all the ebooks in my “ebay to be listed” file, with my brain pumping away at “OMG, that’s too much. I can’t take all this on right now. Guess I’ll play an online game for awhile.” Or watch the food channel, or cruise my email…

If any of that sounds familiar, check out the post and read the excellent comments. I’ve bookmarked the page with a resolve to reread it when I get an OMG moment.

Wishing you all a great Holiday Season and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.

When eBay lowered the boom on digital downloads, some of the folks affected moved their business to the classified ad format, and they seem to be making money.

I’ve not made the move myself, instead focusing on rebuilding my account with the sale of my ebooks on CD. Truthfully, I have been waiting to see if eBay ever clarified their rules and information. Not my best decision, apparently, since many classified ad sellers are building a tidy business, collecting signups for their mailing lists, and making money.

Apparently, eBay is ignoring changes to classified ad restrictions for now. It’s still kind of a maze, I think, to figure out, but there is someone who has it figured out and is sharing that information. Her name is Tracey Edwards, and she’s published the 3rd edition of her Auction Classified Cash ebook. In it, she shows how with just seven ads running (at $9.95 per month each ad), she’s making close to $1,000 a month. Not a bad return at all!

Even though this is still an income that depends on eBay, I do think it can be considered a separate income avenue. I’m going to spend some serious time looking at making this work for me! Check out the sales page, and see if this isn’t something that can help in your business as well.

Stay well.

You’ve listened to me nag before about diversifying your business, but I wanted to let you know about this new program from Andrew Hanson, a well-known, very successful online marketer.

It’s the coolest new tool, and it’s called FirePow (see the new banner?), and I think it’s an amazing product. Well, it’s actually more than a product; it’s several tools and a community of folks all working to build massive blog networks.

We all know that niche marketing is the way to generate ongoing streams of income. Find a niche that’s underserved, give them good information and products, and you’ll make money. Find another niche, do the same thing, and again and again, and you’ll build a very nice income.

That’s the basic idea of FirePow, and it provides all the tools you need to be able to get your information on the web and indexed quickly. I’m just blown away with it.

Here’s just a bit of what this incredible system does:

1. Builds you a blog from scratch with just a few clicks of the mouse. You tell it how you want the blog to look, the keywords you’re looking to target, what plugins you want to use, and a few other goodies, and it spits the blog out for you. That’s no FTP, no database creation, no messing around with code – just a few clicks and you’re away.

2. It helps you promote your site – in multiple ways in fact. It has in house features that help you post content to article directories for promotion, to social bookmarking services for promotion, to RSS Feed Directories for promotion, and even has it’s own niche blog network of high PR sites from which you can get relevant backlinks!

3. It lets you manage all of your blogs from a central control panel! That means when you have 5 blogs running, you can easily see from ONE screen which blogs need new posts, which blogs are ranking where in the search engines, and you can make changes to any of the sites from one spot.

You do still need to do some work; I’m not going to tell you that by clicking a few places this system is going to set you up for life. Doing the niche research, putting your own spin on the information, etc., are all still necessary. It’s just that FirePow takes you through the techy stuff, freeing your time for the money-making stuff.

I got the great program included with another coaching program that unfortunately is now closed. However, Firepow is very much available, and you can get it at a discounted price for a time (I honestly don’t know when the price will change, but Firepow has been on the market for awhile). Click here or on the banner to the right of your screen. However, if you decide to buy, click to leave the screen first. You’ll get one of those virtual assistants offering a discount.

If you have any interest at all in niche marketing (and you should), be sure to at least look at the sales page. I’m just sorry I didn’t get into this program months ago!

My husband and I went to Las Vegas for a few days, and all I brought back was a major cold. I think I’m well enough now that I can make some sense, but if I sound blurred, please understand it’s because I am!

Speaking of Las Vegas, did you know there is now an eBay slot machine? I found it in one of the downtown casinos, so of course I had to play. Guess what? It didn’t do anything but take my money. Surprise!

Maybe they need the marketing push and income, given this:

The AuctionBytes Newsletter of November 21 reported that “eBay Page Views Drop Off Dramatically in October.” According to the article, Nielsen Online data shows a disturbing 30% drop in page views this past October compared to the same time last year. You can view the article here, and see the charts, if you can stand to look at them.

I do know that my sales have been meager, as have the sales of the other sellers I watch. Certainly the dour economy has a lot to do with this, but I can’t help but wonder if it hasn’t been brought on some by the turmoil of all the changes at eBay. Logic tells me that in bad times folks are going to be looking for bargains – with eBay a logical place to begin. And even with gas prices falling, shopping online should still be more attractive than running around to the mall or several stores.

eBay has contacted store owners about promotions they’re implementing – coupon offers and a cash back partnership with Microsoft Live Search, for example. They’re also pushing store owners to use their email marketing tool. What I’d really like to see, though, is the kind of ad campaign they ran a while back that emphasized the fun and ease of using eBay.

With all that, we come back to diversifying our online businesses. I’ve found a couple of reports I thought you might find helpful, both gifts from one of my favorite subscriptions, Pirates Of The Public Domain. (Check out the site and free newsletter for a boggling amount of information about using public domain information to make money!)

Click on the images below to download your free pdf books.

Niche Hunter

Public Domain 6 Step Formula

With that I leave you for my couch and blankie and hot tea. Happy and profitable reading.

I signed up a few weeks ago for some training by a marketer who’s list I’ve been on awhile and who seemed a regular, up-and-up guy. He’s young and apparently has built himself quite an empire. His instruction so far is in line with all I’ve been learning. I joined the traning, hoping to get a little kick in the backside on my journey to creating my own product. No rocket science concepts, just straight-up do this, then do that, then do the next thing kind of information.

Apparently somewhere in the registration process I entered my real phone number, and today I had the pleasure of speaking with a young man in the employee of this empire. We had a nice chat, and I waited to see what it was I was going to be sold. Turns out it’s mentoring, a perfectly reasonable pitch as a continuation of the free information I was getting. I explained that I understand how valuable mentoring could be, but that I’m not ready to make a financial commitment right now.

That’s when the conversation went a little sideways. This nice young man asked if I knew the concept of OPM. Well, yes, as a matter of fact, I do understand the concept of Other People’s Money. However, my understanding of it and his understanding of it don’t quite jibe. He seemed to be under the impression that using a credit card constituted using somebody else’s money.

Ummm, no it doesn’t. And I do hope he and the rest of that organization truly are just confused about the concept and not trying to con folks into feeling safe about using their credit cards/credit lines to pay for their mentoring.

You see, you can call your credit card company and ask them if, once you authorize that charge, they consider the obligation yours or theirs. Go ahead, ask. Just don’t tell them who you are or what your account is, because I’m sure they’ll have some pretty serious questions about your ability to understand the terms of your agreement with them.

Once you authorize a charge, the money is yours, as is the debt, the requirement that you pay it back with interest. This is no way constitutes using anybody’s money but your own. It’s the very basis of credit and borrowing, no matter how a sales person may try to change the wording to make it seem something it isn’t.

Now, I would have been okay with the fellow suggesting that if I had credit available, investing in myself and my education might be a good use of those funds. That’s fair and true. But trying to turn that expenditure into something that it clearly is not is distressing.

I will be canceling my participation in the training. Even if it was giving me new and great information, rather than reinforcing concepts I already know about, I just don’t want to have any association with a program that either doesn’t understand money (best case) or that is purposefully trying to fool me with misrepresentations.

Be well.

I had every intention of getting into some heavy-duty niche research today, finding something profitable away from the IM niche to start my blog empire diversity program. Current events – our election of a new President and some close U.S. Senate races – got in the way! I can’t seem to make myself ignore all the news today! And somehow I’ve squandered hours…

I started my quest for niche information at Google Trends, then moved to Yahoo Buzz. In a few days, when the political news calms down again – or I develop a little more self-discipline, I’ll go back there to do some serious research. The top stories are generally current news or celebrity silliness, but by digging a bit, you’ll find both sites very useful tools to see what information folks are actually looking for online. You then want to use your favorite keyword tool for more ideas and to get started on your quest for more information.

There are useful free keyword tools (i.e., wordtracker), but for a tool that does some real digging, I’m totally in love with Micro Niche Finder. It helps you dig deeply into a niche, shows not only the searches but also the competition. It even gives a green, yellow, or red light to show you whether it’s a good niche to get into. The developer has some great videos on just what this product can do. Click here to check things out. Oh, and there is an option with the tool to check google trends, which I’m doing my best to stay away from!

Be well.

I finished my first reading of Blogging To The Bank 3.0 and can recommend it to anyone who’s thought about getting into blogging for cash. This isn’t a wildly excited two-thumbs up product, but it does give a good grounding to get you on your way.

This system is all about selling affiliate products through your blog, something the author has been doing with good result for a number of years. He explains the hows and whys of research quite plainly, and it’s enough to get you started.

This third version in the Blogging To The Bank series was updated to include more information about generating traffic from social networking. As you probably know, that aspect of online marketing seems to change every hour or so, with new networks and new strategies. In that, I think he’s done a good job in explaining the concepts and pointing you in the right direction.

Benwell recommends using Google’s Blogger rather than Wordpress blogs and shows how to get everything set up clearly, with a number of screen shots, and including the steps you need to take to make the blog search engine friendly. He talks about putting ads on your site, how to find them, and how to get them placed. There are tips for search engine optimisation, and he spends a lot of time on getting traffic with traditional methods, as well as Web 2.0 tactics.

This is a good place to start if you’re just getting into money blogging, but there are a few things in the book for folks who have some knowledge or who have started their own blog empire. I have some new SEO things to do and a few new ideas about generating traffic to put to use.

I also picked up some nice bonuses: more reports, some blog templates, and a couple of tools that I think will be useful.

The book is priced at $37 on the sales page, but as I write this you can get $10 off that. You have to try to click away from the site, so that one of those “wait, don’t go” boxes pop up, where you’ll be offered the discount.

The $27 is reasonable, I think, for all that is included. It got me thinking about another avenue of income for that all important diversity I’ve talked about before, and I’m certain that if I use the plan, I’ll more than make up the cost of the book with new income. You should at least take a look.

View the sales page and see the bonuses here.

Be well.