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This is my dilemma

I like to write. Sometimes it’s therapeutic, or so they say.
Instead of dwelling into your rambling thoughts, it’s best to vent them, so yes, it can be therapeutic.

It has always puzzled me how some people can write 5 times a day without saying anything basically.
I mean, no real value information. Useless thoughts thrown in the cyberspace.
Yeah, yeah, my thoughts are yadda-yadda as well, but hey, I don’t make money writing stupid things. I write them for free, right?

So, this is my dilemma: I understood that in order to get accepted by programs that pay you to blog, you have to show originality.
But it’s not quite clear what ‘originality’ means.
So, to shed some light I started browsing blogs that are making money.
After skimming through two of them I lost my hope that I would be able to prostitute myself like that.
I mean, to say that I found them ridiculous it’s an understatement.
Some gal had an entry almost every other hour and I could not find absolutely anything interesting or remotely useful.
To have an audience you have to have some exposure, meaning that you have to use the appropriate wording to be found by the spiders.
What are these magic words?
‘Car insurance’ could be some? Like am I going to start yapping about how wonderful it is to have car insurance, or how necessary is it, or something along this line, just making sure I use the magic words as often as necessary to be found.
Or maybe ‘plastic surgery’, because I guess a plastic surgeon would have the money to pay for advertising.
But wait! I forgot that I don’t have AdSense and I am not yet accepted by PayPerPost, I don’t even have ContentLink. I don’t even think I could be accepted by Kontera (ContentLink) having like 100 visitors per month. I have seen numbers like 500,000 as the minimum requirement. 500,000???!!!! Not in this lifetime.

Maybe I should start an experiment… well, duh, I work in research, this is something I know.
So the project might be ‘how many things I am not interested in could be the subject of posting just because they are well paid’
Because let’s face it, nobody can convince me that the gal who writes about ski equipment while living in San Antonio is really interested in this stuff.


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Special category: Blog monetizing

Today, as in 2 minutes ago, I decided that I need a special category for this controversial issue.
Why controversial? Because I could not make up my mind if I should have added it to the ‘myths debunked’ category or to ‘uncategorized’ one or plain and simple to the ‘rambling thoughts’.

Now I have my category and I will try to do my best to come up with objective opinions.

Let’s start: the urban legend says that you can make money on the net without investing money. Interesting and appealing concept, isn’t it?
It goes even better: you can still have your full time job and be able to add another couple of hundred dollars (at least!) a month just by monetizing your rambling about everything.

It’s just an urban legend. I work full time as a research engineer, I am a full time mother and wife and the reality is that making money on the net it’s not an easy task. Everybody can do it, right? Why not me? If you want to get a reality check, take a look at the following questions:

1. Are you really, really good at finding the right niche?
2. Do you have any Internet marketing knowledge?
3. Are you a stay-at-home mother/father?
4. Do you have any idea about programming, web design, viral marketing, multi level marketing?
5. Can you spend at least 4 hours daily trying to write good posts?

If you answer with a ‘No’ to the above questions, then don’t hold your breath until you start making money from your ramblings.
There is a new trend among Internet marketers: baby boomers targeting. I guess it’s because the generation Y eats already Internet marketing for breakfast.
I am a baby boomer and beside not having time to write as much as a teenager or a stay-at-home mom, I am not computer savvy either.
Meaning that I am badly deficient at the most important things you have to have in order to make a living out of Internet.
And like me are lots of others, moving targets – so to speak- for unscrupulous Internet marketers.

Probably I am not going to be able to provide solutions, I am not a snake-oil vendor, but at least I will make piece with my conscience and try to spread the warning.

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Is there any affiliate program that it’s not a scam?

For the past two months I’ve been trying pretty hard to find a way to monetize my writing. Don’t get me wrong. I like having a blog to share my thoughts with my readers. But hey, if I can add some $$ value to it, why not?
I remember the day when I spent $47 buying info about getting rich through affiliates sites. Big, big scam.
You can’t make money with them, unless on top of this amount you pay a monthly fee to get your already designed website (by the affiliates hosting it) and at that point you can add other stuff to your website. Still depending entirely on the affiliate network.
I am not going to say the name, but it’s a very popular one.
There are a few important things to remember and take into account:
1. Most of the affiliate programs are based on pyramidal marketing, meaning that the people on top of the pyramid are the ones making good money; you on the other hand, are the new entry into the system, you are not going to make almost anything. I made a lame $10 in three or four months
2. If you are told that all you have to do is to get for a certain amount of money for a website hosted by the affiliate program, and after that sit on your butt and collect the moolah, run as fast as you can.
3. Logically speaking, could it be any normal marketing millionaire sharing secrets about getting rich on the net, for $47 or $97? why would they do that? It pisses me off to no extent even this amount : why 47 or 97? why not 98? It must be some psychological tool.
4. Beware of the ‘getting rich without investing any money’ trap. If there is indeed something like that, I have very serious doubts that somebody would share the info with the blogoshpere.
5. I tried to get into affiliate programs not by selling dreams and ebooks, but by promoting sales of products, namely herbs, vitamins and teas. Another warning point: most of them are Multi Level Marketing, and you are asked for money to get accepted as a seller. OK… does it make any sense? I have my own domain, my own website, my potential customers and I have to pay money to X or Y retailers to sell their products? You have to read about 20 pages of legal disclaimers, sign that you agree with all the terms, pay the money and then, good luck. On top of that the whole e-business may go tits up suddenly.

Statistically speaking, most of the successful internet marketers are in their late 20s- early 30s. These guys were born with a hand on a remote control or a game console.
They have started internet marketing campaigns in late 90s. We are now in 2007, almost 2008 and logically speaking we have lost about 10 years of trying to make money on the net.
We don’t have the time or the energy to learn everything we need to be successful.
And this is where the ‘beauty’ (not!) is: they now as much as we do, that we need this precious info. Whatever freebee we get, it’s probably not very useful or it’s been already used and it’s living the final moments. And here I am talking about the sort of honest guys.
Other type of e-marketers are going to sell the useless info, because guess what? Their motto is ‘a sucker is born every minute’

Conclusion: it’s a rant, yes it is, I am a bad sport, sour looser, whatever. But I lost the money I earned working hard, not scamming people.
And the reality is that it is foolish to believe that multimillionaires gurus are going to tell me how to make money.