A Collection of Money Making Ideas by YOU

On Friday night I published an open invitation to readers to inspire me on ways to make money online and as I hoped, I’ve had a great response. In this post I’ll have a look at all the the ideas and accept, reject or consider each of them.

Even though I have rejected most of the ideas I have been given, I really do appreciate every single one of them so thank you to everybody who took the time to suggest something! What I have found as I have considered all of these suggestions is that all of the ones I rejected helped me identify what I do not want, which in turn is making clearer what it is that I do want.

Idea: Contract Software Development
Suggested By: Mark from Complete Life Success
Seconded By: Kris of kris.blog();
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: Yes I do want software development to feature in my work but not on a contract / client basis. I need to do my own thing, build software that I feel is unique and can make an impact. For me personally, contracting is no better than a day job.

Idea: Writing Ebooks
Suggested By: Liz Fuller from More Than We Know
Seconded by: Pat B. Doyle, Dorothy of Book Marketing Buzz
Verdict: Accepted
Notes: Yes I do like to write and I feel like an ebook provides genuine value to the readers. My current project is a free book which will be monetized via affiliate links which does not feel sleazy though I would eventually like to develop the confidence to develop a product that I could charge directly for.

Idea: Blog Setup Service
Suggested By: Pat B. Doyle
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: This is something I do for my friends for free but I would not want to do it for money for two reasons. Firstly, it’s client based and I do not want to work for anybody else, and secondly, it’s boring :-)

Idea: Find My Passion
Suggested By: BlogKitty
Seconded by: Michael of GM Simmons & Gisele of My Beauty Match
Verdict: Trying to!
Notes: Kitty suggests that I need to find my passion (”Follow Your Bliss”) and focus on that. That’s what I’m trying to do but I’m no longer sure what my passion is. I have some inklings but they are vague. I know I love to write and I feel as though I can teach though I am not sure in what capacity, and what I should be teaching. I know I also enjoy software development. Hmm, I suppose my core passions have not changed at all as these were things I have always been passionate about.

I feel like I need a little more clarity here and of course that is something that can only come from me.

Idea: Games Development or Teaching It
Suggested By: Monika of The Writers Manifesto
Seconded by: Lou714
Verdict: Under Consideration
Notes: My plan for January was to work through the Teaching Sells material and develop a course around games software development. Games are something that I have been passionate about for many years but suddenly lost all meaning for me recently. I now feel like I have wasted massive chunks of my life to games and it feels trivial to play them or work with with them.

However, I really like the idea of developing a course - I like to teach, and I also really want to get back into development. So I feel this idea needs some more exploration. I felt as though I could teach games development at a basic level and I had enough ideas to last a while and right now I cannot think of another software related idea. I need to think on this further.

Idea: Develop Niches Around Dating / Emotional Upset
Suggested By: Jimdmcd of Yosemite Reservations
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: Hmm, actually I don’t plan to date. The second idea of using the emotional upset was also suggested to me via email last week and to be honest I believe that we get more of what we focus on so by focusing on the emotional upset I shall get more of it. I want to focus on my future, not my past.

Idea: Bombard My List With Affiliate Offers
Suggested By: Stephen Anderson of Your Thank You Card
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I know this one was a joke, but it made me smile so I wanted to give Stephen a link back :-)

Idea: Work / Donate for Charity
Suggested By: Melissa Chang of 16th Letter
Verdict: Accepted
Notes: Yes I have a couple of ideas in this area, not really on topic to the blog though so I’ll leave it at that :-)

Idea: Continue Plugging Away at my Existing Projects
Suggested By: Ritu of Work N Play
Verdict: Under Consideration
Notes: Ritu suggested that rather than keep trying to take on new projects that I just keep doing what I’ve been doing and see how it goes. My first reaction was to reject the idea but I did say that I would take everything under consideration. A good point is raised here - if I keep trying new things I may end up wasting a lot of time not really giving anything a chance to work. It’s always an effort to get things started and many people give up right before things take off.

I think I can work some kind of compromise in here. I could simply pick a project, work on it for a few days and then re-evaluate how I feel afterwards. I might find that the enthusiasm returns. My bum marketing project in particular comes to mind here because it would be a shame to dump it after having done so much work on it already.

Idea: Change the Focus of this Blog
Suggested By: Todd Morris of The Successful Part-Time Networker
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: Todd suggests that I could change the focus of this blog in any direction that I choose as it is simply branded to my name. I have rejected this suggestion as I really do want to make money online and help others to do the same.

Idea: Keyword Sniping
Suggested By: Emma Nelson of Its Write Now
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: The whole topic of ranking well for keywords is one of those games that I do not like to play. There can only ever be one entry in the number 1 position so it is a constant battle to be there. To me, this is the kind of stuff that just makes me groan so I had to reject this one :-)

Idea: Programming Widgets for Musicians
Suggested By: Netvalar of Netvalar Speaks on Music
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I have rejected this idea simply because I have no interest in music so I would find the programming painful to do.

Idea: 10 Blog Posts on Finding Purpose in Life
Suggested By: Roy Blumenthal of Coffee Shock Schmuck
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: Although I think the principle is a good one, and the exercise itself could be a valuable one to carry out privately, I do not want to change the focus of this blog. There are already plenty of blogs out there that cover those kinds of topics.

Idea: Ebook on Wordpress for Education Networking
Suggested By: Marshall Sandler of Apple for My Eye
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I’m not sure I actually fully understood this suggestion. The ebook I currently have is about setting up niche sites using Wordpress, but I have no idea how Wordpress can be used as an education networking tool - I’m not even sure what that is :/

Idea: Ebook on Day Job to Business Transition
Suggested By: Brian Monahan of Running Revelations
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I can write that ebook right now - “hand in your resignation”. That’s all I did, I simply quit, there was no transition so while this is an excellent topic for an ebook, it is not one that I am qualified to write. With regards to your last point about finding income… my recent split has had the fortunate side effect of providing me with enough money to keep me going for a very, very long time. Thus I can now build my business at my leisure and there is no pressure to earn any additional income.

Idea: Mentoring a Fellow Blogger
Suggested By: Clog Money
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I have been asked many times to share the ’secret’ of the subscribers and traffic to this blog and I have already blogged about it as much as I can in stat reports and similar posts. I honestly believe that a lot of it was luck and I have no idea how it could be repeated, let alone how I could teach somebody else to do it.

Idea: Perpetual Leverage from PayPlan
Suggested By: Paradise5000
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I’m not entirely sure of the details of the plan offered here but I watched about 15 seconds of the marketing video before being hit with bad vibes. Not for me, sorry :-)

Idea: Trading on the Forex Markets
Suggested By: Althaf of Blogpreneur
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I had to go Google this and read up on it so I understood what was involved before I rejected it! There are a few reasons why I have rejected it but the main one is that it achieves nothing, serves no purpose, provides nobody with any value. If I just want to make money for the sake of making money I could probably find many profitable avenues, but I really need to feel that my work serves some greater purpose.

Idea: Write a Novel Based on My Previous Relationship
Suggested By: Hughmax of Create Social Bookmarking Widgets
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: I have rejected this one for the same reason as I rejected the one about creating ebooks around emotional upset. My 10 year relationship is my past now and I no longer want to focus on it. I have already analysed it, noticed what I did wrong and learned from those mistakes but I don’t need to keep regurgitating it.

Idea: Personal Consulting
Suggested By: Evan Hadkins of Wellbeing and Health
Verdict: Rejected
Notes: There’s two reasons why I have rejected this one - firstly because I do not wish to do client based work, and secondly because I simply don’t feel as though I have the skills. However, it’s something I would consider in the future if there was something I was particularly good at, though I have a feeling it would be something on a more personal level and less computery. Is computery a word?

Conclusions

There has been a fantastic response to the post and it’s certainly given me plenty to think about it. As a couple of people pointed out, nobody can really inspire me, I need to do that for myself. I think perhaps ‘inspire’ was the wrong choice of word. What I was hoping is that somebody might just happen to post something that I hadn’t thought of myself that just clicked with me.

A couple of people have also pointed out that a post like this is likely to simply tell me what I already knew. I’ve come to the same conclusion. What I have realised now is that I think I already knew what I felt passionate about but I managed to get side-tracked by projects that everybody else seemed to be doing. For example, I started this blog off the back of the 30 Day Challenge and so the very first thing I did was to try out more niches.

I tried several of them and the problem is not the niche marketing process itself but the subject material. I was working in niches that I had no interest in. Back then I thought that I could do that - just doing something was exciting and new but now I realise that I really can’t just force myself to work in that way. There are people like Ed Dale who gets excited simply at the prospect of earning money so the topic of the niche doesn’t matter. Not me - I have to feel a passion for what I am doing, the money is not a motivator.

I know I like to write and I also know I like to teach. Several people mentioned ebooks and this gives me a good feeling. I think this is my starting point. Perhaps I could expand this in other ways and go on to write more in-depth books, or develop courses. Who knows where that could lead in the future?

However I am still not 100% sure on the topic of the ebooks though. I already have a start which is my WordPress book. I have a lot of technical knowledge and I think that could be distilled quite well. I have always been good at taking a technical subject and presenting in a way that can be understood by beginners. For example, the couse I am considering developing is for newbie games programmers. I couldn’t teach it at an advanced level as my own skills aren’t good enough but I can at the beginner level, well I hope so anyway.

The one niggle is the games thing. It has been a passion for a long time but it has also lost its meaning for me quite dramatically. However, there is also a big difference between developing games themselves, and teaching others how to do that. If I write a game, all I am doing is providing entertainment. If I teach somebody else how to write a game, I am transferring knowledge and skills onto somebody else and helping them reach their goals. That feels much better.

So Where Do I Go From Here?

First of all, I received my new blog theme today so before I go to work on any of my projects the very first thing I am going to do is implement my new theme and open up advertising on the blog.

Secondly, I’ve already said that I still have a passion for software. I had a look through my ideas file and there were quite a few project ideas that I had come up with but all of them involved web development which I do not yet have the skills for. From January, I shall spend one day a week just doing software development. I’ll just get out my books, study and see where it takes me.

Thirdly, I shall finish my WordPress ebook and then release it. I’ll be exploring lots of distribution options as the book itself is free so I’ll be blogging about that.

Fourth, I shall resume going through the course materials for Teaching Sells and start developing that games programming course. This is something that is likely to take a while so I’ll probably spend no more than one day a week on that.

Fifth, I think I’ll dig out the bum marketing project again and have another play with it. I was struggling a bit to write the articles but I wont spend too much time on it and I’ll see how that goes.

Conclusion to the Conclusion (!?!)

Notice anything about the above list? That’s pretty much the same as my intentions were a couple of months ago! Also, I have to take my hat off once again to one guy in particular - Peter Buick. Many moons ago, when I was fresh out of the 30 Day Challenge and just starting with this blog, Peter and I had several long email exchanges. He said that I shouldn’t just blindly try and find niches and that I should follow my passion, and develop software.

I said, no, no, I’ll get to software in a few months time, but right now I need to make some money. I started this blog at the end of August - 4 months ago. I have made a little over $300. What does that tell me? I may as well not have bothered with all the niches and just taken Peter’s suggestion right from the start. I wonder where I’d be in my software projects if I had done that instead? I certainly wouldn’t be any worse off financially.

Well, never mind - we live and learn! At least through all this experimentation and failed projects over the last few months I have built up a good following on the blog, found some things I like to do (write, teach, inspire, build software) and learned quite a bit about Internet Marketing, Social Media, Blogging etc.

Anyway, I am not going anywhere and this post has really helped me identify what I want to do, even if I did know it all before!

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