An Open Invitation - See If You Can Inspire Me!

Caroline,

I’m thrilled that you’re still with us and haven’t dumped your blog (so far).

All I know is that what you’re experiencing is normal, the fluctuating feelings, thoughts and emotions. The breakup of any relationship takes its toll, and it takes time to recover, but it also takes a lot of personal effort.

As hard as it is to consider, it’s often necessary to force ourselves to “put one foot in front of the other” and keep going. During tremendous stress and personal trauma, as in the breakup of a relationship, is the not the best time to make important decisions.

Right now all I can suggest is that you accept the care and support of those who care about you and love you, and choose to move on with your life, pursue your goals and dreams regardless of this personal setback. You can do it!

Caroline,

Weren’t you in a past life a software developer? Maybe there is some way you can offer your services on a contract basis to those looking for some help creating/improving a new or existing product or process. You have a fairly decent reader base, why not use that as a way to network and get word out?

It might not be the perfect long term solution but it might be able to help pay the bills for a while.

Good luck with the brainstorming!

Hi Caroline

I think it’s pretty obvious to everyone who reads your blog (even if not yet to you) that you are a gifted writer with a refreshing and engaging perspective. You have a way of explaining technical issues in a manner that is clear and understandable and also makes people care. You not only answer the question of “what’s in it for me” you make a personal connection with your readers.

Couple that with the fact that the only current project you still feel strongly about is your e-book, and I think it becomes pretty obvious that you should focus more on writing e-books.

For example, I’m not clear why the Big Juicy Twitter Guide is a series of free posts and not a book - it is so well written and you put so much time and research into it. It really could be a book.

I think you have other books inside you. You’ve learned a lot in the short time that you’ve been doing internet marketing. And you have a refreshing approach - you aren’t going to sell, sell, sell and tell people how to scam others and game the system and make a million over night.

You can give the real deal, the challenges, frustrations and rewards. Perhaps a book on how to be an internet marketer without losing your soul…..

Have faith in yourself and your future - it’s good seeing you start to bounce back!

Liz

Caroline, maybe since you’re technically gifted, you could help non-techies to set up their blogs (for a fee).

Or, as Liz suggested, write books and sell them. I agree that your twitter guide could be a book.

Or try writing a book in a niche other than internet marketing. That’s what I’m working on right now.

Start with finding what you are truly passionate about and only then think about how you can make it profitable.

When you’re passionate about something, you shouldn’t be bored - at least at the core - and it should give you a guiding purpose that does get you through the more mundane tasks.

When you’ve taken the time to find that and you know what your passion is, the next step is to focus on it!

It does sound that something productive like writing guides and tutorials and then selling them for a modest fee without all the crazy hype might be well something that could do it for you, but I actually believe it is not something that WE can tell you yet. I think it is something you need to do some soul searching to find out for yourself. Then of course when you know the area you want to focus on, some of these suggestions may be helpful.

I realised this week that I am completely lost as far as my focus goes and in many ways, I’ve been pushed and pulled by other people’s opinions and advice- and these aren’t even people I know! (I’m talking here about all the gurus of IM world.) So my main goal over the Christmas holiday period is to take the time out to try and see the bigger picture and chart what it is I want from life and how I think, in my guts, I think I should get there. I basically want to start hearing MY own voice again.

Good luck with it all!

:-) Kitty

Hi Caroline,

Looking at what you told us so far about yourself one thing comes through very strongly. And that is your love for developing software games.

You also said that you wanted to earn some money first to get going with this and I’m asking you why not get going anyway?

You also need to slap some advertising on this blog. Gee, with all the traffic you are getting you should be able to make some money!

If developing games costs a lot of seed money (I’m not sure whether it does, so please forgive my ignorance) then why not start by selling code (plugins, parts of games, etc.) and /or write ebooks about developing stuff.

This seems to be your passion and I haven’t heard you talk negatively about this either.

If funds are a problem which I think they might be since you do need to pay bills you could also fund yourself with writing on tech related stuff. Tech writers do get paid well since it is an area not everybody can write about.

Good luck

Caroline, the following is meant to be delivered with compassion, caring and understanding. First things first I cannot inspire you or motivate you in any way. That has to come from you. Nice try kiddo. Lets talk about your real dilemma. Your heart is broken and you will to go on doesn’t care. Until you take care of you, no one will inspire you

3 ½ years ago my wife of 26 years left home and we were separated. You see she had become and intravenous drug user through her job as a Registered Nurse. We had planned our live and dreams together when she was still a teenager. She entered in and out of rehabilitation centers was arrested and charged with prescription fraud just a short time out of one of her stays. The short of it is, we are separated permanently.

I tried to mask my inner feelings of the loss and go forward. At times I felt suicidal and really tried hard to convince myself, things and the world would be better off without me. The stress was consuming my energy at a rate my body mind and soul could not compete with. Some 2 ½ years later I entered a hospital myself for coronary bypass surgery. 5 of the arteries around my heart were blocked, 3 of them 90%. I was 49. My surgery was success and my recovery and lifestyle changes hopefully will prolong my life.

What I suffered through was Significant Emotional Event. Everybody has them. They are natural and necessary. It’s how we grow. Those things that don’t kill us make us stronger. There is good news and bad news about your SEE (significant emotional event) For some that is the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, and many others, but I think we hit the mark with you on those two. The good news? Most people work their way through them in a year or two. The bad news? If you don’t work your way through them, you will get sick. More so than you are now. Want proof? See the above paragraph.

I am going to lay out a multi-part plan for your recovery.
1. Each Day when you wake up, before you feet hit the ground choose joy. Do not let your pride get in the way here and stop reading this comment. You are by your own admission, stubborn. How do you choose joy? Start with counting what you have, you health, your home, you cats, whatever it is that you until may take for granted. You must plan your day; failing to plan is planning to fail;
2. Plan your day each day. Have purpose, focus and direction. Write it down if necessary.
3 Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Right now. Mark this day as the last day this will occur. Don’t tell me you’re not doing that I know you are. This is the last day for that ok?
4. Get off your ass and do something , your mind is going to tell you to stay in bed ,get liquored up or something else non-productive and possibly destructive, ring a bell?
5 You have talent, you have knowledge, and you have skills. You will make money with those, perhaps not in the making money online niche, but you will. Until you decide to pursue it with all your might, you won’t.
6Your feeling of meaningless is rooted in your SEE. Make sure you keep up with your meds your doctor may have prescribed.
7 Surround yourself with friends that support you, not detractors from your mission, and that my dear is what you are on. a mission.
8 Finally, who gives a crap about blogging when your emotional and physical well being are at stake? You do that’s who. Your passion and attention to detail in your post tell the world what you are all about and guess what Caroline, people love it. Start loving yourself .

Sincerely Don,
been there, done that

Develop new niches:
Develop/set up/run a dating forum (you are going to date, right?)
Develop/set up/run a forum on getting over emotional upset
using adsense-paid ads etc etc
Work your way through your upsets,help others,stay busy, and hopefully make a little money .

Why not bombard your list with affiliate offers 3 x a day, just keep hitting them until no-one can stand it any longer and either takes a look at what you are flogging or unsubcribes…

Oh I just remembered, you are one of those rare, special, people that values human relations over money.

Never mind, I am sure you will find something that sets you on fire and allows you to keep your integrity in tact.

No ideas but I do wish you all the best in your quest for success in 2008. I find your posts a pleasure to read so I sure hope you keep it up.

Merry Christmas Caroline.

Sincerely,
Steve Anderson

Ps
I just realized that I said;
“one of the rare people that values human relationships over money”, I take that back because every person that reads this blog is probably one of those special people too!

It looks like we are not so rare after all.

Merry Christmas.

Since making money for yourself (your work) currently seems meaningless, pick your favorite charity and see what you can do to raise money for that good cause! Perhaps put out a call for every person who has ever been dumped and depressed to donate $1 for each person who has left them to the charity you choose…and see how much money you can raise. I’ll even be the first to give - I pledge $20. :)

Caroline:

Inspiration comes from acceptance, and until you’ve fully grieved through your heartache, only then life will be clearer. So, my advice is to be true to yourself and allow yourself to grieve in your own way on your own time.

Do all things with the right intention, with good intent from your soul and opportunity will transpire, however you must be prepared.

MELISSA CHANG has a good point, through giving selflessly you will gain so much more. Give as many hugs and sincere compliments as you can, and you in turn will reap.

Aloha,
NEENZ.

Well, here’s something I would like to call a suggestion that probably will be rejected by you :-)

The money making online is great and something very achievable. As far as I know and can see you are doing really good. I suppose the boredom is setting in terms of updating this blog and what to do with it as you can’t find more projects to take on so as to share with us, readers.

I think the best thing to do right now is to focus on things that you have started online to make money rather than jumping on many things at once. It’s better to have one best thing then to have 2 good things.

My suggestion is to stick to what you are doing and keep updating this blog with your experiences. I am pretty sure you already have your hands full with the ebook and what not. You must have affiliate accounts and everything else going on. try to promote those while allowing the readers to see the benefit in them. this way you can increasingly raise the chances of earning and also provide valuable information to the readers on making money online.

Hi Caroline,

Probably without even knowing it, you gave yourself a whole bunch of options as far as this blog goes …

Since it’s branded to Your Name, nothing says you have to keep writing about making money online.

If the past week’s posts have shown you nothing else, it should be that the people who read your blog are interested in Your Writing … regardless of the specific topic you may be writing about on that particular day.

I think ultimately, you could make this blog about pretty much any topic you want, and you’d still keep a fairly high percentage of your nearly 1000 subscribers.

As far as making money online … I think Kitty above hit the nail on the head. Find Your Passion, and let the money part take care of itself.

In the short term, you really should consider some “mild” monitization here on this blog. You don’t have to wait for your “perfect” new theme. Find one or two thing that you would feel comfortable recommending (like you did with the Zen ebook), and put them in your sidebar.

Just kind of shooting from the hip here. I’m sure you’ll be bombarded with many great ideas over the next few days/weeks. I hope that in some way you find this little note helpful as well.

“Talk” to you again soon :)

I suspect that right now you need a way to have your work resonate with your core values and also to exercise your considerable and varied skills. I also suspect that you will be happier if that work does something for somebody else, as well as earning you some money.

So why not develop a very simple software game and a small ebook to go with it, set up a small site to sell them, and donate half the proceeds to a related charity?

If I were doing that right now (and if I could make software games!), I’d write something about microloans, develop a children’s game on the subject, and market them to schoolteachers. Half the proceeds would go to the Heifer Project. But then, I’m interested in teaching, in microlending, and in the Heifer Project.

I don’t know what area you would choose — but you can see the sort of thing I mean. If you do something like this, please do blog about it here, so we can all hear about the project!

Caroline,

Listen, the “what” is one thing…but the how is another. You are an excellent blogger and you’ve built a community in no time. Recently, I had a visitor from your site by the name of Gaida leave a comment on my site because she also read Caroline’s blog. WOW! I thought that was amazing and it’s so telling of the kind of connection you make your readers and your readers make between themselves.

Why no start by saying that you will continue bloggin and now you have to find the “what” … in other words, what are you going to blog about.

No doubt blogging about making money online is very popular, but if your heart is no longer into it, then find a blog topic that you will be passionate about for a long time.

No matter the topic, I’m 100% certain that you will build the kind of community that makes so many people leave the types of positive support comments when you revealed that you had a crisis in your life and the one where you reveal the nature of your crisis.

No matter what you do, you cannot stop blogging Caroline.

Take time off and rethink things or go over the 30-challenge to find some inspiration.

Gisele
http://www.mybeautymatch.com

Hi Caroline! I also would like that someone would told me what project I should do to make money online ;-)

But I don’t think that anyone could help me with that. It should come from within.

As I suggested yesterday, please read the great book by S. Covey: “The 8th habit.” This book is about how to find your voice and inspire others to find their.

Voice is driven by conscience and it is located on intersection of need (vision), talent (discipline), passion, and conscience.

It means that one would need

- learn himself (talents, passion)
- learn others’ needs
- use conscience to create a vision
- discipline himself to make it happen

Good luck,
Mike

Hey Caroline, I think you should actually make some money online. I know it’s easier said than done, but seeing a profit would be motivating. I think you should dump all projects you think are boring or unethical, you won’t succeed in either. Find something your interested in and try making a niche site in that. Courtney Tuttle just did this amazing post that I’m going to try. You seem to have the patience and time for long articles so you definintly could achieve this. Here is the link.

http://courtneytuttle.com/2007/12/20/introduction-to-keyword-sniping/

I will start off by mentioning 2 sites you could look into and think about. Though you will probaly just throw them out the window anyways. http://www.melodysmommy.com/ and http://valarnet.fsc2.com/.

Now looking over your blog I see you enjoy writing the E-Books and programming. What do you think about programming a set of widgets that Musicians could use to customize the way they sell, promote their music or better yet take a look at I-Squad.com and build a set of widgets that will allow musicians to do similar fan building on their various social networking sites.

Well now I am done adding ideas for you to throw out with the bath water. But I agree with most everyone here find your passion and do that. You may just need to look at taking that passion and expanding into new territory that is all.

Adding ideas and resources is good things to be closer.

my suggestion: freelance as a programmer or web designer. i did both and enjoyed them till i got my regular job, which incidentally, i enjoy even more :)

programming is less glamorous but pays better - there’s all sorts of tools to make sites for free, but none to write programs for you. take your pick.

I’m not sure what your Wordpress ebook is about, but I am sure I am not alone in wanting to learn the basics. I have struggled for months with Wordpress to understand how to set up my blog, optimise it, and get some traffic to it. I am promoting setting up blogs to a massive market and have searched high and low for someone who can write something that is straightforward, down to earth and aimed at people who still think that their product will be seen with a Frontpage DIY website.

For example, I simply want to change my author name from the current pseudonym to my actual name, on my blog. Can I find somewhere that tells me how to do it? This is a simple issue, and precisely because it is so simple, there is nothing around to answer the question. I need leading by the hand and I know there are thousand of others who would benefit from a simple guide.

You write well; I believe you can teach, and this market is waiting for something reasonably priced to meet a clear need.

If this interests you. let me know and I can tell you more about the target market.

Hiya Caroline…

What I’d like to suggest is that you take a commitment to spend the next ten blog posts sharing everything you know about finding purpose in life.

Imagine that you’re teaching a close friend of yours how to do this. And that they have to have an actionable solution within ten days. And your knowledge is the way forward.

This will accomplish several things.

1. You’ll find you know a hell of a lot more about this field than you currently believe you do.

2. Teaching others is a way of motivating yourself.

3. The subject matter is packageable into something that can either be sold on the web or delivered on the web as an adjunct to something else you sell.

4. Having the discipline to condense it into 10 blog posts means you’ll be distilling your knowledge and wisdom into something small enough to create a book proposal out of.

5. Amazon Kindle allows US-based authors and publishers to release works directly for the Kindle.

6. This is an exercise in focus. If I were your lifecoach, I’d be asking you why you feel that you’re drifting. And I’d suggest that focussing on that might be a way forward.

Good luck.

Blue skies, love, Roy

Caroline,
Very Simple ! The potential for people to create social media platforms on all subject matter is endless ! Wordpress is an excellent vehicle to use ! How to use Wordpress for beginning blogger is a great start ! How to use Worpress as an education networking tool is excellent ! Kids waste all their time on Facebook that may be just another Edsel ! Teaching young people how to create their own profiles on Wordpress would be a Life Diary ! I have had the same problems as Heather above in setting up my blog ! I have a firm in the US doing it for me !
Wordpress help pages are Semantic Jazz ! Upward Onward !

Carolyn
I have enjoyed reading your blog. Here is the problem I see with most people on line trying to make a living.
Everyone seems to be playing follow the leader, and thus they spend their time, energy and money trying to be a Joel Comm or Rich Schefren. I did the same thing, so I admit being guilty as charged.
It wasn’t until I realized that my dreams, goals and asperations were MINE that I broke free from the clutter and began moving toward my desired end result.
It all has to do with your passion, what drives you and makes you want to begin your day instead of pulling the covers over your head. My passion is uniquely mine, just like my fingerprint. But I can utilize that passion to my advantage by assisting others acheive their desired end result. And once I realized that, the money followed.
You have to get to the point where you say to yourself, “I can’t believe I get paid to do this”. When you reach that level, you will know you have achieved what most people just dream of.

1. Dearly Beloved Caroline:
2. Listen to what Don (Making Sales Making Money) told you. That is the light you need.
3. When you keep looking for ideas, you are getting yourself further confused.
4. Remember that you may be worried with many things but only ONE thing is needful, GET WISDOM!
5. When you are looking for a thousand reasons to do what you need to do, you miss the one singular good reason why you should do it.
6. Like what most of everyone have told you already, which ever way you face, you will excel. You just have to come to the conclusion by YOUR VERY SELF and take consistent action in that direction. Persistence Pays and not only in monetary terms but also in all kinds of ways too.
7. When I saw twitter, I was using it for some time but then woke up one day and made a decision to be sharing quotes that motivate as I go across the web because that is what I am doing right there and then as to answer the question of the twitter world. Since then, I have been using the service without getting bored of it regardless of what people say and questions like what is twitter all about?
8. You just have to make up your own mind because a closed mind is the most difficult thing to open on this planet. Agreed, you said you will have an open mind for the weekend but what about the clause that you will most probably throw away all the ideas anyways? What is the point of sharing ideas with you then?
9. Each mailing that I get from RentACoder, I see projects looking for people to do them for five thousand dollars per project with datelines of completion and explanations of what to do. There are hundreds of freelance work like this out there for programmers on elance and all kinds of places you have already come across yourself.
10. When you talk of selling. It is a choice of making up your own mind because each day as we wake up and go to sleep, millions of money in various currencies migrate from one end of the web to the other. All you have to think of is which side of it do you like to be in?
11. You can make up your mind to remain the one who spends money online or be the one who earn. All the affiliate management environments like CJ, Performics, Affiliate Window, Trade Doubler, Linkshare, ShareASale, Clickbank, PayDotCom, RegNow, et cetera to mention a few are not there for decoration, they are there to make people money. Use them!
12. If one more person tells you to monetize this blog before you do it, then forget about making money online.
13. Do you remember the video you shared from 45n5 the other day about the fact that some people will never make money online? Though I do not subscribe to all that 45n5 does but I can tell you that the truth cannot be further stretched than that.
14. When it comes to making money online, as much as you remain ethical and genuine with the kind of value you present to the whole world here, you will succeed OVER TIME.
15. Do you know that if you package only what I have read here on your blog, it is more than some information that people have paid over ten thousand dollars for in seminars, trainings and special weekend events that they have to invest airfare tickets, lodging and stress of inconvenience of leaving their home for in times past?
16. And like you have been told, I have bought e-Books that have nothing close to what you shared in your Twitter Guide that you gave to all for free.
17. Why do you think people keep coming back? For fluff? I can tell you it is for VALUE.
18. Keep the value and when you choose to do so, put a token fee on it and you will do well. Some people will pay any amount for what you have already been sharing for free.
19. Do not lose the momentum, just go away for a while if you need to but come back and tackle your focus from a different angle. Whatever you do, do not throw away this blog. At the least, package the content plus all the comments and keep it save. There is so much WISDOM here than you think of.
20. From my experience, there is virtually no teacher out there that you can mention on the IM world that I have not listened to for at least two hours or more. What I have noticed is that, all what they teach is true and it works. The problem is just that, people get so unsure of themselves that they eventually go out again to enroll under another teacher who will teach them exactly the same thing again but with a different angle. Perhaps you will even pay more. Every one is teaching the same thing and the one thing they are all teaching you is this…
21. ACT.
22. Too simple isn’t it? There is no more to it than that.
23. All what you already know, take action on it and then improvements will come with time. If you do not act on what you heard last, you will pay for the same information after a couple of days time. And the highest tendency is for you to get even more confused when you listen to ERROR.
24. What have I been saying?
25. Get a good and singular reason why you need to do something - DO TAKE ACTION - CONTINUE to work on it and other doors will open along the way.
26. Nobody starts from the top, we all start from the bottom and then climb upwards. If you start from the top, guess where you are going? DOWN.
27. When I said we are all sales men, the moment you invite me for a cup of tea, you are selling.
28. The difference is just whether you are giving me the ingredients for it or I am providing it.
29. When you mention an idea or discuss something you liked with someone, you are already influencing them in a way, whether they now take action on it in your presence or later, you may not know but if they do take action on it, you have sold them something already.
30. Why not start to do that with the day to day activities you engage in and then monetize with all the affiliate sites that was mentioned? You do not have to be pushy about it like you said, it is just an art you need to work on if you really love to make money working online. Sprinkle those links into your posts and like someone said earlier in your comments, we all ultimately love to sell, so why disguise?
31. Remain blessed and a blessing and we shall communicate again soon if God is willing!
32. Sometimes I wonder why I comment for this long because it is not in my nature and I think I hardly comment elsewhere these days, hope I am not disturbing your audience but I talk to you always like a friend.
33. Highest regards,
34. Your Friend,
35. Olakunle Solomon Fatoye.

Caroline,

I just joined your blog recently and can say that maybe you consider just doing a pseudo Personal/Niche blog in a soap opera type format. I must say I have been drawn in by your personal posts interestingly enough.

However, we know providing value is the best option.

First I will remind you of the things I have learned from
your blog so far and hope they might give you some inspiration to move forward.

1) Its hard to have a day job when following your dreams and creating an internet business. I would consider a good book on dealing with the transition from your day job to your dream job would be good.

2) The challenge of being real and transparent while blogging and staying on niche.

3) Blogs are like your Hairstylist. You get a haircut but
you really buying the hairstylist. Melding your niche with your persona.

4) Internet Marketing & Infomercial Programs, they made their money selling their classes not doing what they teach you. You too can be a millionaire.

5) Adsense is Nonsense, who can live on $11 a year. Real strategies for internet marketing.

Caroline, my final recommendation is your find some source of income in the mean time, even if its a part time job doing something you enjoy. The income and fun will help make you feel valuable. It will also keep you engaged with the real world and offer opportunity for inspiration.

Some of the best ideas for the internet come offline.

Good luck.

Brian

How about Miss Caroline you work with myself and be my mentor in gaining traffic and publicity for my blog. Then once this is done you would be able to create an ebook saying how you helped create not one but two successful blogs in less than a year. I intern could help you out with my design skills and maybe occasionally guest post on your blog.

You could gain motivation from my motivation. I really want to make my blog successful and by working with me you it cant help but to rub off on you. Go on you know this is a good idea ;)

Hi Caroline…
Not sure if this has been mentioned or not. I ‘ll mention it because I feel that I can also use my own advice.
The moment we hop on the internet and look for ways to make money, we are bombarded. With as many ways to make money online, it’s a wonder why so many people are looking! This is actually a catch 22 because after the excitement of having found a millions ways to “get rich”, we are stuck choosing a path to explore. I’m not talking about the unrealistic methods that we see here. Like stuffing envelopes or filling out surveys etc. Rather, the ways that if we are persistent, that we can actually start to see an income.

I personally seem to have fallen into a hole that I am now digging my way out of. I think I’ve done too much research and now I feel a bit overwhelmed. Too many things to do and and not enough time to do them so why do them at all? I don’t know if this sounds familiar to you… For me personally, if I can choose a path, stay on it, for however long it takes, that something is going to start happening. I can tell that you’ve done some serious research… Ed Dale, Dan Raine, Yaro Starak, Jack Humphrey, Michelle Macphearson… If these amazing entrepreneurs are your mentors, then you are on the right track.

I’ve recently been forced to look at how progressive I’ve been. It seems so easy to say that “aww heck… I’ll try doing a little bit in each method. I’ll do article marketing, blog everyday on my 3 blogs, go out and find a niche and utilize web2.0 social media sites to get traffic, I’ll do a little PPC of Google and work on my Facebook ads. After that, I’ll work on my ad sense ads, do a little more bum marketing, and then post on the 10 forums I am part of. Oh, I can’t forget commenting on the blogs that I frequent.” Sure… They can all work… But what I’m personally finding out is that it’s impossible to do everything…

What I can clearly see about you is that you are an amazing writer. Its obvious that I am not the only one that thinks so… :-) If I were you… I would simply keep doing what you are doing… This Blog. You are attracting readers that can relate to your writing. There is something that resonates. If you keep sharing about your journey to the top, people will listen and also be inspired. I know I have. One day soon, perhaps you’ll monetize this blog and that can be your source of income…

Guy

Caroline, you’re doing the first thing that comes to mind with your ebook coming up. I used to preach that to people - put your expertise into an ebook, get a paypal shopping cart, put up an attractive selling page with all this information on it and start publicizing it.

That’s the way I started out. This money, people, is 100% profit except for your website costs. And if you do it on a blog, then you’re really way ahead of the game. But you can’t just plop this stuff up on your blog and hope people will buy. Announce it in social network sites. Send out press releases. Announce it in forums related to your ebook.

People will buy if you are providing information they can’t find elsewhere.

I also run virtual book tours which is a great way to make money online. Lots and lots and lots of work, but it’s perfect for anyone who wants to make money at home.

There are so many ways to make money online, it’s not even funny.

One more thing before I head off to work (yes, I have an offline job on top of running a touring company online), something that Guy said, “They can all work… But what I’m personally finding out is that it’s impossible to do everything…”

It is impossible to do everything and his suggestions are great, but I’d like to add one more thing to the pot. Go to http://www.alexa.com and put in key search words for whatever it is you are looking for and see how well this particular blog or website stacks up in terms of hits. THAT’S where you should aim to promote. Maybe the blogger or webmaster would like an article to promote in their newsletter. Maybe they would love a guest post being as you are an expert in the field (and btw, if you know something someone else doesn’t know, you are an expert).

Hi Caroline,

I found you via Juho Tunkelo via Twitter.

In 2005 I was 49 on my way to 50. In fact I didn’t really get to be 49 because the whole year I just kept thinking, holy moly I am almost 50! So, really I never got to be 49. The point is, when I was almost 50 I said, ok, no more dreams on the back burner. All dreams must come forward onto the front burners and and start to cook. So, I really turned the heat on and started several projects based on…manifesting these dreams and making money doing it.

I started by researching how people make money, I’ve always been an artist who made money on the side… I looked into Real Estate - oof, bad timing for that. Then I started to learn about passive income and began to create CD’s and DVD’s, the beginnings of a media library for a colleague and friend of mine…since I am a videographer I could already do the creative production part. But, I didn’t know how to market it. That’s when I started looking into Internet Marketing. I’m on that track now learning, while I produce more DVD’s and writing ebooks about the topic.

The best thing is - when I decided to go ahead with these projects - everyone wanted to help, be involved. I began to see I didn’t have to do it all myself and in fact I really enjoy bringing a team of really creative people together to help me to hone my vision.

So far, the sales have been up and down but there is activity and I’m in a good niche. My media content is even talked about on the Oprah show now. By the way, the media is about Meditation and Chi Kung by with superb teacher. Once these products are made, they become passive income and we will have them to sell for the rest of time! (o:

Anyway, all the avenues for making money doing what I love does funnel well through internet marketing. There is still alot to learn and it takes time to implement what I am learning but I see progress and feel that I will have an abundant future whereas when I was ‘almost’ 50, I had no savings and no idea how to support myself or anyone else as I grew older.

I’m 51 now and have a ton of energy everyday because I am in action about creating a life doing what I enjoy which gives me even more energy to be a service to others which is a huge feedback loop that returns energy back to me and on and on I go.

Thanks for your blog. It’s been nice to ‘meet’ you.
All the best on your ventures living your dreams,

Jamee

an alternate website I have is: http://www.bostonhealingtao.com/jameeculbertson.php

I decided to write this because I saw your mention of being bored sometimes….

I’d say try and find someone else who inspires you, and is willing to work with you. I’m still developing my first (what I’d call) major project - and I tell you the one thing I still miss is someone else to keep me motivated, and bounce ideas off, but more than that to actually work together towards a common goal.

I’m working largely alone (although I did recruit a marketer, which helped) - and there are times when I still feel like giving up for a while, because its just “me and my mind” battling it out. I’m starting to make some good inroads now, but I think by myself it has taken longer than it could / should have done.

Sidenote: (The next best thing for me has been to network quite closely with a few users of my work, because their feedback keeps me motivated to improve things even further.)

I think that such “matches” are hard to find though - in my case it would have to be someone who was interested in open source development geared towards blogging (especially wordpress), and who didn’t just want to make a quick buck. Oh and same timezone (otherwise I tend to end up working in more of a US timezone, than a UK one).

I have ended up rejecting a number of potential partners, because they didn’t meet the criteria I wanted.

Good luck in deciding what you want to do next, I’d just say don’t look to go it alone if you can help it. Maybe the ‘who’ is just important (or more) as the ‘what’ at the end of the day?

Hey Caroline,

I’m a writer at heart. For my business, I make my money through a combination of personal projects, working for clients, and internet marketing. But, since I’m a writer first and “the other stuff” second, I really need to keep that as a priority. I can’t even remember the last time I wrote a poem, or pitched an article that would bring me joy to write.

When my to-do list doesn’t fit my ultimate priorities, I feel out of sorts, then I reach burnout. It’s happened to me several times and it is always an issue of balance. And I’ve come to define balance as “a state of existence which is in line with my values and ultimate priorities and goals”.

I can’t really suggest anything to you - I’ve seen some great ideas from the previous posters (especially the suggestion about writing ebooks, and taking your twitter posts and turning them into an ebook) - but I can tell you what’s helped me.

When I feel restless, I force myself to take a day off, away from the computer. I do things I enjoy and don’t give myself time for like crochet or reading a book. Then at one point, I’ll return to my writing for fifteen minutes - either on my computer or a journal, and really sit and think about what I truly want.

I did something like that yesterday.

What I realized was that I need to make time to tackle my bigger projects, such as writing screenplays and novels. For the past two years or so, I’ve been waiting for the right time to start - saying I’ll build my income and then conquer it. Well, since some of the writing that I do for pay is relatively joyless (keyword articles, that kind of thing) I wasn’t making enough forward progress.

Perhaps you’re in a similar situation? Maybe you need to step back, define your values, and think about what you really want to do, and find time for those things…

I hope this helped!

Katherine

Caroline,

The most reliable way to make money is to find a need and fill it.

I don’t know if this interests you or not — but I see a real need for “techie translators.” Software developers and coders who understand the inner workings of computer tools *and* are good at explaining it to us non-techies on the other side of the geek gap. I have a hunch you’d be great at this, and I’m seriously looking forward to your Wordpress ebook.

Hey Caroline,

The sad fact of internet marketing is that most of the fun is not in the work itself. It’s in the end results.

This could be the money you make… spending $1 and getting $2.50 in return is exciting.

This could be from helping people… Ed and Dan’s one a year thirty day challenge. Or taking your online income to make a real difference in the offline world (my ultimate goal)

This could be from being able to wake up, put the laptop on the bed and starting your day.

There are exceptions of course. There are people who love to write, but I suspect that most in internet marketing folks are not doing it for the love of writing.

As for this blog… you’ll need to decide what you want to do with it… My blog is similar to yours as it’s a dairy of my journey into internet marketing… The difference is that I don’t write for my readers. I’m grateful that I have readers, but this is my personal journey and the blog helps keep me going. So it doesn’t bother me if I write once a day, week, month, or year. If people want to continue following me, that’s wonderful, but if they don’t that’s fine too. I write for me.

As for inspiring you.. I doubt I could. I don’t have the ideas or ability convince you to try anything in particular. The only real advice that I can say is to TRY SOMETHING. Just pick a process… follow it from A to Z and see what happens.

Do your best not to make your own decisions, just follow the process to the end exactly as the writer intended. It will be hard not to insert your own thoughts and opinions, I know I do it all the time. I often wonder why some people who doesn’t seem to be very smart achieve amazing results and I believe it’s the fact they are doing as they are told and not making their own tweaks to ‘improve things’. That’s a major problem I have…

Anyways, I hope you continue Caroline, I enjoy your writing as so many others do. I know you’ll be successful, it’s just a matter of time. One thing I’m sure you’ve heard 1000 times before is that people give up just before they break through and become successful. I don’t want you to become another statistic.

In the meantime, here are two sites that I keep an eye on that you might find very interesting:

http://www.clicknewz.com/
http://www.mydebtfreegoal.com/

~Shannon

p.s. outsource the boring stuff! :)

@Making Sales, Making Money, Don that is a heart-wrenching story and I’m so sorry that you had to experience that. Thank you very much for your plan that you have laid out. I do have a more in-depth response but it is being published as a post for Sunday night. I want to leave this post at the top of the blog over the weekend.

@Heather, contact me via email about your Wordpress questions, I may be able to answer them privately or that could be another ebook idea.

@Olakunle, inspiring as always. yes I do intend to take action but I’d rather take inspired action. The idea behind this post is simply to see of somebody would come up with something that would make me think “aha - that’s for me!”.

@Guy, the trouble is, that in order to write for this blog, I need subject material to write about and that is what I am searching for. I cannot be another one of those make money bloggers that writes about making money whilst doing nothing to make money other than write about it!

Caroline,

Here’s my whack at trying to provide you a great suggestion :)

When blogging, the bloggers shouldn’t really focus on money and actually more on content. What you’re providing here is pure content and that’s why we all love you. I do realize that you had quit your job to work full-time here and that is probably the reason why you want to make money.

The first thing that comes to mind is a new theme that supports ads and ad spots, which UBD provides. I highly suggest not going with the UBD themes though because you can get the same themes anywhere on Google for 1/4 the price or free. I certainly would stick with free themes because they actually work better (widget friendly) and look different.

As soon as your new theme is up, just work on selling ad spots and I’m sure you’ll be able to sell them even at $50-100/spot. In addition to that, you should add sponsored “links” under for $10-20/month.

Hope this helps :)

-Mike

@Practical Archivist, hmm yes that does seem to be a good niche for me. I am quite techie and yet have always been able to explain techie stuff in laymans terms. It’s certainly looking like ebooks/tutorials/courses of some kind is the way to go and this is probably the area I should be doing it in.

Caroline, I only have one suggestion on making some residual income on the internet, with and honest and reputable company and that is with GRN. Their payplan,
www,payplan.us. explains how it works. I know that when you launch your E-book in 2008 is going to be very succesful and that shoul keep you busy and relieve your present boredom. By the way Merry Christmas to you.

Glad to see that Monika mentioned placing ads on your blog eg Adsense, or promote a favourite affiliate program or books from Amazon. Are you going to live off fresh air?

I was surprised to read in an earlier post that you said..
“I am not comfortable with selling, never have been.”

Isn’t that what IM is?

You have an amazing talent for writing and great info on your blog that could be easily made into ebooks to SELL! or give away with affiliate links in them. You can use OpenOffice to create them & it also has secure pdf creation …. for FREE! It’s a great program.

I believe that Rosalind Gardner (Super Affiliate) left such a message on your blog a while ago as well as other suggestions.

I also loved the mention of a favourite charity…I’ve been involved with fundraising for years and know how tough it can be to raise funds…. Tedi who has been chosen for the People to People Student Ambassador trip to Europe and is trying to raise funds to get there.

http://www.magfundraising.com/TediFunds and
http://studentambassadortedi.blogspot.com/

IMHO this blog is free and is really about how “other” people can make money doing a business (on-line or not), by following your empirical results.

This blog is free, hard to monetise and of little value to you as an individual or business person.

But people would certainly pay to banner advertise on here, or to product placement in your ebooks, but I don’t think that fits with your ethos, as the payers choose the adverts. So you could monetise it in these ways.

BUT the blog it is your way of “giving back”, of helping others. It may indirectly also help you to focus your own business ideas. Having to explain something often challenges your own concepts. But it might be you need to cut it back to fortnightly or monthly.

But so far you’ve blogged about the process. Not the thing. So AYK you can keep blogging, but change your thing.

But you’ve asked, what is the thing?

As you might agree, projects which you’re heart is not in, can become very hard. And following the niche is a prime example of this. Often it means doing a lot of work, for not a lot of money. Like most things, the pyramid of successful niche players, is ultra thin at the top. And you will always be following their tails. So you might do OK, but you probably won’t make it big or be comfortable.

Do you crave the excitement of never knowing where your next niche is coming from?

Picking things you don’t believe in, just to make money, can be a very hard thing to swallow for any length of time. Especially if your “character” is not naturally about “business” i.e. if you are more of a creative/artist.

One of the things we talk about on BFN are these personal strengths and weaknesses, such as whether one has the necessary character for business, and what sort of team (albeit freelance or friends) you need to surround yourself with, to compensate for ones own weaknesses.

If you are not honest with yourself about this, or don’t take the assessment and don’t implement a solution, you will fail. Whether it is in 3 months, or 3 years, you will very likely fail.

Several people have suggested you go back to your strength of software games, as that is one of your hard core skills. It also makes you more unique on the blogosphere.

But doing something because you can, or because you want to, is dumb! It’s the opposite end of the spectrum to niche gold digging, but it is still bad business.

So what is the rainbow between these two extremes?

IMHO “inspire me” is the wrong question. You have to decide what you want to do and what you are capable of. Then you need to do the market research;

1) Is there a “real” market
2) Can I get a viable share of that market.
3) What is my growth and escape plan.

But you need to do this with a view of entering the market and deploying your “want”.

Then you find a “way” to do what you want, which is not business suicide.

Then your heart is happy. Your wallet is happy.
Then you can still blog about the process (not your thing) and your readers are happy.

Doing this market and personal research is not easy, especially if you are a single entrepreneur.

And you can guess what I did about that ;-)

If market and personal research is drawing a map, and your heart is picking the destination, you just apply your mind and business acumen to get there in the quickest and safest way.

I said destination there, but as we’ve discussed previously, there is no single one destination. And fulfillment wise it’s about enjoying the journey. And if one path is a dead end, no biggie, you have route B already planned.

But you can’t just roam off in any direction or you may well get irretrievably lost, or fall off a cliff. So a (business) plan of your general route, is absolutely essential. You may just go round in ever decreasing circles otherwise.

If you analyse what I have said carefully, yo should see that with my heart/mind/market research strategy, you are never stuck in a rutt with a single product/s. But neither are you continually struggling to define new markets and clients.

I hope you get the difference!
You’re one smart cookie so I think you will ;-)
And the fast track route is where the smart money is…

JM0CW

Peter

Caroline,

It’s Gisele again. You might need a cup of tea, because this is a long one ?.

You’re not going to believe this, but I spent the entire day thinking of your post. Why, because I went to the hairdresser today. I looked at the calendar and thought only 9 more days for one of the worst years of my life to be over.

I will spare the details to you readers. Frankly, we’d need a dozen boxes of Kleenexes and many Martinis … just to get through the first six months of the year!

In any case, back to the hair. Two years ago a careless hairdresser butchered my hair with a chemical process that damaged my hair and scalp terribly (I had bald spots). I’m still paying the price for it today and my ends where in a royal mess because they were from that bad chemical process. Although, my hair had grown to middle of my back again, about 8 inches where severely damaged. I just wanted to hold on to my hair because I could not deal with more changes and challenges in 2007, but my hairdresser said….it’s got to go.

We argued back and forth for about 2 minutes and then the owner of the salon walked by and said: CUT IT OFF!!!

I looked at him a bit startled and said to my hairdresser: he’s right, I don’t want to enter 2008 holding on to crap (pardon my German) that serves me no purpose. For the past few weeks, I’ve been closing the page on things/people/relationships/botched business ideas that were holding me back. I was determined to enter 2008 focusing on “what I have that works for me” and “on things/people/relationships that helped propel me to the forefront”.

So back to you: how does cutting 8 inches of my hair can help you make a decision on your future? I say cut it off! Cut off what ever you are NOT passionate about. Cut off people who are hurting you and holding you back. Cut off any professional activity that doesn’t feed your soul.

When it comes to deciding on “where does Caroline go from here”, I say, go with the fire in your belly. If continuing the blog on helping others make a living off of their blog is it, then move forward with a vengeance. It not, then what’s your passion? You come from the IT world (if I remember correctly) … does it make you want to conquer the universe? Would you want to focus on that? Or, do you have a message that you feel needs to be out there because it might have such a monumental impact on other people’s lives?

I think that’s the “what”. As I had described in my posts from yesterday (sorry for the typos, 2007 is ending on a health issue note…I have a terrible chest virus that basically has knocked me out and I can barely talk, type or read…let alone edit copy). As I said yesterday, you have a gift and you should continue blogging (that’s the how) … now you need to pick a topic on continue to grow this one (that’s the what).

Before rejecting my suggestion, I hope you’ll think about it. I think I speak to everyone of your readers when I say, that I really would love to be part of your successful journey!

Happy Holidays Caroline,

Gisele
http://www.mybeautymatch.com

Hey Caroline,

I have a simple question…

What have you done so far that hasn’t worked?

~Shannon

Firstly, you look very familiar…….?
Secondly, often when we ask the most profound questions subconsciously we already know the answers. Your clarity of purpose has prompted these good folk to tell you what you already know because you were the one that told them in the first place all over your blog.

See what you did…now my head hurts…

Hi Caroline, great response to this post! I am featuring it in this week’s Sunday Seven, so maybe some of MY readers will inspire you as well. ;)

Hey Caroline,

Here’s a nice article on ClickNewz that might spark some ideas on how to make money.

http://www.clicknewz.com/1122/how-i-make-money-online-part-2-an-inside-look/

~Shannon

Hey Caroline,

Why not build up some courage, renew your determination to make money from home and try a hand at trading the forex market? I was there for nearly 2 years and though I lost a considerable money in the beginning, I later on averaged about $6000/month and more sometimes.

This is not the most unique ideas, but the forex market builds certain qualities in you that you wont experience anywhere else. I guarantee that.

Dont wanna bore you, so I am gonna close here. Let me know your thoughts. I am more interested in what you think than the backlink.

1 - Put some advertising on this blog; you can make money even if nobody reads the ads!
2 - If you haven’t already, join Associated Content; almost each one of your posts is good enough to make a full article, and you can also write anything else not related to your blog.
3 - Read your own posts, you have been giving us advice about making money online, why don’t you use it yourself?
4 - Here is what I wrote last week in my blog, I don’t know if that will inspire you, but you asked for it! http://therealmaccoy.blogspot.com/2007/12/this-is-how-i-will-make-money-in-2008.html

@Mike, my new theme really should be live next week and will have several ad spots.

@Peter, indeed, what is the thing? That’s the real question…The responses so far are helping and I am getting some clarity, but still not quite sure what the ‘thing’ is but nobody can tell me that. I have to figure out what my thing is for myself.

@Gisele, your post resonates with me - I know exactly what you mean about holding onto the past, and that does nothing but hold you back. I have cut off all ties from my old life and 2008 is going to be completely and utterly different and much better than 2007.

Shame about the hair though, eep!

@Shannon, a few things. I tried entering various niches for the 30 Day challenge on different subjects and didn’t make any money, I have looked at affiliate marketing in a number of ways and just ‘picking a niche where the money is’ just doesn’t work for me at all it seems.

@Rosie, I think you are right, as you’ll see when I post my follow up to this post on Monday, sorry about the head lol!

Funny you should ask :0) I was thinking after reading your other post about feeling your work is meaningless that what I think you really need to do is to teach.

This is because although you have put together an amazing resource, I don’t think that only reading is what people need. They need to be supported and “journey’d”.

What you could teach is how the heck you managed to get such a great blog and traffic going in such a short amount of time, I for one would love to know.

I am just starting Yaro’s course right now, as well as the 30 day challenge, so I am hoping to learn from them.

But I think that you can probably create a course as well, you have a following and charismatic personality, you will probably do well with it.

Maybe a membership site and/or personal coaching. And also your own info products sprinkled with very select affiliate products that you use yourself or are personally familiar with. I am going with amember for mine after trying a few others, it is very good.

Your honesty and no bull personality is a breath of fresh air. I’m sure it would never be dull :0)

Hi Caroline,

I can’t tell you the substance of what you need to do to regain your passion, but I can say “keep at it!” You’ve only been doing this full time for 4 months, and have had a large personal distraction. Before you can evaluate success or failure, especially with emotional fatigue, you should give it some more time.

I think you’re in The Dip. No affiliate promotion here, just a recommendation for a fine book.

Overnight success, as you well know, is tough to achieve. You’ve done a remarkable job cultivating an audience on this blog, and should continue to do so. It may sound awfully “bubble” of me, but it’s a matter of converting your “eyeballs” in a valuable way that doesn’t dehumanize.

Good luck, you are doing something remarkable.

Caroline,

Its clear from reading your blog that you have a great flair for writing. Your writing style is both informative and interesting.
Why not write a novel loosely based on the trials and tribulations of your 10 year relationship?

I would have to say from experience that to keep up the work and effort needed to make money online, then you have to be doing something that you love to keep your interest.

I started writing a blog about blogging but that hasn’t worked as well as my new blog about photography, that I have a passion for!

Do a microisv

Hi Caroline,

Here goes.

I was thinking about the problem with marketing sleaze and its emphasis on attention.

I think one way is to shift the focus to value (or quality). The idea is to offer such great value that this generates attention. In this way attention is generated but there are not the problems of focussing only on attention.

This is the approach of a book by Edward de Bono and John Lyons called Marketing Without Money. It has case studies of Australian entrepreneurs. It is a very worthwhile read. (They also have a course attached to it - but from what I can tell (I can’t afford to buy it) it doesn’t add anything to the content of the book. It’s not specifically to do with on line but is certainly applicable.

It’s very good to hear that you are feeling better.

I’m not terribly good at marketing (OK I’m terrible at it) but the focus on value does give me a way ahead that I can feel good pursuing.

I find this inspiring, I hope you do.

Evan again.

A good approach I heard from, I think Darren Rowse, is give away the principles and sell the personalisation. This could be on line info or consulting.

Hi Caroline,
You and everyone else who reads this post is guaranteed to be inspired!

The answer to what to do is ALREADY done!
The secret is to keep the feeling of overwhelming joy, such as that feeling of gratitude for all the supportive emails AND for the release of the negative energy.

It’s not about being told what to do because, by definition, inspiration is a divine influence or action on a person believed to qualify him or her to receive and communicate sacred revelation (Merriam Webster).

So, simply by focusing on your joy, you will be inspired.

Cheers,

Mitch

wow, a lot of good (and bad) ideas left in the comments here. I think, my two cents, you should follow your heart. Blog about what inspires you. Your blog has inspired me, as many others, so continue what you have going. Good luck.
Oh, here is what I think your blog should be about.
1. Making Money.
2. Personal Strugles
3. …(your heart)

@Janice, everybody asks me how I grew the blog so quickly. To be perfectly honest I’m not entirely sure - what I have done is post as much information as I can about where my traffic and subscribers has come from and tried to analyze that. Have a look through the archives, I hope that helps.

I think you should make money blogging about whatever interests you each day. You are an excellent writer and I think people will continue to come to your blog and read it and your subscribers will continue to grow.

Then get advertisers.

I know, that wasn’t very inspiring…

I’m still full of Christmas goodies ;)