With that being said, here’s a recap of my 2007 earnings…

————————————-

Google Adsense – $363.49
Clickbank – $26.70
Commission Junction – $3.84
Amazon Associates – Canada – $71.76
Amazon Associates – US – $10.71
Amazon Associates – UK (in GBP) – $9.98
Auction Ads – $0.19
CanadianSponsors.com – $3.75
Other / Miscellaneous – $150.00

Grand Total for 2007 $640.42

————————————-

There are two ways of looking at these numbers… I could look at them and think, my God, this is terrible… After an entire year I’ve only made $640.

Or I could look at them and think… I’ve doubled my earnings from the previous year, I’ve learned a hell of a lot, and I’m on the road to success.

I prefer to look at the positive… I’ve had a successful year in 2007, but my goals for 2008 will be much higher, but realitic.

I look forward to 2008…

I am the reason for my lack of success.

This is due to my own fault. In my mind, I’m working hard trying to make a living online. Every spare minute I have is used towards this goal. I’m taking action, getting things done, and making progress, but my success is limited. Why? Because I’m not using my time wisely and spinning my wheels most of the time. I have a bunch of half completed projects and not much success from anything else and only one of my sites actually have done well at all.

All adsense, little affiliate.

I’ve also noticed, that majority of my income is generated through adsense and this is only a trickle here and there with one site providing over 90% of my adsense income. This is not a good position to be in because this means that at any given time 90% of income could be gone in a matter of seconds. I’m not liking having all my eggs in one basket.

So what to do?

So what is a man to do? Make some serious changes of course. I’m getting away from adsense and working more on affiliate / info product marketing. Clickbank is going to be my new best friend.

Back in August, I completed the Thirty Day Challenge and found the information and training to be the best online. I’ve since been following Ed and Dan on twitter and their sites. Although I never continued with the strategies that they taught, I have kept myself up to date on their training as much as I can without having a membership to the Immediate Edge.

The goal of the Thirty Day Challenge was to make $10 in 30 days. I never made any money during the challenge, but since I’ve received two sales for the info product I was promoting during the challenge. This resulted in commissions of $26.70.

Time for a change.

This got me thinking… I’m working my behind off trying to make money with my sites getting only a couple dollars a day (average about $1-4 a day) from adsense, but with little effort I received $26.70 in commission from a product I haven’t thought about since.

So I have to ask myself is why I’m wasting my time with adsense when there are much better options available? The reason I guess is that I have a history with adsense and know that I can pretty much rely on atleast the $30 a month from adsense income where with affiliate sales I have no experience and no guarantee…

That changed when I thought about it in a different way… I was thinking if I could get 3 sales per month from the same info product I promoted during the challenge, I would be already making more money than all my other sites with adsense. That single thought just amazed me. So, I decided to leave adsense behind and focus my attention on affiliate marketing… more specifically info products with a commission of 50% or more and a commission of $10 or more per sale.

How?… is the key.

So how am I going to make these 3 sales per month? By taking what I learned during the Thirty Day Challenge and combining it with the tips I compiled from all my rss feeds and creating a workable action plan. It would also be helpful to have Dan around to give me the kick in the ass so that I take action.

I pretty much have the entire month of January mapped out for me in a mindmap. 99.9% of the mindmap is following the TDC material with a few tips thrown in.

So on January 1st, I’m having my own challenge and I’ll (hopefully) keep you posted.

~Shannon

I look forward to taking part in the study (and the $150 ). If you want to know more about this check out Andy’s post or email Darrin Lusk (darrin.lusk AT goodmind.net).

~Shannon

[tags]goodmind, online studies, make money online, blogging, bloggers, social media writers[/tags]

Powered by ScribeFire.

Remember back in August I said that I was taking part in this year’s Thirty Day Challenge hosted by Ed Dale and Dan Raine?

Well I didn’t win by earning $10 during the month of August, but I learned some amazing things. In fact, I’ve been implementing these techniques and strategies on a daily basis since.

I’m proud to say that it’s starting to pay off as I’ve received a sale! Sure it was only one sale and sure it was only $13.35 commission, but that’s fine with me. You can’t walk a mile without taking your first step. You can’t make your million without making your first dollar either.

Although I currently average about $30 a month from my online activities, I’m proud of my $13.35!!!

If you’re interested in making money online and want to earn your first $10, check out the Thirty Day Challenge. You can also download all training material on the torrent network.

A word of advice, don’t just download the torrents. Take part in the challenge and use all resources available. You won’t be sorry!

Here are my recommended resources:

• Thirty Day Challenge Site – Official site of the Thirty Day Challenge. Don’t forget to read over the blog posts during the pre-season to make sure you’re ready.
• Thirty Day Challenge Training via Torrent – I repackaged and uploaded the training, but it’s no substitute for the original. Useful for those who have slow/poor internet connections.
• Mike Mindel’s Blog – Training Notes. Mike’s notes are just too awesome for words.
• Ed Dale’s Twitter – Keep up on what Ed is twittering about.
• Dan Raine’s Twitter – Keep up on what Dan is twittering about.

There are other excellent resources, but these are the main ones.

~Shannon

Technorati Tags: thirty day challenge, 30 day challenge, making money online, make money online

Powered by ScribeFire.