Answer: not a lot, actually. There, I said it. Admitted live, for the whole world to read.

This may strike you as a strange admission, given as this blog is partly positioned as a “make money from blogging” blog, but I hardly make any money from blogging, at all. To be honest, my first ever AdSense cheque only just got mailed out a month ago. Text Link Ads bring in about $70 a month. So I’m not exactly living off the fat of the Internet Land.

Now, before you unsubscribe because I’m not the “expert” you thought I was, let me do some explaining. The Get Rich Project is about making money online, personal finance, and working towards financial independence. The personal finance bit has taken a back seat recently because I simply have nothing worthwhile to add at the moment.

So that leaves making money and working towards financial independence. Kinda the same thing, if you look at it one way.

Most of the online work I do is experimental. It’s trying out ideas. Some of these work, some don’t. It’s entrepreneurism., I’m looking to build a real business, not rely on advertising dollars. So I’m not making much just now. I don’t care. I’d rather make something worthwhile than have some short-lived “get rich quick” scheme.

The reader who asked the question above threatened to “out” me as a fraud if I didn’t tell all. Guess what chump, I seem to have outed myself. Oh dear, what ever shall I do? Keep on keepin’ on, that’s what.

Sponsor: Create Money-Earning websites with Article Underground

ShareThis

Blogs are big business nowadays, with more and more people jumping on the bandwagon, including many looking to get into the “pro” blogging arena. I’m guessing many potential newcomers find it daunting to come and compete in a world of blogs which are already packed full of content. Wouldn’t it be great if you could buy a “starter” blog which already has a healthy amount of content already in the archives?

The idea of making a website just to sell it is nothing new - The Sitepoint Marketplace? is full of such sites, and has been for years. Also witness all the “Web 2.0″ sites out to get bought over before they go broke ;-)

If I were to go about the “Blog Flipping” route, this is how I would do it (some of these steps I’ve already done, so I’m well on my way!):

1. Register a domain at Namecheap (because it’s very easy to transfer domains between NC users - just get the buyer to signup)
2. Grab myself some cheap hosting at Dreamhost - Their “One Click Install” system makes setting up Wordpress a 5 minute job, plus it pre-installs about 100 WP themes for you, making it easy to have each of your blogs unique.
3. Signup to Article Underground (review) to get the content for the blogs. At over 400 articles a month, there should be more than enough to fill a couple of sites at a time!
4. Pre-post a steady stream of articles to each blog, timed to fill the site steadily over a period of time. Burt suggests 3 months, which I’d probably agree with. You don’t want to jump the gun, or you’ll have no pagerank or visitors to attract buyers.
5. Advertise + Profit!

ShareThis

These JVs aren’t the usual “2 marketers create a product , then combine their lists to sell it” we might be used to. These opportunities came from a colleague of one of my web development contacts (I do a bit of freelancing on the side) as a simple request-for-quote. I responded to him with a fair and balanced figure reflecting the work needing done.

At first I was turned down for being above his budget. A few weeks later, however, I got an interesting proposition from him; would I do the work for a lower fee, but also receive a share in the product?

Straight away I could see the potential in what he wants to achieve. The products may not be entirely original, but they target a niche which I know is profitable, and is one I know would benefit from what he wants to build.

It may sound a good long-term money-spinner, but the path is filled with potential problems - cheif of which is that any money I would make from this would be almost entirely dependant on the fortunes of the products. If they sink I could loose out after spending a lot of time developing something for an initial loss.

The last few weeks have been spent ironing out the finer details of what any deal may entail. Striking a balance is tough, especially when money and partnerships are involved. You have to be fair to the other party while protecting your own interests - an agreement weighted to just one partner is an agreement to fail.

If anything does come of these negotiations, I’ll announce it here!

ShareThis

When you signup with a Dropship supplier, you get to buy items from them at a discount. Different suppliers give different discounts, but it can be as much as 60-70% in some cases. The benefit of the Dropship model is you get to sell the item first. How great is that? The traditional retail method would be to buy some stock, store it, then try and sell it. With Dropshipping, you can sell first and have the supplier deliver directly to your customer(s).

The Dropship operation I work with are TheSelect.co.uk - these are who I am using for England’s World Cup Glory, and who I used for my short-lived eBay business. They are primarily UK-focused, though they do ship internationally (at somewhat high rates).

The way it works is like this:

1. Sign up as an “Agent”
2. Pick some products to sell
3. Advertise them/list them on eBay
4. Get the money for the items you do sell
5. Order the items from TheSelect.co.uk, putting in your customer’s address in the shipping details.
6. Repeat.

The trick is, of course, anticipating what people will want and getting the word out. Most dropshippers use eBay auctions. This is an OK way to go, but you can get stung by fees and are always running the risk of selling below the price you buy the stock at (unless you specify a reserve, which I don’t recommend). I’ve had more luck with direct selling - a targeted website or even a classified ad in a newsletter or newspaper. I’m sure selling to an existing customer email list would work equally as well.

The reason I chose TheSelect.co.uk was becasue they offered a number of different “Agent Packages” to suit. The basic “Bronze” package has a one-time joining fee, after which you are free to sell their products as you want. “Silver” status lets you refer people to their website using a system not a million miles away from affiliate links; this offloads the payment handling to TheSelect, but means you can’t set your own prices. “Gold” level offers the same functionality as silver, but also allows you to choose one product from a special range to exclusively sell - no other Agents can sell that product. Both Gold and Silver packages have low monthly subscription fees in addition to the joining fee. I currently use the Bronze package, and you can upgrade at discounted rates at any time.

So there you have a quick introduction to Dropshipping. If anyone is interested in getting started with TheSelect, leave a comment and I’ll get in touch - as an existing agent I can sell you an Agent package at a discount.

ShareThis

To be honest, I wish I’d launched this a month or so ago - and not waited until an hour before England’s first match to start building the site! I had toyed with the idea of doing something around the World Cup, but didn’t find the time or motivation. In the end it was the endless talking-up of England’s chances in the tournament that motivated me to put something together. Boy did I get it done quick!

A online store needs stock. Thankfully I was already sorted on that front. Last year I became an agent for a UK-based dropshipping service (this was when I was hoping to make stacks of cash off of eBay). This service were currently promoting a nice line of England Fan Merchandise that would be perfect for my venture. If you’re not sure what dropshipping is, I’ll be writing an entry on it in the near future so look out for it!

First step was the domain name. One media “pundit” had mentioned “England’s World Cup Glory” in his commentary. That sounded perfect to me so I checked if it was available. The .com address for englandsworldcupglory was available so naturally I jumped on it. Total cost was $8.88 and 5 minutes.

Next was hosting. I could have used my existing Textdrive account, but I wanted to add another host to my portfolio so I could diversify my I.P. ranges when linking between my sites. It also meant that not all my eggs would be in one basket, as it were. There are a million hosts out there, but I’ve heard really good things about Dreamhost. 10 minutes later I was signed up for a year on their $9.95 plan (it saved $50 on setup costs and I saved more when a friend gave me a promo code for $90) and the domain was pointed to their DNS servers. So far, so good - and the big match hadn’t even kicked off yet! As a treat to Get Rich Project readers, sign up to Dreamhost with the promo code GETRICH47 to save $47 dollars on your order.

Not being too familiar with eCommerce software in general, I decided to stick with what I know and use Wordpress combined with Paypal. I created a series of encrypted Paypal “Buy Now” buttons and inserted them into entries describing the various products I was selling. I also wrote a couple of blog entries for the site and the various other pages I would need. All I had left to do was create a Wordpress theme which was fit-for-purpose. This would take the longest of the development process. I didn’t want to start getting into pretty, graphical, designs for now; speed and simplicity were my goal.

The theme was prototyped on my local development setup over the rest of the afternoon, before stopping at dinner time to spend the evening with my family. Once everyone was tucked up in bed I returned to work. A little bit of tweaking later and the theme was put live. After fixing a few bugs that cropped up, it was time to go to bed. Total time spent building the site - 6-8 hours or so. Not bad for someone who has been known to take weeks tweaking a single page on some projects.

Today I will spend a few hours promoting the website and spend the rest of the day enjoying the sunshine and the football!

ShareThis