What sort of Money are you looking to make?

The better question is how much do you know about the places you want to earn income?  If you want to be living your life with your writing, you need income.  Some income comes from your books, and others from your blogs and websites.  Another question is what is the magic number for you in terms of income?

It’s all about knowing your readers, and not focusing on the ‘money tree’

For example, if I make 2 cents I have ‘made money’ today, but this isn’t what people are looking to make in terms of money. They want to make $10 or more a day on their blogs or their websites, which is roughly $300 a month, which is certainly good money, but even then it takes time and effort. This would start the transition from a simple writer, to someone more business savvy, who understands how and why Google and Amazon can be a good business idea. Part of the challenge is hearing the success stories of writers, and not listening to the challenges they faced before seeing monetary success.  Some days will be harder than others when it comes to both time, writing and money.

Using both Google AdSense and Analytics, it gives me a quick snapshot of both my traffic and income, both of which are important, but that’s only the beginning. Still this is traffic not money. Or is it? Traffic to a blog is the only source of money. When people talk about having different sources of traffic, they can also mean that there is a potential for money in traffic.  They might have blogs, but branch out to writing online articles, or will take time to really understand the unspoken actions of their readers.

The thing about traffic is this: where are you getting your traffic? This determines how much money you can make in a day, the more you get from search engines the more potential you organic traffic, from search engines is considered the best, but you have to start somewhere I like to call it AdSense for Beginners because if you want money with blogs or your websites, you will have to commit to a sort of ‘beginners course’ in learnings about what you need from your writing and your readers.\

Ultimately, it’s your readers who do anything with your blog, be it read it or be it make purchases (such as your book.) or simply comment on your blogs.

Google AdSense and how to make money with it, by far, is the most written about, and one of the harder ways to earn a steady income, because everyone believes it’s easy money. Here’s the rub: it’s all about the relationship you have with your readers- think of this as self-publishing and promoting, there is only so much you can do before it begins to fall apart. This is AdSense and money at its most basic, but there is a lot more you need to do with blogs and websites before you can worry about income.  You need to have visitors, and comments, and a great overall blog or website.  There is also other types of income which can help you.

I’ve heard about Google AdSense but what about amazon and other affiliate programs?

On this blog, I’ve used Amazon, and this allows people to find what I recommend for good books. I’ve had some success with amazon, and it is really about three things: readers, your personal experience, and time. Some people do have a lot of success using Amazon, but they have developed relationships with their readers, and are reviewers of books and other items on Amazon.  I’ve also learned the value of having Google and Amazon- as this allows for more of a choice for my readers.  Nothing will help you if you don’t have a great site people want to come back to.

Writer beware! For the most part it takes a lot longer to get Amazon going than AdSense up and running with success. The bonus to Amazon is this: when people go and buy books they tend to buy several books at once, however, if they don’t have a reason to buy a book they won’t. This means you will have to be active on the Amazon website with writing good reviews on the products you recommend to people.  This is basic networking and marketing, and it would be a good thing to go and read some information about what works, and what doesn’t.  The more they know you have bought and reviewed books, the more likely they are to see you as a person who knows you have been there and read that.

My suggestion is to get a few books on how to sell amazon products, but also take the time to look at your own writing.  Really look at how you are doing and aren’t doing which affects how your readers view you.

It wasn’t until I began to go back and edit- with my editor- some of my older blog posts that I started seeing more traffic, and more comments, because in retrospect, my writing skills sucked- as did my blog posts. In this case it is similar to Google, money comes when you make 10 times more effort than you had done before. Then, you start all over again with your writing and your work, your blog can make your pennies or it can make you dollars, what is your choice?

It’s really a lot of logic and not seeing the money tree- but rather seeing your readers as the most important part of your writing efforts.

Remember that it takes time to make money, and you might get a payout today, but it will likely take a while to do this.