I’m also trying two different strategies for both these sites :

1. First I’m giving a shot to the Stumbleupon advertising program. It shows your webpage to Stumbleupon’s users according to their interests and to the niche you’re trying to reach. You can select which audiance you wish to target by country, age and sex. To this moment, I’ve noticed a lot of traffic from this type of advertising but it did not convert to a lot of sales. Still, about 2% of the people did stumble my site. I’m curious to see if that can’t bring some steady traffic or page rank status over time.
2. I decided not to buy a domain name for my Wii store. It simply sits on a subdomain of mintyway.com. I’m curious to know if that will make such a huge difference in terms of traffic and trust from my customers.

*If you don’t know what a bans site is, check out my previous post on this topic.

For those of you who don’t know about BANS and EPN : those are the acronyms of two products : Build A Niche Store, and Ebay Partner Network.

Let me tell you first about the second one, Ebay Partner Network. EPN is an affiliate marketing program that allows online publishers to earn money by redirecting people to products that are being sold on Ebay. In the end, for every product actually bought by a person redirected to Ebay’s website through your links, you get financially rewarded.

The first one, Build A Niche Store, is a full store script that you install on your webserver (just like you install a blogging platform such as Wordpress, except it’s even easier). After installation, you have a basic store set up, fully integrated with the Ebay Partner Network mentionned above, listing all the products from a chosen Ebay category. Of course there are countless ways to customize the look of your store and the way it interacts with Ebay categories.

After installing and customizing it a bit (which took me about an hour), I refered it to a few of my friends and on major search engines. After that I participated a bit in a few laptops related forums (but not that much since I have very little time left to spend on the net). Of course I was a bit reluctant at first. Having paid 97$ (about 65€) + 8€ for the domain name, it better had to pay back. But having read all the positive reviews about this product, I understood the most important thing to consider in order to earn money is to choose a proper and narrow enough niche. The one I chose (ultra portable laptops) seems good enough since I earned those 53,61€ doing almost zero work for it. So I earned 50€ for the first month and am already at 19€ for this month. This means the initial investment is already paid for. Anything the site earns from now will be pure passive income.

Of course right now it’s only paying about 50€ a month, but remember I did almost zero work for it! Now imagine what it would be like if I really spent some serious time promoting it all over the web… I also noticed the conversion rate is quite high : I only get about 10 visitors per day (which is ridiculously low). I can’t imagine what it would earn if I could generate 100 visitors per day…

Anyway, I suggest you give it a shot. There’s also a huge community on BANS forums that will gladly help you out and answer all your questions. I have to mention that the guides coming with the script is VERY well done and beyond reach of almost any internet publisher newbie.

A few years ago, after dropping out of high school, I worked as a laborer in various factories and warehouses. It lasted for two years before I decided to study by myself and pass an admission exam that would allow me to go to college. At that time, I thought having a college degree meant having a job in which I’d find myself happier, freer, and wealthier. I began studying various subjects before finally opting for taxes and accounting. I actually loved those classes, rocked at it and found what is called a good job in a matter of days after receiving my degree.

Coming from a family of laborers and social welfare abusers, I was seeing it as a huge social evolution. The feeling of accomplishment lasted a few months, accompanied by an actual feeling of self-worthiness to be a part of the system. I was happy to provide value to the company I was working for, because making it perform well meant being a part of the global economy of my country. Being good at it meant more profit, thus more employment, more taxes, more money to pay for schools and road. Everything seemed so beautifully set. Working there was good to me and to the community. At least, that’s what it felt like. The human mind is so flexible I’d conditioned myself to believe that a white collar job would make me happy and was the right thing to do.

Then monotony and lucidity set in. Those good high-on-pot feelings began dropping in intensity, as I realized there was not much difference between an office job and a factory job. I was still a slave. I’d spent years studying, only to become more of a slave than I actually was without college education. School had only contributed to make me more of a sheep than I would have been if I’d stayed education-free. Without going to college, I would have kept working as a slave, but at least I’d have stayed conscious about it.

In 99% of office jobs, you don’t get paid enough for the devotion you give your employer, even if you have a 6 figures salary. Spending at least 40 hours a week in a office, pretending you care for the company and spending actual mental energy to make it go well although deep down you couldn’t care less, when you could be spending that time and energy on a project of your own, is both a lie to yourself and to your employer. This is the way of the weak. Because what you really care for is your wife, your children, your friends and the activities you like doing outside, these things you really enjoy doing and that you do whenever you actually feel like it, (not from 9 to 5 convincing yourself it’s good for you).

Here’s a list of the things I most like doing :

1. I love writing.
2. I love traveling and feeling free, being on the road.
3. I love thinking uncommonly.
4. I love playing backgammon.
5. I love studying animal behavior.

Five stuff I love and that count for me. Five ways to earn the necessary money to live.

I’m combining number 1 and 3 in this blog. It’s not bringing any money at the time of writing, but that’s because I need to provide more and more value. When there will be enough valuable articles in here, I know it will pay back.

I’m about to live number 2 full time in a few months time, and along with that I have two projects : one involving business that goes with traveling, and the second one is writing online on a day-to-day basis about my traveling experiences.

Number 4 has yet to provide a way of bringing in some cash. I’m not good enough to play for money yet. But I’m practicing everyday in the hope to become an excellent player.

Number 5 is a longer term idea. If someday I decide to set in, somewhere wild in the world, I would love to work freelance on helping humans and animals to live together. Bringing the first ones to understand and respect the seconds more.

What are the things you love doing ?

Don’t hesitate sharing your ideas below

Buying a house is what you do if you have reasons to be afraid of the future. “Will I always be able to pay a rent?” “If anything bad happens, at least I can still sell the house.” “If my retirement plan brings less money than expected, at least I won’t have to worry about having a roof over my head”. Those are very legitimate and sensible things to say when you’re earning just enough to live, or are tied to working salaried jobs. I’m not criticising, as it’s precisely the situation I’m in right now. Actually, I’m working a lot on myself not to think that way despite the possible insecurity that may result in living more freely than I do now. But if I really want to break free from employment one day, I better start acting and thinking like I was already free. I am adapting my beliefs so that they’re the ones of a financially free person. This is what will set the proper frame for me to really access financial freedom.

You see, right now I have quite a nice little amount of cash that I’ve laid across various short term investments and my high interest rate saving account. I could use that money right now as a down payment for a house (and then spend the next 20 years paying twice its value in interests) or I can use it, sparsely, to travel and be free. If I start with the conservative way of buying a house, it would only be showing the universe I accept worrying about the future. I refuse doing so because I trust my ability to generate lasting financial security.

As soon as I entered his office he offered me a raise of xxx €. Which, if you see it as a 5.4% raise, is decent. Not astonishing, but decent. At this point, I had the choice to thank him, get up and leave or, for the first time ever in my life, sit back like a prince and tell him I was worth more. And so I did. I engaged in a forty-five (yes, 45) minutes argument that a few months ago I wouldn’t have remotely imagined myself able doing.

The hardest part is the start. It would’ve been so easy to say thanks and go back to work like nothing happened. You have to know the boss here is impressive. Picture an old, barking, 6.5ft, 270 pounds monster that reeks of bad quality cigars and whisky but wears high-class tailor made suits. I would say he looks a bit like a walrus, with the added pimp attitude of Marcellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction if he had been the son of The Godfather.

So, even if I sincerely don’t give a damn about this job and would not mind being fired (I’m a General Ledger Accountant, that means it’d takes about half a day to find another employer), it was really a jump of the cliff to start discussing calmly like I did. At least it was to me, who used to be an introvert with a tendency to bluntly attack when the opponent was too strong. Here, I was not scared of losing the job, I was not even anxious about the outcome. I was only about the social process that was about to take place.

So, when the boss became silent and expected me to leave, I had to take a deep breath before saying : “Well, first of all thank you for this… raise (voluntarily using a dubious tone)… but you see I’ve been doing my research and found out that what you’re offering is quite low on the income scale.”

He grinned slightly. But strangely, for a second, he also looked father-like proud that I was trying to fight for what I wanted. The show was on.

Then I proceeded on giving him a few real life salary examples. Which he quickly dismissed by saying thoses companies were too different from his. Then, I told him all that I have accomplished this year. All this while paying extra-attention to having the right body language : I was sitting back, left arm extended to my side and resting on the back of the chair next to mine, right arm on my lap, open legs showing my manhood, moving slowly, not trembling, not playing with a pen nor anything that would show nervousness. Actually, I looked like I was being served a perfectly blended mojito by two thong bikini-wearing babes who knew they were about take it with exctasy where the sun never shines.

I was very proud of myself. Alas, as much of a prince that I was in his office, he was still the king in his own land. He resorted to a vivid and quite lyrical imagination to dismiss all my points one by one. He must have been a heroic-fantasy writer in a past life. But I could tell he was having a hard time counterattacking. To be honest, logically speaking my points were un-attackable as they suffered no flaws. Therefore, and since I was completely detached from the outcome, I paid no attention to his refusal, and proved him wrong by pointing his logical flaws and most importantly the things he thought he knew about my job and accomplishments, but that he didn’t know yet and that I had previously saved for later. He was down, for a minute he was down. But he quickly shifted on telling me I was doing an excellent job as a general and tax accountant but he was now expecting me to do some budgeting. He said that if I allowed him to save money in the coming months, he’ll promplty give me another raise.

I ended up on telling him about other benefits I was deserving and he gave me five weeks of paid vacation per year, which is very good.

Anyway, behaviorally speaking, it was such an interesting exercise. First because I dared saying all I said, and secondly because I did so with a calm and deep voice, smiling and sitting back like I was home.

My fellow reader has to know I’ve always been used not to acknowledge any form of authority (except for a few people who knew how to gain my respect). Teachers, professors, cops, you name it… I have always been seen as quite cheeky as a youth, leaving my friends and family openmouthed to what I dared saying and doing. But whenever I was for real not agreeing with a figure of authority I always freaked out and just bluntly striked those like a crack addict who’s just had his pipe stolen.

Becoming an adult, I realized that :

a) In a social environment, this type of behavior has no place. It only makes you and the people around you uncomfortable.
b) Since I actually don’t ever want to resort to violence of any sort in any situation, it’s an attack against myself and my own beliefs to be aggressive with people.
c) Freaking out may impress a few weaker people, but doing it as an adult amuses most of them.

That’s when I became an introvert.

So, I needed to develop an in-between mode of action. Now that’s something I’ve been building for a few years, and this episode was one in many strong proofs of success.

The conclusion of this raise interview is that even if I didn’t directly get what I was aiming for, I think that I’ve won it on a psychological level. I was right to stay calm and use the diplomatic way, while staying firm of course.

It’s also obvious how the boss has grown some respect for me since then. He’s not talking to me the same way he used to, he salutes me in a much more manly way, etc.

It’s nice being socially effective.

This guy says he’s currently developping a new type of web service that will come online in a few months. Nobody knows what it is yet, but he thinks he’ll make a lot of money out of it. For now, he needs subscribers.

What he has to offer is this : you subscribe to his site (it only asks you for an email, username and password), and when his product comes online he will share the revenues with all the pre-subscribers. We are not required to do anything else than just sign up. You don’t have to promote anything, you don’t have to place a link back to his website on yours. Just enter an email address, a username and a password.

You’re probably thinking “oh, it seems crazy but… what the heck, even if I get only 1$ for this, it’s free, fast and easy to do”. And you’re right. So, what are you waiting for? Try it.

The only catch is that you have to subscribe very quick, because subscriptions will actually end in only a few hours (december 7th 2007).

Edit : it appears the subscriptions will take place again in a couple of months. Probably then, will we know a bit more about what it’s all about. In the meantime, I’ve been googling to check whether it was a scam. I haven’t found any positive response. Anyway, this site is not asking for anything. No money, no time, no energy. And you can subscribe with your special spam address if you’re afraid of getting flooded with junk.