Back From the Holidays and Back into the Money Making Spirit!

I took a break from all of my online endeavors to enjoy the Holidays with friends and family. Now that I'm back I must admit that I feel refreshed, less overwhelmed and inspired to get back to writing.

I wrote a couple of new eHow articles after being silent on the site for a few days. Surprisingly, even with my complete lack of writing, promoting or socializing on eHow I still managed to produce the same daily rate. Woot!

I'm really starting to get the hang of shetoldme.com for article promotion and am enjoying the effortless earnings from them. I'm really glad I found that site as it is working out very well so far.

As far as peoplestring.com is concerned, as of yet I've only made $7.10. However, that's $7.10 for doing absolutely nothing really, so I can't complain. From what I can tell the quickest way to make money with them is to refer other users. I haven't been actively promoting it anywhere else but here, so I can't complain too much about the modesty of my earnings. ;)

It feels good to be back and refreshed. I was feeling very overwhelmed and burned out. The Christmas break sure did do me some good. And I've really enjoyed having both of my little boys home with me.

I’m really looking forward to getting back into the swing of things! That's my hubby Josh and my boys Ethan and Adrien on Christmas morning in the top picture, BTW. :)

Feeling a bit lost and out of place

For those of you who know me, either personally or via web communications, you're aware that I've spread myself quite thin all over the internet. I've got my hands in just about every money making opportunity out there and I'm trying to build a crazy business out of writing, drawing, marketing, selling, designing and several other things. Now I suddenly feel overwhelmed and confused.

The problem is, I don't know what my "calling" is. I don't know what I was put on this earth to do. I've got the uncanny ability to learn how to do just about anything rather quickly. I've never found anything that I wanted to do that I couldn't learn how to. With that said, now that I'm dabbling in nearly 20 different areas, how do I know where my talent is and which area I should really be focusing on? Who answers those kinds of questions anyway? Somewhere along the way I missed the line where they were handing out life purposes. And left to my own devices, I get easily distracted and bounce from one idea to the next.

I've always loved hair and makeup, so I decided I wanted to be an Avon lady. Trouble there is that I don't have the time or money that it takes to really grow my Avon business. Not to mention that the real cash comes from leadership and I'm not exactly the best candidate to be organizing and running a team.

I play guitar, sing and write songs. I was the girl who flunked classes and skipped school because you don't need an education to rock! I honestly thought I would grow up to be lead guitarist in some kick ass band. But now I'm a mother who isn't quite as awesome as she was back in the day and there's no one in hell who'd want me in their band. LOL! And even if they did, it won't exactly put food on the table.

I really like to write and got sort of excited over the prospect of being a freelance internet writer. It seemed like a nice idea anyway. But it's been much more difficult that I thought to get readers to my blog. My main income comes from how to articles. But after a while that gets stale. I've been dry recently. It's hard to come up with fresh ideas that conform to a strict how to format.

I design clothes on Zazzle. I REALLY like Zazzle. But it's really hard to get your merchandise noticed among the billions of others. And so far, I don't really think it's something that will ever pay the bills for me. Yes, you can make money with Zazzle, but I've yet to see if you can make any substantial income with it.

I feel empty and unguided. I wish I just knew what I was meant to do. I wish I was one of those people who felt they had a calling in life. The only thing I've ever felt that strongly about was music and God knows how ridiculous that dream is. Why couldn't I have wanted to be something more practical and obtainable? Now I'm a stay at home mom struggling to squeeze every dime out of the computer that I can and ultimately feeling like a failure at the end of the day.

I've met a lot of wonderful people online along the way. And everyone has had such nice things to say to me. I love all of you guys! But I secretly wish I was more like you. For most of you, you are writers or entrepreneurs. You have a dream, goals and are working your butts off to be successful. I'm just a girl wearing too many hats. I'm well aware how ridiculous I look, but I'm too indecisive to choose just one.

Yet Another Money Making Link Sharing Site

My post yesterday was about shetoldme.com. Today I'm going to talk about another website that does essentially the same thing. The more sites you've got under your belt like this, the more traffic you'll generate and the more cash you'll make. So if you're looking to add another revenue sharing social bookmarking site to your online business, here's one to use!

It's called Xomba. It works just like shetoldme, you post a link and a short summary to your article or website and you get a permanent back link and you make money with Google Adsense when people read your reviews and click ads. It's very simple to set up and is pretty darn good at generating extra traffic.

I use social bookmarking sites as much as possible because the more places your link is spread on the web, the more people will visit it and the more important your link will appear to search engines. So even if you weren't making money with Xomba, it's still very beneficial for online marketing. The ad revenue you make is just an extremely nice bonus! ;)

So visit Xomba and get started creating back links and making cash today!

She Told Me

Today's online money making topic is shetoldme.com. If you are an online writer, like myself, you'll want to keep reading.

If you use social bookmarking sites such as digg or stumbleupon you're going to love shetoldme.com! It's basically a social bookmarking site where you submit your links as well as a short synopsis about websites and articles that you enjoy so that other people can find those sites and enjoy them too. The difference with shetoldme.com is that you can make a little extra money while you do this.

If you have a Google Adsense ID, you simply enter it in your account info. Then you will make 100% of the ad revenue from your website reviews. How cool is that? It's free to join and I have found it to be VERY helpful for me. Not only do I make a little more ad revenue, I also have had good luck with driving extra traffic to my articles, Zazzle stores and other sites that I run.

If you'd like to get started with shetoldme.com just sign up for a free account, wait for approval and then start bookmarking your favorite online content. It's really that simple!

Clothing Store Number 2 Grand Opening!

WOOT!

Just opened my second Zazzle store, Hamopotamus Apparel. I'm very amused with this one, as it has been too much fun creating funny and offensive t-shirts. LOL! I've only got shirts as of yet, but I hope to have a much greater product selection by next week. It's taking me a bit longer to do this store than I thought because it's hard to find very high resolution public domain graphics. But it's coming together none the less. Go check it out if you're interested: http://www.zazzle.com/hamopotamus

Feedback is always welcome! :)

PS: If anyone knows where I can get high resolution public domain pics (free) I'd really appreciate the tip. Thanks everyone!

My Tips on Making Money with eHow

Before I sat down to write this blog, it dawned on me that I had been asked by a friend on eHow to write an article for new writers explaining my ideas and tricks I've discovered thus for. When I started to write this blog I felt a huge wave of déjà vu. So in an attempt to save time I decided to post that information here instead of writing a whole new piece on the same subject. So here's my article on getting started with eHow and all the things you should know to succeed. Enjoy!

How to Get Started Making Money on eHow – Tips for Quick Success

I wasn’t going to write an article on this subject because there seems to be an overflow of these articles here on eHow. But a few people have pointed out to me that some very important information I have given them as beginners isn’t usually written about in these sorts of articles. So here’s my version of the getting started on eHow article. I hope you find these tips useful and I hope you become very successful at making money on eHow.

Take advantage of the social networking aspect of eHow. Make as many friends as you can and be very kind to these friends. Fellow eHow writers are going to be a huge part of your success. Rate, comment and recommend your friends’ articles; most of the time they will return the favor by doing the same for you. The more eHow friends that you have the more exposure you’re going to get and the higher rated your articles will be. Also, do not abuse your eHow friends. Do not send mass spam emails promoting your articles. This behavior really upsets people and a lot of people will delete you from their friends list or even flag you as a spammer. Treat your fellow writers well and they will do the same in return.

Really put some research in your articles. Not all articles are profitable. Don’t be afraid to study some of the more successful eHow writers to see what sort of things they are writing about and how they put their articles together. Not only do you need to find subjects that will generate a lot of traffic, but you’ll also need to find subjects that are more likely to attract readers who click advertisements. For instance, someone looking for a solution to wrinkles is more likely to click an ad than someone trying to find a recipe. Recipe articles can generate lots of traffic, but they don’t usually end up making as much money as self help articles...

Read the full piece at on eHow

If you find it helpful, please pass it along to your friends. :)

My Appologies

I stated yesterday that I would be posting about making money with eHow today. I didn't get around to it as planned. But rest assured, that post will be written and published tomorrow (for real this time). My ego got deflated today and my pride was hurt. While licking my wounds in the corner, I just couldn't get motivated to write anything at all today.

I decided I wanted to start writing for Demand Studios. See, unlike eHow and other revenue sharing sites, Demand Studios will pay you up front for your articles. To me this seemed like a great way to make some immediate cash without having to wait for my work to "mature" to start earning big. So I got my resume together and submitted a couple of samples of my work from eHow. Then a whopping two hours later I was rejected.

Now I'm aware that I'm no Shakespeare Junior or anything, but I thought I was at least decent at producing informative "how to" articles. I was quite hurt by that letter of rejection from Demand Studios. In fact, I was hurt enough to really start questioning if I have any business writing in the first place.

Or perhaps it's just me. I don't always make the best first impression with people. I'm a very animated character with a sarcastic sense of humor and a deep love for all things tacky. Since when does big hair and red lipstick make you look unprofessional?

That's why I have decided that for the sake of my writing career and my reputation in the blog community I would change my display image. The new picture of me is sort of sad and emo looking. I'm wearing black plastic rimmed glasses and the picture has some artistic Photoshop effect going on to make me look creative. Now do I look like the kind of person who sits at the computer for 20 hours a day eating hot pockets and pasting my opinions about World of Warcraft and how I have the best taste in indie music all over the internet as if anyone gives a shit in the first place? LOL...sorry, that was mean.

After I get over being taken down a few pegs by Demand Studios I'll be back tomorrow to give you wonderful folks some more awesome ways to make money online and I'll check my sass at the door. Deal?

Good night folks!

Here's a thought...

Hi everyone!

Man am I glad this weekend is over! :) As you all know I'm a redhead. Well not too long ago I decided to put a darker red color in my hair. It was getting to be a pain in the butt to maintain every time my roots started to grow out, so I thought I would bleach my hair blonde and try to restore my original lighter red. I ended up with about 3 inches of platinum blonde roots and the rest was bright carrot orange! :( The only thing I could do to counteract that horrible mistake was to go with a cool brown. Cool tones balance out brassy tones and the brown color would be dark enough to color my mistake. So now I'm a brunette. I think I ended up buying like 6 boxes of hair dye trying to correct my giant blunder.

But anyway...that's terribly off topic for the nature of this blog, I just wanted to share. lol. Today's money making tip is called Cloud Crowd. It's on Facebook. I've just started so I don't know how profitable it will be just yet, but like everything else on this blog it is free to start. You join the Cloud Crowd application for Facebook HERE. Then you can select jobs to do that pay anywhere from a few cents to a few bucks. These jobs are usually things like proof reading and reviews. The cool part is that no matter how small your earnings are, they'll still deposit them into your paypal account. You don't have to wait for some high payout figure in order to get the money that is rightfully yours. If you feel like giving it a try, I've researched it and it seems very legit, free and easy. The only thing I'm not sure of just yet is how much money you can really expect to make doing it. I guess time will only tell. I'll be checking in with you all in the next couple of days. My next post will be about getting started with eHow and how to write the kinds of articles that will make you more money. You won't want to miss it! :)

Oh Zazzle...

I've decided to put more time and effort into my zazzle store. eHow was having technical difficulties and I was afraid to write until things smoothed over. In the mean time, I had extra time and energy to devote to another one of my work at home ventures. I thought about zazzle. My zazzle store was really neglected and I didn't put as much effort into it as I do other things. So over the past couple of days I've designed dozens of new products and am thinking about opening another zazzle store to appeal to a different market. My current store sells promo/advertising products for people who sell Avon, Mary Kay and Pampered Chef. While I certainly feel like that's a nice little niche to base a store off of, I feel it might benefit me to cast a wider net. The plan is to get my current store going full steam and generating decent monthly payouts. At that time I'll open store number two. I'm thinking about making a zazzle store specializing in sarcastic humor, slightly offensive jokes, emo things and other "hot topic" type items. From the research I've done, stores like that rake in the big bucks. Teenagers will pay anything to express themselves on a t-shirt. lol. So stay tuned to find out how my adventures in zazzle sales turn out. I'll also be sharing useful zazzle information and promotion tips as I go along and learn more. Gotta share the knowledge and pass it on. After all that is the promise I made all of you when I started this blog.

If you haven't seen all the new additions to my current zazzle store, please go have a look. I put a lot of work into those little marketing gems. ;) And as always, feedback is welcome.

Make Money to Check Facebook and Surf the Web???

You all know how I love work at home opportunities and I am always on the lookout for the next way to earn a buck online. So I came across this site called peoplestring and decided to give it a try. I read about it on one of my friend's blogs. It seemed way too good to be true, but if it doesn't cost me anything to try, I figure why not? If an online opportunity is free I will almost always try it out just to see. So anyway, what's the deal with peoplestring? How it works is that they pay you to check your facebook, email, search google, play games and all of the other crap you do online everyday. If you go through their portal to do your daily online activities, you'll make money. How they do this is because they share with you a percentage of the advertising dollars they make off of you. Most websites keep this money to themselves. Peoplestring hopes that paying people to use them for their social networking and online entertainments needs that they will get more traffic. Makes sense to me. Anyway, I'll update on how much money I've made with peoplestring in a month. I try to give every online opportunity at least one month before I decide if it's worth my time or not. If you'd like to give peoplestring a try and conduct your own earning experiment, simply go to www.peoplestring.com to sign up. Look me up on there and we can be friends. :) Also, check out my latest eHow article on making money online.

Bringing in the Bucks on eHow

My eHow is doing GREAT! I'm very happy with how it's going. If you're not familiar with eHow, let me break it down for you. With eHow you write how to articles and they pay you based on traffic, ad clicks and things like that. If you like to write this is a good way to make some extra dough. My very first month on eHow I made $24. My second month I brought in $52. My goal for this month is to get to $100. And judging on how well things are growing, I don't see that being a problem. It takes a little while to figure out what articles will make the most money and how to get traffic to your work, but the more you do the better you get. My newer writings are much better than my older work. The more I learn, the better I earn. :) If you'd like to write for eHow go sign up at eHow.com. Be sure to join the writer's compensation program so that you'll get paid. Also, I have an article about getting started on eHow and how to write more profitable articles to make you more money. It's basically an article on all the things I've learned so far. Check it out if you are interested: http://www.ehow.com/how_5666843_started-ehow-tips-quick-success.html

Super Inexpensive Christmas Gifts

Needing to save some money this Christmas season? Don't sweat it. Christmas shopping on a tight budget doesn't have to be hard. Here's a few super savvy money saving ideas!

Do it yourself: homemade gifts can often times be much cheaper than store bought items. If you have a talent, now's the time to use it. Bake cookies, make jars of hot cocoa or chili mix, knit a blanket or a scarf, take photos and frame them...there is just so much you could do. One year I made hot cocoa mix and put it in these cute little mason jars and wrapped ribbon around the lid. It was very cheap and extremely easy but people just went on and on about what a great gift I had given them. You'd be surprised how impressed people are with homemade presents!

Shop at the dollar store: When we were at our poorest, this was how I did my Christmas shopping. For the women on my list I made little baskets and put about $5 worth of cute little soaps and a loofa in each. For kids I bought dollar store Christmas stockings and filled them with several little toys. And I bought coffee cups filled with chocolates for my coworkers and acquaintances. Everyone was pleased with their little packages and my bank account couldn't have been happier either!

Talk to you AVON lady: I'm not making a sales pitch here, I'm serious. Avon is one of the most affordable ways to do your Christmas shopping. I like to buy a bunch of things on clearance like lip balms, hand creams and nail polish. These sorts of items can go for as little as 40 cents! Then I put together gift bags full of AVON to give as Christmas gifts. It's always a good idea to take advantage of the AVON outlet book as well. I just bought my mother in law a Skin so Soft bath collection that included shower gel, body lotion, hand cream and lip balm for $5. Talk about a steal! If you don't have an AVON lady go to
www.avon.com and put in your zip code to find one. Or you can shop my online store at: http://hkimbrell.avonrepresentative.com