Work Coming Along On New Blog

I couldn't really work on the new blog at all last week.  I was sick in bed all day on the one day I had off to go Christmas shopping so I don't even have that started yet.  This week has been a lot more productive.

Sunday night I was able to get WordPress loaded onto the new domain with only a little help from the online live chat at HostGator.  It simply gets a little bit easier each time.  I then found a theme that I will be starting with and spent the last few days working with it.  I now have a Welcome post and the Policies page complete.

I have also placed my own picture across the top.  I am not exactly computer savvy when it comes to CSS and HTML coding, but I managed to piece together enough information to figure out what I needed to do.  It only took me about 1.5 hours last night to do that.

I have also created a list of all the articles that I want to post for the month of January.  The plan is to post every Monday and Thursday with some Saturdays available for odds and ends.  I had previously sent my list of potential topics to the two writers that will be working with me.  It is simply impossible for me to write that much content with my busy schedule so I am planning on partnering with these individuals for 2 articles each initially.

The cost will be $20 per article meaning $80 in expenses for the month.  I will be on the hook for 5 articles myself which will be doable.  I have already received back from the authors which topics about which they want to write so I can start writing my articles when I get a chance.  I want to try to plan and stay about a month ahead for when times tend to get busy or illness occurs.  I have enough money in the Paypal account for six months worth of articles.  I am hoping that by that time, the site will at least be covering its costs.

One of the authors has already returned his articles and I will be submitting payment to him in January.  So, it looks like the blog is beginning to take shape.  I added Google AdSense and Analytics code this morning.  I should be ready to announce the domain name by Monday and will likely do that.

The two authors are also bloggers so I am hoping to generate a little more buzz and have a ready made audience from my own blog.  This would be a lot better than when I had to start from zero at Cash Flow Mantra.  I plan on announcing the domain on Monday there as well.  Hopefully, I can get everything finalized this weekend.  Wish me luck.  I hope to be back here on Monday morning!

Goals for Rest of 2010

I took a look at my online income goals for 2010 recently and realized that they had to be modified quite a bit.  So, I thought I would take the opportunity to review those goals and make some changes based upon new circumstances and directions that I plan on taking for the last four months of the year.

I will list the old goals first, followed by the modification of that goal in bold text.  This will save you having to flip back and forth between posts.

• 250 total articles on Life123.  Life123 had suspended their writers' compensation program early in the year.  They did pay out for all work previously done which was nice and professional.  However, this goal is no longer applicable.
• 150 Xombytes (articles) on Xomba.  I currently have 45 articles.  I am not entirely convinced that Xomba is the greatest source for residual income.  Thus I should focus my goals on sites that will actually make me money until something happens with those sites.  I do think Xomba is a great site for posting links and will continue to do this.  I hope to have every single article at HubPages linked at Xomba by the end of the year.  If you want to join Xomba for linking purposes with the probability of making some extra cash, that would be reasonable.
• 150 articles on HubPages.  I already have 145 Hubs.  HubPages has become my main money making site.  Last month, it was responsible for the majority of my earnings.  This month, it is not quite 60%.  I think I want to go for 180-200 by the end of 2010.  I also want to have a second account and put up 30 sales Hubs by the end of September to get some Amazon sales heading into the Christmas season.  I would also like to have over 300 followers from the current 285.
• 50 articles on eHow.  eHow has changed the format to Demand Studios.  I still have 38 articles.  I looked at some of the titles offered and did not like them.  For me, eHow is no longer applicable.  I simply hope to finish making additional links and make the $10 payout each month.
• As for writing for this blog, I have kept up but at a pace closer to 2 per week instead of 3.  I don't plan on making any changes.  I still think I have a shot of getting in the top 500,000 Alexa rank and will continue to strive for traffic and followers.
• I am putting my own site on the back burner for now.  I bought Michelle Adams' ebook on virtual real estate.  It is good, but it looks like a lot of work.  I would rather write.  I think I might look into having one built for me when I get a little more cushion in the paypal account to pay for a site and some hosting.

As far as earnings are concerned, between Life123, Xomba, HubPages, and eHow, I thought that it might be possible to make $195 monthly by the end of 2010.  Most of that ($100) was going to come from Life123 which no longer exists for me.  If I subtract that out, I still think hitting a $95 month with the other 3 sites is possible but will take some additional effort.  I will need to see Xomba pick up some which could happen if I am busy using the site for links.  I think I might be close to $60 this month so $95 in a month by the end of the year is not outside the realm of possibility.

So, what are your goals for the rest of the year?  Have you even bothered to look at your original plans for 2010 to see your progress?  Feel free to shout out and comment.

Photo Credit: Elliot and GoAvs

More Productive Than I Thought

I haven't really felt very productive lately. In fact, I haven't really felt like I had accomplished anything since the beginning of the year. And while that may be somewhat true, over the past ten months of writing on the internet, I have been fairly productive considering that this is a part-time effort. I don't have 6 or 8 hours each day for writing and promoting.


I started working on making money online the last week of May 2009 approximately 300 days ago. In that time, I have produced the following content:


122 articles on HubPages
100 posts on this blog (My Online Income)
43 articles on Xomba
38 articles on eHow
22 articles for Life123
13 posts on the Real Assets blog
6 articles on InfoBarrel
5 articles on Triond
5 lenses on Squidoo

The total is 354 which works out to just over 1 article or post per day! I had no idea I had done so much until it hit me that I had written my 100th post here. Then I thought about the 122 articles on HubPages and thought that I could be close to 300 articles.

Obviously I have written in spurts of motivation and creativity. I just haven't felt like writing a whole lot since the beginning of the year. But now, I am starting to get motivated again. Maybe it is the spring and the warmer weather. Maybe I had just been needing to slow down for a few months.

Anyway, I think in the next few months, I am going to attack the writing again and finish the last month to 6 weeks fairly strong. I definitely want to get the last 11 articles written so that I can say that I averaged 1 per day for the first year. Then I want to average one per day for the next year and have over 700 articles or posts online available to me to earn passive income.

How much do you end up writing? One per day? More or less? I am curious to know what some of the full-time writers have done or are currently doing. What about you part-timers like me?