“When nature provides a perfect climate and enough food, people sleep all day and do nothing.”

– Aristotle Onassis

When I had a job I didn’t value money. Although I started budgeting and saving money there were plenty of frivolous things that I still went out and bought. I made a lot of impulse purchases. If i was in a bad mood or feeling sorry for myself I’d go out and buy something. Now all I spend money on is my gym membership.

Working for someone else makes you lose respect for money. You can goof off with your co-workers, sleep on the job, or procrastinate. As long as your boss doesn’t catch you you’ll still get paid. Things are different now. If I’m not at my desk working I don’t get paid.

$100 is no longer 10 hours worth of work. It’s tracking down a client, selling them on your services, and then delivering something of value. It’s also temporary. I might generate $300 worth of business on Monday and than fail to get any more work for the rest of the week.

While I’m sure there are thousands of eBooks touting the benefits of entrepreneurship and promising European vacations and private jets, I going to make a different argument for why you should start a business. When you make your own money you learn its actual value. The average American only saves 6.2% of their income. I used to think this was because people are stupid, but now I realize that they just don’t understand what money is actually worth. If you’re guaranteed a check for every day that you show up to work there is no incentive to save anything.

Of course this security is a double edged sword. The once layoffs and downsizing start happening people start offing themselves. They’re so used to security that they could never fathom not being handed a monthly paycheck. They’ll have heart attacks and commit suicide before ever bothering to set up their own venture.

The most important thing that I’ve learned from having my own business is responsibility. I’m in charge of how much I make. It’s made me view spending money in an entirely new manner.

“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.”

– Milan Kundera

For the past few days I have thought that 30 Days To X was getting a lot of traffic to its Amazon links. All month I’ve been making a small but continuous profit off Amazon Affiliates. Checking my referral links today I discovered that no one has bought anything off this site all month.* All my revenue has been coming from a tiny affiliate venture that I launched in December. I actually only worked on the project for a couple weeks. Now it’s generating money.

What I did

Inadvertently I made a niche website. Without spoiling what I did, I created something small that would only appeal to a certain audience. For the sake of the post I’ll say that I sold Spongebob key chains. I put all the content up over the course of a few weeks and then left everything alone. Because my field is so small there isn’t much competition. It’s like being an ice cream salesman in the Sahara Desert, I don’t get a lot of traffic but everyone who visits is sure to buy from me.

How to make a micro niche site

Before you do anything else, conduct some research and find a niche market that isn’t completely exploited yet. I’ll even throw out an idea right here. Create a site called “Amazon Under A Dollar.” You’ll make a killing. During the month of January I made some money off a little free website where I sold credit card sized survival tools. They are available on Amazon for a dollar.

If you noticed the math between my “items shipped” and “advertising fees” doesn’t add up. That’s because I earned a commission on everything that was purchased after people clicked my link. Most people never bought the survival cards, but they did purchase Kindles, PlayStations, extension cords, and a bunch of other stuff that I got paid for. A low cost item doesn’t need to sell, it just needs to draw customers through the link.

After you find a niche you can actually make an entire site in no time at all. At the moment Viva la Manosphere! is running a special offer where anyone who purchases web hosting through them will get free blog setup, a discount on their hosting costs, and free blogging reports. Buying through their link will literally give you everything you need without any extra costs.

Once you have your site set up you’ll want to post some content. Writing your own material isn’t hard, but it can take time. Also, not everyone is good at conveying their thoughts through the written word. An easy way to get decent material is through Fiverr. For twenty bucks you can buy enough articles for your site to be “complete.”

Lastly, you’ll want people to visit your site. Getting traffic is actually the most difficult aspect of the whole process. What I’ve found to work best is the use of social media and venues like Reddit. There’s a whole section of Reddit called Shameless plug where you can post any site link that you want. If it’s mildly interesting you’ll start getting traffic.

Conclusion

In addition to affiliate marketing, mirco niches are a great place to launch little eBooks and products. I have a small site about Xylitol that I’ve just written a short Kindle book for. Since the site already gets traffic I think the book will do alright. Also, if you’re interested in learning more about micro niches be sure to check out Bold & Determined’s latest podcast. It provides a lot of in-depth coverage on the subject.

* Shame on you.

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”

– Peter F. Drucker

Ego is a funny thing. You can see a historic trend, a guaranteed outcome, and still think it won’t happen to you. I’ve read dozens of business books and biographies. Almost all of them contained a section where things were going well before disaster struck. 5o Cent did well as a drug dealer before he was shot, Mark Cuban had an employee steal from him, and Steve Jobs got fired from his own company. Things were looking up for each of these men until fate nearly wiped them out. All of them had to innovate just to survive.

I never really thought that innovation would ever be something that I had to do. While I did start freelancing on oDesk and Elance, I did so out of curiosity. I didn’t even put a whole lot of effort into it. It was extra money, nothing too serious. My Fiverr business was all I needed.

Once my Fiverr business started drying up I discovered that I sucked at being a freelance writer. In the past I was able to sit back and watch as the customers rolled in. That didn’t happen with oDesk. In fact, it was a struggle for me to even get basic jobs.

Foolishly, I ended up getting sucked into working for a content farm just so that I could earn money. Writing dozens of junk articles everyday was depressing and I hated every minute of it.

Eventually I decided to make some changes. I went back and re-read a few business books, started studying my thesaurus, picked through every article about oDesk that I could find. I also quit my safe but boring job with the content farm.

Yesterday I got two hundred dollars worth of work for myself. At the content farm I was barely making fifty bucks a day, and spending all day grinding out content. While I still work hard, I make way more and produce a fraction of what I used to.

How to spark innovation

Although this probably won’t be the “cool” thing to say, I believe that people can’t change unless they are under immense pressure. Most people are comfortable enough in their lives that they won’t take action unless disaster strikes. When Amazon reviews were profitable for me I had no real interest in making money from anything else. Things were good enough.

Once things went bad, I took the comfortable route. I got a job working for someone else, in this case a writing firm, and wasted my time letting them profit. Unfortunately for my employers, I’d already seen my potential and knew that I wouldn’t exceed it by working for someone else.

I used my mundane content mill job to survive while I worked out my next move. There were a lot of nights where I was up until three in the morning plotting and scheming. I did all the research I could and dedicated my free time to learning about the industry.

Once I acquired everything I needed I set out on my own and started drawing in my own customers. Instead of wasting time on low paying jobs, I aimed directly for the most lucrative contracts. While gigs paying five dollars were getting swarmed with applicants, most of the projects I applied to would only have one or two other candidates.

By leaving behind the comfort of my content farm and focusing on a specific niche, I was able to grow my business and make money once again.

“Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”

– Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

I was the top Amazon review writer on Fiverr. In three weeks I took an idea and made it into something that earned me more than my 9 to 5 job had. Unfortunately it was a flash in the pan.

While my review writing business made me quite a bit of money, Amazon caught on. My posts got pulled, I received hundreds of angry messages, and I had to refund orders. My golden goose was cooked.

I was supposed to go on vacation to Miraflores and enjoy the weather while posting reviews from my laptop. With my main source of income gone I decided to postpone the trip. I still had the money to go, but I wanted to focus more on making money. I’ve been abroad every year since I was 18. I can sacrifice one trip if it means that I’ll have more of them in the future.

While I could, and have, tried to do more fake reviews, I think that the market isn’t what it used to be. I’m not upset, I just have to find something else. My original business made money, but it was too dependent on outside factors. I had to rely on proxies, different computers, and Amazon’s security. There were a lot of variables.

Oh well, I made my money and learned my lesson.

Why I never lose

I’m sure that someone will gloat about the fact that my Fivver business dried up. I’ll get at least one “I told you so” email. Some of my acquaintances will probably smirk and gossip. “That’s what you get when you think you’re too good for college,” they’ll say. It won’t bother me.

Losing is a state of mind. The only different between being defeated and learning a lesson is the perspective. I basically got paid thousands of dollars to learn not to make something so unreliable. Woe is me.

I took two weeks off. I walked around, went on a few dates, read some books, watched a couple videos, and drew in my notebook. I had to recharge a little. Afterwards I got right back to work.

During my hiatus I watched a video with Jordan Belfort. In it he told a story about his first business, he sold frozen meat and lobsters in New York City. Sales were good, he made ten million dollars. Profits were bad, his ten million wasn’t enough to cover the expenses. Rather than curling up in a ball and crying Belfort moved on to his next project. When that didn’t pan out he moved on again.

Right now I’m concentrating my efforts on freelance writing and producing more eBooks. If either of those don’t work out I’ve already devised another backup plan.I hit gold when I did Fiverr reviews, I can easily come up with something new and make it lucrative.

“Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”

– E.L. Doctorow

I write a lot of freelance articles. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words about subjects like Forex trading, diets, SEO, web businesses, and a ton of other subjects.

In addition to writing a lot, I have to face incredible amounts of competition. A lot of companies try and pay incredibly low rates, such as two dollars for a 700 word article, and the few good jobs are plagued by third world workers who are willing to do projects for next to nothing.

While I’m not hurting for work, I do want to establish a few more secondary sources of income. Right now I feel like I’m still working for someone else. I want to establish more passive income.

Over the weekend I sat down and tried to come up with a few ways to make new businesses. I thought about everything from buying and selling washing machines, I have a really good deal on them, to making a new site. In the end I decided to try something much simpler.

I’m going to make more cheap eBooks.

I’m already sitting on a mountain of data about all kinds of subjects. I might as well take what I have, re-write it, and then sell it on Amazon. Additionally, I think that I’ll make it a point to try and produce some PDF books too. While book sales have never been a massive money maker for me, they don’t require a whole lot of effort. I’ve currently got over a dozen titles on the shelves. If I make four to six more books I should be able to turn a pretty decent profit.

Writing cheesy books is actually pretty fun. Additionally, I’m a big fan of things like old pulp novels. I have a huge collection of old Robert E. Howard and Walter B. Gibson stories to draw influence from.

This month I plan on writing at least two boring non-fiction books based off of subjects that I have covered on oDesk, and I want to write one cheesy thriller. I think this is going to be a fun month and I look forward to seeing what I come up with.