The BookmarkMoney Blog

Michael Martine of Remarkablogger shares his tips at Pure Blogging on how to make your tutorials must have resources.

Online Opportunity lets us know how to pick the subject when writing an ebook. I came across this about halfway through writing my own ebook. It wouldn’t have helped me choose my subject, but writing tips are always appreciated.

Finally, although it’s not a a writing tip per se, I had to include this: Six Revisions rounds up a list of 10 AJAX effects to sexy up your website. There’s a lot of cool stuff there, but I fear they wouldn’t be dialup friendly. Half of writing is in the presentation.

Tags: Blogging by Jotun
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Get Rich Slowly has a great interview with Adam Shepard, the author of “Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25, and the Search for the American Dream.” Adam started his experiment with only $25 and the clothes on his back. Living in a homeless shelter while looking for work his goal was to start with nothing and in less than a year save $2500, buy a car, and to live in a furnished apartment.

And he succeeded in spades. The interview is very motivational. It shows what a person can achieve with the proper mindset.

He even advises you not to buy his book, but to check it out from the library, or read it at Barnes and Noble. Now that’s refreshing.

Tags: Psychology by Jotun
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The following is advice I posted on Ruck’s blog post “I am Going Back to College”, which after a little bit of thought, decided to post here too. Take everything with a grain of salt, since I am at best a talented amateur, not an accountant.

When it comes to education, the best advice I could give anyone is to get somebody else to pay for it. Have the businesses you own set up an employee tuition reimbursement plan. That way you can get a tax credit for paying the out of pocket tuition (Lifetime Learning Credit), then as the business owner you get credit for paying for tuition.

Something I’ve been planning for when my endeavors actually amount to something is to set up an employer sponsored 401K with a match program, then plug the maximum amount in. Once again, tax benefits on both sides of the equation. I think the maximum you can kick in is $15,000, and with a dollar for dollar match, you can put away $30,000 in your account. I think that your business can also contribute directly to your account. Set some arbitrary savings goal, say $1000 a month, and then every time the employee (you) hits that the employer (you) can reward the employee (you) with a bonus directly deposited to your account. Same idea with sales bonuses and the like.

Unless tax laws have changed once a year you can gift your wife, children, and parents $10K tax free. That’s something I plan to do when I’m rollin’ with the big boys. Gifting my wife and kids the whole amount (for the kids it’ll go in their college funds), gift my parents, then have them turn around and gift me back $9000 or something, and do the same with my brothers. It’s all a big shell game, but legal, I think.

Years ago I came across a concept that really struck home with me. It’s called ‘F*** You’ money. Basically it’s the amount of money you need to be able to tell everybody in the world to F*** themselves and still be able to survive comfortably. For me, that’s basically in the 2 to 3 million dollar range. Once my mortgage is paid for, newer vehicles bought, and childrens’ college funds are secured, I don’t really need much to survive on.

Basically I plan on banking as much as possible, then just living off of the interest. 5% interest on 1 million dollars is $50,000 a year. That’s $20,000 more than my base salary currently. So, extrapolating outwards, the yearly interest on 3 million dollars is $150,000 a year. I can be comfortable on that. I don’t need flashy cars, and my wife doesn’t like jewelry. All I want is to be able to buy the books I want and actually have time to read them. To buy the DVD’s I want and watch them. To just have time to enjoy life.

My wife and I don’t like to travel. GenCon is the only roadtrip we ever make, and now that the kid is here, it may be a while until we go again. When we go out to eat it’s just the Texas Roadhouse. I’ve eaten at a 5 star restaraunt that my ex-brother in law cooked at. For three shared appetizers and drinks for 6, it was around $100, even with his discount. I’d rather drop $35 with the tip and come home with leftovers.

My one concession to wealth will be a re-creation of a medieval castle somewhere here in Iowa. Towers, parapets, the whole shebang. The great hall will feature a full sized movie theater with seating for 20 and a THX sound system. Movies are my number two passion. Books are my number one. And with that in mind, I plan on having a giant library full of books.

Although it sounds expensive, I plan on doing it responsibly. I don’t want a drafty fieldstone castle. The whole thing is going to be poured concrete with a thin veneer of rock plastered on over the foam forms. Sub-floor radiant heat, as much solar power as is feasible, proper window alignment so that I can open a window on one side and have the breeze blow straight through the house.

Sure, it’s a stupid dream, but nobody ever got anywhere by thinking small.

Tags: Site News by Jotun
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Well it has been a few days since I started my first Adwords campaign. 9,000 impressions, 0 clicks. Time to rewrite that one I think.

I created two more on the spur of the moment on Wednesday night. Campaign 1: 900 impressions, one click. Campaign 2: 2,500 impressions, three clicks. Slightly better than my first campaign, but only in very relative terms.

Total time spent to setup my campaigns - 50 minutes. Total cost to me - $.38. Money made - 0. Time to dust off the old thinking cap.

Still, I’m not really discouraged. I am getting ideas and insights from the campaigns I’m running, and since I’m a kinesthetic learner, I’m learning by doing. I have a thousands of ideas, so two spur of the moment ones not making money isn’t a heartbreaker. What I’m learning is well worth the $.38 I’m out so far.

Never Blue Ads called yesterday. I need to find a minute and call them back. If I’m not home I’m working, and if I am home I have to use a spatula to pry the kid off of my leg. *sigh* I really wish I had started this two years ago when I wanted to, before the mortgage and kid.

I’m working my way through Ruck’s 60 Days to List Profits in fits and starts. I know I write about him a lot, and it makes me feel like a suck-boy, but I can’t help it. He’s the first affiliate marketer that isn’t peddling re-heated two year old material (on his blog at least), and his insights make me feel like I can do it too. His recent series on the potential of Kaboodle are amazing. Catch up on them: Day 1 |Day 2 |Day 3 |Day 4

I see from my referral logs that Ruck visited here after a trackback. Probably laughed his ass off. I know that’s probably what I would do if the roles were reversed. That’s ok, hate makes me stronger

Spent 4 hours last night looking for software to power the backend of my as yet unannounced project. I swear it’ll blow your mind if I can afford to pay somebody off of eLance to write it for me. I spent a couple hours noodling around with Yahoo Pipes. Talk about your object oriented programming! Very powerful and yet very limited. Spent hours trying to get yahoo to categorize 3 different sets of rss feed items by date posted without regards to the blog they were coming from, but the closest I ever got was listing them by date yet still seperated.

Finally, I’ve noticed that every time I break out “Are You Dead Yet?” by Children of Bodom, it always starts with “In Your Face,” which is my favorite song on the album, and may just be the best one too. I’m definately looking forward to the new album and hopefully I can catch them on tour again. The last time I saw them, they were with Slayer and Mastodon. Mastodon sucked ungodly amounts of ass, and the only reason I stayed for Slayer was so that my friend could say he had seen them. Two songs later we were gone.

Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Music, Site News by Jotun
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(Cross Posted to Fascination Street )Following up on my previous post, I am starting down the path towards becoming an Internet Marketer. I have opened my AdWords account, and started my first campaign. I’m trying to remain cautiously optimistic. I’ve set a limit of $5/day, and I’m going to probably burn through $20 to $25 just testing the waters.

I don’t expect that I’m going to make a crapload of money. I’m not even expecting to make money at all. I don’t have a defeatist attitude, getting rich isn’t the point of this first campaign. The point is to start getting results. I’m eyeballing what seems to be an absolutely massive market that isn’t even remotely being tapped. The question is, how to tap into it.

Hence my first AdWords campaign. I’ve spent years now reading the latest and greatest e-books promising to teach me all of the “Insider’s Secrets” and such. The problem being is that actions are the most important thing when it comes to determining one’s future. I don’t pretend that I’m a guru, or even on the path to becoming one, but I know what my strengths are, and I intend to utilize them to the fullest.

My father is an engineer, my mother an artist. Opposites really do attract, eh? I’ve always had an innate ability to solve problems, generally thinking laterally. I am proud to say that my efforts to break the various systems that I have worked in have led to rules specifically designed to thwart my efforts. Of course, that just generally just encourages me to find new ways around my problems. I digg pissing people off. Moreso, I love to get inside of their heads and just drive them to the brink of madness. I am a psychological sadist who has the ability to observe in a detatched manner the subject I’m working on. I have the brain of a lawyer, but the heart of a used car salesman.

For all of my life I’ve had to deal with the war raging inside of me: logic versus passion. I’m very analytical in my outlook, but I tend to flip to passionate in a heartbeat. My bullshit tolerance is low as a result, and getting lower the older I get. I have a wife, a kid, and a mortgage, so I have to deal with shit, since I can’t just up and quit when I get pissed off, as I was once wont to do.

I stand out at work. I hate working. Detest it. But, the way I see it, if I’m going to be there I’m going to do as much as possible to fill the time. Once I figure out my job, I usually start coasting at about 125% of productivity. That doesn’t make me popular. The fact that I can do it using half the energy of the guy next to me who is struggling at around 80% productivity doesn’t make me many friends either. Add in that I’m a non union worker in a union shop, and it’s amazing I don’t have more “accidents.” The thing is, I’m tired of having to put forth 125% effort just to keep my mind occupied, all the while lining somebody else’s pockets. I want to fill my own pockets with my effort.

That’s why I’m embarking on this venture, so I don’t have to deal with anybody’s crap anymore.

I’ve recently become a reader of Cash Tactics. The author of the blog is “Ruck,” and two years ago he was in my place - wife, two jobs, and trying to get out. Two years later, he’s hit the big time. That’s my inspiration. The ‘only in America‘ type of success story that Ruck is enjoying. I admire his honesty. He shoots from the hip, straight from the hip. When he recommends things, he doesn’t even use affiliate links, unless he’s cloaking them some way I can’t figure out.

Recently he wrote a post entitled Stop Looking For Handouts And Start Busting Tail. Articles like this really help to keep my motivation high, and this is the second post in the space of about three days that really spoke to me. I don’t believe in coincidences, but I do believe in synchronicity - the points where everything in the universe seems to actually fit.

I notice synchronicities all the time, but by the time I squash the Woody Allen voice inside of me, the window has closed, and I’m left waiting for the next opportunity. There’s a saying in certain political circles that “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Political views aside, that sums my life up in a nutshell.

Last Tuesday/Wednesday was one of those times, however instead of debating, I kicked my inner nebbish in the face, and decided to act on an idea that came to me out of the blue. On an impulse I registered BookMarkMoney.com, and actually paid for hosting instead of slaving it to my main hosting account. Then I went to work.

And that’s where I am today. I’m still working, behind the scenes. I’m splitting my time between backend stuff on this site, AdWords, some speculation on eBay, redesigning my brother’s website, snowblowing the damned driveway every two to three days, and my wife and kid. Plus I have an amazing idea in the pipeline, and if I can wrangle it, I’m going to install the software and play around with it this weekend.

It sounds like a lot of work. And it is. But it’s 125%, and that’s nothing new. The fact that I’m doing it for myself, now that’s new.

Tags: Gurus, Psychology, Site News by Jotun
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