I have a goal for this year and that is to have my semi-passive income increased to $500 per month by the end of the year. This doesn’t sound like much, but I don’t seem to have much of an imagination. I can’t seem to come up with an idea for a product. I like writing so I figured that maybe an ebook, but on what? And for who? Since this is to be passive income I want to be sure to pick a demographic that is easy to market to. I am an engineer by trade, and there is a couple of ideas there, but the people that I would be marketing to would not see my credentials as good enough to warrant the purchase. Also the topics that I am interested in, in my field of work, would be very technical and I am not sure if I could sell the books, I would need to sell one a day to reach my target.

So where does that leave me? Well frustrated….

I am not sure where to go, maybe I will offer myself up for some technical writing assignments over at DP, or elance and see if something interesting will come along. Or maybe I will simply try to think up a cool gadget that would fit into one of my hobbies. The issue that I am having now is that I am the type of person that can solve a problem if you give me one, but I am not good at coming up with things on the fly. I make a very good consultant, but service work does not lend itself to be very passive. You only make money when you are working, I would like to find a way to make money while I am out drinking with the guys.

SO what is a webmaster to do? I would like to be able to use the day job more like a hobby, something that I enjoy doing and a place that I enjoy going to, but not really required to pay the bills. This may be wishful thinking, but I am sure that if I really put my mind to it I will be able to come up with something that will enable me to be inspired. I know I will have to hook up with some old buddies and go out drinking. Maybe one of them would have a cool problem that I would be able to come up with a solution and create a product out of it.

I heard about DealDotCom the other day and thought, cool, but then I thought about it again and wasn’t so sure.  It seems to be a great idea, but one day does not give  you a lot of time to make a decision about the product.  I am thinking that it may be worth signing up just for the hell of it.

Has anyone done anything with them yet? I will sign up with an account this weekend, or sooner if I see something that I actually want to buy and I will report back

I am just wondering if anyone else is noticing a blip on their online marketing, ecommerce, and affliiate campaigns in the middle of all of this craziness on Wall Street.  I am amazed how much money centeral banks are throwing in trying to calm things down. 

I am not involved in affiliate campaigns that include credit of any sort so I am not really noticing much change at the moment.  However since it is the big ticket items that the real money is in, I am sure that there is going to be a trickle down affect that I am going to watch for.  Might have to start looking for more “defensive” type business ideas.

So let me know, what are you seeing.

Like I have mentioned before I have been playing some online poker in my spare time, and when I am getting bored.  Anyway, lately I have been doing pretty good, I invested in some tracking software and it has already paid for itself. 

So yesterday I sat down and figured out the hourly rate I have made playing poker for the last month, and I was surprised to see that it was higher than my effective hourly rate for all of my online business.  Hmm I thought to myself, if I just played poker then I would be able to buy that new computer that I want sooner.

That is when the guy on the other should spoke up and said, “Yes, but remember there is nothing passive about playing poker, online or otherwise.  You can’t go home and read a book AND make money, you actually have to be doing something.”

This is very true, and where the title comes from.  Sure I could decide to just play poker in my free time and spend NO time on my other endeavors, or I could even sell my remaining online real-estate, however I will never have a nice passive income when I stop playing.  The sites and services that I am spending my time on now are gaining speed, and on top of that they are making me money, as little as it may be, while I am at work, sleeping, etc.  That is something that I can’t say about poker.  If I go on vacation I make no money except for the money that my sites pull in via Adsense and affiliate offers. 

So my conclusion to that little internal conversation was this, keep doing what I am doing.  So I will continue to maintain and build my sites and if the mood strikes I will fire up the poker, or set up a home game (that I can’t seem to win, but that is another post)

I just bought a e-book site that I am planning on doing some cool advertising for it.  This is not the first e-book site that I have owned, but the first one is one that I started from scratch and then got overwhelmed with the work involved in making a start-up so I sold it. 

Now I am ready, I think, to try to give it another go.  The good thing about buying a site that is already set up is that if you don’t have a lot of time at the moment then you can just sit back and let it do some stuff organically.  Then when you have time you can start to actively work on it.  Also since the site wasn’t making a lot of money, I bought it low.  I have calculated that I have to make $20 per month to break even in one year.  I should be able to do a lot better than that with minimal work on advertising.  I also plan on putting together a “real” book store through Amazon Affiliate.  This will also give me another revenue stream.

I will let you know how it goes.  I am looking forward to have some passive income from this site. Wish me luck

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