One thing I’ve learned my first year online is – November rocks! December? Hmmm…it’s “good,” but no November. And if you were excited as I was about my earnings in November I was shocked as anyone, this month isn’t that “exciting,” but who am I kidding?

  • I’ve worked in construction in the winter months.
  • I’ve dug ditches, poured concrete excavated manually amongst Black Widows aplenty at a now-defunct oil refinery in the middle of Californian summers.
  • I’ve worked back-to-back 16 hour shifts in ambulance-ridden emergency rooms, with gun shot wounds and knife fight-bloody teens…
  • I have slaved for countless hours in thankless jobs…

Entropy ? M?mory.Cr?at?v?ty ² . .
Making anything passively is exciting in my book, period.

But I will admit – I didn’t hit the mark this past month – 2011 will be different. In 2010, December’s figures were a little lower than November (to be expected according to Google Insights for Search and common sense).

So -

What Contributed To My Lowered Passive Income?

Holidays, family time and more R&R than I thought I’d see for a while…what can I say? I chilled out more than worked my own passive income.

“Poor me.”

You’ve heard me talk about working for clients more than myself – this time around, though I have been juggling clients, I’m taking less client work because of the kind of work I put out. So the “trouble” was simply paying attention to family a bit more.

In other words:

Let the money roll in, baby, but I’m not working for it…

(Like how I said that? “Let the money roll in,” that’s kind of a joke – I’m not “rolling in it” nor satisfied at quitting at my ability to give myself a pay raise.)

Between me and you, counting my active and passive income together, December was a great month.

I am not at the point where I can “relax” yet – but you can bet this year will see more time enjoying my family and less time being the QWERTY / Trunk Monkey.

For someone who knows how to balance their time well – read Dave’s Making Money On the Internet. He had a recent post that mentioned the 4-Hour Workweek, and I bought it from his link on the spot.

4 Hour Work Week Book

Why’d I buy it? Because amoebas are more organized in business than I have been. Time management, focus and making better business decisions = the flavor of the year.

This first year was spent on experimenting, discovery, learning on and off-page SEO – and learning how to make money. I’ve got systems that work, and Amazonian Profit Plan is where I’m heading in 2011.

Now it’s time to make the most of every moment, which is what this book will hopefully help me discover.

How Much Loot I Made in December

This ain’t “loot” if you read really successful types (like Dave, Grizzly, Leo Dimilo, Aaron Wall, Paula and Wanda – all in the sidebar)…

But comparing myself against myself – which is going to be a new discipline to learn (I am always comparing myself against Michelle of Passive Income Online blog, for example)…

Why? Well…you know…it’s fun that way. It gives me a goal to shoot for – but to tell the truth, I also get discouraged, so I’m trying to get out of that habit.

Speaking for myself and comparing my earnings to the fact that a year ago, I was SUPER excited to watch the pennies add up in my AdSense account for the first 2-3 months – this is good money.

This has been progress for me. When you read others’ numbers, I’d suggest that you quit the comparison and getting down on your numbers, and focus on what you’ve done, where you’ve been, how your life has gone.

IM Parents: Stop comparing yourself to those without kids.

I have 8 kids and I’m married. Of course Mike Iser kicks butt (for example, and by the way, how you been, Mike?). Of course Dave and “Wifey” are astounding and swim in loot…

And I may never catch up.

But who ever said I need to? I HOPE to, for sure – but you see my point? Michelle at PassiveIncomeOnlineblog.com is killing it in my book – Dave’s killing it in anyone’s book, and Paula and Wanda are amazing…but circumstances are wildly different.

I can’t, like Michelle, re-invest my earnings at this point like she does. But I can make money online, and make money without sweating, getting hollered at, or commuting…unless you count the walk downstairs.

That rocks.

I hope nobody reads this and gets frustrated, like I used to do all the time reading others’ blogs. I’m hoping to keep myself accountable and possibly be a bit of inspiration to those looking at this business and wondering if it can be done.

It can, and I think anyone can make it. When I look at these numbers of mine and consider how little I’ve worked – I’m telling you, I’m stoked.

I’m not better than anyone in this game – and I’ll tell you right now it boils down to picking great products that people want, writing decent reviews and then ranking said reviews.

How many websites did all this take?

This is a common question – this is all taken from my web 2.0′s on Hubpages, Squidoo and here, besides all those (I have about 30 between HP and S), I have 13 sites and 10 make me money.

Personally, I don’t want 100 sites unless they’re all cash cows. I don’t like the mini-site model where you have 100 websites to make a living…that’s hogwash.
Contentment
You can make a living with one, or 5, or 10…You don’t need to worry about hosting 80-280 websites, just make the 5-10 that you do have work for you.

OK, that’s enough already, I think I heard someone just say:

Shut your pie hole and tell me what you made!

Alright – here’s what I made in passive income, mostly affiliate marketing, set and forget type stuff:

Commission Junction…..1326.07 1976.21
Amazon……………………………….131.99
AdSense………………………………..96.77
Clickbank + others……………460.16
Sub-Total Earned: ………….2014.99 2665.13

(-Expenses:)……………………….65.89 (hosting/ArticleRanks)
(- AdSense:)………………………..96.77 (won’t get paid until Feb)
Grand Total:……………….1852.33 2502.47

Not too bad, although I was bummed about AdSense (since it carries over vs. goes into my pocket), but who am I kidding? I haven’t built my AdSense account with new pages / sites for a while.

My plan, simply, is this:

Do more with less.

Fewer sites (not counting my link wheel plan and the web 2.0 ring), more pages on those sites, and rank them well. I learned that from the Amazonian Profit Plan and later from Dave, who’s saying the same thing.

More with less means better rankings on what reviews you do have up. I’ve also noticed that in December, people aren’t spending big money but are more budget shopping.

This resulted in me selling more “things,” (last minute shoppers) but the items were cheaper. Why spend 4-digits when 3-digit gifts will do? That sort of thing.

Solution? Offer more 3-digit products. I know: genius. Having all of my earnings on one site (80% is from one site, two pages in particular) means I need to build up that site. Nothing new.

I also means I need to make more sites in this general niche in time, and diversify – I had some great winners that were really responsive this past quarter – like I knew they would be.

How’d I know? Google Trends and Insights for Search. Spooky how spot-on those tools are in their predictions…

Stay Tuned: Upcoming Post Topics

  • Software Review: What Sucked, What Rocked in 2010
  • Picking A Helluva Commission Junction Product and How
  • Monetized Link Wheel Take Two
  • How I’ve Made Sales While On Page 5

Thanks for reading and making 2010 a fond memory. Now it’s time to get serious about this.

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