WHY "MASTER DAYTON?"

"Master Dayton" might be humorous, (I mean if Ph.Ds are called "Doctors," shouldn't MFAs be called "Masters?") but in all seriousness I have made a living freelance writing and after several years I have tons of information I want to share to help out my fellow writers, regardless of age, experience, goals, situation, or background. This blog isn't pretty-but it will help if real freelance writing information is what you want.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Freelance Passive Writing Income: And a Vacation Update

Passive Writing Income Opens Up the World

Well this should be an enjoyable post. I've just finished my third week of travel/vacation out of four, and after a week enjoying North Carolina and then Tampa, Florida, this week is already up and kicking in Las Vegas. And we're not talking New Mexico here, people. While I've attempted to start this post several times in the past week, well vacation has been great and there is always a lot to see in the city, so the tenses of this post might not completely match, and I'm going to try and be a little bit less long winded than usual since I am on vacation and there's so much more to be out doing and seeing. But I figured it would be nice to get in one freelance writing blog post before Christmas.

This has been somewhat of a work vacation, as I've put in about four hours of work every Friday, but many days on vacation I haven't done any. And on some of the other days, I've only worked a couple hours a day, using free or rented Wi-Fi and a laptop to get online and type some articles, or use my Dragon Natural Speaking Software (this is an affiliate link, but I strongly recommend this software after a couple months of use and will be doing a more in depth review on it later) to really get some done quickly in a shorter time. So it might not be a 100% no work vacation, but I haven't worked more than 8 total hours any of the last four weeks, and the reason this is possible is not only because of a little bit of savings, but because of the way that passive income opens the door for this type of trip. In a limited way, so does freelance writing since it only takes a laptop and Wi-Fi, but then you have to work a lot more on each week of break than you otherwise would.

During these four weeks I've received over $300 from Google AdSense, $250 from Amazon's Affiliate program, $150 from my eHow articles, $90 from Yahoo! Contributors (formerly Associated Content), $13 from Suite101, $125 from Squidoo, $40 from eBay and $700 from other various sources of passive or semi-passive income. Taking a month long vacation is much easier when you're receiving $1,665 from work that you've already done while on vacation - and it definitely helps you to stretch out the savings. This is part of the reason I so adamantly believe that all freelancers should spend some time building up their passive income streams. The number of hours or days I "have to work" shrink dramatically when a flow of money is coming in from various resources. Even the number of days you can qualify as "I should work, but I don't really have to" also shrinks dramatically when enough money comes in to pay the bills.

This also makes traveling more enjoyable. What stopped me the most early on was that I spent way too much time reading and trying to learn everything there was to know instead of actually building blogs, writing articles, and building sites. And when I started Grizzly's famous make money online for beginners blog was available as an excellent resource, before Google and a few jerks (you know, the ones who try to ruin everything for everyone) hammered away until it was no more. Even if that blog was still available for all of you, it would be a bad idea to do too much research and not enough doing.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which are:
  • Online marketing and passive income changes constantly. While the basic cornerstones remain the same, there are constant changes in how pages are ranked, what links are most effective, and other tweaks to the best ways to rank pages and make passive income. Because of this, you can NEVER learn 100% of what there is to know before getting started.
  • You can always learn while you are setting up money making pages. Not only is this smarter because you will learn the most by actually doing, but instead of sitting on the sidelines you will be beginning to make the articles, HubPages, and websites you need to build up your passive income.
  • Age matters. The older a website or article, the more authority it has in the search engines and the easier it is to rank on top. So the sooner you get started, the sooner your pages will age and the more they will make for you.
  • Did I mention that actually doing is the best way to learn this business and you can fill in the details while you're writing online?
  • Passive income is partially a numbers game. The higher the numbers, the more winners you are going to have, the more money you will make, and the more likely you are to have a large number of articles or pages that you can tweak to turn into good earners once you learn more about passive income.
  • Paralysis by Analysis is the most common thing that stops people from making it online
  • And finally, almost everyone I know making passive income states that their one big regret was not jumping in and getting started sooner or waiting too long before starting, or something else along those lines.
One of the great things about writing for passive income online is that you get to correct your mistakes and improve your sites down the line. You don't have to ever be perfect, and certainly not up front.

Use that information to encourage yourself to get moving. You can always revise your HubPages later, move ads around on your blogs and websites, and write more articles that are better focused. You're not going to get hurt earning online passive income because your articles or pages aren't perfect when you're starting out. At least by having pages out there you have the ability to earn - someone with all the knowledge in the world and 0 sites is worth $0.00. A person with a badly put up site with no good keywords at least has an outside chance at something.

So this is one of those basic "motto" posts which can be summarized easily: get started and work consistently. If that means something as simple as only one HubPage and one InfoBarrel article a week and one Ezinearticle to both, then so be it, but put in the work. It's worth it, and you'll be glad you did down the line. And if you're ready to really invest in your business, then read this Keyword Academy Review to get a true sense of where the next step is for the true beginner.

7 comments:

  1. Hello, great article. I wanted to let you know, I mentioned you in one of my hubpages. It is just a reference to how one of your blogs led me to hubpages. If someone was to mention my name in an article, I would want to know about it. So I am providing you the same courtesy. Here is the link so you can be assured it is a nice reference. http://hubpages.com/hub/My-First-Month-as-a-Freelance-Writer?done

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  2. Hi Dusty, glad to hear you're getting started and I'll definitely take a look. Also glad to hear you're starting at HubPages - the learning curve may take some time, but this is the best route to go in beginning to learn how the Internet works and passive income. As a note: right after publishing your hub, you want to keep a copy of the URL they show for your page, since the "?done" is not actually part of your HubPages address, so you need to leave that part off. Thanks for commenting!

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  3. thanks for the pointer on the URL. I will definitely keep it in mind.

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  4. Great post and very apropos for me right now. I'm launching a new site after the first of the year and want it all to be perfect from the get-go but what I really need to do is just get it done. Thanks for the reminder!

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  5. Hey, great to see that you have been able to enjoy a vacation. It feels great to get out and relax. I am always able to come back energized and excited about possibilities.

    I like the passive income totals that you have for the time you were away. Someday I plan on being able to join you with that type of income. It may take some time, but I certainly plan on getting there.

    I have to agree with everything that you have said in your post, especially about paralysis by analysis. There is no way to get any better without just getting out and doing it and failing and learning in the process.

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  6. You're right about the site's age being a great help. I did get started on passive income (through a website I started), but never promoted the website or put in enough effort to reap any rewards.

    I've learned from my mistakes and will join you in the next few years. Why not make money while you sleep?

    I guess you won't read this because you're probably sunning on some exotic beach. Think of the frozen ones back home lol!

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  7. Hey Guys,

    I'm back in the Midwest and just beginning to get back into the groove of things. That's the great thing about a long overdue vacation: not even working seems like a grind anymore. What a blessing!

    @ Dusty. Not a problem. That was actually a mistake I've made several times before. Part of the learning experience :)

    @ Crystal. Glad to hear it. I just received a reminder from GoDaddy on domain names being renewed, and it occurred to me that I've only set up about 1/5 of them, so that was a good kick in the pants, get started with the new year reminder to me.

    @ Kidgas. Good to hear from ya'! I agree - I felt energized within the first three days and the rest was just bonus. It took me three years to get to this point, although I could have been there much sooner had I focused more, worked more, and not spent so much time trying to learn new things instead of just making the pages and getting the links. Keep up the good work!

    @ Zahra. It has surprised me how much of a difference 6 months makes on a page even if nothing else changes. Learning from your mistakes is a huge part of this business. Right now I'm back with a foot of snow and 30 degrees Fahrenheit on the good days, but hey, all seasons, LOL!

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