Lifetips.com provides readers tips on subjects such as dating, auto repair, SEO, travel and internet marketing.  And, well, really anything you can think of.  A few weeks ago, I was approved to be the guru for their dating channel.  At first, it seemed that I could submit up to 20 tips/blog entries per month and be paid $10 each for them.  Now, it seems that I will be getting residual income from page views beginning in the new year. Continue Reading ->

I have pretty big goals for making money online in 2009.  I have worked really hard this year and I know that I can succeed.  Many of you have provided the motivation that I have needed to keep on going through these tough times.

In the next year, I will focus on building quality websites and monitizing them.  I will make money online with freelance writing, build up my passive income, and also make money writing for my own sites. I will be updating you guys as I build these websites and make them my own. Continue Reading ->

Congratulations to the two winners of the “How to Give a Relaxation Massage” eBook!

They are:

Stephanie Barr

and

WriterGig

I will be emailing you ladies shortly with information about your ebook. I hope that you enjoy it and learn a little something that you can show off to your friends and family before Christmas!

Have a great weekend everyone!

There’s only one day left to enter my ebook giveaway. You can read the info about entering here.

Time is also ticking away towards Christmas.  I hope that everyone is doing well this holiday season and I’d like to remind you that writing is sometimes a great stress reliever!  Don’t forget that you can always write for pleasure…not just to make money.

Take a few minutes today and write about something you enjoy.  Destress with some hot chocolate and know that in a few days, Christmas will be here and we can all start over with a new year!

I’ve been crazy busy with a few new projects lately!  I decided a couple of weeks ago that I would give writing an eBook a try.  I’m excited to say that last night I finished it and and it is now for sale!

After doing a little bit (seriously, not a lot) of research on how and where to publish an eBook, I decided to use Lulu.com.  It seemed like the easiest way to start as a beginner.

The process went something like this:

I wrote the book in Microsoft Word and then uploaded it to Lulu.  Lulu then transferred it into a pdf file that would be downloadable and readable.  I was directed to a page to set my price, design my cover and fill in a description of the book.  The whole process was incredibly easy except for one thing.

The topic that I chose for my eBook was Beginning Massage Techniques.  I am a professional massage therapist by day, so I know quite a bit about this topic and had no problem writing a nice little eBook about it.  The book shows you how to give a massage, stress relief tips, and 5 basic massage techniques.  It also includes a full body massage routine that you can perform on friends and family.

The only problem that I had with Lulu, is that during the conversion process to a pdf, I lost all my embedded hyperlinks.  I spoke with someone though Live Help on their site and they told me that at this time, their software does not accept hyperlinks in an eBook.  I then spent some time deleting my project from Lulu, reworking the eBook to actually spell out the links I wanted to include and then uploading again.

If I do this whole process again (and I’m pretty sure that I will), I will probably go through another provider so that I can have embedded links.

Now, here’s where the giveaway comes in.  I am giving away two copies of How to Give a Relaxation Massage to my readers.  All you have to do to enter the contest is leave a comment in this post telling me what other kinds of “how to” eBooks you would like to see written.  Another way to enter is to subscribe to my RSS feed.  Leave me a comment telling me that you did this and you’ll get another entry. You can receive two additional entries by blogging about this contest. Leave a comment telling me that you blogged about it along with a link to your blog.

I will use Random.org to draw for a winner on Saturday, December 20th.  If you’ve ever been interested in giving your partner a great massage, you will love this eBook.

UPDATE: I have also loaded my own info page about the eBook on blogspot. Check it out and let me know what you think.

As soon as Christmas is over, small business owners everywhere  begin the slow descent into hell known as tax season.  For those of you who are freelance writing full time or plan to in the next year (like me) organizing information for your taxes can be terrifying.

Freelance Zone posted an excellent article today that deals with paying taxes as a freelancer.  They suggest that this week you gather all of your income information from this past year and use whichever system you prefer to estimate how much you will owe in taxes.

Here’s where the timing of this comes in.  If you look over your tax information this week, you can see whether or not you need a few more deductions for your business.  There are tons of legal deductions you can take as a freelance writer.  If you notice that you have room for deductions, consider purchasing something that you would need for your business.  You can do it now, while things are on sale at Christmas.  What do you need/want? An iPhone so that you can do your business anywhere? A new laptop? A new computer desk?

Make no mistake, when it comes to taxes, you will be spending money.  Now is the time to decide whether you want to give your money to the IRS or use it to buy something useful for your business.

In the past year or so, I have come across countless opportunities to make money writing on the web.  It’s been a creative and sometimes harrowing journey for me, but it has paid off in ways I would never have imagined.

I like to share freelance writing opportunities with my readers, but was recently asked by a reader in the UK which of these sites she could write for.

I honestly had no idea.  I’ve never even considered that situation. Being from the US, I had never even thought to check out which sites were available to international writers.  Since her question, though, I have done a little research to provide you with a few sites that writers outside the US can use. (and maybe we US residents can learn a thing or two, as well)

1. Daily Article – Writers submit work and set their own prices per article.  The buyer gets full rights to the article.  You are notified whenever one of your articles is sold.
2. Associated Content – Most of us know about this one.  Associated content pays up front for original articles, but the up front prices are pretty low.  The good thing about AC is the opportunity for passive income.  You get monthly bonus checks for page views.
3. Triond - Triond won’t make you rich, but it’s a great place to hone your writing skills and make a little passive income each month.
4. Review Party - Write reviews of books, music or DVDs and get paid by earning money through Google Adsense and the Amazon Affiliate program.  You use your own adsense ID and Amazon Affiliate numbers.
5. Bukisa – I sent an email to the nice folks at Bukisa to find out if they allow international writers because I am really excited about the passive income potential for this site.  They sent a prompt reply saying that anyone can write, regardless of country, as long as they have a PayPal account.  Bukisa lets you post articles and earn money for page views.  You also earn money by having people sign up using your Bukisa link and joining your network.
6. Today.com – You can sign up to have two blogs through Today.com.  They pay $1 per post (one post per blog per day), plus you get money for page views.  For November I got a payout of $50 from Today.com.  Consider this: if you spend 15 minutes or so writing at Today.com each day, and let the money accrue in your PayPal account, you will have enough saved up for a cruise by the end of the year!  You get the choose the topic of your blog, so you get to write about whatever you like.

There are a few other sites that I researched that did not specifically state that they only took US writers.  If you want to give those a shot, here they are:

• Shroong
• Squidoo
• Gzyn
• Xomba
• Life Tips
• Epinions

Hope this helps you guys.  I’d love to hear from some of you who are outside the US…what sites do you like to write for?

Update: Today.com has just announced that they are accepting writers from the following countries:

Australia
Austria
Barbados
Belarusia
Bermuda
Canada
Czeck Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Falkland Islands (Malvinas)
Faroe Islands
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Greenland
Guernsey and Alderney
Hong Kong, (China)
Iceland
India
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Korea, South
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Monaco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Norway
Portugal
Singapore
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
UK
USA

In the spirit of figuring this whole eHow thing out…I decided to post my top earning eHow articles of all time, when they were posted, and which categories they are in.

Pat, at Smart Passive Income, is really good at charting his earnings and keeping extensive data.  Me, on the other hand…well, this is as extensive as I get so there is no doubt that I benefit from his research.

Here are my top earning eHow articles so far.

6. How to Increase your Wife’s Libido – posted 7/23/08 – Relationships and Family – has earned $9.11

5. How to Attract Scorpio Guys – posted 7/30/08 – Relationships and Family – has earned $9.74

4. How to Treat Jock Itch Naturally – posted 5/12/08 – Health – has earned $10.44

3. How to Trim Apple Trees – posted 5/21/08 – Home and Garden – has earned $13.57

2. How to Open a Spa - posted 5/21/08 – Business – has earned $19.25

1. How to Follow the Morning Banana Diet – posted 10/17/08 – Health – $19.37

The categories vary, but honestly, I find that I enjoy writing about health and relationships more than anything else.  So maybe it is all about following your passion.

How about you guys?  What are your best earners? How is your passive income coming along?

It’s Friday morning and already I have two good things to tell you about.  (by the way, the art pictured today is by one of my favorite artisits, Banksy)

First of all, Katy over at Trapped in the Office, has featured me today as her Featured Freelance Writer.  I love reading her blog and it’s really nice of her post this. I’m really excited about this because I had so much fun writing the bio for her.  I realized that I had to leave out a ton of stuff and that one day I’m going to have to write it all down in it’s entirety. 

The second super awesome thing to happen to me today is that I won a free month of advertising at Adgitize! The contest was to get the closest guess for when the ad views on the network would reach 700,000 in a 30 day time period. I didn’t quite get the closest guess, but the guys there rock so much that they gave me a free month anyway.

Be sure to go on over to Trapped in the Office today to read my bio.  Have a great Friday!

When writing for the web, everyone says that “content is king”, but what kind of content, exactly?  When freelance writing for sites like eHow, you want as many people to view your article as possible, so content that is evergreen would be preferable.

In that case, why write any seasonal articles at all?

Because, in a sense, seasonal articles are also evergreen.  Today I wrote two eHow articles pertaining to Christmas.  How to Choose Fun Christmas Party Themes and How to Choose a Christmas Tree Theme.  Though these articles may only be popular in the months of November and December, you also have to consider the fact that they will be popular every November and December. Those theme articles will be generating passive income for years to come.

Some of my best earners at Suite 101 have been seasonal articles.  Since fewer writers are out there writing them, it makes sense that the ones that are written are getting a fair amount of attention.

Don’t shy away from seasonal articles.  They might be some of your best ones yet!