Threadless

My next money making idea is through threadless.com. This is a site that sells t-shirts. That's it. They offer individuals the ability to help them out with designs or slogans. All you have to do is create an account. Then you can submit designs and slogans. If your design is chosen to be printed on a shirt then you get paid $2000. If your slogan is chosen then you get $500. They choose by looking every couple of weeks at the highest voted designs and slogans. Then they pick their favorites. The votes are cast by other account holders trying to get their own stuff chosen. So, this idea is probably not the best, but I thought it would be fun.

Setting up an account is easy. All you have to do is give them your email and a pick a password. Then they send you an email to confirm your email address. After your email is confirmed, the account is set up. At this point you can submit designs or slogans as well as vote on them.

I did this in a matter of minutes and was able to submit my first slogan. I'm not sure if I would agree with the term "slogan." It seems more like people are submitting random quotes. Anyway, I had been thinking about what I wanted to submit for a while. I had remembered something someone told me when I asked him how he was doing. He said, "I'd be awesome if I could get over being fantastic." I thought that would be a great first slogan until I was done submitting it. Then I realized the quote seemed a little vain. Oh well, it was done.  Now, I could have removed it, but I decided to let it ride.  The votes came back as I thought. Out of 28 votes so far, 3 liked it, and one of the votes was mine. Well, I guess I should start thinking of some more slogans. Wish me luck.

If you are interested in checking out the website, here is a link. Now, if you use this link and happen to purchase a t-shirt, I will get a little credit.  This credit is in the form of money to be used on threadless.com. Then maybe I can buy myself a t-shirt.

32 Cents

Well, another person clicked on one of my google ads.  Thank you to whoever you are.  This time, the result was not as profitable.  Instead of the $1.84ish that I made with the first 2 clicks, I made $.32. I am a little disappointed, but I am still optimistic.

My First Few Dollars

Let the good times roll. I'm making money. Someone finally clicked on my google ads, and I made $3.69. According to my Google Adsense account, there were two clicks made to ads on this blog. That's right, just two clicks. I must say that I am a little surprised. I thought that I would maybe make $.25 a click. I had no idea I would make over a dollar and a half a click. Now, just so everyone understands, I can make over a dollar and a half if you just click on an ad on this blog...

On a side note, someone asked me if there was a way to tailor your google ads.  After some research, I don't think this is possible.  The ads are tailored to the blog or website topic.  You may be able to trick the system a bit by using keywords in your blog or website over and over again, but there is no way to pick your ads.  About the only customization that you can do is design how the ads look.  You can pick colors, sizes, and where you would like them on your blog or website.  That's about it.

Step Three

Okay, so I don't think anyone has clicked on any of my google ads. At this point I have made $0. Or, some people have clicked on my ads and it just hasn't registered yet. I will continue to watch and let you know when I make a few pennies.

Step three has been a tough pill to swallow so far. My original plan was to do some affiliate marketing with the Amazon affiliate program. Amazon sells a lot of different products, and I thought it would be easy to incorporate Amazon into this blog. It should have been as simple as getting Google Adsense started, as Blogger also has an easy template tab for Amazon affiliates. But, I have come to find out that Amazon does not allow Colorado residents to be affiliates. According to the research I did, Amazon wants the state of Colorado to pay some sort of sales tax. Of course, Colorado does not want to pay this tax. In turn, Amazon fired all their affiliates in Colorado and will not allow new affiliates to sign up. This is also the case in North Carolina and Rhode Island. Now I am left wondering what to do next. There is plenty of opportunities for affiliate marketing, but I need to do a little more research to figure out what would work best for me. So, at this point, I am skipping step three. I will re-visit it some time in the near future.

Google Adsense

So, step two of my plan is complete.  As you can now see, I have ads by google on my blog.  Please feel free to click on anything.  As soon as you do, I get a very small amount of money.  I'm not sure of the specifics, but it is not very much.  All I really know is that I have to make $100 before the powers that be will send me a check.  In any case, please click on some stuff.  I will let you know how much I get per click as soon as someone is nice enough to click something for me.

The process of getting this set up was fairly simple.  You have to, of course, have a blog or a website.  Then you have to get an account with Google Adsense.  There is a very short page to fill out including the URL of your blog or website, your contact information for mailing your checks (the most important part), and your email.  When I was done filling out this form, I was told that they would look over the information and get back to me in 1-2 days.  It took 3 hours and I was set to go.  I was sent an email that I had to respond to in order to verify my email.  I was then taken to my Google Adsense account homepage.  This is where I could see my publisher ID number, my current earnings, and I could learn how to best utilize Google Adsense.

The next task was getting ads to show up on my blog.  Since I am using Blogger, this was incredibly simple.  In Blogger, if you go to the monetize tab on your dashboard, there is another Adsense tab.  When you click on this tab it gives you the options of where you would like your ads on your page.  After choosing your template, it asks for your Adsense account.  Put your information in, and you are done.  It is that simple.  Now, if you are using another blogging site such as Wordpress, this would be done a little differently.  I am not sure how, but I know it has to do with using the publisher ID number.  The Google Adsense site has lots of helpful tips and walk through videos for doing just this.

Okay, on to step three.

The Introduction

My name is Matt and I recently had a daughter.  As a new father I, of course, am freaking out about the added cost of having this wonderful little girl.  My wife and I recently spent some time going through our finances, and the two biggest additions at this point have been adding her to our insurance and daycare.  Both will equate to a large amount of money monthly that we do not really have.  Not to mention all the other little purchases that seem to be made on a daily basis.  So, I started thinking about ways to make some extra money.

My first thought was, how do I make one million dollars.  Then maybe I can quit my job and spend all my time with my wife and daughter, which is really what I want to do anyway.  So, I did some research on the internet.  Most of what I found was the get rich quick stuff, and I am not stupid enough to try one of those.  Okay, maybe I am.  I tried one years ago, but it didn't work out.  Anyway, I tried thinking of ways to make a million dollars on my own.  The only thing I could come up with was to just ask for it.  What if I started a blog or a website asking for one dollar from everyone.  There are over 300 million people just in the United States.  Do you think one million people would give me a dollar?  Probably not in this economy.  Okay, probably not ever.

In the process of researching I came across a book that caught my interest (more on the book later).  I noticed that a sample of the book was available for the Kindle.  I then downloaded the Kindle app for the iPhone and then downloaded the sample.  The sample gave me the introduction and the first chapter of the book.  In just that little bit, I learned a little about blogging and found other websites I then looked at.  From there I came up with my plan.  Now, I am not planning to make one million dollars with this plan, but I hope to make a little money to offset the cost of having my beautiful daughter.

The Plan

The plan starts with adding in some things to this blog that may provide some income such as ads.  The second part of the plan is to try making a little money on open source websites.  Okay, maybe not a little, but as much as I possibly can.   This blog will keep you updated on the process as well as the earnings (hopefully).  Here is a more step by step approach to the plan.

1. Start a blog - Done.
2. Google Adsense - This is something I can get started on this blog.  It probably won't amount to much money, but every little bit counts.
3. Affiliate Marketing - This is also something I can also start on this blog.  I'm thinking I will start with Amazon Affiliates.  Although, that means I have to come up with things to sell.
4. Threadless.com - This website will allow me to submit designs or slogans.  If my design or slogan gets printed on a shirt I will get some money.
5. Canstockphoto.com - This website allows me to upload photos.  If they sell, I get money.
6. Cafepress.com - This website allows me to create and sell t-shirts and more.  If they sell, I get money.
7. Greetingcarduniverse.com - This website will allow me to create greeting cards.  If they sell, I get money.

Some of these will take some creativity.  Be patient.  I will let you know how it's going.  If you have any thoughts or other ideas, please let me know.