Thursday 30 August 2012

More from Lincolnshire Poacher MONETIZING CHRISTMAS

   New Post from Lincolnshire Poacher:

So Christmas is only a few months away, how are you going to monetise it?


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This thread is not about saving money for Christmas its about profiteering from the Christmas period.

Christmas is a fantastic time for marketers (or anyone who's even remotely interested in making money online) to bank.

Why, Well going up to christmas people are looking for ways to save towards it, around christmas people are buying all sorts of things gifts / food etc etc. and after it well people are again trying to save money and theirs always new years resolutions.

Christmas is always a good time of year for me. (Except for this year I'm supposed to have the girlfriends parents over). But usually from this time onwards my brain is working overtime with new methods and monetizing ideas.

There are so many niches you can target its insane and so many offline / online hybrid methods for this time of year. I think I'm going to split this up into 3 sections. Pre xmas, December, and post xmas.

Pre xmas - This will be from now onto mid November. probably targeting the make money online niche. Saving club affiliate programs and the dating niche. (No one wants to be lonely at Christmas). Also building up squeeze pages for what to buy the other half at xmas.

December - this will be from mid November to christmas day. I suspect super market CPA offers will play a big role in in the week leading up to xmas (it did last year). obviously gift and gadget affiliate programs as well hopefully via email marketing with lists gathered from the pre xmas squeeze pages. Also theirs the Lincoln xmas market! and other christmas markets, an army of flyers will have to be arranged. and a more aggressive go at the dating niche, Asian / Russian brides affiliate programs maybe. also credit card card affiliates.

Post xmas - boxing day till end of January. This is an enormously competitive and very very very lucrative time. As well as the loan affiliate programs. You also have the new year resolution market. the weight loss market, the dating / pickup market, the quit smoking market - e-cigarettes kerrching!, the set up your own business market. all can be covered in one big foul method - MEMBERSHIP SITES - its what i specialize in and is a fantastic earner.

you also have people trying to make money online. I may set up explain how to set up your own Get Paid To site (GPT) like swagbucks. you will all be shocked and just how much of cut your getting.

To all the nay sayers don't worry there wont be any affiliate links or underhand marketing tactics.

It would be nice to know what everyone else is working on for the christmas period.

I'll post on the next post as diary this post I will leave just as an introduction.

Work like people wont for a few years, so that you can live like people don't for years to come!

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29/08/12

Pre Xmas:

Have been working on a free ebook in the make money online niche. Which will in effect be a squeeze page promoting ways to make money online. It will be monetised via affiliate marketing however the emphasis is on keeping costs down as its aimed at the low earner / unemployed. And will only be promoted via offline means - although will have relevant social media.

Status so far 5000 words already written taking an age and a day with all the screen grabs.

Aged domain which is short brand-able and easy to remember purchased at auction.

Video narration script written. just looking for a suitable accent cant make up my mind between using different regional dialects on different sub pages or going with an all round working class London accent.

flyer designs have been outsourced and received. will send to the flyer printer once I have chosen a suitable CPA offer for the other-side.

Other projects

Squeeze pages - need to do keyword research on suitable keywords which are not going to be unprofitably competitive, possibly media buys / ppc if any decent Cost per click / Cost per Milli deals arise.

dating offers will be via media buys bit too early to be promoting yet!

December:

How to tackle Lincoln Xmas market. this has been puzzling me for sometime and there are a few ways which I've thought off. The thing is Lincoln xmas market last year got around 200,000 people. you literally cant walk in old Lincoln there are that many people. which kinda rules out flyering as there will be just too many people. its also quite affluent with a lot of foodys going their. maybe flyering cars is an option.

Post Xmas

Will create a few membership sites filled with PLR content. Havn't started this yet. same goes with a GPT site.

Last weekend I met up with a new business client if my solicitor gives the green flag that all court documents are as good as I believe they are, I suspect this project will be taking up a significant part of my time. However I cant discuss this further and I will still continue this.

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Poundlines is back Baby!

   This may sound stupid, but did you know that you can buy items from poundshops and sell them for double or treble the price on Ebay?

   I've done it millions of times but not recently. Today I got back on my horse though and I've listed:

Hello Kitty Wall Stickers (Sell £3, Buy £1)
Spider-man Swim Bag (Sell £5, Buy £2.49 B&M Bargains)
Rihanna Mask (£3, Buy £1)
Mountain Dew Lift Balm (£3, Buy £1)

In the past my best success has been with seasonal items such as St Patricks Day and Mothers Day stuff. I'll post up if anything sells.

Mags to Riches

   Readers will know that I enjoy anything put out there by Avril Harper. From what I can gather Avril Harper is a long time player in the Home Biz game. She regularly releases interesting titbits about what she has been up to (some with a "handy" affiliate link embdedded within). At the moment there are roughly 22 Avril Harper publications for sale on Amazon, from a pub year of 1991 onwards. A few months back I treated myself to "Mags to Riches".

   I bought Mags to Riches as I have always been a newspaper clipper. As a Teenager I used to cut up the paper into smithereens and file all the clips under various titles. Unfortunately all that content bit the dust as I made 10 house moves during my 20s. I was interested to see how Avril hoped to monetise this harmless little activity.

   I found the book to be slightly dated and from a pre-internet age. For example, why would a newbie MP employ a clipper nowadays when they could set up their own Google alert for news on what the world thinks of them?

   On the other hand there was some interesting stuff in there which could stand the test of time. If nothing else the whole premise of the book fits in well with my System - get something for nothing and turn it into a small profit; rinse and repeat. It doesn't matter if we are talking about junk from freecycle, junk from local bargain finder, 5p book joblots from Ebay, pallets from a skip or WHATEVER! Avril says you can take a newspaper or magazine which would have been going into the bin and turn that piece of would-be rubbish into cash opportunities. That's my philosophy all over.

   Here is my notes on the opps she puts forward:

1) Clip for specific subjects and advertise your cache for sale. 4 Stars Wars News Clipping Scrapbooks recently sold for £76 on Ebay (with 14 bids).
2) Clip copyright free patterns or designs and either resell or use as inspiration.
3) Use stories from "real life" magazines to build plotlines. Sell these plotlines via Writers Handbook.
4) Clip wanted ads and try to match with sellers. Set yourself up in a broker capacity.
5) Try to find the Ads which have stood the test of time. If the same ad has ran monthly for over a year then you know that ad must be drawing in business successfully. Can you muscle in? (This is essentially the starting point for the business plan in Tim Ferriss' 4HWW)
6) Use Newspaper cartoons for inspiration for Sketch show ideas. You could use these to set up your own Youtube channel or try sending them to like of Paul Whitehouse or Vic Reeves' agents.
7) Clip news which may be of interest to trade or specialist publications. Have you ever read the Fortean Times? That whole magazine is basically built on snippets which have been sent in from Joe Public.
8) Clip specifically for book creation. Google "Chas Newkey-Burden". I'm sure I've mentioned him on here before. This guy has knocked out no less than 29 published books in the last few years. They are all based around the same formula - light celebrity biographies. I can guarantee that this guy will be trawling The Sun, The Daily Star and The Daily Mirror every day clipping any gossip on his next target.
9) Clip "filler material" like hints and tips etc. You can then recycle these by rewording them and sending them to alternative publication. For example, find it in Woman's Weekly, scramble it up a bit and send to Full House magazine.
10) Clip the jokes and send to Comedians.
11) Clip facts about a person. Papers love the old "20 Questions" features where they ask Billie Faiers (pictured) or some other such wannabee banal questions like "Who is your favourite Spice Girl?" If you clip these and save them up you could eventually build a file on someone which could easily be swirled around into an Ebook output for sale via disc on Ebay or as a Kindle product. I note that there is a guy currently churning out these for the Kindle on American Sport Stars. Now this guy might get less than 10 sales ever but on the other hand the book will cost him nothing to create and I'm sure he's enjoying himself as he builds them.
12) Clip recipes. Never forget that Cookery is the biggest selling Adult subject matter (dieting is second).
13) On January 1st get a big cardboard box and put it in the bottom of a cupboard. Every time you get a souvenir pullout from a newspaper put it carfeully in the box. At the end of the year label your box and put it up into the loft. Start a new box and repeat. After 25 years, get the box down from the loft and start listing the pullouts individually for sale. You'll make a bomb!
14) Clip puzzles, word games etc. I'm surprised people ever buy expensive puzzle books when the Newspapers  print so many of them every week. Take the Daily Mail, it has a 4 page puzzle pull out every day.

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Soft Porn on the Kindle

   Do you remember when LP's were replaced by Tapes, or a few years later when Tapes fell foul of CD's? Perhaps you remember when Videos went out of fashion and DVDs came in.

   All of this has happened within my lifetime and all of this gave a massive opportunity to the content providers (in this case Film Studios, Record Labels and TV stations) to re-badge their products and get an extra bang for their buck. I bought Deacon Blue's Greatest Hits on tape and then went out and bought it again on CD. No doubt in the future I'll be downloading it for some mobile device.

   On a seedier note I've noted that the Pornographers have made a small step into the Kindle World. The interesting thing is that this is via the most basic of Porno images - soft porn photos. Real basic stuff like images of Women in their bikinis etc.

   This provides an inroad for the would be Pornographer. Here's the 5 Point Plan:

  • Go to Google Images and search for "@selfshootgal".
  • You'll find around 200 photos that girls (or seedy men) have uploaded onto Twitter. Pick out the Amazon friendly pics (no Crunchie visible but raspberry ripples are ok).
  • You'll now have about 100 pics. Open a Createspace account.
  • Follow the instructions on Createspace. Call the book something like 100 Real Life Naked Teenagers (I love numbers in book titles).
  • List the Ebook on the Amazon Kindle store.

If you are successful then the next obvious stage would be to use your "expert" status to set up a Casting Agency - but that's another story.

New Amazon Payment

Dear uncommonadvice@googlemail.com,

We initiated a transfer to your bank account (last three digits 771) of £13.92 on 28/08/2012.



That makes total payments for August at £59.37. I think there is a good chance I will have a +£100 month before Chrismas.

What you must always remember when reading these Amazon posts is that I have not bought stock for well over a year and that in total I have spent less than £200 on stock. That small investment has repaid me three-fold at least so far, with lots of mileage left to go.

Cash in from Amazon from sales of my own books

   My Maths book continues to sell a few copies per month. Pretty much everything else has dried up.

Payment made to: ROCK HARD BOOKS(ROCFZ)


Our Supplier No.: 11910749

Supplier site name: ROCFZ

Paid to bank: Hidden for security

Paid to account: Hidden for security

Payment number: 3402728

Payment date: 28-AUG-12

Payment currency: GBP

Payment amount: 14.44

Monday 27 August 2012

New Post from Lincolnshire Poacher

   A new post from Lincolnshire Poacher on MSE. Thought I'd paste it here before he gets deleted again.

Another income stream which people shouldnt find offensive.


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Ok after my last post I got a !!!! load of grief from somemembers for being morally repulsive. (The post was about e-pimping, legal yet unethical.)

The following post no one should find offensive, unless you're already raking it in with this method in which case sorry).

This method related to finding stock to sell, be it for eBay or websites.

Before I begin, all old stock / out of line stock costs business money. both in storage space and in tied up cash. In times like these this old stock can cripple a small brick and mortar business.

Now this method is going to mean you talking to business owners face to face but what’s the worst they can say, no?

The method

Its simple go into small to medium sized independent businesses and ask to talk to the manager / owner.

Tell them that you are willing to get rid of any old stock /out of line stock for a commission (that you will set with them). take a few pictures of the items and leave. Don’t be a fool and tell them where you’re selling the items.

Go home, post items on eBay, or your ecommerce site. Receive money, pay shop their cut and collect item, put it in the post. (you don’t want the shop to know your flogging it on eBay) and bobs your uncle.

This method is great as you need barely any start-up capital and the more you sell for each customer the better deals you will generally get.

There are an infinite amount of independent shops you couldwork with so it’s not going to die any time soon!

More Updates 27.8.12

   Some more updates I forgot earlier:

* Now the football season is back running I had the chance to get my system up and running again. Cleared £12 on Saturday.

* This may sound a bit "Chris from The Sopranos" but I've had a great idea for a film. I'm going to have a bit of fun developing the idea. If you remember the Screen One offering "Money for Nothing" from back in the 90's, it has a similar feel to that.

* 90 Days of action start on Sunday. No crisps, chocolate or fizzy juice. Going to do 2500 Kettlebells and finish my walking target for the year. On the computer side I'm going to get a blog post a day (on my other blog) and a Youtube video a day. Going to finish my Joke Book (which I've dragged on a bit).

* Note that Potions and Spells can no longer be sold on Ebay. Check this link out, some geezer was selling prayers at £2 a pop!:


I must admit that I PM'd the guy myself but got no reply. He seems like someone interesting. In later posts he goes on to promote e-pimping.

* If you are arty in any shape or form I recommend getting down to your local cemetery and getting some pics of the Angels and Devils and all the Gothic-style religious imagery. I'm confident that shit would sell well on Ebay to the Goths and Emos.


Updates 27.8.12

* Lots happening on Amazon. May actually break the £100 mark this month. Will tally up and report.
* I've decided I'm going to get some Dragon software (<£5) from Ebay and use this to do a new book on my system. I can then use this book as a trial run on Kindle selling. Long time readers will know I had some success with selling Ebooks on Ebay a few years back (a system which has been long since banned).
* Have you noticed that Ebay seem to be doing Zero fee weekends with much more regularity these days? They used to be once a month, now I would say they are once a fortnight.
* Was at the Edinburgh Festival yesterday to see Tim Vine and "Frisky and Mannish". Both shows were excellent. Tim Vine had roughly 200 customers at £15, with Frisky and Mannish pulling in about 250 customers at £16. These guys have both put in lots of effort and were anything but slapdash. Taking a closer look at Tim Vine's show, assuming he worked 25 shows and was sold out for each one (plausible), I make that a total gross of c £75k. Say Tim Vine clears 25% of that, he's still walking away with £18,750. Not Bad! ....... and I bet he'll be running another couple of shows as well.
* Something I noted during Tim Vine's show for the first time was his use of NLP. I am by no means an NLP expert, but I do know one (David Thompson - Genius) and I recognise the basics. On a number of occasions Tim used the phrase "You, like me......". Classic NLP basic. Nice work Tim.
* All my books are now listed on Amazon. Stage 2 is to save up the sales money I raise and use it to buy more stock. This way I can grow organically.
* I had a competition frenzy on Friday night. I must have enetered nigh on 100.
* Whilst browsing some of the many stalls that fill Edinburgh during the festival I noted how many products were duplicated amongst the so-called hobo chic homemade stalls. Could it be that two jewellery makers were knocking out the exact same designs? No, not really. I came to the realisation that these guys are actually just buying jewellery job lots from Ali Baba and getting themselves kitted out in grungey clothes so they look the part.
* If you've got any gardening skills whatsoever I'd advise you to pack your bags, sell your house and get yourself set up in Clackmannanshire. My lawnmower is on the blink so I'm looking for someone to cut my grass. The first phone number from the paper didn't reply; the second phone number didn't reply; a number from the Post Office window didn't reply; the 4th number, a referral, has replied 3 days after I got in touch and to put it mildly, can only converse in Pidgin English.

Thursday 23 August 2012

Recent Amazon Cash

   Amazon rolls along. Here is my two most recent receivings:

Dear uncommonadvice@googlemail.com,

We initiated a transfer to your bank account (last three digits 771) of £8.55 on 14/08/2012.

Dear uncommonadvice@googlemail.com,

We initiated a transfer to your bank account (last three digits 771) of £21.85 on 21/08/2012.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

The Amazon Cash keeps rolling in

Dear uncommonadvice@googlemail.com,

We initiated a transfer to your bank account (last three digits 771) of £15.05 on 07/08/2012.

Tuesday 7 August 2012

My Perth Theory

Check out the results at Perth Racecourse over the two meetings last week. All winners bar two were 6/1 or less. The other 2 were 9/1 and 11/1.

Keep a close eye on this man! I'm sure now that the highest price winner in the last couple of years has only been 16/1. I'm willing to bet that this is less than any other course in the UK.

Also keep an eye on the Scottish jockeys. There is bound to be a profitable system there.

Monday 6 August 2012

Top 20 Frugal Must Haves

   A few months back I wrote a post on the MSE Forum asking for people's "Top 20 Frugal Must Haves". My aim was to identify products which could be listed on Ebay/ Bespoke Websites and marketed via articles and forum posts. Here is an abridged list of the items which came up:

A slow cooker.
A hand cranked washing machine.
A clothes airer.
A radio (so you can switch the telly off and save on the license).
Long Johns/ Thermals
A solar shower.
A water butt.
Hot water Bottles
Wind Up Torch
Sewing Machines
Breadmaker
Wood burning stove
Solar Panels
Chest Freezer
Vacuum Flask
Thick jumpers
Jam Jars
Knitting Needles
Hair Clippers
Compost Bin

I suppose Americans would call these good prepper items.


Trivia Questions Mon 6th Aug 2012 Literature and the UK

Homemade Ginger Beer

   I've posted some queries on MSE:

Hi All,








I started making homemade Ginger Beer a couple of months ago and I've been very impressed with my first few batches. I was wondering if the good people on MSE could help me with a some queries?

1) How long will the yeast last?

2) If I went on holiday would the "plant" die?

3) Can I sell the plant on Eb*y or other such sites?

Btw - I heartily recommend making your own stuff. I'm not sure how thrifty it is when 2l bottles can be bought in Mr T but it tastes great.

Friday 3 August 2012

Cash from Square Foot Gardening

   Just finished reading "Cash from Square Foot Gardening". What an excellent book. I bought if after reading a great number of blog posts about square foot gardening, and after watching all the videos on Youtube.

   The Square Foot Gardening principle is pretty simple. Basically, instead of planting veg in long rows, the author Mel Bartholomew, recommends planting in 4ft by 4ft grids and using a unique soil mix. The nature of this method means that weeding and hoeing are minimised. Nice.

   The twist in the Cash from.... book is that Mel puts forward a plan where the above gardening methods can be used to create a cash profit. He promotes the idea of selling fresh crops to your local restaurants at retail value.

   Now this idea doesn't immediately lend itself to me. To start I'm not good enough (yet) at vegetable growing and the growing season in Scotland (recently renamed Waterworld) is so short that the local restaurants would have to go Meat-only for 10months of the year. The reason the book works is that Mel takes his idea to the nth level. He's got facts and figures and objection rebuttals and plan A's and plan B's and everything else you could think of. I take my hat off to him. He could probably walk into the Dragon's Den and sweep them off their feet.

   A second plus of this book is that it got me thinking - as all good books should. When writing this book Mel didn't think he would have to come to our gardens and wipe our own arse for us. He would've wanted us to think for ourselves and apply his principles to our own Sq Foot Garden. Whilst reading I was thinking to myself, wow - I wonder how much our local chip shops pay for potatoes? Do they pay extra when the tatties are out of season? What size is my garden? How much produce would I need to make in order to start qualifying for EU subsidies? What weight of tatties can one tattie bag produce? What unusual cash crops could I grow in the garden? What gives the best £ return per square foot? Could I grow Sunflowers for the oil they produce (more of this in future posts)? Could I make money be selling pre-mixed bags of Mel's Mix (note I have seen old cement mixers available for 99p on Ebay!)?

   In summary, I heartily recommend this book if you are at all interested in making some dough from what you grow.

Trivia Question Fri 3rd August 2012

Thursday 2 August 2012

Trivia Question Thu 2.8.12



New Youtube video. Going to have to sort out a microphone for my laptop (and go on a diet obviously!)

Wednesday 1 August 2012

Amazon Listing

Back over 700 books now listed on Amazon. Got a couple more sales today. I've driven a massive hole in my stock. Think I must have less than 1500 units overall now. Need to get my stock up.

Jill You know your onions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUzZD9NA90I&feature=related



Now my Tomatoes have bit the dust (Vicki didn't water them when I was in England) I'm down to Onions and Potatoes this year. Basically I just leave the potatoes alone. They seem to be growing everyday by themselves. I've bought another couple of bags for next year already. All being well I'd like to go daft and have dozens of bags on the go, all slightly staggered in terms of planting so that I can get a crop over a good few weeks.

On the onion side of things I've got 6 growing in a sq foot raised bed. 4 in the Growbag (haunted by the ghost of the tomatoes) and about half a dozen more in individual pots. I'm interested to see which ones get on best.

I've also made, and drank, a second batch of Ginger Beer. I'm making the third batch now. I'm going to put a little less sugar in the final mix solution this time. 600g for 4l of juice sounds loads. I've wrote an email to a Ginger Beer expert to find out how long the Yeast will last.

Amazon Sales

Back on the horse with ASDA sales. £20 odd in the last fortnight. Aim is 3 months of £100+

"Dear uncommonadvice@googlemail.com,

We initiated a transfer to your bank account (last three digits 771) of £29.31 on 31/07/2012."