Residuals and Royalties » selling goods online

My First Amazon Associates Store is Live – and I’m Not Sharing It!

MJ Wolfe — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 11:33:32 +0000

In the past a few of my readers have told me that they could not believe how “transparent” I was when it came to sharing my money making ideas, ebook titles and other sources of income. After all, wouldn’t I just want to hoard all of these money making ideas and keep them to myself? I have always wanted to help others make money online and in most cases simply sharing my information won’t hurt me. I guess after I informed everyone about my ebook entitled “How to Start a Limousine Business” – someone could write a similar ebook and put it for sale alongside mine. Realistically though, who is really going to take the time to write a 30 page ebook, buy a domain, build a webpage and go through all the steps involved in creating a competing ebook? My guess is that no one will do this. Maybe if my sales were off the charts there would be a few people emulating me – but this is not the case! (as you will can see in my March earnings report.)

Like I mentioned before, I have been very interested in the earnings some people have made via Amazon associates and I never really knew how to get started building Amazon stores. I seem to have scrapped together enough information to build my first affiliate store and to be honest; I was surprised how easily I put this store together. I can see how someone could put together twenty Amazon affiliate stores in no time at all. This is why I am not sharing my new Amazon store with my readers – or anyone for that matter. This is exactly why I had a hard time finding examples of people’s Amazon stores online. The fact is, these stores are so easy to build that it would be simple for someone to copy your idea and have a store competing with yours almost immediately.

Everywhere I looked, people were boasting about their great Amazon earnings but not divulging exactly what they were selling. Now that I have built my first store – this all makes sense. I found a product and keyword that seems to be a good start. Here is a breakdown of my store’s product…

This product’s two main keywords get approximately 9,000 searches a month.
The #1 website on Google for this product’s terms has only 9 inbound links.
This product typically sells for between $250 and $450 per piece.

When looking for my first product to sell I wanted something that I could easily top the search engines for as well as something that was fairly expensive. Obviously, if I am getting 4% of the sale, I would rather sell products with a higher price tag.

I got unlimited hosting set up through HostGator so that I could build as many stores as I wanted – all for $7.95 a month. I am planning to have twenty stores built by the end of 2010. I am using ArticleRanks to build inbound links to my stores and I can have over 100 inbound links within one month to any given store. I am eager to see my first sale on my Amazon associates account!

You can join Amazon associates by clicking here: Amazon Associates

If you are having luck with you Amazon associates stores and you care to share some of your secrets – please let us know by commenting below. I am hoping that these stores turn out to be a great way for me to make money online. Only time will tell!

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

Tags: make money online, residual income, royalties

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Amazon Associates Gives Colorado the Shaft – Is Your State Next?

MJ Wolfe — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 12:30:17 +0000

The Amazon Associates affiliate program has always intrigued me. I know for a fact that many people are making really good money simply referring others to buy Amazon products through affiliate links. I have had a hard time finding material online that breaks down exactly how to make money as an Amazon associate. Whenever I talk to people who actually make money with this program, most of them seem to be tight lipped about how the whole process works. I have even tried to find an ebook online that details how get started as an Amazon affiliate – no luck.

My guess is that you simply choose a product line, find out which keywords work best and then see if you can get easily ranked on page 1 of Google for this term. If so, you would simply build an online store and post photos of the product and then a “buy now” button which is an affiliate like to Amazon. Sounds simple, right? Well I am sure it cannot be this easy. One blog that I have found entitled “Make Money on the Internet” and written by Chris Guthrie shows some amazing Amazon associate earnings. Chris makes about $5,000 a month from his Amazon earnings – but I can’t find enough exact details on his blog as to how to actually get started. He does give some great tips that show how to optimize your Amazon product listings. You can check out Chris’ blog here: Make Money on the Internet. (Chris, you can PayPal me $10 for that backlink…lol)

Getting started with Amazon associates is not my only problem, now that I live in Colorado and I am a resident of the state I am not longer qualified to be a member of the Amazon associates program. This may sound crazy, but I just got this email from Amazon a few weeks ago…

Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:

We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.

We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.

There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.

You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.

Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010.

We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.

Best Regards,

The Amazon Associates Team

Needless to say – this SUCKS! Fortunately, I have never made any Amazon associates sales and I had only a handful of affiliate links online. But, can you imagine the people who live in Colorado and have spent months or even years building Amazon associate websites and pasting their links all over the web? Imagine opening up your email and seeing that all of your hard work had been for naught. I would be pissed!

The worst part is the fact that Amazon is leaving all of these links from Colorado members active – they just are not paying their Colorado associates for their referrals! When I received this notice my first thought was to simply change my state of residence – after all, I could use my parent’s address in Connecticut or my friend’s address in Los Angeles. But I went to my account and I am completely locked out of making any changes. This is complete bullshit! I understand if you have to drop your Colorado reps, but at least allow us to change our address. After all, plenty of people open up businesses in various states – why not let your associates change their address?

If you have any opinions, ideas on getting started as an Amazon associate please let me know by commenting below. If someone can show me a sample link of an actual Amazon associates blog or online store – I would love to see it! If you are a Colorado Amazon associate who has figured out a solution to this problem – please inform myself and my readers!

You can join Amazon’s associate program here: Amazon Associates

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

Tags: make money online, residual income, royalties

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Sell Your Unwanted Gift Cards on Gift Card Rescue

MJ Wolfe — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:38:33 +0000

When most of us have a birthday we wind up receiving a variety of gift cards that we don’t always want to use. Let’s face it; there are times when you would rather have cold hard cash than a gift card to Lowes or Best Buy. In this economy many of us not only want the extra cash – we could use it to pay bills or make car payments. So rather than waste those unwanted gift cards on purchasing items that you don’t really want anyway – you should sell them on Gift Card Rescue.

Selling a gift card on Gift Card Rescue is simple, all you have to do is create an account and enter the type of gift card and the exact amount of it’s value. Gift Card Rescue is currently offering an additional 5% redemption value on any Amazon.com gift cards that are sold through their website. Then all you need to do is ship the gift card to Gift Card Rescue and within 5 business days you will receive your check via USPD first class mail. When you are sending out your gift card be sure and get a tracking number so you can ensure that Gift Card Rescue has received your card.

You can also purchase discounted cards from others who are selling them on Gift Card Rescue. Let’s say there was a $300 fishing pole that you wanted at Bass Pro Shops – you could purchase a Bass Pro Shops gift card at a discount of 12% and save a whopping $36 of your total purchase price. This is a great way to save money on items that you planned on purchasing anyway.

Overall it looks like Gift Card Rescue is a great place to buy and sell gift cards. If you read through their customer testimonials you will see a list of many satisfied customers. So the next time you get a gift card that you don’t want to use – send it to Gift Card Rescue and put a little “green” in your pocket

You can visit Gift Card Rescue’s website here: Gift Card Rescue

Let us know what you think about this review of Gift Card Rescue, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Make Money Online Selling Your Arts and Crafts With Etsy

MJ Wolfe — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:30:50 +0000

For those of you that are creative, artistic or good at making quality homemade items – you might want to check out etsy.com. Etsy is sort of like an ebay for homemade items – quilts, crafts, candles, bags, purses, jewelry, ceramics, pottery, clothing and much more. If you are someone who spends a lot of time creating these type of items, yet you have never really had an outlet to sell your creations - Etsy might be perfect for you.

Obviously, the people who can churn out their items at a higher rate are bound to make more money on Etsy. If you spend 4 months making a quilt, odds are that you are not going to want to sell it for $35 on Etsy. But if you can make a quality quilt in a day or two, then you might be the perfect seller for Etsy.

I personally haven’t used Etsy’s website because of my lacking creative skills! I wouldn’t classify this website as a form of residual income or royalty income, but this could be an excellent way to make money online.

You can visit Etsy’s website here: Etsy

Let us know what you think about this review of Etsy, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Make Money Online as an Amazon Affiliate

MJ Wolfe — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:08:13 +0000

Affiliate programs are a great way to make money online and no one has a better affiliate program than Amazon.com. You can literally sign up as an Amazon affiliate within minutes and begin selling their products and earning a commission on every sale that you make. So how do you go about attracting customers to your affiliate links? Simple, choose a niche and stick to it.

For example if you wanted to start a niche blog that features cat scratchers, you would reserve a domain name for your topic. (i.e. bestcatscratchers.com) Next you would set up your web hosting – which you can do for as little as $4 a month on places like HostGator or GoDaddy. Then you would set up a blog on this domain – the most popular choices for a setting up a blog are through Wordpress or Blogger.com. Try an choose a stylish theme to accent your blog and help it look professional.

Once your blog is set up you can begin posting reviews on individual products. Let’s say your first review was “emory board cat scratchers” – you would write an in-depth review about the product and everything it has to offer. Use the keywords that you are trying to target at least a few times in every blog posting. In this case you would use the keywords “emory board cat scratcher” – this will help you rank higher in the search engines for this particular topic. Be sure and use the word “review” in your blog posting title. In other words your post’s title would be Review of Emory Board Cat Scratchers. This way anyone who is searching for a review can find your blog.

The most important part is the final link to the aforementioned product. You will want to create a hyperlink in Amazon.com that will redirect customers to the product and most importantly – credit you with a sale. You will have to have some basic HTML knowledge to put these affiliate links on your blog, but the process is pretty much a copy and paste.

You won’t get rich with just one affiliate blog or website. You get about 5% commission on every sale that you make – that means that you would have to sell $500 worth of goods on Amazon to earn $25. The people who really make money on Amazon are the ones who have a multitude of affiliate blogs online with hundreds of links inside these blogs. The sheer quantity of their online reviews is what makes them profitable. After you have created a large amount of these blog stores you will begin to earn some decent residual income and the system can run on autopilot.

If you are making some decent money as an Amazon affiliate, I would love to hear about your success and maybe even see a link to one of you Amazon blog store pages. Feel free to let us know by commenting below.

Here is a link to Amazon’s affiliate program: Amazon Associates

Let us know what you think about this review of Amazon’s Affiliate program, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Sell Your Unwanted Gift Cards on Plastic Jungle

MJ Wolfe — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:24:15 +0000

How many times have you received a bunch of gift cards for Christmas, your birthday or other special occasions? Have you ever wished you could just have cold hard cash instead? In this economy, there are times when we’d rather have some cash than a $50 gift card to Home Depot. Especially if we don’t really need or want anything at Home Depot.

Plastic Jungle is a website that allows you to trade in your unwanted gift cards for a fair price. Selling gift cards online may not be a form of residual income - but I thought this website could help some readers improve their cash flow by trading in their gift cards.

I did a comparison with the two major gift card trade-in websites; Plastic Jungle and Gift Card Rescue. I posted a sample $50 Best Buy gift card for sale to see how much each website would pay me. Gift Card Rescue only offered me $39, while Plastic Jungle offered me $42.50. Obviously, Plastic Jungle gives you the better return on your gift card.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that you can also sell your gift cards on eBay – but then you have to set up an auction and pay the eBay fees. So while you may sell this very same Best Buy gift card on eBay for $45 – is it worth all of the time and hassle? Plastic Jungle seems like an easier option, especially if you have a stack of gift cards to sell. Plastic Jungle claims that they will mail you a check within 2 days of receiving and verifying your gift card amount.

The other good thing about Plastic Jungle is the fact that you can buy gift cards off their website from people who don’t want them. Let’s say you wanted to buy a $1,000 televison at Best Buy, you could buy $1,000 worth of gift cards and save about 5% on the overall purchase. Just think, you could use gift cards to buy all of your major purchases and save at least 5% every time! If any of you have used Plastic Jungle in the past, I’d love to hear about your experience with them. They also have an affiliate program set up through Commission Junction which pays at least 6% on any gift card sold or bought by someone that you refer to their website.

You can visit Plastic Jungle’s website by clicking on this banner:

Let us know what you think about this review of Plastic Jungle, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Make Money Online Selling Your Artwork on RedBubble

MJ Wolfe — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:32:13 +0000

If you are an illustrator looking for an additional way to make money with your artwork, RedBubble might be the perfect website for you. Similar to Zazzle, you can upload your artwork on RedBubble and create a variety of items for sale. Wall art, designer tee shirts, posters and greeting cards are just of few of the items that you can create.

While perusing RedBubble, I noticed that the focus seems to be more fine art based then commercial images. You might classify RedBubble as a “high-end Zazzle” – where a community of artists share some of their best work. There are also many photographers who upload their images on RedBubble products. This can be a great way to make money online with your images – especially if you are a stock photographer who’s sales have been declining due to the large influx of images on the microstock photo websites.

Just like Zazzle, RedBubble charges a base price for each particular item and then you get to decide how much you want to mark-up the price. Obviously, the higher the mark-up – the more you will earn on a given sale. The best idea would be to create a large gallery of your artwork and market your gallery as much as possible.

To be successful on RedBubble it’s best to only upload your best work. Potential customers don’t want to go through twenty pages of your gallery to find what they want. Like I said, RedBubble is known as a high end online art gallery and your work should reflect this. Know your target demographic and do your research when creating items for sale. The fact is, your items won’t sell themselves on RedBubble – YOU have to market your gallery and create some buzz about your artwork.

RedBubble pays via PayPal on the 7^th day of the month and they have a payout threshold of only $20, which is nice. If you choose a check payment – you’ll have to wait until you have earned $100 to get a payout. If any of my readers have had success with RedBubble, I would love to hear about your earnings or the potential earnings that can be made on this website.

You can visit RedBubble’s website here: RedBubble

Let us know what you think about this review of RedBubble, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Make Money Online With Zazzle

MJ Wolfe — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:06:09 +0000

If any of you have been using the internet for a substansial period of time, chances are that you have heard of Zazzle.com. This is one of the first websites designed to help you to make money online that I ever discovered. I never wrote a blog posting about Zazzle on the Residuals and Royalties blog because I honestly didn’t think that someone could really make money on Zazzle. I have had my Zazzle shop open for a few years and I have made a total of $3.18. (I only have a handful of items.) But don’t give up on Zazzle just yet. I have discovered that there are, in fact many people who make money online through Zazzle and they are getting some pretty good payouts.

I recently stumbled on a Shutterstock member named Joyce who has been uploading her artwork onto Zazzle and placing them on hundreds of products. Mugs, shirts, calenders, postage stamps, pet clothing, posters, business cards, greeting cards, mouse pads – you name it, Zazzle can put your image on it! Joyce told me that she started out making about $45 per month, but for the last three months she has earned over $150 per month. The fact is that the more products that you make available, the more apt you are to get some good sales. (Joyce has over 6,600 products for sale on Zazzle!) Joyce’s most popular selling item is a hand showing the American Sign Language sign for “I Love You” – but she says that “no one product has sold the most” and people have pretty much purchased a wide variety of items from her. Overall it looks like Zazzle is a great source of residual income, considering the minimal effort that it takes to create a product!

Joyce says that the key way to make money online with Zazzle is to keep creating products! Joyce has her commission set at 15% for most of her products, but she is now experimenting with different rates to see if she can improve her earnings. (You can set your commission anywhere from 1% to 99%)

If you are a stock photographer who has been dissapointed with dwindling sales - you too may want to consider opening a Zazzle shop to showcase your work and add to your residual income. All you have to do is choose a product and upload your images.

You can check out Joyce’s Zazzle shop here: http://www.zazzle.com/joyart

…and you can see my lame Zazzle shop here: http://www.zazzle.com/actorshumor

I’d love to hear from others who are able to make money online with Zazzle. I’d like to get an idea of how much you can really make on this website.

Let us know what you think about this review of Zazzle, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Sell Tee Shirts Online With Skreened

MJ Wolfe — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:55:00 +0000

If you have ever thought of an good idea for a tee shirt slogan or logo – Skreened is a great place to get your idea made into reality. Unlike most printing companies, in order to get one designed printed – you have to purchase a screen and run at least 50 tee shirts. With Skreened you can simply upload your design onto their website and print as you go. You can print only one tee shirt if you’d like. For those people in sports leagues who only need to print up 10 or 15 shirts, Skreened is a great place to do so.

The best part about Skreened is the fact that you can actually sell your designs and even make your own online tee shirt shop. It is a great way to make money online if you are a good designer. According to Skreened, there are some folks making a full time livining simply selling their designs on their website. I know that CafePress is a similar website, but Skreened seems to have much higher quality tee shirts and their website is specifically for tee shirts only.

I am guessing if you had a big enough selection of tee shirt designs, you could actually advertise your shop via PPC on Google’s adwords and possibly gain sales that way. Your Skreened shop will have it’s own URL that you could use as an advertising link. If anyone out there can provide proof of your earnings on Skreened, please comment below.

You can view Skreened’s website here: Skreened

Let us know what you think about this review of Skreened, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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Make Money Online With Cash4Books

MJ Wolfe — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 12:24:35 +0000

I recently discovered a stack of books in my garage that were basically collecting dust. A friend of mine referred me to Cash4Books so I signed up for an account. I entered the ISBN numbers of the books that I had and Cash4Books immediately gave me a quoted price that they would pay me for these books. While Cash4Books may not be a source of residual income, it is a great way to earn extra cash.

I have found some folks online who are simply going to local garage sales and buying books for 25 or 50 cents and reselling them on Cash4Books. Cash4Books only accepts books with an actual ISBN number, so you won’t be able to sell them old books that do not have this. Cash4Books even has a “price matching” offer, which means if you are offered more for the book elsewhere – they will match the price you’ve found. Simply send them an email with a link to the price you were offered elsewhere.

The best thing about Cash4Books is the fact that they pay for shipping. This is the last thing a bookseller wants to have to absorb – so Cash4Books makes it easy. Cash4Books also has a great affiliate program and they will pay you $5 for each person that you refer to their website. Of all of the ways that I list to make money online – this may be one of the easiest. Simply go out next weekend with a little cash and buy a ton of books at your local garage sales. Now all you have to do is turn around and sell these books online with Cash4Books! What a great way to sell your books online!

You can view Cash4Books website here: Cash4Books

Let us know what you think about this review of Cash4Books, if you have compliments, complaints, comments or you think it is a scam – let us know by commenting below…

Best regards,

Michael-John Wolfe

TAGS: Residual Income, Make Money Online, Royalties

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