Old Dog Learning New Tricks

I seem to be a bit different than the normal poster on the Journeys forum. I'm 53 with a varied background of military, business management, teaching and writing. I've made some limited money with IM in the past - very ham-fisted and noobish though - through a kindle book and adsense. Now my wife has become disabled and cannot work. While she eventually will get disability it will be a process to get there, and meanwhile we have a sharply reduced income and she needs something to do to stay sane. She is even less teky then I am so we both need to learn some new skills.

I have a long term plan to build some new income streams, the first being Fiverr. In about 6 weeks I have made $184 of which I've used $55 to buy some services. I am also looking to publish a series of Kindle books in four niches I have knowledge in. Finally I am looking to develop some niche websites to tie into my Kindle projects.

My mid-term goal is to build a monthly income of $1,000/month within 12 months. meanwhile learn more about IM, website development and SEO. Hopefully the good members of BHW will get something out of it, and I can get some ideas and advice along the way. Be easy guys - I'm an old f*** and 2/3 doddering. I'm sure I'll be easy meat for laughs along the way.

we at BHW dont care about your age if you have some thing to give always do dont be a leecher who ust read without helping with time you will find out you made the right decition by joingn this forum ggodluck

It's never too late to do anything man.

This thread contains a lot of good info about Kindle publishing and products creation, try to make some time and read it all the way through.


Good luck.

Welcome, BHW is the right place.

Unlearn and learn again! Future will be bright for you OP!

Today I ended up working on all three elements of my plan. First under Fiverr I made a video in two versions. It was a simple thing of some background music, pics and my msg headlined in. I posted a shorter version on Fiverr itself and a longer version on YouTube. I spent a little time building some backlinks and traffic to both the Fiverr gig and the YT video.

Meanwhile my wife is almost finished with the research of one of the ebooks I'm getting ready to publish. All three are in different niches and I changed my mind of which one to go with first. I set up a simple blog to be a money site for the niche and published it out with its first article. Tomorrow I'll add a couple more articles and a few product reviews before starting to work on the final version of the book and start building traffic.

Overall, Fiverr is still growing with 2 gigs in line for me to finish, while my revenue/gig rate is climbing, now over $7. Adsense was a few pennies, but Amazon Affiliates had two books sell. Early days but I am slowly building.

Welcome to BHW! You made a great choice joining up and you're never too old for BHW

Welcome to the forum!

So far, it looks like you have a great start on your journey. I look forward to reading more about your progress.

Welcome and can we be friends?

I prefer friends with old souls Always down to help if you need anything mate.

Cheers

I want to say I admire your and your wife's relationship. Learning completely new things is always tough and you helping her out is heart warming.
And don't worry, there are plenty of older farts around, you're not alone

Good luck with the journey!

Thank you for the kind words all, and ShortGigs - I sent you a friend request.

Okay, for all of you Black Hatters out there doing fiverr - GET A TIP JAR! It really works. I made one up without a lot of expectations and set up my automatic replies with links to it.

In the last week I made an easy peasy $25 from my customers who where willing to pay me extra. One through me a $20 tip after I did a $30 gig for him, LOL.

TIP JAR!

Anyway, the video on Fiverr is already showing results. I now have 5 orders waiting. I did some more backlink building. Hey, does anyone know a good working bot or script fr addmefast? I used one from one of the BHW threads but it looks pre-2012 and it just isn't working with AMF 2014.

Meanwhile I need to order some ebook covers and work on finishing one of the ebooks. Plus I need to get ready for classes tomorrow. Ho humm.

Have a great weekend all!

Welcome to BHW. Browse the forums and you'll learn good things for your journey. People here don't usually spoon feed, but there are some great posts telling you what to do. Cheers and good luck!

Four days later things are actually moving along quite well. Fiverr is really starting to pump out some easy work. This morning I had one order for $45 and another for $15, this after $25 worth of orders yesterday. I am closing in on level 2 which should provide another boost. On a really cool note, the fiverr gig got me a referral to write a 500 word article for a marketing company for $100. So $185 in two days off fiverr. I'll take that.

Following my strategy of making fiverr pay for my other activities I ordered some ebook covers from different providers to see what I could find. One came back decent, another was crap with one more still out.

Meanwhile my second ebook is a couple of hours of work away from being ready to pre-market. I need to finish editing some format issues, set up a mailchimp form to get people to sign up on a "email me with updates" campaign. I also need to finish the associated website for the book.

Income from other areas: adsense, Amazon affiliates, etc, are still in the pennies/day range, but I expect that to pick up when I am able to put more attention on them to grow.

Have a marvelous week all.

My first ebook is out on a $0.99 introductory offer, it goes up to $3.99 in a week. I've submitted it for reviews at a dozen review sites as well as a half-dozen review exchanges. I have a second book coming out in about five days. That one I'll offer up free the first five days and compare the differences.

I have a fairly hefty balance on fiverr right now, so depending on how the reviews go I might buy a few after the introductory offers hit.

Figured out a trick for getting the most bang for the buck on paid reviews off fiverr. You can get them in the free stage by just getting the regular $5 gig. However if you decide you need a gig when the cost goes up, do this if you have two or more Amazon accounts:

Ideal price $3.99, on a verified review (the best kind from Amazon's viewpoint).Use a separate Amazon Affiliate Account and post a notice on your book to a free ad, blog, Twitter or Facebook.

You have to normally pay $5 for gig plus extra $5 for the reviewer to purchase the book. When you order, direct the reviewer to purchase the book through the affiliate link.

You'll make an Amazon Commission, an Amazon Affiliate commission plus build up the profile of the affiliate link. The actual benefit by itself is small, but if you are pushing out a lot of ebooks and especially getting lots of reviews it adds up.