The Beginning of an Era

I've been a member for a long time, first time I've started visiting again for a few years though. Found BHW in my mid to late teens, perhaps I was almost too young, spent so much time reading yet so little time implementing. Thought I'd found the magic potion in a way, that IM was going to be easy and that was it, I was basically as good as rich.
Unfortunately this wasn't the case and that like all things in life it would actually take some hard work and dedication to achieve. I did manage some success but I was too erratic, jumping from method to method, to actually stick with anything and grow it. Eventually I lost interest; I started University, having fun, girls, drinking etc, it all took priority.

Fast-forward to now.

All but broke up for Christmas in my final year at University, and it's starting to sink in now that the stabilisers are about to come off. I'm going to have to go out into the world and make something of myself. So no excuses now: if I want nice things, to be comfortable, to be able to do exactly what I want to do, I'm going to have to work for it and make it happen.
It's going to be a bit of a balancing act. I have assignments galore in for after Christmas and it's important I dedicate enough time to them to get a good degree but I feel it's almost equally important I start taking steps toward becoming self-sufficient. Maybe in a way it could be seen as a bit of a egotistical thread title, but for me this really is the beginning of an era, the turning over of a new leaf.

Haven't really got a concrete plan in my head as of yet and I'm just typing what's popping into my head, hence the amount of waffle (apologies). This journey section of BHW has been a blessing and motivated me to get this going so would seem fitting that I begin my journey following in the footsteps of one of the the more iconic threads; I'm thinking Youtube PPD or Amazon sites. Maybe even both, although I am wary of potentially biting off more than I can chew especially as I'm just beginning.

This thread is just as much for my benefit, no doubt more so, than anyone else. To keep me on track, to keep me motivated and to make me accountable. I thinking the format of the journey will be sporadic updates throughout, with a more in-depth overview once a week or so. To me, I believe it is really important to set short term, attainable, goals. Unless you are a highly motivated and strong willed person, which I am not, it can be very disheartening to simply rely on the long term aim as your sole goal, short-term goals keep you on track and keep you plowing on, so this is something I'll be doing, most likely on a weekly basis.

Wow. So I've wrote a lot more than I intended to without actually illuminating much. I'm going to be spending the rest of tonight researching and writing up with an action plan for how I'll begin and how I envision things progressing. Will post this when done, either later tonight or tomorrow sometime.

good luck with your journey!

You sound like you have a wise head on your shoulders, i'm sure you can do it. Good luck on your journey bud!

Good Luck. It's ok to not have all the answers. I used to be a "need to have all the answers guy" and have learned that there's things you just wont have answers to. The interesting thing about life is that there are no professionals, gurus, experts, or even authority figures when it comes to living life. Everyone is an amateur and are just trying to live it the best they can.


Good Luck

Thanks guys.

Feels like I've been working all day without a fat lot to show for it but I guess that's what happens when your effectively starting from scratch. Spent most of my time searching for things but now the initial grunt work is out the way my time should be used now be used more effectively, hopefully.

The Beginning

I've decided i'm going to start by promoting amazon products. Not exactly the most unique method I know, but it's a start. Had a real brain freeze when trying to come up with a niche, settled on something technology related which is as much as I think I want to say. Do have a feeling its going to end up too competitive but we will see how it goes. There are a huge amount of products in this category with more and more products released all the time, so my plan is to create a site/blog for each product which contains relevant and useful information for the end-user, ground-breaking stuff eh! With an amazon link to the product included, obviously.

What I accomplished today

Pretty much got all the bare bones down for one product.

A Blogger blog, with 2 articles. (A bit lame I know, but not really prepared to be any putting money down as of yet on domains and hosting without even testing for success)

A Facebook fan page

A twitter account

A YouTube video (Ripped somebody else's but changed beginning and end, was public material anyway so not like i'm leeching off anyone's creativity. Took an eternity to render, then realised I'd put the wrong settings so had to do it again :banghead

Signed up to the UK Amazon affiliates, tried to do US but had difficultly verifying phone number and ended up getting locked out for an hour.

The Plan (Within the next couple of days)

Create another 4/5 pieces of content for the site.

Rip and upload another couple of YouTube videos.

Start posting content on Facebook and Twitter, just copy and paste article snippets etc.

Read more Amazon journeys and look at the tutorials available on their site.

Question

Hoping someone more knowledgeable can help me out here.

I see Amazon keeps their country sites separate, for whatever reason, so as I'm currently only a member of the UK affiliate if I get US visitors who buy anything from the .com site then it's a case of tough tits, a bit backward imo but that's how it is. So my question is, assuming I get signed up no problem to .com, then is it just a case of me having to decide whether to display UK or US products and then effectively sacrificing a whole demographic of potential customers?

Not a whole lot to report so far. Didn't realise how long it would take to get back up to speed, seemed to be spending the vast majority of my time looking how to do things and researching so actual work has very much taken a back-step although I am still adding content. But no results, at all, so far. Looks like I may have been right about the niche being too competitive, although I'll keep adding and see how it goes.

Have a good few days of free time ahead now so I'm aiming to get a sizeable amount of work done.

To Do

Create another two amazon product blogs, add another few pieces of content to existing.

Read a piece about parasite marketing which I'm going to try, so I'm going to have to research about keyword placement, density etc and then find a good niche and relevant keywords.

Will up-date in the next few days.

Amazing journey have subscribed to your thread, to keep posted.