Oops

I really thought I'd blogged last week. The fact that I didn't in the end doesn't surprise me though, I've been totally goofing off for a while now. I've started to correct that now though tonight. I'm researching merchants (in order to research/write articles), I've written a few articles and despite the fact that I got up from my nap at 2 pm (I was up before 8, wayyyy to early for home) I'm still wide awake, so I think I may have a few more articles in me tonight. I still have between 20-30 product pages to write for the new mega site though (and several are already written, how scary is that?!), not to mention more keyword research, setting up email collection, figure out the scope of my newsletters and much, much more. So while I was hoping with a bunch of hard work I might have this site up soon, the reality is probably more likely within a couple of months.

So tell me, is anyone else having C R A P P Y sales and Adsense this month? I don't think I'll be seeing an Adsense payment next month, it's so bad. I've had 3 sales.. admittedly they've been pretty decent commissions, all 3 between $10-20, but still. Thank goodness I put some cash aside before quitting, I'll be needing it next month!

That's about it, but in case you were considering buying Keywords Results Analyzer, Dr. Andy mentioned that the new version is going to be released this week hopefully, which in turn means the price will go up from $67 to $97. I still haven't had an opportunity to play around with the new version yet, but everyone who has is raving.

Oh, and a quick little bit of link love for my buddy Chrissie who had a great time at and talks about Pubcon, the Webmaster World conference. I'm thinking from the sounds of it I'm going to have to go to the next one, especially since it's in Vegas, where I'm dying to go back to :)

That's all she wrote folks!

Tara :)

Busy busy bee

Sorry for the delay in posting, but to be honest, I spent most of last week goofing off, plus I wanted that last post to be good and spidered for all potential JM customers to see in the SERPs.

So here's what I've done since yesterday, and most of this was today even:

• bought an Adsense site... with losing income from my 2 pet sites (see below for more on that!) I decided to see if this will work.
• bought hosting and transfered DNS to new host. got them to give me 3 months free even though I signed up without the special.
• added my Adsense code to said site, managed to screw it up, tried to fix it, emailed the seller to help me.. lol now fixed.
• added StatCounter code to new site to track traffic
• wrote/tweaked 4 pages for the new site.. 1 product page and then the About us, Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. They are ready to publish now, though the rest of the site isn't.
• bought the domain PawTails to replace a1-dog-info.com. bought it for 10 years - and look Ma, no dashes!
• bought the domain Gone To The Bridge to replace pet-memorials-info.com, also bought for 10 years. (if you don't get the domain, google "rainbow bridge")
• fixed templates (I LOVE "find and replace" in Front Page!) to reflect new domains and published them. hopefully I'll start seeing some traffic (and money) soon!
• finally wrote out all the pages that need to be written and tasks that need to be accomplished before or right after the new site goes live.
• updated my goals page to reflect the new sites and some new goals.
• added up my income from last month... ok, that was last week, but here it is anyway... $425.
• watched the remake of The Ten Commandments... YUCK!
• blogged my boring life ;)

I think I may FINALLY be back into the working from home mindset. It bloody took long enough! I will say this though, talking to people like Andrea and Colin and Brad sure does help. Whether it's just to kvetch about you know who or to bounce business ideas off each other, talking to peers is essential.

As for this month's financials... well... let's just say that I REALLY hope the 3 "new" sites take off VERY quickly otherwise I don't think I'll get an Adsense deposit this month. Pretty much only 1 sale ($18 commission though, no complaints!) across my sites. But, if not this month, next month will be great, I have a feeling :) Of course, don't you know while I was looking through Google for inspiration for the new domain, I found my pet memorials site (with emax's info) on the 2nd page for my main keyword.. argh.. life sometimes! lol

Anyhooooo... that's all she wrote for tonight folks. Have a good hump day!

Tara :)

The last straw

If you are a James Martell follower, you probably already know where this entry is going. I had heard a little while ago through the grapevine there was going to be an update of the Affiliate Marketing Handbook coming out soon, and it has arrived. I find the launch date of this update quite ironic (you'll see why in a second) - April 1st. When I saw how to get the update, I thought it might be an April Fool's joke, and then I realised it was April 2nd, so it couldn't be a joke. To "reward" (and I use this term very loosely) his loyal students, there's a tiered price structure to get the updated version of the book. If you had the misfortune to buy it over a year ago, you get a $60 "deep" discount from the original price of the book, $167 (overpriced to begin with) for the "cheap" price of $97.

A quote from his website:

"The Third Edition contains 21 "revisited" points, 7 "additional" points, and 13 new points – in other words, the full training from 2002, the additional information added in early 2005, and all the UPDATES from January 2005 to March 2006 have been fully integrated into a logically flowing document."

Well, I doubt that it's a "logically flowing document" since the last update was anything but... you had to jump all over the place to see the updates. But maybe it is, I wouldn't know - because I sure as SHIT won't be paying $97 for outdated, useless information that the "update" no doubt contains. This of course is just my uneducated opinion, which it will remain unless the update becomes free or someone sends me a copy. And once I catch up on the Buzzes I haven't had time for (which I'm hearing HORRIBLE things about) I'll probably end up dumping that too. Because I am DONE with James Martell. I'm thoroughly disgusted with this update and it's (as the title says) last straw for me. I have removed the link in the sidebar to his book and will no longer promote him in any way, shape or form. And I'm not alone. 2 people have told me the same thing today.

So congratulations to whomever decided on this wonderful update strategy. I think you have succeeded in alienating a good chunk of your students, even those that weren't wavering already. And thank you for making it easier for me to completely write off James Martell. I was almost there, but this seals the deal. And a word to the wise - don't pay $167 for an infoproduct that doesn't promise free updates for life. For that matter, don't buy any infoproduct in the affiliate marketing industry for ANY price that doesn't include free updates for life. Both Colin's and Dr. Andy's products I mentioned the other day DO include free updates. Anyway, I've learned my very expensive lesson, I hope all JM followers have now too.

Tara :)