My Last Blog Post...

…was about affiliate marketing as were several others before it.

   Unfortunately in my eagerness to point out ways to make money in this crumbling economy I believe I may have sounded like a shady salesman trying to sell you a shady deal.

   I assure you that is not the case.

   But I understand the wariness especially when it seems just about everyone is trying to rip you off.  I looked at my cable bill yesterday and was thoroughly ticked off when I noticed all the Add-on charges like the franchise fee and the Internet Modem lease. I paid $50.00 for just the internet each month. Shouldn’t that cover those Add-ons?

   Another point is I’m a writer, first, last and always. And I’m good at it. I have my own style and people seem to enjoy it (am closing in on my 15,000th hit so somebody is reading my stuff)

   The thing is the publishing industry is in serious trouble (Barnes and Noble are closing their NOOK business) money is tight, budgets are being cut, advances are dropping, and fewer publishing houses are willing to take a chance on new authors.

   So, these new authors are going to have to adapt if they want a career as a writer. They are going to have to self publish, promote their books online and generate name recognition until they gain a loyal following.

   That takes money.

   Actually, that takes A LOT of money!

   And who do you trust to handle that end of the business for you? When I started Ari Publishing I was amazed at the number of rip-offs associated with so-called book publishers. I saw crowds of people laying out thousands of dollars to have their books published only to wind up with a product with a common template cover, computer generated editing with cheap paper and cheap glue.

   So when I discovered affiliate marketing and saw it was a legit way of making a considerable amount of money I wanted to get the word out to my fellow writers so they could generate enough to start an advertising campaign for their novels. In addition, by learning internet marketing, they would know the best ways to advertise and the best site to advertise on.

   But the thing is, my readers are a varied group from all over the world. Frankly, I was amazed that right after the US and England, Russia has the largest reader base of my blog. and so maybe affiliate marketing isn’t something they are interested in.

   Or maybe it is I don’t know.

   However, I’ve come up with a solution.

   I am going to add 2 additional websites to address both affiliate marketing and self publishing. As for this site, I’ve decided to return to writing fun stories and giving my take on current events and social issues, because frankly, that’s what got my 14,000+ hits.

   So here’s how it will work. When I’m writing on affiliate marketing I will post on my new website ‘Czar’s Cool Stuff’ here’s the logo

   When I write about self publishing it will be on my Self-Publishing Toolbox site. Here’s the logo.

   And when you see the http://zackaryrichards.blogpot.com well that’s going to direct you right back here.

   One last note. I know how to write and I know how to self-publish and can do both well. I’m new to affiliate marketing and before I promote stuff that I believe will lead you down the road to prosperity, I want to know from my own experience that it works, its legit and can warn you of any potential pitfalls.

   For example: I decided to do a promotion of my audio book Divorce the Middle Aged Man’s Survival Guide. Here's the LINK:  http://amzn.to/19N2tQi on Adwords. 

   It was the first time I used them so I followed the tutorial and after a misstep or two and a couple of adjustments, I got it up and running. After the first 24 hours the amount of clicks and impressions were very poor and came nowhere near my daily budget of 33 dollars a day. So following the tutorial’s instructions I scraped the non performers and increased the budget on the top performers.

   The amount of clicks and impressions increased dramatically but the conversions were lagging so more tweaking was necessary. By the sixth day I felt my budget of 33 dollars a day for 3 days should be almost spent so I went to the account site and discovered that Adwords was replenishing my account balance using my credit card.

   I called and was informed that I didn’t check the “Manually Add Money’ box and the default is replenish the account balance as needed.   

   That little error cost me $150.00.   Live and Learn.

   So there you have it. I am spending a considerable amount of time honing my affiliate marketing skills and hopefully pretty soon I’ll not only be able to create a big successful advertsing campaign for Ari Publishing books, I’ll be able to show you how to do it for yourself as well.

   Talk to you soon.