I Was Safe, Now I'm Out!

The source I paid for to learn more about Internet Marketing, suggested I join a safelist, which I did. But since I'm trying to do this on a very limited budget, I joined one safelist, as a free member.

I was allowed to promote one ad per week there. But the paying members were able to promote so many more daily. I was receiving tons of email everyday. With an appoximate ratio of 50 emails per day being sent to me, as opposed to my 1 permitted ad per week, this didn't seem quite fair to me.

No one told me I'd have to do that much reading, when I first signed up for all of this. Pretty soon I just couldn't keep up with reading all those emails anymore.

This also left me confused. Were all the affiliate marketers, just promoting their products to other affiliate marketers? Was this the way it was supposed to work? I had to wonder why would they buy the products I'm trying to promote, when their promoting their own things, and hoping I'll buy from them. Seems to me, that's a rather circular method of trying to get sales.

How about, if you buy five products from me, and maybe I'll buy one product from you? What, you don't like those odds? Well I didn't think much of the 50 to 1 ratio I was getting. Perhaps we can barter? Get 10 of your friends to look at my blog, or click on my cloaked affiliate links, and I'll read one of your ads, and even go visit the web site your promoting. I won't promise you I'll sign up with it though. I already seem to have signed up with more things then I can reasonably keep up with now.

I admit, I learned a great deal from some of those emails I received. Some people, pointed me to products I would never have known about, if I hadn't read those emails. I joined a few other programs, from the recommendations I got from the other members of that safelist.

But soon I had to request that I be removed from the mailing list of that safelist. There were just too many emails flooding my email address. It now makes me reluctant to join another one. Yet it seems to be what's recommended by many people, to get traffic.

In addition everytime I now put my name and email address down on a form, for a program I want to learn more about, it seems I'm appearing on yet another email list. Then I start receiving email, from things I don't recall ever signing up for. I didn't think I was agreeing to that, when I just requested they send me more info to my email address. It's getting to the point where I have to go through my email almost daily, in order to get things deleted, or to find emails that I might actually be waiting for.

Like a message that someone's finally bought one of the products I'm trying to promote. Begging people to buy one of my products, might be an option, I haven't yet totally ruled out.

I'll consider joining another safelist, if someone can convince me of the benefits I'll actually receive by joining one. I wouldn't mind joining another one, that at least gives me credits for reading the emails or ads of other members. I spent a lot of time, reading through all those emails, checking out different web sites, and I was still only able to place my singular ad once a week after all that.

It seems I should be rewarded for all the emails I voluntarily read. I'd like to get something back from spending my time doing that. It also became very obvious, very quickly that some people were sending the same email promotion out, over and over again. I could see the duplicate subject lines, that were coming from the same person. They soon became the target of my ever faithful delete key.

Which also makes me wonder, if I wasn't that interested in signing up for that product the first or second time I read that email, why would people think, my interest would drastically increase with reading the same thing, several more times after that?

I realize these things are sent out by an autoresponder, one of those gadgets I haven't yet gotten. But it seems to me other affiliate marketers might get more responses if they changed their subject lines from time to time, and even periodically changed the message in the body of the text. Otherwise I think that delete key, will be getting a lot more action, and not just from me.

Of course this is just a perspective from someone new at Affiliate Marketing. You're most welcome to add your comments, thoughts, suggestions, on any of the topics I've blogged about so far, as well as things I'll be blogging about in the future. Perhaps there's something about the way safelists work, that I just don't understand yet.

Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated.

Why I Love Blogging!

I never thought I’d see the day, when I was actually blogging. My previous blog post as to “Why I’m not a Blogger” written in May of 2007, might help you understand why I wasn’t quickly jumping on the blogging bandwagon.

I think the idea of trying to start a blog intimidated me. I knew you couldn’t just start writing something somewhere, and that would be all you’d need to do with it, ever. I think what scared me was the amount of time, I’d have to spend just trying to get one set up. And I was right about that.

I certainly got bogged down, in trying to get my new blog set up. Setting it up, took me much longer than I thought it would take. That included getting the search engines to start searching for my blog, setting it up the way I wanted it to appear, in color scheme, fonts, and placement of things. That didn‘t even include the actual writing, proofreading, editing, or revising of my blog posts.

But now I have to say I love Blogging. I’m happy I took the time to set it up, to get it the way I wanted it to be. There is something very freeing and very empowering, about being able to write about whatever I want to write about, with only a few restrictions being placed on me. The areas of profanity, or objectionable material in many different categories aren’t really the things I want to blog about to begin with. So I’m good with those particular restrictions being placed on me.

In school, I could write an article but it had to be whatever topic the teacher gave me to write about. When I joined an online writing site, my articles had to be within a specific word length, and be written about a certain topic. I actually found that quite helpful. I could find a topic I thought I could write about and then proceed. Sometimes that was much easier then trying to come up with ideas to write about, all by myself.

But with blogging, I can cover all kinds of topics if that’s what I want to do. There’s no restrictions on minimum or maximum word length. It’s not too likely I’ll write short posts very often, as brevity doesn’t seem to be my style. Nor do I want to make them so long, if someone were to look at the length of my blog posts, it would scare them away before they even began reading anything.

I like that I can write short or long posts, as the mood hits me, or as the topic might require. I can include a poem once in awhile. I can write in a serious manner, or write something sarcastic, tongue in cheek, and what I hope my readers might view as humorous.

I’m sure blogging on certain topics will take me off track from time to time, from the main idea of what this blog is supposed to be about. Or the topic might not fit in with that particular “niche” I’m supposed to be zoning in on. Well that’s another thing I like about blogging. My blog itself doesn’t require that I create several different blogs to write to different niches, different topics.

I’m not saying I’ll totally discount or ignore that good suggestion to write to a certain niche, and why it’s probably a good idea to create different blogs for different niches.

But while driving my car, I often found myself diverting off onto some unfamiliar road. Taking a drive down a road I’d never traveled on before, just to see where it might take me. That’s how life goes sometimes. You never know when you might get sidetracked or have to take a detour, during your travels through life.

Why should blogging be any different then life?

Why I'm Not A Blogger

I wrote this in May of 2007. Now that I’ve ventured into this blogging journey, my opinion of blogging has obviously been revised. So the following article is either the thing that started it all for me, or the thing I’ll have to blame it on, now that I’ve become just another crazed and obsessed blogger!

It might come as a shock to many people, but I don't write to a blog. At least not yet I don't. I can hear you now, laughing and pointing and telling me to finally get with the 21st century.

What if I run out of things I think are important enough to blog about? What if no one ever reads what I blog about? My blog could just sit idle and lonely in internet space somewhere, just sadly waiting for somebody, anybody to pay it a visit once in awhile.

Or worse, what if no one can locate my blog, or they get lost while they're searching for it? I'm sure I gave them good directions how to get here but there's a lot of distractions on the internet highway these days. It’ll probably be dark outside, before they even reach my blog. Then they'll be too exhausted to want to visit it. But now I'll still have to feed them, and put them up for a night or two, as any good hostess would do.

I’ve heard it's better if you get a lot of traffic coming to your blog in order for it to be successful. Do I have anything to say about what location my blog will get placed in? What if it’s located on some far off rural road somewhere, where no one might ever find it? Am I supposed to stand out in the middle of nowhere, trying to flag down the small amount of Blog traffic that might pass by, just to get somebody to stop, pull over and read my blog?

Other people keep saying you're supposed to write to a specific niche. But my mind doesn't quite work that way. I might want to write about many different things. Knitting, cats, peanut butter and jelly, songs or TV shows I like, just to name a few. Would that mean I'd have to create a separate blog for each of the various and mundane topics that find their way into my too cluttered mind?

Now that I’ve actually created my very first blog, that would be a large and time consuming task. I spent a lot of time, picking out my template design, and my color scheme for the one blog I currently own now! I’m still playing with it, moving things around, putting things in, taking them out.

If I were to do that for every different category I might want to blog about it’ll never get done. So since my blog is about Jan’s promo place, it seems to me there’s all kinds of things that can be promoted, which makes it a rather large, and very spacious type of niche. That leaves me lots of room to blog about all kinds of things I might want to promote, as well as some things I don’t understand at all, or even the need to occasionally rant and rave about something. It all comes under that “niche” topic of promoting, well more or less.

I've read people can make money by blogging. I'm sure not opposed to that. But if I got a lot of traffic to my blog, then all the fine folks in the nice quiet rural community where my previously undiscovered blog might reside, might get mad at me. It used to be a nice, quiet and peaceful place, before my blog became famous. Now it's just filled with traffic, pollution, and blog tourists cluttering up the place.

Then I've read you have to get your blog noticed in the search engines. What happens if the search engine develops a nasty oil leak? It could be days, maybe even weeks before a qualified search mechanic can get around to fixing those problems for me. Is it my fault that somebody else was fooling around in there, while they were searching for my unknown blog? Am I going to have to pick up the tab for that search engine repair? Well how am I supposed to make any profits from blogging, if I have to now pay the search mechanic to fix the search engine that my blog depends on?

I’m sure the hourly rate for search mechanics must be astronomical, since it’s a pretty specialized field. Not to mention basic maintenance costs, like periodically needing a search engine tune up. There's probably a lot more search engines than there are competent search mechanics around to fix them. That means delays in my being able to continue blogging, until that search mechanic finally gets around to me, and fixes whatever the problem is with my search engine.

But I have to admit it a Blog intrigues me a great deal. I might just have to go in search of a blog that suits my rambled thoughts and flexible fingers. It's located at the intersection of Route 99 and Highway 21, in the town of Anywhere, Internet Country. When you're passing through, be sure to stop by. We'll put our feet up, order pizza, drink lemonade, play some music, talk and joke and just enjoy the day.

Maybe It's Just Me

WEBSITE DESIGNS PART THREE

There must be another trade secret I don’t know anything about. All those testimonials, many of which often appear on a kind of yellowish, gold background. Maybe black type reads better on that color? I admit this particular shade isn’t my favorite color, but then I get skeptical if those testimonials are for real.

It wouldn’t be too hard to convince your family, your friends, and some of their friends, to put up a picture of themselves on your website. Add a few nice testimonial words, about your product or service, especially if you’re paying for the pizza and the beers later on.

There’s so many wonderful colors to choose from. Why did this particular shade of yellow become the most popular choice for all those testimonials? I’ve seen a few sites that had a light blue background, and another with a burgundy background, with white type on it, that really looked nice and caught my eye. That yellow background for those testimonials is getting boring for me to have to keep looking at.

I’m starting to think those web sites are all owned by the same person or company. They just changed the name, rearranged some of their text, and put in some different dollar figures in those popular green and blue graph bars. Or else there was an incredible sale going on at the time for these particular web sites.

I can hear the bargaining going on now. As long as you meet certain conditions, you can buy this website and own it forever and a day, at half price of what we’d normally charge you. Those few conditions you can easily meet, include, that the typed hyped text would be pretty similar from one web site to the next. You must use blue and green graph bars, to show people how much money you’ve made. Sell your product, service, offer for $47.00 only. Do not charge anything more or anything less then $47.00. All testimonials must be presented on a yellowish gold background.

Or else they’re all the members of the same secret exclusive club, that you can only join if your pay your $47.00 to them.

Maybe I just don’t easily part with my money. But I also keep hearing a few quotes echoing in my head, such as “Buyer Beware!” or “There’s a sucker born every minute!”

So if the blue and green bar graphs, that consistent $47.00 price so many of these sites are charging, and that same old yellowish gold background for their testimonials, haven’t convinced me to buy their products, I wonder how many other people aren’t convinced?

Variety is supposed to be the spice of life isn’t it? Maybe those website owners need to change things from time to time, to give me, as just one of their viewers something different to look at every now and then. Try a pink, and purple polka dotted background, or a price of $37.92, just to shake things up once in awhile.

If you do that, it will give me a few new topics to write about. Like how in the world did someone come up with a price of $37.92, and why not price that product at say, some even round number, like $47.00? Or your pink and purple polka dotted background is making my eyes cross, and giving me a headache. But it’s still an improvement over that same old tired yellowish gold background I kept seeing for all those testimonials.

But maybe, it’s just me, who finds myself questioning things like this!

I'm a Bit Skeptical

WEBSITE DESIGNS PART TWO

My skepticism rears it’s questioning head at times. I’m skeptical that the checks I’ve seen on some websites, that people claim they’ve earned are for real. I also find myself, quickly deleting the email ads I often receive that state I’ll earn several thousand dollars in just a week. It just has a feeling of unreality to me, or not being believable to me, before I even look at the web site.

I’m not saying that’s not possible, that perhaps a small minority of people have made that kind of money, on the web, but for me it just seems too far beyond my reach to even consider looking at that web site to learn how I too, can make that kind of money, with almost no effort at all. Thank goodness for the power of that delete key on my keyboard.

With all the new technology available, I don’t think it would be too hard to scan a real check into the computer, and change the amounts to be anything I want them to be. Now you get to see that check made out to me for over $3,700.00 for just one week! And I didn’t have to do very much work to earn that kind of money, at least according to some of these web sites.

Then I multiply that $3,700.00 by 52 weeks in a year, Create a few more spreadsheets, and a few more graphs, showing you how I easily made over $193,000.00 for the year. Impressive isn’t it?

People can put up a picture of someone, cut out that person’s head and replace it with the head of a donkey if they want to. I’m sure there’s many people who are quite capable of creating these wonderful pictures on the web, that have incorporated cut, paste, crop and rearrange, for my viewing pleasure.

And what’s with that $47.00 price? I seem to see that specific price on a lot of websites I’ve looked at. Why are so many people selling what’s supposed to be many different products at $47.00 each? But no one is competing to get customers, to sell their similar product, for $45.00 or $49.99? That seems a little odd to me.

Even gas stations try to get customers into their station, by changing the price that’s listed on their signs. One gas station’s sign indicates the price is $3.03 for a gallon of regular gas, while across the street it’s $3.01 a gallon, and the one a block down is selling their gasoline for $3.05 a gallon.

Maybe the owners of these $47.00 websites don’t feel they have to compete against anyone else selling a similar item. I’m starting to think there’s some sort of secret code regarding that $47.00 fee, that maybe I’m still too new to know about. I wish someone would clue me in as to why $47.00 is such a popular price for so many of these websites.

Website Designs

PART ONE

Have you ever noticed that some of the web sites wanting you to join their program or buy their product tend to look pretty much the same? Many of them seem to have a graph with blue and green bars. These are supposed to reassure me, of how much money they’ve made from this product, before I part with any of mine.

It's not to hard to create those graphs. I’ve done it myself in a spreadsheet, when I was using different colors for a striped sweater I was knitting. I was easily able to put in blue and green color bar graphs of varying lengths, and transfer them to my word processing program, where they all lined up nicely in one column. From there I threw in a weeks worth of dates and then, I threw in a few random dollar amounts. Then my blue and green bar graphs looked pretty similar to those I've seen on so many websites.

With the random dollar amounts I just tossed in there, and inputting dates from Dec. 1, 2007 to Dec. 7, 2007, apparently I made a total of $3,722.53 for that one week alone. I can only wish! Or at least in my dreams I must have made that much. Multiply that weekly amount, by 52 weeks in a year, and I guess I had a very good year financially this last year, and didn't even know it. I guess if I actually made that kind of money, I'd probably have a top notch accountant on board, and he or she would be keeping track of all my wonderful earnings.

That means I made over $193,000 for the year! You believe me don’t you? So what are you waiting for? Why aren’t you signing up for this product immediately?

Maybe I’m as skeptical as most, and more cynical then some. But putting up this kind of information to potential buyers or customers, doesn’t convince me that the owner of this web site, actually made that kind of money. Not when I was easily able to create a similar graph, using my system of randomly selecting some dollar amounts in a spreadsheet.

I have nothing against blue and green bar graphs. I think they’re great colors separately or together. Maybe they just happen to be the favorite colors of the daughter of the CEO of these web sites, and maybe that’s why those blue and green bar graphs appear so frequently, so many times, in so many different web sites.

Wearing a Cloak of Protection

CLOAK YOUR LINKS!

I started looking at my own affiliate links, and it soon became obvious to me, that other people could easily tell I was just another affiliate marketer. The suffixes of the links contain the names of the companies, where I research products, web sites or services that I’m trying to promote.

Those links are practically shouting out, well here’s yet another affiliate marketer, and a newbie at that, who is trying to sell you something! So why would potential customers buy anything from a newbie like myself?

That’s what occurred to me anyway. What didn’t occur to me was that:

“Many dishonest people will do anything they can to prevent affiliate marketers from getting their commission for their hard work. When people see a link that they recognize as an affiliate link they might cut your username off and buy directly from the website or even worse, they might replace your username with theirs and take your commission. Also, some people might be uncomfortable clicking on a link they recognize as an affiliate link….”

Well there go my hard-earned commissions that I haven’t even earned yet!

Your affiliate links are visible for everyone in the Internet World to see. For all of you do it yourselfers, Hannes Johnson, at http://www.selfseo.com/story-13929.php even provides the instructions and the codes if you want to cloak your links yourself. He also provides a list of sites that will cloak and protect your affiliate links for you. Many of those sites are free to join.

I’ve tried a few different sites. With some sites, I wasn’t sure if I should add my cloaked links to a traffic exchange when I didn’t yet have my own web site. Was I just wasting my ad credits by posting them in traffic exchanges?

I can’t yet afford to buy more ad credits as I’m trying to do this on a shoestring budget. Well let’s get real! There is no budget! I haven’t yet made enough money to even buy a new pair of shoestrings that my old, tired, worn out shoes could badly use.

One of the sites that I really like, not only cloaks your links, it tracks your ad campaign and helps increase your traffic. The ads fly in over the main page that you’re viewing. They can’t be blocked from being viewed by your potential customers.

In fact, when I first saw the fly in ads, I ended up clicking on one of the ads, or the web site link itself, more out of annoyance, then anything else. Those fly in ads just wouldn’t go away, no matter how many times I clicked my mouse, or tried to scroll through the page.

Then as I looked at the site and read more about it, I found myself getting excited about it. From an affiliate marketer’s perspective, it automatically increases the visibility of your ads. Your ads rotate in with everyone else’s. In a classified ad site, your ads are static, they just sit there, waiting for someone to come around and look at them, which might or might not happen.

At this site, you get ad credits every time your ad is viewed and you accumulate more ad credits from your referrals. They have email support, which I’ve found to be very responsive to any questions that I had. They didn’t even have any problem with their egos, when I made a few suggestions to them. Sometimes as a user of a site, you can see things that don’t work quite right, or that could be improved on, that the computer programmers and web site designers aren’t always aware of.

It’s easy to set up my links and ads, which as a non-technical computer user, is something I really appreciate. I love seeing how many times my ads have appeared, and watching that number increase every time I visit.

Take a look at this site for yourself. It’s a great way to cloak your links and gives you and your website business, the protection you need to have. Then you don’t have to worry about losing your hard earned commissions, and you can start earning the income you deserve to have!

Source: From an article titled:
“How Cloaking Your Links Can Save You Both Time and Money”
Posted by Hannes Johnson on: 2006-05-03 20:36:30
http://www.selfseo.com/story-13929.php

I've Got Questions! Who's Got Answers?

I joined some sites that emphasize the benefits of joining a traffic exchange. I'm promoting other people's web sites, products or services. Some of the things I've read, said I have to have a web site. Other sources said I didn't need one. But no one told me if it was an absolute requirement to have my own web site, when I'm promoting other people's items, and not my own.

So I placed some ads in a few of these traffic exchanges. I figured maybe I’ll get traffic going to those other web sites and someone will buy one of the products I’m promoting, and I’ll happily earn my very first commission!

I wondered if anyone would see my promo ads, even though I didn’t have a web site of my own? It seemed to me I didn’t really need one, since I was busy promoting other people’s stuff.

But was I wasting my valuable ad credits, when I didn’t actually have my own web site for people to look at in these traffic exchanges? And how would I ever be able to close the sale, when I was pointing other people in so many different directions? I didn’t know which sites anyone might stop at, whether it was for a badly needed pit stop, a lunch break, or even just to stretch their legs.

So here I was, giving directions to other people’s web sites, with no idea where the drivers might end up or even if they got lost along the way.

Besides the thought of creating my own web site intimidates me! All that technical stuff I don’t have a clue about. Then there’s the things that can easily go wrong in even trying to build my own site and all the delays that creates. I can feel a major headache coming on before I even begin. Plus I’m frequently plagued by a wild gang of computer gremlins, who delight in creating mischief for me and my computer, behind the scenes. They’re the biggest source of my frequent computer headaches!

But a Blog?!! Now that’s something I think I can handle. So here I am! I’ve written a few articles here and there. I know how to type! How hard can it be to type up some blog posts every once in awhile?

People talk about finding your “niche”, and now I can promote all kinds of things from my very own blog if I want to. I can promote some cool sites I’ve found helpful, some free ebooks I’ve read, some products other people have recommended that could even be the next big thing.

I can even promote my two cats, the weather, myself and a whole slew of other things, if I want to. It’s my blog, after all isn’t it? I should be able to promote whatever I want to promote. Talk about having a wide open niche? Hey, it works for me!

Well it seems my blog is located on a road that hardly anybody ever travels down at all. Maybe I should head out into the middle of this road I’m on, and try to flag somebody down, to get them to stop and look at the all the different things I'm promoting.

I’ve lost all track of time. Have I really been sitting here for hours? It seems more like days, maybe even weeks, and hardly any cars have driven by me, on this old deserted side road that my blog just happens to live on. Well so much for all the traffic I had hoped to get!

I’d still like to definitively know, if it is it an absolute requirement to have my own web site, when I’m promoting other people’s stuff? Does anyone have an answer to that question? I’m sure other inquiring newbie’s, would like to know that answer as well!

If you know the answer to that question, well you know where to find me. I’ll be sitting around, chilling out, losing track of time, waiting for an occasional car to come by me, on this not very well traveled road, that my blog and I now live on.

You Can Lead, But I Might Not Follow

Ok, I admit it! I’m new at all of this Internet Marketing thing. I’m still in the early stages of the learning curve phase. The web site that I joined, which is giving me the information how to do all of this, suggested that I place my promotional ads in free classified ad sites. Some of the sites even tracked my results.

Then I started getting a few inquiries. Someone is actually now asking about one of the ads that I’ve placed. How Exciting! The subject line of the email they sent me said something like “I saw your ad“,or “Question about your product?” I thought wow, now if only I can convince this person to buy it. I might actually make my first sale!

Then what do I discover when I open the email? It’s another affiliate marketer wanting me to look at his or her product, and they aren’t at all interested in mine.

It’s not nice to get a newbie’s hopes up like that, especially when the bill collectors are rapidly gaining on me! It’s not nice to get me all excited with those misleading subject lines.

You know darn well, I'm going to open that email when it looks like someone is interested in a product I'm promoting. What’s even worse is using your response to me, to promote your own stuff!

You know who you are! You’re probably the same people who keep leading on your significant other and never make a commitment!

Well congratulations! You’re now made it to the list of things that

Bug Me!

This Is Not A Scam!

TYPING FROM HOME

This site will give you extensive information on finding different ways to earn money typing from your home computer.

One area is Internet Marketing. They give you the companies to go to, where you can find all kinds of products to promote. Then they supply you with a listing of both free classified ad sites, and those you have to pay for, where you can submit your promo ads.

There are different sections, such as how to get paid to write articles, where to submit those articles, or how to earn money by blogging. There’s a list of companies that might hire you to do virtual or telecommuting work from home.

Each section gives you detailed step-by-step instructions. They provide screen shots and have email support available. Their responses to my email questions, have been made within a few hours, or by the next day. I’ve gotten ebooks, and software, included in the $49.95 fee that I paid, that I have downloaded that have been informative and/or timesaving.

Following the steps they listed led me to other sites, and other people who recommended other things, that I would never have known about. As someone new at trying Internet Marketing I wouldn’t have known what a safe list was, or where to find one, if it wasn’t for this site. While they don’t guarantee what kind of income you will make, the certainly do provide you with an extensive area of sources to seek out ways of earning money from your home computer.

Before I joined, I decided to email the company just to see if a person and not an auto responder would reply to me. Sure enough within a few hours someone did reply to me. I debated with myself for some time if I should spend that $49.95 or not.

What finally convinced me to join? Some people feel that anytime you have to pay money for any product or service that it must be a scam. Someone spent some amount of time and effort putting together that information you’re requesting. It makes sense that they won’t just give it to you for free! While more scams have certainly occurred because of the anonymity of the Internet, most of us don’t walk away feeling we’ve been scammed when we purchase an item from a store in the mall.

I recalled three other instances where I had paid money to join a site or to receive more information. I was even able to recently access one of the sites, even though I paid for it several years ago. It amazes me that I was actually able to find my User ID and password, that I had created back then.

The third site, I haven’t been able to locate on the web recently. Probably because they expected you to only promote their company. I of course, didn’t know that until after I had sent my money in. But even in that case, they gave me the information, they said they would give me. It just wasn’t a task well suited for me.

After recalling those other times I decided to take that leap of faith. The site tells you up front that this is not a get rich quick scheme. You’re not required to only promote this company, or even to promote it at all. But I’m sure they won’t mind if you do like it well enough to promote it, which is why I’m writing this blog post about it now. I like the site, I’m promoting the site!

With all the detailed information they’ve provided me, I feel it is well worth the money I’ve spent there. I like that someone is taking me by the hand and telling me: These are the steps you need to take. This is what the screen will look like when you get to this site. These are the things you'll need to fill in; these are the fields you can skip.

The Site is Scam X Certified, and they offer 100% money back guarantee, if you’re not satisfied with their product within 60 days of signing up. If you’re looking for a variety of ways, to work from you home computer, with each section giving you detailed step by step instructions, then I strongly recommend this site.

http://www.virallinktracker.com/vlt/links/4886

It Begins With Writing

For me it starts with the writing. I’ve been writing poems, short stories, and journaling at times for many years. In April of 2007, I joined an online writing site. This is the first time any of my writing went up for public viewing. Prior to that, it was only viewed by family and close friends, if they saw it at all.

At this site, I became more confident in my writing abilities. It offered me a wide range of topics to write about. I liked looking at different categories, and picking out a topic I wanted to write about. In school I got to write about one topic, and one topic only. And that was whatever the teacher decided that topic would be for the whole class.

But writing at this site, was like having a teacher giving me a choice of different topics to write about. I like having choices! I don’t have to worry about grades, like I did in school or getting it done by a specific deadline. That of course generated my own ideas of other things I thought I could write about.

Now I keep a list of those ideas that I want to write or blog about as they come to me. As a writer, I need to, no actually I have to write, (or type) those ideas down, in a long growing list in my Word Processor. If I don’t type it, save it, when it first occurs to me, chances are good it won’t stay in my memory for very long. Then later I’ll be kicking myself, thinking I wanted to write about a particular topic and now I can’t remember what it was.

Besides I’d much rather assign the task of remembering the things I want to write about to my computer. It puts much less strain on my all already overcrowded tired brain. My computer does it’s job faithfully and well. It never complains that I’ve giving it too much information or that I’ve overloaded its computer brain. It just calmly and quietly stores it away. Of course my computer also expects me to remember what specific file I stored my list in. That’s hard enough for me to recall let alone all the different possible writing topics, the list contains.

Having that list of topics that peaked my interest or curiousity in the past, gives me something to fall back on, when my writing ideas run dry. Somedays it’s hard to find a topic on my own that I want to write about. It's a back up plan when my creative muse calls in sick, takes an unscheduled day off or goes on vacation.

I got constructive feedback from other writers at that site, who seemed to like the things I wrote about, and my style of writing. It’s great to hear from someone I don’t know at all, telling me they laughed till they cried, when they read something I wrote that I hoped others would view as humorous.

I know I intended my article to be funny when I wrote it. But just because I think it’s amusing, sarcastic, tongue in cheek, or a thousand other ways to describe my writing, doesn’t mean my readers will see it that way. Feedback like that validates me. It makes me feel less alone.

It confirms that at least one person out in that big old world seems to agree with me. We both thought my article was humorous. Great minds do indeed think alike!

The members and the staff in the forum of this site, have been very helpful in answering my questions. I’ve been away from the site for awhile, as my knitting addiction seriously kicked in. I looked at all my different color yarn balls, and had to pick up my knitting needles. Now that I’ve completed my patchwork sweater, it’s back to writing again.

I miss that site. I miss my good online writing buddies. The site is growing, expanding, and always adding new things for the writers there. And they listen to the writers! We're free to share our thoughts, our suggestions in the Members Forum. It's also a great place to go when we just need to vent. They often change things to suit the writers based on the feedback we give them in the Members Forum.

So before I begin on any kind of blogging journey, the first place I feel I absolutely have to promote is this online writing site. That’s where I finally got my courage up to let my writing be viewed by the public eye. That for me, is where my new journey into blogging, and Internet Marketing, truly begins!