Sitting around last night doing what I do best – put off working on websites. Sure I had the laptop on but me and the desktop icons stared blankly at each other until I could no longer resist the urge to click on the little fox icon encircling the globe. It always looked to me like the globe rolled over the fox and he was mashed flat. I’m sure there is a more optimistic meaning that we are supposed to embrace.

Anyway, Yahoo Mail seemed like the best place to start as I resisted the urge to do anything meaningful. I opened up the Inbox and started clicking the little boxes to delete all the crap that I allow to collect for various stupid reasons. Offers for this or that. Newsletters for forgotten interests. Affiliate managers begging me to get to work and promote their crap. Jokes that have been passed around since ‘99. Etc.

Of course there were the requisite Internet Marketing offers for getting rich. Or successful. Or something. I noticed another ebook/course/membership or whatever it is they are pimping on how to plan, build and promote websites. And I considered this offer as I have others many times before it. I have bought maybe 10 or so ebooks that detail the authors plan to create online properties that will make you successful in Internet Marketing. I have read maybe 10 others that came as bonuses from this membership or that program I purchased. And none have really helped.

I thought about this ebook phenomenon. How there is so much hope each time we purchase one. You buy it and it doesn’t inspire you to do anything with it. Or you try the method and it doesn’t seem to work for you. You become more and more jaded each ebook you buy. You become embarrassed to admit that you bought just one more in the hopes that it would spark something in you. They are like crack. The salesletter makes you think that maybe this is the one. After about 10 or so you are simply done and feel like you have learned your lesson. Not how to be successful but simply that it’s far better to buy the dinner the salesletter said you could give up for the price of the ebook.

It’s the Yin and Yang of getting rich on the Internet. There are a lot of crappy ebooks floating out there. There are a ton of folks looking for a solution that just doesn’t exist. There are a lot good ideas yet plenty of lazy people.

It makes you feel bad to read an ebook and not make money the way it was represented. Maybe in a way you feel like a failure. People don’t talk about it. You hardly ever hear people admit they spent $47 on some technique and it went tits up on them. They just file the ebook away and write shitty blogs about how ebooks are ripoffs.

But who is the real failure? If a writer cannot reach the reader then they have failed. Of all the ebooks that have been written about building planning, building and promoting websites, why are people still struggling with the concept? Writers argue that readers are lazy and that they want to be spoonfed. So if you truly want to help people wouldn’t it be incumbent on you, the writer, to motivate these people, outside of the damn salesletter!?

There is a really great ebook that has yet to be written. One that doesn’t regurgitate 98% of what we’ve all known since 2005. One that actually disperses the remaining 2% that matters. One that motivates. One that teaches. One that feeds you every mouthful.

We will no doubt search for that ebook and feel like shit for doing so. Ebooks will come and go. Most we will simply let float on by. But there will always be that one that makes us think that this time will be different. It won’t be but we still hope.

I haven’t bought an ebook in over a year I don’t think. Probably longer. Those days are past. I make some money each month and it’s good enough (ADD continues to rule and things are scattered.) But every once in a while I hesitate before clicking the checkbox to delete an email wondering if that could be the one. Too cynical to think otherwise I click delete.

I have nothing concrete to post. But that is the beauty of having a blog that has little pressure to make money. I don’t care about PageRank, which BTW has gone from 4 to 2 (My irrelevancy knows no bounds). I don’t much care about keyword rich posts. I’m not concerned about having 10,000 readers for the purpose of putting them on a list. Since this blog has never been all that focused, it’s a good enough place to simply type what’s on the mind.

Bing. Still use it. Still love it. And apparently I’m not the only one. I’ve been hearing people promote it, word of mouth style, on TV. And now I am concerned a bit. I make money with Google. Will there ever be a point when Bing affects my Adsense earnings? Seems crazy right now. But stranger things have happened. People get tired of shit. They love things shiny and new. People know me as the “computer guy” around the ‘hood. I’ve got people tooling up asking if I’ve been to a site called Bing. Really? I look in my stats on some of my sites and I’m starting to pick up more and more Bing referrals. Maybe for advertising Adsense will become even more important (for Google) as people use other methods for search yet still click those shitty little ads.

And that’s another thing. I’ve still been using Twitter as a means to search too. I’ve mentioned that before but you can find out all kinds of up to the second information. Google? The hell is Google?

Some of you remember a guy named Griz. I think he’s gone feral. Haven’t heard from him in ages. He talked a while back about using Today.com as a place for links and to collect a few dollars. I signed up and started working a crappy little blog. It’s not much but I’m making about $1.50 a day there now. I send traffic from 4 Wordpress.com blogs, one Blogspot.com blog, one free hosted blog elsewhere, one self hosted blog and 5 Hubpages to my blog at Today.com. I update all the blogs about once a week, which basically involves adding a photo and a snarky comment. And the Hubpages actually make a few pennies every once in a while too. All but the Hubpages have a PR better than 2. Makes them useful for getting other sites indexed and popular.

I know some of you may scoff at $40 a month. I cashed 9 checks yesterday from various online affiliate programs. 8 were less than $60. It all adds up. Sure I’d love to make $700 a day in Adsense but that is just not happening. So I collect the scraps and piece them all together. My PayPal account is like a dividend program. A few times a week I’ll get a deposit here and a deposit there. Some for $20. Some for $300. It all adds up. Google is my biggest contributor but the scraps fill in the gaps nicely.

Blogprofitz has been a pleasant surprise. If you don’t have time to DIY with StoreStacker or need to offload some of the CPU cycles from your hosted account, then BP is a good solution. I haven’t yet made a million dollars pimping eBay and Amazon stuff but I have built a few huge sites and they are getting indexed. Every single post. BP is very easy to use. Good for those needing to add content to your site. RSS feeds, articles and products. Your blog comes alive.

I’ve been trying to get motivated to build a Hubpage a day. Many of you know about Court’s 100 hub challenge. He seems very successful with it. I’m not that successful. I get few Adsense clicks no matter how diligent I am with keyword research. But the thing is I am going to continue to work this. Why? Because I am sick of webhosts. I would love to have hundreds of Hubpages and/or Squidoo lenses that were bringing in $5K+ a month. Pipe dream? Waste of time? Maybe. But you have to try to succeed. Failure is just part of the deal.

Speaking of Court, I am still a member of the The Keyword Academy. The main reason is that they added 30 blogs that you can use to write something and splash your link on. It has actually made a difference to a couple of my sites. They require you write at least 125 words and only use one link back to your site. Knowing their prowess at SEO I can tell you at some point those links are going to be very powerful. 125 words. Surely you can cobble together 125 words in a coherent fashion 30 times in a rapid manner.

I think perhaps I am the only one I know that does not either have a smartphone or want one. I don’t get the allure. The last thing I want to do is talk on the phone. I have a cellphone that I bought for $15 on eBay that costs me $10 a month to make a call on. My daughter on the other hand is spoiled and has a smartphone that she can do texting unlimited and surf the Internet. She can listen to music and watch videos and play games on the thing. Whoopee. I don’t want to text people. I’d rather call. I’ve already said I don’t like to talk on the phone so there you go. Surfing the Internet on a 3-5 inch screen is retarded. I’d sooner buy a netbook and tote it around with me in the event I needed Internet access. Hell it’s cheaper. Why would I want to play a game on a little device? I have an XBOX at home that is fantastic. You can watch movies and TV shows on the thing? Wow! If I have to watch TV why would I want to hunch over a tiny little device to do it? Plus most of that shit you watch and play on the devices you have to purchase from an app store. More money flushed IMO. It has a camera? So what. I have a Canon that is smaller than the iPhone that is 10 megapixels and can do all sorts of different photos. Not to mention a dSLR. It has video? I use a Flip. Easy to use and offload video. I use it at my daughter’s softball games. But the phone combines it all. Yea and each feature is mediocre compared to a stand alone unit. I’m sure it’s cool and fun and you get used to the convenience factor. I simply do not want to be tethered all day long. Rim, Apple, Nokia, ATT and Verizon are sucking the life (and money) out of people.

I rode the Cherohala Challenge this past Saturday. It was a nice accomplishment. Long story short, it was hot, windy, I stupidly got dehydrated, my legs cramped badly the last 40 miles and was lucky to finish. We climbed the Dragon and we ascended the Cherohala Skyway. It was brutal. Next up: 6 Gap in the Georgia mountains in September. Can’t figure out how to make a trip to Texas to ride Hotter n Hell in August work out this year unfortunately.

Thanks for reading.

Hate it for you guys in North Carolina that are trying to make a buck with Amazon. Your state legislature is set to

enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates.

Amazon then scolds the affiliate for not taking action to contact the their representatives to put a stop to this crap:

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers’ finance committees. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.

TN did the right thing. I contacted my rep and let her have an earful that these types of tax schemes would hurt the state more than help. I would lose quite a lot of revenue if I wasn’t able to participate in affiliate marketing. I don’t make a lot from Amazon but if Amazon is pulling out so could others. They could either stop the tax scheme and benefit from me spending the money or we could both lose. More states than not have come to the conclusion that it was bad business if all these companies stop allowing their affiliates to participate in their program. The states either get a little bit or they get nothing. The government in N.C. must simply be stupid.

On the positive side states like N.C. just eliminated a bunch of competition for the benefit of me and my state of TN.

Here’s the thing: If you don’t start paying attention to the politics that is swirling around you, particularly given that many states are on the verge of bankruptcy, you are going to lose. Politicians listen if they are contacted. They crave re-election over anything. I don’t know if anyone raised the issue in N.C. but those affiliates should be protesting in the streets if they care enough.

Here is the link to the blog that posted this with tips for what you can do in the comments.