Making REAL Money Blog

Welcome to the February 24, 2008 edition of carnival of making real money. Well, this is the 14th carnival and I’ve presented the most interesting and most challenging of the entries this time: stuff to make you think. I’ve pared the original 62 articles to just 15 articles as I’ve removed duplicate submissions, resubmissions, blogs that don’t permit comments, republished articles, and junk to leave you with what I feel are the gems of the week. Remember: this carnival focuses on the knowledge, experience and skills to make REAL money; but we also apply our own critical values to examine what we read, and some of the articles are in that vein.

Blog of the Week

• Pat B. Doyle presents How To Make Money with Affiliate Programs posted at Pat B. Doyle. Pat has some interesting takes on common 'wisdom', it's worth checking out her blog. Seriously. The article is well-written and there's more good stuff with interesting references, too.

Inspirational Stuff

• Hill Robertson presents Work Smart So You Can Smell the Roses posted at Hill Robertson, saying, "It can be easy to get so caught up with being busy that we overlook the important things that are often right in front of our nose."

Hitting you in the wallet!

• KCLau presents How Recession Happens? 8 Tips to Prepare for it! posted at KCLau's Money Tips, saying, "Article discussing how one can salvage himself during times of a recession."
• Graham Bradlington presents Why You Shouldn’t Fall For The Freebies While Remortgaging posted at Quickly Finance News. Graham advises sensibly: "exercise a bit more self control and concentrate on finding the truth about the offered freebie deals"
• Shamelle presents Thinking About Money The Rich Dad, Poor Dad Way posted at Enhance Life. This is a usable summary of the main ideas, and will help you decide whether to buy the book or not.
• Mark Riffey presents Marketing opportunities: As perishable as lettuce. posted at Business is Personal. He examines how you can find opportunity when it seems there is none.

Investing

• LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS presents 10 Reasons Why Gold Should Break $1000 This Year posted at LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS, saying, "10 Reasons Why Gold Should Break $1000 This Year"
• The Investor presents How to buy and own pure gold with Bullion Vault posted at Monevator.com, saying, "Plenty of people are making money (or protecting their existing assets) by buying gold right now, but there's a lot of choice in how to do it. This article makes a case for directly buying and owning small portions of allocated gold, rather than using ETFs."
• Bobby Handzhiev presents The Basics of Domain Investing posted at The Shark Investor, saying, "General how-to make money with domains"

Online Success

• Rebecca Suzanne Dean presents Remember Your Emotions for Increased Sales Letter Pull posted at Rebecca Dean. She offers some advice on which emotions you need to include in your sales letters.
• Carol Bentley presents Yesterday?s blog-post was completely off-track posted at Carol Bentley in which she encourages us to "Getting the Right Appeal".
• Robert Phillips presents Are You Walking Over the Dollars to Get to the Dimes? posted at CYBERCA$HOLOGY. Robert presents a very interesting insight into AdSense, and a whole lot more.
• American Entrepreneur presents Managing Time to Build a Successful Home Based Business posted at American Entrepreneurship. The writer comments "...by putting the same effort into working a business as they spend searching for an opportunity to get rich without having to work, these individuals would likely become very successful."
• Brian Terry presents 17 essential big selling website strategies posted at Big Selling Website Design. He offers some great tips on strategies, DESPITE a very annoying Pop-Up, I'm still adding this.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of making real money using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Update: In an effort to create something more useful, I'm reducing the number of articles in each issue by providing as much variety of content. With so many articles on "making money online blogs", sales and letter writing, I'm now reducing the number presented to balance the other content. So make sure your writing is sharp and to the point if you want to submit!

Additional Notes on Submitting Articles

It seems that a number of people just don't bother to read the policy. Well, it doesn't matter. The policy is still enforced. If you have any questions, just see the most recent Carnival for what’s accepted. So hurry… get your submissions in! Check the Carnival of Making Real Money for current and complete guidelines.

• Your article must be original and previously unpublished in this carnival. One article per person/blog only. I like to maintain a variety of sources and topics. Additional articles may be resubmitted in the next edition. Multiple submissions to the same blog will be deleted, possibly including the first instance. So submit ONE article from one blog once only.
• No spam or articles that are pitching something for sale. This is not an advertising carnival.
• Please make sure that you aren’t posting irrelevant articles! Or if you think it’s relevant, or off-beat, highlight its relevance to this carnival.
• I’m definitely looking for articles that are readable, inspiring, and well-written for readers who may or may not have much investing or financial knowledge.
• Comments MUST be enabled on any post submitted to the carnival and registration must NOT be required: I’m hoping that we generate interest in the submissions and that traffic generates comments. Let’s not frustrate our readers.
• Additional reasons for not inclusion: popup windows, URLs that time-out, missing articles or moved pages, articles that make NO sense, any music/tracks/voice-overs that auto-play, etc.
• No particular topic will contain more than two or three entries in any one carnival.
• All editorial decisions are final. I will not answer questions about why a particular article was or was not included. If you didn’t get in, submit again for the next issue.

It would be nice if you acknowledge the blog carnival somewhere on your website… Anywhere, it doesn’t matter: in a post, in the post you submitted, in the blogroll, … etc.. or you can do a separate post when the post is published. This helps to drive traffic to the carnival, where people can find your posts!

Best Wishes
Kenneth from Carnival of Making REAL Money

Welcome to the February 15, 2008 edition of carnival of making real money. This edition has more articles than previous issues, there are some interesting posts!

I’m so glad that you have been enjoying the carnival. Do take a look at the 12th Carnival which was published last week. Sign up for our feed, too. You can hit our feed now, to do so.

And a new Blog of the Week on Investing in Real Estate. Enjoy! And keep warm on a cold Sunday! Hope it’s sunny where you are. And do leave comments on these articles, they’re all open for comments!

Blog of the Week

• Edith presents How to Get Started Investing in Real Estate posted at Stewart Hsu. Seems like the makings of a good blog there on real estate. He doesn’t post very often, but the blog is interesting.

Business Steals and Deals

• Successful Footsteps presents Do You Need a New Idea to be Successful? posted at Become Successful. Many new business or wanna-be business types stress out over the definition of ‘new’ forgetting that business creation is 99% evolution, 1% new.
• Hill Robertson presents Reasons to Build a Customer List posted at Hill Robertson, saying, “One of the most important things to be successful in any business is to have a customer list.”
• Woody Maxim presents Lessons Revealed from Day 1 posted at Woody Maxim. He provides three good points on maximizing your effectiveness in business.
• Jose DeJesus MD presents Checklists Can Improve Clinical and Business Processes posted at Physician Entrepreneur.
• James D. Brausch presents One Minute Marketing Research posted at Internet Business Blog. Good practical advice for the small entrepreneur or someone looking for a practical way to get started.
• Ryan Healy presents A Tale of One Client, Three Copywriters, and a Space Ad posted at Ryan M. Healy, saying, “How do you grow your business through advertising? Simple. Create a powerful ad and run it in the right publication. Unfortunately, this client hired three copywriters to write one ad… and then made a critical mistake.”
• American Entrepreneur presents Q & A: How to Keep Up With Small Business Growing Pains posted at American Small Business News. I don’t quite agree with some of the ideas, but it’s still worth reading.
• Joshua C. Karlin presents Powerful Yet Reasonable Goals posted at Marketing & Fundraising Ideas, and yet the example he provides in the essay suggests a different goal.
• Terry Dean presents How to Write a JV Email posted at Integrity Business Blog by Terry Dean.
• Warren Wong presents Why You Should Be Careful When Your Business Is Going Well posted at Personal Development for INTJs, saying, “Some reasons to be cautious when your business has been doing really well.” Some good advice especially about buying businesses!
• Derrick Markotter presents Long term vs short term goals posted at Online Business Blog. Derrick advises that business, especially online ones, don’t rely on just one primary source of income.

Investing

• Investing Angel presents How To Avoid A Stock Scam posted at Stock Tips, saying, “There are a lot of pundits out there that offer investing tips for a fee. While some of these investing services may be well worth the money, others are scams are certainly close to a scam.”
• FIRE Getters presents Investing – The Mistake Of Timing The Market posted at FIRE Finance, saying, “Have you ever wondered about the fact that even after a decade long relationship, sometimes it seems that we hardly know the other person! Sounds familiar isn’t it? If the behavior of a single human being can be so unpredictable then what is our take about the cumulative behavior of millions of investors all over the world? Our observation is that such behavior is utterly unpredictable and apparently irrational!”
• Jesse presents For the love of God, do not invest in forever stamps (top 5 reasons why not) posted at The Penny Saved, saying, “Advising against the investment in forever stamps”
• Babak presents Intermarket Analysis: Bonds Expensive, Stocks Cheap posted at Trader’s Narrative, saying, “Right now, the annual rate of change for 10 year bonds is very close to reaching the historic level that has marked a top for bonds (and a bottom for yields). Interestingly enough, each of those times was also a good time to not only sell (or sell short bonds) but also to be long stocks.”
• Ryan Healy presents Three Rules for Option Trading posted at A.J. Brown’s Options Trading Blog, saying, “There are very few “hard and fast” rules for trading options because the markets are so dynamic. But there are three rules that A.J. Brown follows religiously, and he shares them here.”
• Kenton Newby presents Focusing on Leverage posted at KentonNewby.com. He says that “…whole trading time for money thing is a bit ridiculous.”

Online Success

• Cocoy S. Rambuyon presents Non-Fiction Information Products Are Hot & Becoming Popular Choices Online posted at COCOY S. RAMBUYON. He’s a big booster of making information products.
• Ed Rivis presents Write Press Releases that Sizzle. posted at Ed Rivis. He suggests that using a press release for your business can successfully draw new visitors and customers.
• Frederic Patenaude presents How to Write eBooks in Your Spare Time posted at Frederic Patenaude Talks, saying, “If you have ever wanted to write your own ebook I suggest checking out this article that also has a free special report with it.”
• Kasumi Kitone presents How I Started To Make Money Online – Part 1 posted at Best Ways To Make Money Online, saying, “This is the story of my early online money making endeavors. Hopefully others can learn from my mistakes – or at least have a good laugh…”
• Praveen presents Minimalist Marketing posted at My Simple Trading System. Simply obvious: that’s all.
• Carol Bentley presents How appealing are you posted at Carol Bentley. Carol talks about ways to help your customer get what she wants.
• Mark Riffey presents Why, even now, your business should have a toll-free number posted at Business is Personal. It might be a good idea for your online business to invest in an 0800 number. Of course, that means you have to answer the phone, too.
• Jimmy Sansi presents Grow Your List Of Publishers posted at The Kaizen Business. Jimmy advises you to find as many publishers of quality as possible.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of making real money using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Additional Notes on Submitting Articles It seems that a number of people just don’t bother to read the policy. Well, it doesn’t matter. The policy is still enforced. If you have any questions, just see the most recent Carnival for what’s accepted. So hurry… get your submissions in! Check the Carnival of Making Real Money for current and complete guidelines.

• Your article must be original and previously unpublished in this carnival. One article per person/blog only. I like to maintain a variety of sources and topics. Additional articles may be resubmitted in the next edition. Multiple submissions to the same blog will be deleted, possibly including the first instance. So submit ONE article from one blog once only.
• No spam or articles that are pitching something for sale. This is not an advertising carnival.
• Please make sure that you aren’t posting irrelevant articles! Or if you think it’s relevant, or off-beat, highlight its relevance to this carnival.
• I’m definitely looking for articles that are readable, inspiring, and well-written for readers who may or may not have much investing or financial knowledge.
• Comments MUST be enabled on any post submitted to the carnival and registration must NOT be required: I’m hoping that we generate interest in the submissions and that traffic generates comments. Let’s not frustrate our readers.
• Additional reasons for not inclusion: popup windows, URLs that time-out, missing articles or moved pages, articles that make NO sense, any music/tracks/voice-overs that auto-play, etc.
• All editorial decisions are final. I will not answer questions about why a particular article was or was not included. If you didn’t get in, submit again for the next issue.

It would be nice if you acknowledge the blog carnival somewhere on your website… Anywhere, it doesn’t matter: in a post, in the post you submitted, in the blogroll, … etc.. or you can do a separate post when the post is published. This helps to drive traffic to the carnival, where people can find your posts!

Best Wishes
Kenneth
Carnival of Making REAL Money

Welcome to the February 10, 2008 edition of carnival of making real money. There are 22 fine articles for you to enjoy. Let me know which is your favorite!

Recommended

• Ed Rivis presents More Content = More Sales. posted at Ed Rivis. He comments on how websites tend to focus on the companies themselves rather than their customers. Websites that are only about the company tend to be very ego-centric, regarding customers almost as an inconvenience. Read it.
• Phillip Lyon presents Want to Make Real Money Investing With Play Money? posted at Intelligent Speculator, saying, “How would you like to make real money investing with play money? You can at UpDown.com. You get one million dollars in play money and you make real money by beating the return of the S&P 500.” This is a great way to learn about the markets and play with other people’s money!

The Plan

• InvestorBlogger presents A Man With A Plan: Ways to create additional income posted at InvestorBlogger , saying, “Everyone needs a plan: I have written ten different ways I’m planning to explore to create additional income.”
• Wenchypoo presents Do-It-Yourself Fair Tax Plan (Super L-O-N-G) posted at Wisdom From Wenchypoo’s Mental Wastebasket. This post explains why the rationale for a DIY fair tax is so compelling and so impossible.

In Business

• Colleen Palat presents Starting Your Own Online Tutoring Business Can Be Simple |Colleen Palat, saying, “Learn how to start your own online tutoring business while using online technology to help students succeed in school.”
• Mark Riffey presents Righting a wrong: How business owners show they give a rip.Business is Personal .
• Michel Fortin presents Give Your Joint-Venture Offer An Extra Punch posted at The Michel Fortin Blog. Michel points out some top-notch advice for those interested in JV partnerships.
• DotLobby presents What is a Recession? 4 Signs and Symptoms posted at DotMakeMoney, saying, “Of course, you probably could have looked that up yourself, so let’s look at the subject in a more “How does this affect me?” way…”

Investing

• LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS presents How Not To Bid On Prosper posted at LIVING OFF DIVIDENDS, saying, “Here are some obvious tips” and amusing ones at that!
• Ryan Healy presents Option Trading: Textbook Breakout Example posted at A.J. Brown’s Options Trading Blog, saying, “Recently, we witnessed the perfect breakout. One member confided that she had invested ~$15K and was walking away from the trade with over $60K+. This video explains what happened.”
• Investing Angel presents Understanding Margin Trading posted at Stock Tips, saying, “Almost all stock brokers offer margin trading, which is essentially borrowing money from them to purchase more stocks. Investors do not understand margin trading or whether or not it is good for them. Deciding whether or not to borrow on margin is a business decision like any other.”
• Ryan presents Catch a Falling Knife – Buying the Housing Slump posted at Building Millionaire Money Habits, saying, “Thanks for hosting the carnival. Here’s a summary of my post: For someone who has some extra cash they are anxious to invest, it’s tough to find a safe place to invest as the stock and real estate markets are taking a beating. Here’s a look at what the better investment is – stocks or real estate.”
• Jed Norwood presents Forex Tips and Market Strategies posted at Forex Strategy Secrets , saying, “Developing a sense for the forex market can only come with dedicated practice and time set apart for learning.”
• The Investor presents How to harvest wheat and mine gold using ETCs posted at Monevator.com, saying, “By buying commodities you can diversify your portfolio over the long-term so it’s less dependent on the returns from shares. You might also hope to trade commodities, if you think you can buy when they’re priced low and sell when they’re high. (Far easier said then done, and plenty of boys in braces will hire you if you manage it regularly).”
• KCLau presents Withdraw EPF Money for Home Loan Installment: How it affects your Retirement Fund posted at KCLau’s Money Tips, saying, “An article on using EPF money for financing a home loan in Malaysia.”
• Jonny99 presents a last minute addition called How to Buy Foreclosed Homes: A Quick Guide To Home Foreclosures posted at Smart Money Daily. He adds the following: “The reality is, because of the current housing slump and credit crisis, many more foreclosed and could soon be foreclosed houses are being sold at steeply discounted prices. And someone is going to buy them. If you are considering purchasing a foreclosed home there are some things that you should know.”

Online Success

• Ruchir presents Monetizing Your Blog: 9 Proven Money Makers posted at TechnoMoney. He finds nine ways that bloggers can and do make good money.
• Marcus Hochstadt presents 5 Key Steps To Internet Business Success posted at Marcus Hochstadt, saying, “So you want to be a successful Internet business entrepreneur? Do you know the steps to take in order to achieve your goals and success? Marcus Hochstadt has listed 5 key steps everyone should take when wanting to achieve Internet business success.”
• Dave Origano presents The Growth Stages Of My Online Business posted at Online Marketing & Exponential Business Growth Blog.
• Simonne presents AdSense Channels Tracking And Reporting: Case Study posted at EzMoneyOn.Net, saying, “Online success has a very important component: testing. You’ll see how tracking can increase your AdSense earnings for the same amount of traffic.”
• American Entrepreneur presents How to Start Your Own Freelance Writing BusinessAmerican Small Business News. This is a very practical way to get started, hone your craft and find out how to run this business.
• Stephen Dean presents B.S. Excuses For Not Using Scarcity In Your Sales Copy posted at Stephen Dean’s Copywriting And Internet Advertising Blog – Copywriter. Stephen suggests some good and bad ideas for implementing scarcity.

Good luck to…

• Derrick Markotter presents Time For A Change posted at Online Business Blog. I’m wishing him luck on his new adventure! He quit his job!

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of making real money using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Additional Notes on Submitting Articles It seems that a number of people just don’t bother to read the policy. Well, it doesn’t matter. The policy is still enforced. If you have any questions, just see the most recent Carnival for what’s accepted. So hurry… get your submissions in! Check the Carnival of Making Real Money for current and complete guidelines.

• Your article must be original and previously unpublished in this carnival. One article per person/blog only. I like to maintain variety of sources and topics. Additional articles may be resubmitted in the next edition. Multiple submissions to the same blog will be deleted, possibly including the first instance. So submit ONE article from one blog once only.
• No spam or articles that are pitching something for sale. This is not an advertising carnival.
• Please make sure that you aren’t posting irrelevant articles! Or if you think it’s relevant, or off-beat, highlight its relevance to this carnival.
• I’m definitely looking for articles that are readable, inspiring, and well-written for readers who may or may not have much investing or financial knowledge.
• Comments MUST be enabled on any post submitted to the carnival and registration must NOT be required: I’m hoping that we generate interest in the submissions and that traffic generates comments. Let’s not frustrate our readers.
• Additional reasons for not inclusion: popup windows, URLs that time-out, missing articles or moved pages, articles that make NO sense, any music/tracks/voice-overs that auto-play, etc.
• All editorial decisions are final. I will not answer questions about why a particular article was or was not included. If you didn’t get in, submit again for the next issue.

It would be nice if you acknowledge the blog carnival somewhere on your website… Anywhere, it doesn’t matter: in a post, in the post you submitted, in the blogroll, … etc.. or you can do a separate post when the post is published. This helps to drive traffic to the carnival, where people can find your posts!

Best Wishes
Kenneth

Carnival of Making REAL Money