John Dilbeck Musings

Over the last few days, there have been some big changes at Squidoo.com with the release of the new groups feature.

Now, your Squidoo lens is not a stand-alone page. You can join appropriate groups for cross promotion of similarly-themed lenses.

Don’t find a group you like? Start one of your own. Help all the members of your group find more readers and more success with Squidoo.

New Squidoo lenses

I just created a new Success With Blogging lens and I invite your feedback for resources that can be added to that lens.

New Squidoo groups

I have several lenses, websites, and forums related to North Carolina, so I created a new North Carolina Group and I invite you to add your lenses to this group as long as they relate primarily to a place, event, person, organization, or business that is in North Carolina.

I’ve never paid much attention to MySpace until the last couple of weeks.

When I looked at it last year, the people and their interests that I found there were not at all what I was interested in.

However, recently, there is a lot more business networking going on and I’ve started to invest some time there.

Come visit my MySpace John Dilbeck profile page.

If you have a MySpace account, come visit my page and - if you are interested - invite me to be your friend. If you don’t have already have an account, you can join for free.

From my page, you can link to some of the best online marketers I’ve been able to find and can expand your network as you want.

Some of the reasons I decided to invest some effort there is the built-in audience that numbers in the millions, good blogging tools, bulletins to keep in touch with friends and associates, the forums, and groups that you can start and moderate.

I’ve started new groups at:

Site Build It Webmasters

Success With Power Blog

Success With Affiliate Marketing

At the moment, I’m feeling rather lonely in these new groups and I hope you will join me there. I’m open to suggestions on how to make the groups better for all participants.

If you are going to use affiliate links, post it to your blog or profile page and link to it from the group forum. Please, do not post affiliate links in the forums.

I hope to see you there. Come be my MySpace friend!

The Power Blog is a brand new, hands-off, affiliate marketing service which combines the simplicity of dynamic internet marketing with the power of a search engine optimized blog needed to create a real profit pulling internet marketing campaign.

Join free or see all the benefits of pro membership.

After I discussed the idea with Peter Dobler, creator of the Power Blog, I set up a Success With Power Blog group on MySpace.

I’m inviting you to come and participate.

The more we discuss the Power Blog, the more we can succeed with it.

As long as I was promoting the Power Blog, I also created a lens at Squidoo, Success With Power Blog on Squidoo, to present it to new potential members.

I have a MySpace page, John Dilbeck, and I invite you to come view my profile.

I invite you to get a MySpace account if you don’t already have one. They’re free.

Sign in to your MySpace account and visit my profile page. Invite me to be your MySpace friend, if you want.

Then, come join the Success With Power Blog group and let’s spread the word.

Randy Burnett, non-partisan candidate for the Cherokee County NC School Board, has opened a new website that contains information about his platform, a survey, blog, photos, and other items of interest about the candidate and his campaign.

It is nice to see a candidate not only presenting information, but also inviting feedback.

Hopefully, other local candidates will create an online presence, as well.

If you know of any other 2006 election campaign websites for candidates in Cherokee County, NC, please leave a comment and I’ll point to them, too.

A few weeks ago, Melissa Fulwider asked if I would like to be interviewed and have the interview published on the AdlandPro community. Of course, I was flattered, and a bit puzzled as to why I was chosen.

She sent some questions and I took a bit of time to respond as well as I could.

I missed some of her follow-ups and left her hanging a couple of times until I could get back to my email and respond. (Thanks, Melissa, for understanding.)

I think she did an outstanding job of taking my scribblings and turning them into a coherent and interesting story.

You can read the interview on the Adland Forum or at TheWriteTimes.com.

In the future, the Adland interviews will also be seen on TheWriteTimes blog. A couple have been posted with more to come.

One of the great benefits of being interviewed by Melissa is meeting new people, making new friends, and getting so many compliments and good wishes.

I am humbled and grateful for the experience.

Why don’t you come on over and visit me at AdlandPro?

Don’t have an account? Register for free and start participating in this friendly and helpful community.

Scott Boulch, author of Death of Adsense has a new blog for discussing the ebook and topics related to it.

In his most recent post (as of this writing), Scott proclaims The last battle cry of the dying Adsense “Gurus”.

He makes some interesting points, and obviously has more experience than I with earning from Adsense.

If you want to follow this subject, his blog is the logical place to do so.

His follow-up book, Life After Adsense was supposed to have been released yesterday morning, but I haven’t had the time to download it, yet.

Scott sure has gotten a lot of attention with this, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

If you have been reading my blogs for any length of time, you are already aware that I am not one of those people who follow the latest fad or breathlessly tell you why you just have to purchase the next great whatchamacallit.

I’m not going to start now, either.

I’ve gotten several emails over the last couple of weeks about “The Death of Adsense,” and, since I earn enough from Adsense every month to cover my hosting and advertising expenses, I wondered what it was all about.

So, I downloaded the ebook and read it.

The author makes some good points, but I have no idea how it will all play out.

I’m not even going to try to tell you what he says in the ebook. You can download it yourself and get it “from the horse’s mouth.” It’s only 18 pages long and you should be able to read it in less than a half hour.

When you sign up to download the book, you become an affiliate, and for a limited time, he is paying affiliates a half-dollar for everyone who follows your link and downloads the book. Not bad, making fifty cents when someone downloads a free ebook.

However, that’s not why I’m telling you about this. If his analysis (or hypothesis) is correct, then you need to be aware of this if you depend upon Adsense for income.

I am not saying that Adsense is dead and I don’t fully agree with what he says in the ebook.

And, here’s the spoiler, the ebook ends just as he is about to tell you the alternative to Adsense. That’s why I haven’t been talking about this.

Today, however, he is supposed to release the second ebook that explains his alternative income system. Will it be worth the read? I don’t know.

I do know that, in the past, it looks to me as if he created websites that were designed to skim as much money from Adsense with as little work as possible, and I’m sure these sites were low-quality at best. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m assuming this is the case.

(You know what they say about assuming….)

Anyway, later today you may be able to get the “Life After Adsense” ebook. I’m sure there will be a lot of people trying to download it, so it may or may not be available.

I’m not going to recommend either ebook to you, but I will tell you how to get your own copy and decide for yourself.

I am a full-time affiliate marketer, but this time, I’m not going to use an affiliate link to send you to his site. I don’t want the 50 cents if you download the ebook, because I cannot truthfully tell you that I recommend the information contained in it.

So, buyer (or downloader) beware, use your discretion and think for yourself.

Am I going to download the “Life After Adsense” ebook to go along with the “Death of Adsense” ebook I downloaded a few days ago? Yes, I am.

Am I going to do what it says? I have no idea. I’m going to read it and think about it before doing anything.

What you do is up to you.

Here’s the site to go to: http://www.thedeathofadsense.com/

I have not seen a decline in my Adsense revenue, and I’m hoping it is because I do my best to build sites with the best content I can create. I try not to take any short-cuts and I’m willing to build my business using a slow and steady model - the tortoise approach rather than the rabbit approach.

Am I curious about what’s in “Life After Adsense?” Yes, I am. But, at this time, I don’t have any plans to change my business model or redo my marketing plan.

That may change tomorrow. Maybe, maybe not.

What do you think?

I’ve seen lots of websites and blogs about home business, and I just have to say that most of them do not impress me.

(I’m sure others have said that about what I write, too.)

I met Bryant Sandburg on Ryze.com when he offered his brand new blog for review.

We’ve had an exchange of messages and I get a very good feeling about him and what he has to say.

The blog is new, but shows real promise.

His article on Do affiliate programs work? covers the basics and offers some good advice, too.

I’ve just subscribed to his blog and you may want to go take a look, too.

Welcome, Bryant!

All the best,

JD

A Little About CafePress

I’m sure you know by now that you can get a free account at CafePress where you can upload your custom designs onto about 80 products - free.

You can open your own free or premium shop at CafePress.com and sell your own designs. Whether you want to sell t-shirts with slogans, your own original books or CDs, or clothing, mousepads, calendars, and other products with your own original art, you’ll find CafePress an easy way to set up your online store and let them take care of the printing, processing, shipping, and customer service — and send your royalty checks for the sales you make.

I’ve been a shopkeeper at CafePress since 2002 and I heartily recommend the company. I love getting emails telling me that I just made a sale and then, a few weeks later, getting my commission checks in the mail.

If you are serious about selling your products on CafePress, I seriously recommend that you get a premium store. You can create multiple sections and offer your designs on more products. It is much easier to manage a single premium store than multiple free ones. I know. I also know that I am making more sales from my premium store than I ever did from my free stores.

I invite you to visit my CafePress shop at Shirts-Mugs-Hats.com. You will find an eclectic collection of products with a variety of designs.

If I had known then what I know now, I would have opened several themed premium shops and I am thinking about doing that next year. It is much easier to market a themed collection because you can target your market much easier and it is easier to describe what you are selling. Each premium shop costs only $7 per month (less if you pay annually), and I’m earning enough that my shop is basically free, since it is paid for out of my commissions earned.

A Little About Squidoo

You may not have heard about Squidoo, but you will.

Squidoo is becoming very popular. In the few months since it was introduced, nearly 41,000 lenses have been built.

You can open a free account at Squidoo and create as many lenses as you want for free.

In fact, you may even earn money from your lenses. I’m getting small commission payments each month, and they are growing. You can, too.

CafePress and Squidoo Co-Branded Lenses

Now, for the news I just learned about a few hours ago.

CafePress shop owners can now create a new CafePress co-branded lens by going to the CafePress headquarters on Squidoo and following the directions. It looks to me as if you must create a new lens to participate in the joint venture, so, in addition to my Custom T-Shirts lens, I just created a cobranded lens at John Dilbeck’s Shirts, Mugs, and Hats Store at CafePress.

Why go to the extra effort?

I believe in promoting my efforts as widely and as often as possible, so a new lens that links to my CafePress shop can’t hurt - and neither can linking to it from other lenses, websites, blogs, and so forth.

Additionally, I don’t know how CafePress and Squidoo are promoting lenses created through the CafePress Squidoo headquarters, but I did see a link to my new lens and to my list of lenses on the CafePress headquarters. So, I’m getting some additional promotion, at least.

What I don’t like about it

There are many positives to selling your products on CafePress and creating lenses on Squidoo. I’ve mentioned some in this post, and I’ve talked about others previously in different locations.

I’ll stipulate it as a given that you should do this if you are selling any designs through CafePress.

But, all is not perfect with this solution.

For example, on my new lens, I just wasted over an hour trying to use the automated tools provided for picking products from a particular CafePress store, in this instance, mine.

I know I have a white tshirt that says “Because I’m the Mommy, That’s Why!” and I can find it in about a minute on my site.

But, when I tried searching for it using the promote a store part of the CafePress module, I could not find it. I know it is tagged with both “johndilbeck” and “mommy”, but it never showed up in the search.

I know I have many products with “USA” on them and I tried to find them using the search. I found many of my other USA flag wear products, but never did find the USA tshirt or sweatshirt.

So, I manually linked to them in the introduction of the lens and deleted the promote a store module. I’ll replace it later, when I have more time.

The CafePress affiliate program

Recently, CafePress introduced an affiliate program and it’s starting to pay off for me. In fact, I’m earning enough from the affiliate program that my premium shop is paid for through those commissions and I get to keep the commissions from all my product sales. I like that, and I’m eager to increase both income streams.

So, I’ll be doing some extra promotion over the next few months leading up to Christmas and the holiday shopping season.

I know I don’t produce the best products on CafePress. I do mostly styled text designs and lots of people don’t care for them. But, now, as an affiliate, I can recommend more topical designs, cute designs, artistic designs, and others that I like.

You can, too.

Unless you can drive a ton of targeted visitors to the site, you will not get rich, but you could make several hundred dollars through this affiliate program.

Here are some categories of products you can purchase at CafePress. Do your gift buying early and avoid the crowds!

• Politics
• Pets
• Dogs
• Humor
• Junior’s Gear
• Bumper Stickers
• Art and Photography
• Fantasy Art
• Military
• Geek
• Pop Culture

Something for everyone

CafePress offers millions of products from hundreds of thousands of designers, so there is probably something there for everyone.

Not only that, but creative and artistic people can sell their own designs, and everyone who is willing to exert the effort can recommend their favorite designs through the affiliate program.

We all prosper by helping each other promote and sell our products.

It’s great to see Squidoo and CafePress working together to help us in our efforts.

A week ago, I didn’t know who Kimberly Dawn Wells was, and now I’m running across her lenses and groups everywhere I look!

That’s a good thing.

About Kimberly Dawn Wells

Kimberly is very active on Squidoo, CafePress, MySpace, and probably other places, but I’ve been concentrating on those three for the last couple of days. She has an outstanding lens about herself on Squidoo and an equally impressive page about herself on MySpace.

Activities on Squidoo

Kimberly is a Citizen Squid at Squidoo and has been creating groups on Squidoo to make it easier for lensmasters to group a bunch of lenses together on a common topic. While this is a pre-release feature at the moment, it looks like it won’t be too much longer before it becomes at least a beta release.

I’ve added a couple of my lenses to the Country Music Fan and Totally Awesome Tees groups, and I’ll be participating in more groups as they become available. I think this is going to be a very important addition to Squidoo.

She offers helpful advice

Kimberly is very helpful and offers her advice on a number of topics.

For example, she offers some very helpful tips on her MySpace Made Easy lens to help us improve our experiences at MySpace.

Activities on MySpace

Kimberly has several groups at MySpace, including Success with Squidoo and Success with CafePress. Groups on MySpace include the ability to discuss topics of interest on forums associated with the group and the optional ability to post bulletins which seem to be used to post news or ads.

I’m new to MySpace, so my limited knowledge of the community may not allow me to fully appreciate the nuances of membership and participation there. I’m open to being educated on the subject.

I created two groups at MySpace for Murphy NC Business and Site Build It Webmasters, which was an outgrowth of my Site Build It lens at Squidoo.

Free to participate

You can participate free at Squidoo and MySpace and I think both are great places to create content and tell about your activities and interests.

On MySpace, this is done through conversations on the forums, posting of bulletins, blogging, and leaving comments on your friends’ pages.

On Squidoo, you participate by creating lenses (one page keyword focused pages with out-pointing links) and joining the groups as they become available.

Both of these sites work well with other communities where I participate, including Ryze.com, PowerfulIntentions.com, AdlandPro.com, MySpace.com, and others.

I look forward to meeting you on one or more of these communities.

Feel free to tell me what you think. Correct me where I’m wrong and educate me where I’m ignorant.