The Best of The Year...

Since the end of the year is approaching, I thought that maybe it would be nice to end it with a sort of “best of” of blog posts. This post will be a trip down memory lane as I go over some of my best posts of the year. I hope you enjoy and that you stick around to see what I have in store for 2011!

For the writers out there, I wrote a post back in April about eHow switching to Demand Studios and hubpages being the new eHow. I’m still writing for them and am enjoying it. They have made it easy to add amazon products and links to your articles. http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/2010/04/goodbye-ehow-hello-hubpages.html

Suite 101. This is a post about writing for Suite 101. So far, I am having some good luck with them and have made payout for the past few months. I’m sure with every article I add, I will also add to my earnings. http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/2010/05/suite101-for-writers.html

This is a post I wrote back in June on various ways to promote your articles, blogs, and websites. Lots of great marketing information here. http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/2010/06/promoting-your-articles-or-blog.html

For those of you who use Twitter, this post has information on ways that you can make money via your twitter account. These are legit ways that won’t just waste your time. http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/2010/10/making-money-with-twitter-is-it.html

This post from back in August gives information on how you can offer various services online to earn money. These are tried and true websites that you can really earn from.  http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/2010/08/offer-your-services-for-few-bux.html

For those of you looking to network with other freelancers, offer your services, or find new clients, this post gives you the lowdown on doing this. http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/2010/08/networking-with-potential.html

Lots of Free Stuff!

Who doesn’t like free stuff? I happen to love getting free items because they are, well, free! Some of the freebies I receive come in very handy and every little bit helps especially when you are working from home or trying to save as much $$ as possible for the holidays.

I get free stuff in the mail all the time. I’ve received free shampoo, conditioner, tampons, a keychain, a mop, snack food, dog food, cat food, post it notes, calendars, scrapbooking supplies, coloring books and the list could go on and on. Don’t believe that anything is free? Believe it!

How do I get all of this free stuff? Well, for one, I sign up for samples. Companies love to give out samples of new products. I guess they figure it’s a great way to introduce potential customers to their new products. Most likely, if the person likes the product, they will buy more when the sample is gone. It really works, too, because there have been quite a few things that I’ve purchased after receiving a sample in the mail. 

Walmart.com has various samples on their website. All you have to do is sign up and you will receive the product in a few weeks.

Another website that I absolutely love is freebiesgalaxy.com. You can sign up for their newsletter and they will send you a list of freebies straight to your email. All you have to do is choose which ones you want to sign up for.

I’ve received a few free products to review in this blog. Companies are willing to send a free product out to bloggers of their choice for the blogger to review the product on their blog and hopefully send more customers their way. I use tomoson.com and sheblogs.org. Bzzagent is another review website where you can get free products and “buzz” about them on various places like facebook, twitter, and in blogs. As long as you follow through with your reviews and buzzes, you will continue to get free items.

When signing up for freebies, you should always make sure to use an email that you don’t use much, otherwise you will receive a lot of junk mail. Remember you can always go in and unsubscribe yourself from these websites so that you won’t receive their spam. Some places will send you a confirmation email so make sure to check your email once in awhile so that you don’t miss out on any cool freebies!!

Week Long Blog Hop!!!

I'm hosting my very first week long blog hop! This hop will be up for one entire week! If this week long hop is successful, I will do it once a month.

RULES: I have no rules. I hate having to follow rules just to join someone else's hop. I don't have time to go here and go there and do all of this time consuming crap just to join your hop, so this hop has no rules. I only *ask* that you follow this blog out of appreciation. You can also grab the button and put it on your page if you wish.

This hop will start at 12 noon est today.

<a href="http://crazedmama.blogspot.com/”" target="_blank"><img alt="" src="http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y221/TatteredSoul/bloghop.jpg"/></a>

And you're off....

Do You Love To Scrapbook or Get a Little Crafty??

Being a mother, I love to scrapbook and make greeting cards. My biggest problem is finding the time to do these hobbies, as they are just that; hobbies -- not a must do on my list. I was lucky enough to receive these wonderful items to try out. I was sooo happy when I received this package in the mail, and it gave me a good reason to spend a day scrapbooking and trying them all out!

The decorative scissors I absolutely loved. I have purchased cheaper versions in the past and they ended up being a big nuisance because they would sometimes bend the paper instead of cutting all of the way through. These x-acto scissors were a little longer than the ones I’ve had in the past and they actually cut all the way through the paper the entire length of the scissors.

The craft bond glue spots were almost a little TWO sticky. I think the adhesive could come down a notch just a little bit. They were a little difficult to use. For best results, if you need to cut them down to size, do it with the backing still intact.

The corner punch works great. I’ve been wanting to get a rounded corner punch for awhile, but hadn’t dont it yet. I’ve tried some before where they would cut a little crooked. This corner punch from x-acto made perfectly rounded corners on paper or photographs and it is light weight unlike some punches that always seemed a bit heavy, plus it was super easy to use.

The liquid glue pen is a great idea, but my problem with it is that the plastic on the “pen” seems to be a little too thick making it a bit difficult to squeeze. It is still usable, but kind of a pain to use, however I do like the two different sized tips on each end of the pen.

The tape runner was a real problem. I think it had the same problem as the glue spots -- the adhesive was too strong. I couldn't use it. The tape part of it wouldn't roll and the wheel wouldn't even turn. It was as if the adhesive was so sticky it was all sticking together! Maybe I just got a defective one? I played around with it for quite awhile until I finally got mad and gave up.

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I received free samples of the above elmer’s products through my membership with bzzagent.

Making Money With Twitter.. Is It Possible?

Ok, so most people have a Twitter account these days, right? I've had one for awhile now and I know there are lots of advertisements for earning money with your twitter account. It's difficult to know which ones are legit and which ones are just time wasters. I've been using a couple of these twitter money makers for a few months now and have had a positive experience.

First, is MyLikes . Fill out your profile information and just wait for the offers to come. If an advertiser specifically wants to work with you, you will get an email alerting you and you will have a choice to accept the offer or decline. Sometimes the tweets are pre-written for you so that all you have to do is approve them to be posted to your twitter account, or you can write your own if you think you can catch more attention. You get paid for every click the tweet gets and it will be re-tweeted multiple times for you if you allow it. You can also link it to your facebook profile and have the advertisements go out to your facebook friends as well. Even when you don't get the emails, you can log in to your account and see if any opportunities are available for you and choose the ones that you wish to advertise.

SponsoredTweets works much the same way, except you may need to log into your account more often to look for opportunities instead of just wait around for their emails. You fill out ten keywords and you will be able to choose which campaign you would like to work with.

Both of these only take a few minutes to do and I have earned money with them myself!

All of my tweets are not advertisements, just so you know, and if you would like to follow me, here is a link to my twitter page.

Sponsored Tweets works the same way.

Libman Freedom Mop is a life saver!

I live in a house that has hard wood floors in every room downstairs. I love the floors, but hate cleaning them. It’s always such a hassle to have to lug around a bucket of water to mop with and then dump the dirty water out. I’ve tried the other mops with the changeable pads on them but I thought they were a pain to have to stop and change or they were always coming off while I was mopping.

I tried the new Libman Freedom Spray Mop and I absolutely love it!! First of all, it has a little bottle compartment that you can fill up with your own cleaning solution; it can be just plain water or a mixture of cleaning chemicals. The little bottle just snaps in and out to fill up. The head of the mop has a removable microfiber pad cover that is velcroed on so that it doesn’t come off while you are mopping, and you can remove it, wash it out, and reuse it over 50 times. It washes out really easily, too. The mop head swivels and moves to go in any direction you want it to which makes it super easy to get under and around things or to mop against a wall.

You can spray your solution wherever you want it to go in front of the mop with the trigger sprayer so that you don’t have to carry around a bucket or a spray bottle.

This is the perfect mop for me. I have 3 kids and when things accidently get spilled on the floor, I can just grab the mop, spray, and mop it up. It’s so easy and has made mopping up messes a lot easier on me and my back!

This mop typically goes for around $19 - $24.99 in the store. It comes fully assembled and you can have peace of mind knowing that it is made in a family owned company in Illinois.

If you are on facebook, go to their page and “like” them and let them know that you heard about them from me!

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Libman sent me a free freedom mop as a member of Mom Bloggers Club for review in this blog.

Flashlight/Keychain Review

I received a cute little flashlight keychain in the mail a few weeks ago. I would have written this review sooner, but I had a death in the family. I've been wanting to get a flashlight keychain for awhile now, especially since I go to college in the evening and it is typically dark when I walk through the parking lot. This is an LED flashlight that is extra bright and comes in super handy when trying to see your way through the dark or find a key hole in the night time. It also includes a red laser pointer which is nice to have, but honestly, who uses laser pointers? Unless you give lectures and need to point to something, is it really a necessity? Don't get me wrong, my cats love to chase the pointer around the room, but to me, personally, it is not an important aspect of the flashlight.

I have two complaints about the flashlight. First of all, when I got the flashlight, I thought it didn't work because it would not turn on. There was a piece of paper in between the two small batteries which I'm assuming was put there so that the light didn't come on on its own? It would have just been nice if they would have sent a small note explaining about that tiny piece of paper so that I didn't think I got a junk flashlight keychain! Also, the flashlight comes on very easily. It seems to come on a lot when I'm not using it or even using my keys. My kids will start yelling, "Your light is on!". Maybe the button is a bit too sensitive? That's a good way to run down the battery that way. Luckily, the LED light is supposed to have a 100,000 hour life span!

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*This product was sent to me for review purposes. This is my 100% honest review of the product.

This Product Was a Free Giveaway

A Little Time Off

Just wanted to let everyone know that I may not be posting here for awhile. I've had a death in the family and am  dealing with much of the funeral arrangements on top of having to finish my last class at school this week, and grieving. I will be back soon.

Guest Post: Taking the Risk

Guest post by Penny M. Loretto.

I currently have three jobs and two of them involve working from home. I thoroughly enjoy my regular 9 – 5 job working in academia; but I must say that the enjoyment I get from working at my own business and writing from home really excite me in a totally different way. I also find that my at home jobs offer me a new and exciting way to hone in on my creativity. First off, I created my own business from home where I offer career counseling to individuals interested in career planning or transition.  Secondly, I write for About.com, an affiliate of the New York Times, where I create blogs and articles on the topic of internships.

It was by taking the risk to start my own business that got me where I am today.  It was through my own personal interest, researching, and networking that landed me my writing job with About.com.  I had been looking for alternative ways to make some additional money from home, and I can’t explain how exciting it has been doing the work that I do.  There’s also a sense of pride that comes along with establishing yourself as an expert in your field and finding yourself in a position where you have no accountability to anyone but yourself.  Many people ask if it’s easier working from home each day than driving to a job that offers no flexibility with your time. I suggest that people interested in working from home, must have the ability to be extremely disciplined and motivated, and either possess or take the time to learn some excellent time management skills in order to be successful. 

Although many individuals think that working from home offers complete freedom and flexibility, I find myself often working overtime and have to be disciplined enough to carve out time for relaxation because I’m so into what I’m doing.  Almost anyone who possesses a specific skill, product, or service to sell can enjoy a decent income by working from home if they have the motivation and discipline it takes to become successful.  There are also many companies who now offer the flexibility to their employees to do some or all of their work from home.  If you keep your eyes open and research and speak to as many people as possible, you’ll be sure to come across the right opportunity for you.  Many people who started working from home part-time, have found themselves successful enough to turn it into a full-time job.   

Career Choice

About.com

Offer Your Services for a Few Bux!

A few months ago, I posted about fiverr where you can earn $5 for various services of your choice. I have had some luck with fiverr so far. I've been paid to do a few reviews on this blog, and a few other gigs as well. They changed their policy so that there is no payout minimum and you can cash out whenever you like.

There are a few other websites like this that I've found. TenBux works the same as fivver, except that you can offer services for both $5 or $10. Their minimum amount is only $8 and you get paid via paypal. For every $5 gig you do, they take .50, and $1 for every $10 gig.

Buxerr works the same way as TenBux, and the minimum cash out amount is $4. They do take 20% of each gig.

GigMe5 lets you offer services for $5, $10, $20 and $50. You do have a 14 day wait for the funds to clear before you can withdraw them and there is a minimum of $30 before you can cash out.

If you think about it, you can post all kinds of services or "gigs" on each one of these websites. It certainly can't hurt and you just might make some money along the way!

Interested in Guest Posting?

I would like to work with some other writers and have some guest posts on this blog. I would like the post(s) to be anything to do with working from home, whether it be tips for working from home, ideas for making money from home, or explaining how you, yourself work from home. I can't pay you, however it will give you a little bit of free publicity. I promote this blog on various places such as facebook, twitter and other blog networking communities.

If you are interested, please email me (contact information is at the top, or there is an email icon on the left hand side), tell me your ideas for a post and send me a link to your blog if you have one. I am looking forward to hearing from some of you soon!

Review of Kitchen Cabinet Kings

Since many of my readers work from home, I'm sure most of you like to work in a home that you enjoy and can be proud of. One of the most difficult things about owning your own home is having the responsibility of keeping things up to date and remodeling when the house needs it.

One of my favorite rooms in my house is the kitchen, however, it's time for a new look and there are so many varities of cabinets to choose from. Kitchencabinetkings.com is a great website that sells both kitchen and bathroom cabinets. If you are curious about the differences between the different textures and styles of cabinets, they offer an educational section to explain all of this for you.

They will even design the layout of your kitchen for you if you are building a new house, this way they can work with you and find out what style would work best for you.

The best part about kitchencabinetkings is that they offer their products at wholesale prices, so they are most likely a lot cheaper than what you could find in your local home improvement store. Once the orders are placed, they ship immediately, so there is not much waiting.

Shutterfly Winners!

The winners for the Shutterfly greeting cards are:

Denise

and

Deeba 

I really couldn't believe what a small amount of entries I had with this giveaway. I had over 100 views just from my Twitter account to the giveaway post and only a couple of people entered? I mean, seriously, do people not like free stuff? Plus, I made it super easy for people to enter, wasn't like a lot of other giveaways where you gotta go here and do this and do that. All you had to do was leave a comment with your email! Oh well, guess that was lucky for Denise and Deeba! Congrats you two and enjoy your cards!

*Special thanks to Shutterfly for sponsoring the giveaway!

Networking with Potential Clients...LinkedIn

Have many of you heard of Linked in? I had heard of it, but didn't really know what it was about until just a few weeks ago. Linked in is sort of like a social networking website, but it's for both employers/clients and freelancers/professionals looking for work. Your profile consists of your work history, education and resume information. You can advertise what skills you have and what sort of job you are looking for whether it be graphic design, freelance writing, photography, anything you like. You network with others, meet new people, join groups where you can come together with possible job opportunities and get advice from others.

This is my Linked in page. Feel free to look it over and add me to your network if you decide to join or if you already have an account. You can also add your blog feed to your page and portfolios of your work. I'm still pretty new to Linked in, but it looks to have a lot of potential so far.

If you have had any luck with Linked in, feel free to leave a comment and tell us about it and offer some advice.

Do You Host Giveaways??

For those of you who host giveaways on your blog or website and don't get a lot of entries, I wanted to mention Giveaway Scout. You submit your giveaway to them and they send the information out through various places such as twitter and facebook. They will also scan your blog automatically looking for any new giveaways that you may have. It's a great way to get more entries and more traffic to your blogs!

They also have this great widget that you can put on your blog showcasing some of the giveaways that are out there!

Resume Writing Help

Having a well written resume is one of the most important things you can have when looking for a job. Many online jobs even require an application and uploaded resume before you are approved to work for them because they want to ensure that you have the skills that they are looking for.

I'm finishing up my first year of college (yeah, I'm a little late on the college thing, lol), and I was very surprised when I studied resume writing in my business communications class. I was taught in high school how to write a nice resume but things have really changed over the past few (or more) years. The way resumes look now is completely different to how they looked when I first started job hunting.

A resume is typically the first thing a potential employer sees from you, so you want your resume to stick out above the rest and really grab their attention. For those of you who have been out of the loop for a few years, there is a website to help you with your resume writing. This website helps you learn how to write that perfect resume, so that you can land that dream job. They tell you what things that you should put on your resume, how to tailor your resume for a specific occupation, how to use power words, and how to write the perfect resume objective. All of this information is provided to you for free, so you really can't go wrong. Have a look-see if you are wanting to update your resume. Resume Dictionary

Winner of the custom window cling is......

And the winner of the custom 18 x 24 window cling is:

Rachel Higgs! 

Be sure to stop by her blog Texas Kitchen and congratulate her!!

I loved reading all of the great ideas many of you had for the window cling. Unfortunately, I did have to leave a few of you out of the drawing because you didn't leave your email address as I requested, but thanks to everyone for entering and keep coming back for your chance to win some of our upcoming giveaways.

Don't worry, this blog is not going to be overtaken by giveaways, I still have lots of money making opportunities for you coming up soon.

Shutterfly Greeting Cards and Giveaway!

I love cards. I love making cards, sending cards and receiving cards. The best thing about cards is that there are numerous occasions that cards can be used for. I just found out that Shutterfly offers custom cards that you can make using your own photographs. You can have custom Birthday Party Invitations that have your child's photo on the front or customized Thank You Cards to send out after the party.

There are a lot of great ideas for cards you can make at Shutterfly. I really like the Baby Announcements cards. What better way to announce the birth of your new child than to send out announcement cards with your baby’s photo on it?

Apart from greeting cards, you can also order custom calendars using your own photographs for all of the months. These would make great Christmas gifts for my family. I also love the photo books that they offer; they look like books you purchase in a store but the pages in the book are your photos. It’s not a scrapbook, it’s an actual book, how cool is that??

You can also store your photographs on their website and they make it very easy for you to order custom products from them.

Shutterfly is helping me out by offering three of my readers special promo codes so that you can try their photo cards out for free! Interested? Leave me a comment telling me what kind of cards you would order, along with your email address. Be sure to leave me your email address, I will not search for it.

Deadline: August 8, 2010

*Shutterfly has offered free product samples for me to review and post about their website on this blog.

First payment from Suite 101!

Yes, I am so excited to announce that I got my first payment from Suite 101! I didn't think I would make payout this quickly as I've heard others say that it takes a long time unless you can put a lot of effort into it. I just had to share this though. I made my first payout with only 12 articles. I've heard from other suite writers that once you make your first payout, it gets easier and bigger from there on. Anyone else having luck with suite 101? Any suite 101 writers like to share advice or information on how to write successful articles? I'm all ears!

Giveaway: Free Custom Window Cling!

I'm having another contest and hope all of my readers enter for their chance to win!

You can enter to win an 18 x 24 custom window cling!


Think about it. A custom window cling could be great for advertising your website and/or business or maybe you just want to have some special saying on it. You could have anything put on this window cling!

To Enter:

Leave me a comment and tell me what you would have put on the window cling if you won. Don't forget to leave me your email (even if you have to scatter it a bit such as writing in the words "at"  or "dot" ...etc.). If you don't give your email address, you will not be entered into the contest. It would also be great if you could follow this blog as well, but it's not a rule.

RULES
Must be 18 years old
Must be a resident of the United States

DEADLINE
July 25, 2010



(giveaway sponsored by Uprinting, one of the best printing companies around. Check them out for all of your custom window clings!)

Is Twitter Worth Your Time?

I've read a lot of conflicting opinions on the use of Twitter to promote a blog or website. Many people believe that posting links on twitter is just a waste of time. While it's true that a lot of people use twitter to spam tweets, I want to share with you the statistics from my personal twitter account. I use a website called socialoomph which allows you to schedule tweets to be sent out to your twitter account throughout the day. I use it to promote my blog posts and the articles that I write. I also tweet about other interesting articles that I find. I don't spam other tweeters by sending out mass amounts of tweets every day, I just do advertising every few days while throwing in some personal tweets as well or some quotes that I like. Socialoomph allows me to track my links and see how many people clicked on the links that I tweeted. Here are a few of the stats:

Hub Pages Article: Promoting Your Business With Social Networking Websites: 31 hits
This Blog: 45 hits
Hub Pages: Training Your Pit Bull: 24 hits
Hub Pages: What To Expect When Getting A Tattoo: 27 hits
Cedar Point Amusement Park Article: 24 hits
The Benefits of Legalizing Marijuana: 24 hits

These are only a few links that I have posted on Twitter. They may not look like a lot at first glance, but add them up and they can add quite a bit to your readership with time.

It is really up to you whether or not you want to try your luck with Twitter. I will continue to use it because I believe it has given me a lot of quality hits. When people click on a twitter link, they are doing it because they want to and they are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

Anyone else had any luck with Twitter?

My Twitter Account

My First Blog Hop! Come and Join!!

Ok, this is my first every Blog Hop! This can be fun and is very easy to join in the fun!

1. Add your link to the list, then go to other blogs that are listed and follow their blog.
2. Leave a comment letting them know that you followed them and they should follow you back in return! 
3. When someone leaves you a comment telling you that they have followed you from the list, do the right thing and follow them back.

This can get you a lot of new visitors and help your follower count to increase! Let's get this going!!!!

4 Effective Marketing Strategies

Making an effective marketing message is a skill that needs to be learned and mastered. Here are four ways of being able to master this skill: provide comprehension; make a connection; establish credibility; and, develop contagiousness.

Many times you wondered how is it possible for other speakers or writers to catch the attention of their listeners or their readers for that matter. When you are marketing a product or service, you would absolutely want to have the same capacity of drawing people's concentration on your words to make a sale or close a deal. How to do it effectively is the big question. Here are ways you can follow to be able to improve and become a proficient marketing communications writer:

Provide comprehension

Your primary goal in writing a marketing message is to be able to provide the listening or reading public to fully comprehend your point. One way of finding out that they are able to understand you is when they are able to play back or reiterate what you said. You can ensure proper comprehension from your audience by making sure that your message is clear as well as sharp. Another tip is to keep your message simple. Don't go for words and phrases that are too deep that they sometimes confuse your readers or listeners.

Make a connection

You need to make a connection. Making a connection would not only mean being able to send your message across. Rather is it being able to impart your message with the ability to give meaning and significance of this message to your audience. Your message should be able to trigger emotional responses like anger, happiness, excitement, etc. It is a necessity to bring out the spark of interest in every audience that will drive them to action.

Establish credibility

Credibility is a very critical aspect both in communicating and marketing. You may be able to provide comprehension and even make a connection, yet, your audience may simply turn away from your message soon. This is because they don't find certain things credible. Credibility springs from your capacity to make your listeners or readers believe in what you said or in what you wrote. Making them believe your marketing message would depend on these three issues: who is saying or writing the message, what is the message, and how the message was conveyed.

Develop contagiousness

Contagiousness is a very important thing. When making a marketing message, aim for contagiousness. Don't just aim for understanding and connection from your audience. Instead, aim of spreading and echoing your message. Allow your audience to repeat, spread, reenact your words.

Applying these 4C's of communication every time you make a marketing message will eventually make you a good marketing communications writer.

What Would You Do For $5??

Fiverr sounds like so much fun and I wish I had the time to do this. You simply place an advertisement for whatever product or service you have to offer for $5.00. It can be something simple, perhaps an advertising spot on your blog or website for a week. Maybe you do some sort of small craft or simply send a post card to the person from your city or state. Some people offer to advertise for others using their twitter account, doing a simple graphic design, placing a phone call to someone, the possibilities are endless, as long as they are legal.

From reading through the FAQs, the website does take $1 out of each fiver you make, but this could really add up if you have something to offer that a lot of people may want. You will get paid through paypal and your name will remain anonymous to the person you are selling the product or service to.

With a good imagination, I'm sure someone could make a decent amount of money. Give it a try and tell us what you think of if you are already using it, leave a comment and tell us how it is working for you!

Fiverr

Promoting Your Articles or Blog

If you are just getting into the world of writing, you may be wondering how to promote your articles so that you get more hits. More hits typically equal more adsense revenue! I’m going to tell you a few ways that I am using to promote my articles on hubpages and suite101. You can use these for any kind of article, blog or website that you are promoting.

Twitter is a great place to promote your articles, especially if you have a decent amount of followers. Make your tweet interesting and attention grabbing so that your followers will want to have a look-see.

Facebook and myspace and other social networking sites are also great places to promote your articles. Your friends may be interested in just seeing what you are writing about, while others may honestly be interested in your article title. Either way, it’s a win/win situation and more hits for you!

Digg and Stumbleupon are also good tools for promoting your articles. It’s so simple to submit your article. Your article then goes into a database where other members can find it, or see the article title when they log into their account. I get quite a few hits from stumbleupon.

Shetoldme.com is fairly new, but it’s another great database to add your website or article to. It is new, but seems to be growing and growing.

Flixya.com is another website I currently use. It is sort of like a social networking site, however, you can upload your own photos and videos and receive adsense revenue straight to your adsense account. You can also use it to promote your articles by posting blogs every so often. I do it by writing a little bit on the subject and then adding a link to the website. Just be careful not to blog a bunch of posts all going to the same website as I’ve heard they will shut down your account for spamming. Here is my flixya page:

Finally, one of the best ways to get views to your articles is to submit them to major search engines like google and yahoo. Simply go to the search bar and type in: “submit to google” and you should find a link for submitting your website. All you do is paste in the link and it’s done! It may take a few weeks for your website to be recognized but patience is a virtue. I’ve gotten quite a few hits from the major search engines. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to pay to submit your website or articles to search engines, you can do it yourself in just a few minutes.

Feel free to friend me on any of these websites. Send me a message to let me know that you came from my blog and maybe we can trade stumbles or diggs or likes.. Or whatever.

Congrats to Tammy, our contest winner!

Tammy from Mandatory Blog Here is the winner of our contest for the custom canvas photo print! Congrats to Tammy and enjoy your print!! Be sure to visit her blog and congratulate her!!!

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Now, a few other things about the contest. I was a bit disappointed at the low number of entrants in our contest. This blog had plenty of visitors but only a few took time to enter! Who doesn't want to try to win something FREE?? Ah well, I do hope to hold these contests more often, so keep an eye on the blog for chances to enter future contests!

I will be making stricter rules for the next one, for instance, if you don't leave any kind of contact information your entry will not be valid! Melissa was the original winner of the drawing, but since she left no contact information I had no way of getting in touch with her!

Again, congrats Tammy!!

Suite101 for writers

Suite 101 is another website to write for when looking for a monthly residual income. Unlike eHow and Hubpages, you have to actually apply with suite101, supplying them with two sample articles that you have written. I got an approval letter from then within 24 hours of submitting my application. With suite101 you can choose to write about whatever you wish, however, they are a bit more strict about things. For instance, if you use a photo in your article you have to supply a photo credit. They also have a specific way they would like the articles to be written to improve key word optimization.

After you have submitted an article to suite101, an editor will read it within a few days (sometimes it may be a week, or so). They may give you suggestions for improving the article. These are only suggestions and do not have to be changed. I did have one article that I wrote and put in too much of my own opinion into it, therefore, they made the article inactive until I was able to re-write it better. As with demandstudios, most of the editors are helpful, but you may still come across one that comes off as being a bit rude or a “know it all”. Being a writer, you have to learn to just let things slide off of your back and not take them too personally.

Also, with suite101 you have to submit a minimum of 10 articles every 3 months. I thought this may be a bit difficult but it hasn’t been so far. I’ve even used some of my rejected demand articles for suite101 with no problems.

Now, I’m not quite sure how this happens, but my suite101 articles seem to get a lot more traffic than any of my articles on hubpages, or eHow. For instance, one of the first articles I wrote on suite was one for St. Patrick’s Day (it was about that time) and within a few days I had over a thousand hits. Last week I wrote one about Cedar Point (an amusement park in Ohio) and when I checked my status a few days ago, I had over 4,000 views!! In only a few days! Even though I’m not at payout yet, I have already accumulated more with suite101 than I have anywhere else, and I have less articles on suite. I’ve read the opposite on other blogs, where some writers earn more with hubpages or eHow than they do with suite. I can’t figure out why. Maybe it all depends on what subject you are writing on! Here are a few sample Suite101 articles that I have written so that you can see what sort of format they are looking for.

Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio


In my future posts, I’m going to talk about various ways for promoting your articles, and how to come up with subjects to write on, but don’t worry, even if you are not into writing, I have quite a few other money making tips to share, too.

If you have a facebook page, please do me a big favor and go to the new page I have made for this blog, “Like” it, and invite your friends! I can use all of the help I can get. Crazed Mama's Facebook Fan Page

Also, don’t forget to enter our contest in my previous post. Only 4 people have entered so far! What? Don’t you people like free stuff?? It’s free to enter, and you could win something that I think is really cool!!

My Very First Giveaway: A Custom Canvas Print!

I'm so excited to be hosting my very first contest/giveaway here! Here's the deal:

You can enter to win a custom canvas print for use in your home, office, or anywhere you like. This is a 16x20 Rolled Canvas Print with a photograph of your choice. The winner will receive instructions on how to upload the pic they wish to use, and it will be shipped right to their home free of charge.

HOW TO ENTER: Simply leave me a comment telling me what photograph you would have put onto canvas, along with your email information.
ENDING DATE: May 26, 2010
RULES: You must be a United States resident and be 18 years or older.

To pick a winner, I will literally put everyone's name on a piece of paper and draw from a hat, so that it will be completely fair. I will announce the winner here on May 27, 2010, and will email the winner myself to tell them the good news. Make sure to include a link to your blog because if you are a winner I just might include the link to your blog or website on the announcement post as well.

I do hope we get lots of entries as this is my first one, so help me out and spread the word about this giveaway contest.

Thanks to uprinting for sponsoring the blog and the wonderful printing services that they offer including beautiful custom canvas prints.

Best Way to Sell Online Without A Merchant's Account

Using a third party processor, also known as free merchant account, is the best and the easiest way to sell online without a merchant account for the following reasons: minimal set-up fees, low upfront costs, credit check not required, fast way to accept online payment.

A third party processor, or the so called “free” merchant account processor, is the quickest and the best option that allows online transactions when using credit cards. Here are several reasons why the best way to sell online is through a third party processor, namely:

Minimal set-up fees

Unlike setting up a merchant account, a third party processor, charges a lesser fee. Others even offer free set up when you acquire a credit card processing service from them.

Low upfront costs

Another feature that most of the “free” merchant account providers offer is the low upfront fees; although, the transaction fees are a bit higher than the merchant account.

Credit check not required

Third party processors do not conduct a credit check. In fact, they are widely known for their acceptance of clients with bad credit history and with high risk business profile.

Fast way to accept online payment

As soon as you are done with your application, you can immediately start conducting online transactions and accept credit card payments. It all takes a few minutes, and then you’re on the board.

Internationally accepted

No matter where you are located, third party processors accept clients from all parts of the world. They also offer a multi-currency feature where one may opt to accept payments in their own currency.

merchant account

Goodbye eHow, hello Hubpages

I think I have officially decided to step away from ehow. I will leave the articles I have there, but writing for them through Demand? Ehhh, no. Most of my money making right now is through Demand and like I said in my last post, I wrote for ehow when I needed a break from Demand and some of their condescending editors. Not all of them are that way, but a few of them are. I had to deal with one just yesterday. He tore my article apart and talked to me with a very condescending attitude, as if I were just a little pee-on. I changed every single thing that he asked me to change, but I had a feeling he or she was still going to reject it just because of their attitude the first time around. Well, I was right. A few hours later, I got a notice of rejection. His reason for rejection was because of another reason that was not EVER mentioned in the re-write request. Soo, I lost the money for it, however I'm now using my rejected Demand articles on another platform that I will talk about on another day!

Since ehow is pretty much dead in the water now, I'm turning a lot of my attention to hubpages. Hubpages is like ehow, except that the articles do not have to be how to articles; they can be about anything you feel like writing about, and no editors to deal with. You can use affiliate links for adsense, amazon, ebay, and a few others and you receive 100% of the revenue. Like the other revenue sharing websites, it doesn't happen automatically, but with time and effort there is some money to be made.

I wrote a post quite awhile ago regarding my previous experience with adsense. My account was terminated due to fraudulent clicks, or something. They would not give me specific details when I asked, however I'm assuming it was because I used traffic exchanges on my blog. I decided to give adsense another go specifically for the revenue sharing websites that I'm using, and not on my blogs, so that there is (hopefully) no chance of fraudulent accusations.

For more information on hubpages, check out one of my articles:

more »
HubPages

Ehow switching to Demand Studios?

An email just went out a few days ago stating that ehow is switching over to Demand Studios. Kind of ironic that these two companies are the ones I have recently been posting about!

I'm not sure exactly how this is going to work with ehow, but from what I have read and heard, some of you who have an ehow account have been automatically accepted to demand studios, while others haven't? Ehow articles will now be written and posted via the Demand Studios platform. The bad thing is, those of you who have not been accepted to Demand will not be able to write for ehow any longer.

This change could be a good thing, or a bad thing. From what I have read, Demand Studios will be able to generate more traffic, and additional revenue than what the ehow website had. The bad thing is the dreaded Demand Studios' editors. I have conflicting opinions on the Demand editors. None of them follow the same guidelines, and they all have their opinion on what is right and what is wrong. One editor may tell you to do something one way, then another editor will tell you to do something completely different, so you have no way of knowing whether you will make the editor happy, or not, since there are thousands of editors throughout Demand. Plus, you only get one chance to fix the problems in the article. Some editors will be very vague in their suggestions and there is no way to communicate with the editor. If you misunderstand something, or simply don't know what they are wanting, you only have one chance to guess and if you did not read their mind correctly, the article will be rejected. Once it is rejected you are out that time, work, and money. Even if you appeal it, and win the appeal, you still wont get that money, or work back. Doesn't really sound fair, does it? The only good thing is that you can use that rejected article somewhere else such as suite101, ehow, constant content..etc.. That is my only complaint with demand; there should be a way to communicate with the editor to verify what they are wanting.

Another thing with Demand is that they require references and citations for everything, even something that may be common knowledge. Ehow has not required that in the past, so I don't know if demand will require it for all ehow articles from now on. To be honest, I wrote for ehow when I wanted to get a break from Demand. I will be trying out the new ehow publishing in the next few days to find out exactly how it is going to work.

On other note, if you currently have articles on ehow, you will not lose them, and you will continue receiving the same revenue sharing as before. I think the deadline is April 13 for having the ability to publish new articles through the ehow website, after that it will be strictly through Demand. I would love to hear everyone's opinion on this change, or if you have any extra advice or insight, feel free to leave a comment and tell us!

And now, my MARCH 2010 earnings:

Demand Studios: $307.50
Text Broker: $188.26

For a monthly total of: $495.75

Residual Income: Ehow

Ehow is one of the sites I use in my new writing adventure. Ehow and other residual income websites are different than pay per article sites because you do not get paid a set amount per article. Instead, you get paid based on different things like page views and ad clicks from your article. On eHow, you can write an article on any subject as long as it is explaining to someone HOW to do something. The platform is very simple to use, and the only complaint I have is that there seems to be a lot of glitches with the system. There have been quite a few times that I've started an article only to be told that it is under maintenance once I hit the "next" button. So, a word of advice on eHow is to make sure you save your article before putting it on their website. With the websites that focus on page views and ad clicks, you really want to focus on keyword optimization. Keywords are key! You want to come up with any and all words and phrases that you think someone may use to search for the subject you are writing about. Then you want to use those words within your article. I'm not claiming to be any sort of expert on keywords, or seo, this is just what I have learned so far.

The bad thing about these kind of websites is that you don't see any money for awhile. It could take months before you reach the payout minimum, but the good thing is that once your articles start earning money they normally earn that amount, or better every month. I've done some research and have heard of some people making $200 - $300 a month from any individual site, and I've even heard of people making around $1000 from it per month. Of course, these writers have been doing it for quite awhile and have written a lot of different articles, not just one, or two.

If you are not sure about what to write about, just give it time and make a list. Sometimes ideas will pop in my head at random times and I have made a list on my laptop so that I don't forget what they are. Whenever I get ready to write I just pull the list up and choose a topic from it to write about.

Just remember not to give up if you don't earn much the first few months, it takes time and patience. Use your key words, and promote each and every article on places like twitter, digg, stumbleupon, myspace, facebook, any kind of networking website. Promote them on your blogs, tell your friends about them, promote, promote, promote.

There are two other websites that I write for as well. I stick mainly with the pay per article sites during the week, but try to write at least one article per week for the residuals. I will be writing about the other two soon.

Here are some of the articles I have written on Ehow so that you can get an idea as to what your articles will look like and what ehow is about.

How to Videos & Articles: eHow.com

*If you already write for ehow, feel free to add me as a friend!*

Paid Per Article - Demand Studios

I have mentioned before about working for textbroker. Textbroker.com is a great place to start when thinking of getting into freelancing. They are normally pretty easy to work for and they pay twice a month via paypal.

The other company I work for getting paid per article is Demand Studios. Now, they do require sample articles and I think a resume as well (not positive if it was them or not that needed a resume). The resume needs to state any past work history that would involve writing or editing. I applied with them the first time and sent them an old sample article that I had written for Associated Content. It was written a few years ago and was really not that great, but it was the only article I had to send them. I was denied, and very upset. I continued working for Textbroker and saved copies of my best articles. I wanted to give Demand Studios another shot, but I had to use a different email to do it since I was denied before. I sent them the articles I had saved from TextBroker and I got an email the same day saying that I was accepted!

I was a bit nervous to start working for them because I heard that they are very picky and that they have rude editors that pick apart each article. I finally took the leap and wrote my first article for them and it was accepted with no rewrites! Phew! Now, I'm not perfect and since then I have had plenty of revisions, but the editors have always been very professional and most of the time they rewrites were just a few minor things that needed tweaked. I am not very thick skinned, but I have taught myself instead of getting upset about rewrites I will just take them in stride and consider them to be learning experiences. Demand does have some strict rules to follow when writing articles, but once you write a few articles you will get the hang of it.

With Demand you can pick and choose the articles you want to write. They pay any where from $3 - $15 an article and pay twice a week via paypal. The only thing I get frustrated with is the listings. I don't know who categorizes the articles, but you can filter your searches to a search for only one subject, however, even when I search for "dogs" I will get a bunch of article offers for how to change car parts! I don't know anything about working on cars and it has nothing to do with dogs! So I waste a lot of time sifting through articles finding ones that I want to write.

With Demand you do have to show at least one resource with each article. My advice is to choose topics that you are at least a little knowledgeable about. For instance, I wouldn't write an article on working on cars when I have no clue what they are talking about!

I am really loving this change of work. I feel more free to do what I want. I don't have to worry about working all day and all night for beans. I can take time to play with my kids, or do something I want to do without stressing over it and I enjoy it!! I'm so glad I took the leap into freelance writing!

My next post will be about residual income and revenue sharing websites, so stay close!

My First Month of Freelance Writing

The first month's tallies are in. Here is a run down of what I made for the month. Keep in mind that I didn't get a full month's payment from textbroker because they pay on the 5th and 20th of each month, so I missed almost 10 days worth of pay that I normally would have gotten from the end of January. I hope that made sense?? For the next few months I will be posting my monthly stats of what I made, so that everyone can see how and where I am progressing with freelance writing. Some of the sites I just joined and didn't get a chance to profit from them for the entire month. For instance, Demand Studios I only joined up with for the last week of the month, so I was only paid for two articles through them. Here's the run down:

Textbroker: $185.03
Squidoo: $5.36
Demand Studio: $15.00
Sponsored Reviews: $13.00

Grand Total: $218.39

Not too bad for the first month. Like I mentioned before, I have a steady customer on textbroker now. The have been sending me orders for 5 articles a week, however, last week they doubled that and now send me 10 a week. For now, I am just doing the direct orders through textbroker and doing other articles through Demand Studios because I will make more through Demand. Textbroker is a good place to start for newbies, but I've noticed a lot of business that want to pay pennies for an article and yet expect the writer to do everything to their anal specifications. Sorry, but if you are going to be that specific about something you had better shell out a few extra bucks to make it worth my time.

My next few posts will be on the different websites that I am currently writing for. A few of them are not listed here because I didn't get paid from them yet, but I will go through each one and explain how each works.

So far, so good with freelance writing!

So, the first website I joined to try my luck at freelance writing was textbroker.com. Basically, you search through various writing offers and pick articles that you are willing to write about. You write the article and if it is accepted, you get paid! They do rate your writing performance and after only writing 2 articles, I had a rating of 4 stars, which is considered to be an "excellent writer". Somehow, though, I got dropped down to 3 stars, but I'm sure it will get back up there. The articles are usually fairly short, 300-400 words, which isn't much at all. I do have to do a little bit of research on the subjects I don't have much knowledge on, but it's not difficult at all. Last week, I was fairly busy, had some out of town doctor appointments and only worked 2 days before the first payday of the month (they pay on the 5th and the 20th). So the payment above was for only 2 days of work. Not shabby, eh?? Also, I got a regular client on my first day, which means they send me direct orders for articles. I've done about 10 articles for them so far, and they are adding me to their list of regular writers! I'm loving this so far! I still have a lot to learn about freelance writing and I know there is good money to be made, just have to do the research and find out where the big money lies, but I'm happy with this so far!

Delving into something new!

I've been searching for something new for a few months now. I'm just burned out on my current texting operator job and once they lowered the pay rate, I was even more discouraged. I've been wanting to find something to take the place of what I'm making money wise, if not more than what I am making now. I think I may have found it! Freelance Writing. I love to write and I think since taking my Composition class a few months ago, I have learned how to improve my writing skills. I've been doing some research on freelance writing and have found a few great places to start! There are a few different ways to earn money with freelance writing. First is getting paid per article that you write. There are a lot of places online that will pay you to write an article for them about a certain subject. It may be something that you are knowledgeable about or it may be something you have to do a bit of research on. I'm getting used to doing research these days considering I have to write a paper for every class I am taking at school! Anyway, I tried one website out last week, just to see what it was like. I wrote 2 articles, both were approximately 200-300 words long. Two hundred words is a very short article to write. Both articles took me less than 30 minutes to write and I made over $8 for just a few minutes of work! It doesn't sound like a lot when you see what they are getting paid for per article but when you consider the time it takes to write one, the money can add up very quickly!

The second way to earn money is through residual income. I'm not exactly sure how these work except that I know you can write various articles that you are knowledgeable on, post them on certain websites, and you can earn from page hits and/or google adsense!

Since I don't want to give up my texting job completely, I'm going to try the freelance thing at the beginning of February. I'm going to do texting one day and freelancing the next day. That way, I can still get the minimums for my texting job, but can also see what/how I can earn with freelance writing. Then at the end of the month I will see what I've made from both! I'm hoping this can give me a little bit of free time to write in my blogs, so I will still post about various money making strategies in this blog, as well as keeping everyone updated on how the freelance writing gigs are going and what websites I am using. I'm very excited to get started because I just love to write and I'm so burned out and bored with my texting job; I need something new! So keep an eye on this blog and follow me on my new journey into the Freelance Writing world!

Still dreaming of working from home?

It really IS possible! Just ask these ladies...