Skip the Glut of Online Money Making Blogs

There have always been people eager to tell you how to make money. The internet gave a lot of these people access to a huge number of interested folks, myself included. Run a web search for information on making money online, using terms like "automated income," "passive income," or "blogging for cash," and you'll get more hits than you could look at all day long. Less than one percent of these folks have anything of use to tell you. I categorize these blogs and informational google hits into three broad categories:

1) "Give me twenty bucks, and I'll tell you what I know."
This group is the one that makes me laugh. Buy ebooks on selling ebooks if you want to, but you're making a mistake. There's nothing of substantial value here, and the folks selling them are most often trying out the information contained IN THE EBOOK for the first time with this project. There are a few folks making a lot of money selling ebooks and how-to tutorials online, and a very brief poke around the web will tell you who these few legitimate folks are. The rest are just like us - crazy schlubs, trying to get rich with little effort online, and failing.

2) "Watch me make a million dollars!"
These guys are usually bloggers. They have about two dozen posts, with long breaks in between. Blogging for dollars using adsense or any other advertising program or scheme is simple, but it's far from easy. The few people making a living at this are not typically get-rich-quick folks looking for easy street. Treat their blogging gigs as a full-time job, and create quality content almost every single day. The folks making it work stand out right away, with lots of posts, correct spelling and grammar, active comments sections, and tons of traffic. Beware of the blogs aiming to document the blogger's trip to easy money, unless you wish to observe failure. That might be useful in learning what not to do, but it's not going to teach you much.

3) "I've done this, and here's proof."
Listen, I'm a strong proponent of the physical product. A real book or tape that you can hold in your hands has a greater chance of containing something of value than an ebook or podcast. Physical products take some commitment. In this world of print-on-demand and quick CD burning at home, these products are pretty easy to produce, but demanding a physical product will completely eliminate the folks who cut and paste their "ebooks" from the top 10 hits on a google search. Don't get me wrong - there are some pretty good ebooks, and some phenomenal podcasts out there, and if you insist on using them, demand proof of success. The good guys will include their adsense or paypal screenshots, update daily (or weekly, at the very least), and can show you success, day after day, month after month.

The truth is, for every Timothy Ferris or Steve Pavlina, there's a guy documenting his attempt to cut corners and sell cheap black watches on a crappy web site. Ferris and Pavlina represent leisure and ease, but they both worked hard to get where they are, and will admit it. Sure, there are a lot of corners that can be cut, but not until you've already met with some success. Skip the blogs, skip the ebooks, and skip the podcasts. Set a goal to put in some work toward your goal every single day, and meet the goal. Set a goal to increase your income every single month, and meet your goal. It will not come to you on its own, and the folks telling you they know how would have a much nicer website if it were true.