We had a disaster happen last night.

You see, a few days ago I purchased some “WhackedOut Marketing” tee-shirts. I bought one for my wife, one for myself, and one for our dog.

My wife accidently washed the tee-shirts with one of her red dresses.

… yeah … I’m sure you can guess what happened.

Our beautiful WhackedOut Marketing bright white tee-shirts are now… pink and green.

A few more shirts have been ordered; photos coming soon.

First of all, if you don’t read Yaro’s blog, I highly suggest you do so starting right this very minute.  Really. Stop reading this post. His website is: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com.

What?  You’re still reading this? Well, since you’re here, I wanted to share something totally WhackedOut with you.

I just finished listening to an interview Yaro did with his friend, Al in Australia awhile back.

Yaro’s interview with Al ROCKS.  It’s the real deal and it shows you the potential of blogging for dollars. Now this is not your typical success story you’ll hear.  The results Al has received is not typical, but shows us what is possible.

However, Al has created a blog earning roughly $50,000 + + a month - and recently evaluated (by a group of investors who invested into his blog) at $5,000,000.00.

So take a look at Al’s blog he started in 2006…
http://www.CarAdvice.com.au

Yup - that car advice/review blog is worth over $5,000,000.

However, the story and the knowledge you’ll gain by listening to the interview is worth much, much more than that.

To listen to (or read) the interview, go to: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/952/alborz-interview/

Some WhackedOut insights if you don’t have time to listen to the interview at this very moment:

- Al posted at least 2 times a day when he started his car blog.

- Al worked full-time at his job and ran his blog on his side until the income got crazy.

- He started his blog because he loves cars - he didn’t start out the blog to make a ton of money.

- He had many # 1 Google organic listings; targeted long-tail keywords. He also focused on searches that the traditional media was looking for - which drove the media to his site.

- He was also a “link hunter”… he was all about getting a ton of links to his site when he first started the blog. He then switched to spending more time on writing more posts, and higher quality posts, knowing others would link to his blog because of his great content… and they did.

- He started making money on his blog by using Google AdSense. Started making $15 a day. Then grew from there, making up to several hundred a day before he took the AdSense off.

- He then had someone approach him, wanting to help take the blog to the next level. Al accepted, brought in investor

- Side note: Al had ZERO qualifications to be an auto blogger/journalist.

- Al tests 2, sometimes 3 cars a week. Car companies beg to have him test their cars. From family cars all the way to $100,000 + + + sports cars.

- He put an ad on his site looking for people who want to write for their site. Out of 2,000 entries, 6 or 7 professional writers who write for car magazines or newspapers emerged. Some writers write for free, others are compensated.

- Site is now self-maintaining. Niiiiiiice. Al has more time to drive around and test out cars.

- WhackedOut Alert!  On average, there are 6-7 new blog posts per day. Some days there are 15 or more new posts per day. Now that is really Whacked!

- Al does not use AdSense exclusively any longer. He had companies approach him to advertise, and his investors mentioned it would be a good idea to branch out.

- Ahhhh…. and so much more.

Great stuff.  Listen to the interview yourself at: http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/952/alborz-interview/

This is a Bloggers Paycheck review. John Yeo just launched his Bloggers Paycheck ebook and I decided to review Bloggers Paycheck and purchase it for my wife.

Now why would in the world would I buy Bloggers Paycheck for my wife?

You see, my wife already runs a successful niche blog, but we’re currently working on a new WhackedOut blog for her that will no doubt open many new doors for her.  Now, I could spend days with her teaching her everything I know, but with my crazy schedule, it just doesn’t make sense to.  

So instead, I send her a new product to read about making money blogging every few days.

Now before I sent her my copy of Bloggers Paycheck, I spent quite a bit of time going through the ebook and bonuses. I wanted to make sure that she was reading real-world how-to information that she’d really get a lot out of… and use. So let’s dive in…

Bloggers Paycheck Review

First impression of Bloggers Paycheck: Impressive list of usable bonuses - not your typical PLR type material you’ll find out there. So my first impression of Bloggers Paycheck was excellent.

Material Length: The ebook is 115 pages long and does have some screenshots. Some people go overboard with screenshots to make their ebook longer to attempt to create a higher perceived value. Although I believe that some of the screenshots weren’t needed, I do not feel John Yeo went overboard with them in Bloggers Paycheck.

Bloggers Paycheck Information quality: If you already know how to set up a domain name, a blog, and you have a reliable host, you can skip pages 27 through 31. This information is of course valuable for those new to blogging and setting up domain names and websites.

Chapter 5 covers how to write your blog post. This is actually very important for people to really understand. Good tips are provided. Chapter 6 of Bloggers Paycheck spends 30 pages talking about how to drive traffic to your blog. GOOD STUFF HERE.

Chapter 7 talks about making money with your niche blog - also a lot of great, solid information provided.

Overall score for my review of Bloggers Paycheck: I’d rate John Yeo’s ebook (and of course all of the great bonuses) a 9.8 out of 10. I’m impressed! It’s great for newbies, but it also covers some great info for those who have been around the blogging community for awhile.

And of course, I thought it was a great ebook to buy for my wife to learn from. And believe me, for the price I paid for this ebook and all of the bonuses, I’ve received less information spending 3 to 4 times as much.

To learn more about Bloggers Paycheck and how John Yeo is making $2,167.86 a month from a niche blog that he actually created for his wife as a present, go to: http://www.whackedoutmarketing.com/goto/bloggerspay/

This is no doubt something that we’re going to see happen more and more - especially for smaller niche blogs.  Blogging Networks are hungry, and they’re gobbling up smaller niche blogs to add to their network.

One that I found today is a blog called, jkontherun, which was acquired by GigaOm.  You find out more details of the story be clicking on either of their sites, or you can read the story on WashingtonPost.com.

Now, there are obviously many WhackedOut opportunities here for a blogger to get one or several niche blogs up and running in hopes to be acquired by a blog network.  The build to flip method may become very, very profitable for bloggers for quite some time.

But obviously not as profitable as being the blog network doing all of the buying, which is another opportunity for bloggers.

In other related news…

A lot of blogs or services related to blogs are picking up some steam.  Also today, it was announced that Digg may be purchased by Google for $200,000,000.  Other reports say that Digg denies this - so we’ll have to wait and see how this story unfolds.

Bottom line is that many blogs are shifting hands - and I believe it’s beginning to happen more rapidly as blog networks rush to stamp their footprint on the blogging world.

So where do the REAL opportunities exist for bloggers looking to make BIG money?

Does one create many niche specific blogs in hopes to attract a buyout from a blogging network for one, if not all of the blogs…. or does one create many niche blogs, start their own blogging network, and then purchase other small blogs to be added to their network?

The big money is obviously running you own blog network.  A buyout of 100 or more blogs would be much more substantial than having one blog being acquired at a time.

My WhackedOut prediction… within the next several years, there will be several very, very large blog networks established with thousands, even tens of thousand of niche blogs.  Over a period of time, those will be bought out by larger blog networks, and shortly thereafter, Google will buy out the world’s largest blogging network for some crazy WhackedOut amount.

Think about it… Google running the largest search engine and owning many of the top 10 search results for any specific niche… complete domination!  Crazy prediction or a peek at what the Internet will look like in a few short years?  Either way - there are many massive opportunities to profit here.

And I really mean WhackedOut Outsourcing.  What a train wreck!

This is mainly a post for newbies thinking about outsourcing a project - to provide you with a little insight…

I’ve outsourced the creation of many ebooks, articles, reports, etc. For the most part, things have been going very well.

But in the last week, I’ve had back-to-back nightmares.

Case Study # 1:

I posted on Elance.com to have an ebook written for a niche market. After several bids, I chose someone who had good feedback and a good amount of earnings. It was agreed that the project would be completed in four weeks.

Four weeks go by and I contact the writer. Nothing. Five weeks go by and he writes back that he needs just one more week. I say OK - but I have to have it then.

Six weeks go by. Nothing. I post another message on the board.

After eight weeks he posts how he has been doing a lot of traveling lately and will get the book to me the next day.

Next day comes. Nothing. A few days later I get the rough draft - it was a disaster written in about 80 point font, had 8 pages taken up by the “Index” and screenshots that were pointless. Total amount of content after I removed the images, took out the index, and fixed the font: 7 pages. This was supposed to be 30-40.

Long story short, he never got his final 50% and I had to hire someone else to rewrite the ebook.

Case Study # 2:

I posted another project on Elance.com (MISTAKE!) for another ebook in a niche subject. I supplied 5+ pages worth of research and two pages explaining EXACTLY what I needed. After several bids, I chose one that had great feedback, had great earnings, so I thought I would be OK.

The ebook arrived one hour ago.

I wouldn’t even call it an ebook. I don’t know what to call it but a disaster. The font was huge, there were screenshots that had no point, and it was nearly impossible to read. Even if I gave someone this ebook to rewrite, it would be impossible. There is no flow and it has sentences like:

“Being termed as the next Internet boom, the online diary or journals as they are called, have opened the gates of the Internet to express their thoughts, feelings, knowledge and a lot more which would not have otherwise opened out at all.” 

And…

“There is not a single proven way to get the right audience for the blog one has written the de facto principle for blog to be found online by the people who are looking for it the blog.”

And…

“Generally most human beings have a fascination for timetables, planners and checklists.” 

And…

“To the amusement of most marketers, the improvement of technologies in the online arena has effected in not providing the due importance to the-word-of-mouth marketing.”

And the last sentence in the ebook is:

“So are you ready for the go now?”

95% of the ebook is written like this. It makes no sense and if I removed the images and gave it to someone to read, they would have a hard time trying to figure out what the subject of the ebook is on.

I HIGHLY doubt this person will be able to fix this. I have NO IDEA how this person has good feedback on Elance and how they have earned so much this year. Do people  even read what he provides them?

Back-to-back bombs here. I do have a handful of good writers I use, but they’re working on other projects for me and for others - so I had to venture out to Elance for these.

The first project cost me three times more than what I wanted to pay and took months longer than I wanted to take.

This second project is a disaster. I’ll have to walk away from my 50% deposit and try and find someone else to complete this project - adding more time and money invested.

When you find good writers, do whatever you can to keep them. If you use them for one project, pay them a little more next time to get bumped up a little.

If you’re thinking about outsourcing your projects, really do your homework - although a lot of that can be very misleading. Even if someone has huge earnings and the best feedback, that does not mean that you’ll get top quality work.

And again, when you find someone who really does do a great job, do whatever it takes to keep them busy with projects so that you’ll scoop them up from the market.

The moral of the story is do what you can to find  great writers and then shower them with money, flowers, candy, gift certificates, a car, a private jet, a trip to space… whatever! A good ebook/article/ report/content/blog post writer can be worth thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or more to you down the road.

** Update **

Since writing the above, I tried another writer who was recommended from a friend.  She has written materials for “guru” Internet Marketers. She was not only 2 weeks past the deadline, but I had to hire an editor to fix over 100 mistakes, spelling errors, etc. that she made.

If you or know anyone who has experience in writing SOLID ebooks and reports, please contact me.

Also, I could have saved myself a lot of time and money if I only went through this outsourcing course. I’ve gone through a lot of Paul’s ebooks, reports, and courses, and I’ve always been very impressed. His Xtreme Outsourcing videos are very well done and you’ll get a lot out of them.

Any other Marketers battle with their ADD on a daily basis? Are you bouncing from one project to the next without seeing any real results? Has it been weeks, months, or years… and you still haven’t made at least $1,000 online?

Are you “Information Overloaded?”

I used to be right there with you…

ADD is such a double-edged sword. It makes us more creative than others, but on the other hand, we could bounce around from one idea and project to the next our entire lives and never get anything accomplished if we’re not careful.

For YEARS I went in circles and bounced around from one project to the next and didn’t really accomplish too much.

Several years ago, I was at Barnes and Noble and saw a book about ADD. I started to flip through the pages and realized, “So this is what has been wrong with me for so many years!”

I saw that the author lived and had an office here in Houston and I met with her, paid her a TON of money to have some tests done on me, and the results… (which I already knew) I was a poster child/adult for someone with ADD.

However, my conversation with her lead me to really begin researching ADD on my own now that I could finally pinpoint “what was wrong with me” that drove me, my family, teachers, friends, etc. crazy for so many years.

Anyway, where I’m going with all of this, is that if you are new to Internet Marketing or Affiliate Marketing and you have ADD, I HIGHLY suggest that you spend a lot of time figuring out your own plans as to how you will tame your ADD and use it to your advantage.

I’m sure that there are hundreds of thousands of products that sit dormant on people’s hard drives that are 50% completed… 75%… even 100% completed and they gave up on it to move to the next project.

I can tell you first-hand after having more than 30 jobs, investigating 1,000’s of opportunities, and now working for myself full-time over the last 6 years or whatever it is now, that if you are really going to dive into Internet Marketing, it’s the TOUGHEST playing field for those of us with ADD.

It’s so easy to get “Information Overload” here because there are 1,000’s of things to learn, 1000’s of directions to go in, 10,000’s of people all trying to tell you which direction to go in, and so on.

However, You can use ADD to your advantage in the Internet Marketing world.

Unlike techies and programmers, our minds can spot opportunities easily. Ideas flow to us. We can come up with new marketing ideas at the drop of a hat. We’re the right-brained thinkers, while the programmers and techies are the left-brained thinkers.

Once you’re ready to pull the trigger in the Internet Marketing world and you have some great ideas for products that you’ve researched, find some partners who are more left-brained than you. They will help keep you grounded and focused on the task at hand because they usually won’t stop until the product is 100% completed.

Be upfront with them and let them know how you work and you’ll need help staying focused on the current project.

Do this over and over again while documenting what you’re doing and you’ll begin to help create new habits that’ll make the projects going forward a heck of a lot easier.

Thankfully for me, I’ve created my own crazy methods on how I stay on track that work for me. Would they work for everyone? Heck no. Some of them are totally crazy - but they work for me. I’m also lucky to have a wife who also works full-time from home with me who is a left-brained thinker and keeps me grounded when I often drift off.

Also, as a side-note… In my experience working with programmers/designers/etc. if you ever find someone who is BOTH a great left and right brained thinker (They can program and design the best of the best stuff AND they can also market products like crazy), do WHATEVER you can to keep this person happy.

Those people are like finding GOLD. They are not easy to find as usually they do not offer their services, or they charge massive amounts of money for their services. (Six-figures plus percentages of the company, for example.)

So to sum this up, fellow Marketer with ADD, if I were starting all over again, I would first spend more time figuring out what I could do to stay focused, learn how my brain really works, and find the right people to surround myself with. If I did that when I first dove into the marketing world many years ago, I would have saved years of going in circles driving myself crazy and wondering what in the heck I was doing wrong.

Hope this helps.

It took over a year, but AffSphere has finally launched.  So what is AffSphere?  According to the AffSphere website, “AffSphere is an article syndication directory with a difference: it was designed with the affiliate marketer in mind. Our goal is to make it easy for even the most inexperienced affiliate marketers to start generating traffic and commissions through the power of syndicated content.

When you submit your articles to AffSphere, you earn credits that you can redeem for multiple benefits. You can use credits to get increased article impressions throughout your article Category. You can upload an affiliate banner, and redeem credits for banner impressions on the AffSphere network. You can submit your AdSense code, and it will rotate throughout the entire AffSphere site. And you can get traffic through the links in your articles and author resource boxes. 

Most importantly, you, the affiliate, have complete control over how to allocate credits within your account. You decide which of AffSphere’s many benefits will work best for your affiliate business. Affiliate Classroom students automatically earn double credits in the AffSphere system. 

AffSphere also allows you to take your traffic and earnings viral through our referral program. You earn additional credits each time someone joins AffSphere through your referral link, and are paid a percentage of their AdSense revenue through five levels of participation.”

A couple of months ago I learned about a company called, AffSpy and bookmarked the site.  

Tonight, I went to the AffSpy blog to see if there were any updates, and still nothing yet.  

In fact, the AffSpy blog hasn’t been updated since April 9th.

Recently buy the new 3G iPhone?  Here’s a list of the top 10 things you can do with your old iPhone instead of it collecting dust in a drawer.

1. Use your old iPhone as a paperweight so all of your AT&T bills don’t blow away.

2. Make some minor modifications and install it near your front door connected to your doorbell.  If installed correctly, it’ll both ring your doorbell and call your new iPhone letting you know someone is at your door.  And if they’re in your address book, you’ll instantly know who it is.

3. Put it under a tire when parking your car on a hill to ensure your car doesn’t roll backwards.

4. Get together with other new iPhone owners and have a contest to see who can throw their old iPhone the furthest.

5. Play “spin the iPhone” to potentially hook up with other cool 3G iPhone users at a party.

6. Tape some string on the back of it and use it for a what will be known in your family as the most expensive Christmas tree decoration.

7. Walk into a gas station and offer your old iPhone to the attendant in exchange for a full talk of gas in your SUV.

8. Get your 3G iPhone box, put your old iPhone in it, and give it to one of those “tough to buy for people” for their birthday present.

9. Assign a new phone number to your old iPhone and program your name and number in every slot in your address book.  The next time you’re at a bar and see a guy or girl you’d really like to get to know, give them your old iPhone and say, “Let’s do dinner this weekend.  Give me a call.”  If after two days he/she doesn’t call, call them and ask to meet so you can get your iPhone back.

10. Modify the back of your old iPhone by using some duct tape, glue, and a wristband from a watch.  If properly put together, you’ll have one of the smartest watches in the world that everyone will be talking about.

Got a better idea for what to do with an old iPhone?  Post your thoughts below!