I’m actually using this image in a game I’m throwing together for the holidays. Feel free to use this SVG in any way you would like, except as a decal on a dog sweater.
Santa in a Sleigh Public Domain SVG
November 26th, 2011
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Passive Online Earnings Report #4 – October 2011
November 3rd, 2011
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I’m not really going to get too far into the details for my Passive Online Earnings report for October 2011.
The free app to paid app marketing seems to be working with Beats Brainwave Entrainer having a 77% increase over last month’s results.
October had some ok Adsense revenue, spurred on by an exponential increase in hits to Spooky Sound Pad after getting some nice link juice near the end of the month as Halloween approached and people were looking for Halloween sounds.
October also delivered another LinkShare affiliate sale through my How to Start a Website sales page.
Even though my “free” time has been nearly extinct for the last month, I’m really hoping that I get a new app out in the marketplace. Also hoping for some more affiliate sales with a new product that I’m playing with.
Finally, also crossing the fingers for a few more regular posts to this blog over the next couple of weeks… Until then…
How to Create an iPhone App Showcase Screenshot
October 16th, 2011
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Passive Online Earnings Report #3 – September 2011
October 11th, 2011
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At least I’m managing one post on this site per month. In short, September was better than August, but worse than July. Here’s the deets:
My iOS interval timer, WOD Timer brought in its average monthly share. Adsense actually didn’t do too badly considering that September (like the previous umpteen months) didn’t involve any SEO or traffic “tactics”. Unlike the previous two months, however, there was no affiliate income. Not that I usually generate much affiliate income, but I was getting used to the Linkshare cheque.
As for my BlackBerry PlayBook apps, Awesome Timer did nearly the same as last month, but an interesting note about Beats Brainwave Entrainment – September saw more than double what we saw in August. Last month I hinted at dabbling in some App Store marketing techniques and although I can’t say for certain at this point, it does seem that my efforts weren’t for not.
Take a look at the following charts. The bottom chart shows the purchases of Beats Brainwave Entrainment. Around September 8th, the purchases started spiking higher with more day to day sales than the previous month saw. Around that same time, I released a free version of the app that was restricted to a single function. The free version also contains a link to the full version in App World and every time the free app is started on the device, a nice banner pops up and reminds the user about the extra functionality in the full version. Low and behold, this marketing technique suggests conversions, as the chart shows.
We’re still talking small potatoes here and perhaps that’s partly due to the market share that the PlayBook has. But October sales of Beats have continued to show strength and I’m also surprised to see a little bit of increase in sales of Awesome Timer for the PlayBook as well. Certainly looking forward to my results for this month.
Stay tuned…
Passive Online Earnings Report #2 – August 2011
September 16th, 2011
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I realize that this post is nearly… well exactly a half month too late. Better late than never – even though, in a word, August online income was a real drag. I was expecting a month similar to July, but ended up with some rather disappointing results.
iPhone Apps
Again, August turned out to be an ok month for my iPhone apps, which I haven’t touched in well over a year. I’ve been finding that my single small niche app (WOD Timer) has produced a steady stream of between $100 and $150 per month for a while now. Passive income at its finest. Get a few more of these coded up and I’d be really happy. These results are really making me consider working exclusively on the iOS platform for my next app(s). Especially after the month I’ve had with my PlayBook apps.
PlayBook Apps
So my last post indicated a nice little load of cash in my pocket, having had great results with my Beats Brainwave Entrainment PlayBook app. That was July. I really don’t know what happened, but August results took a serious hit and in total, between both of my paid PlayBook apps, I’ve only seen around $35 for the month of August. Ouch!! That’s an order of magnitude different than what I saw last month! My wife tried to make me feel better by suggesting that “there will be peaks and valleys” in my app revenue. Hope she’s right 
But alas, I have a trick up my sleeve that I’m looking forward to experimenting with. I’ve yet to attempt this sort of app SEO method. Does that make sense? “SEO for apps”… Maybe it’s more like “ASO” – App Store Optimization. But then you’d have to be careful using that acronym in a sentence – I could seriously be taken out of context if I suggested that “I do ASO” 
Affiliate Marketing
Last month was my first LinkShare cheque. It was only $5. This month, according to LinkShare, I’ve made over $13! That’s a 160% increase in LinkShare revenue month to month. I like that. I guarantee this is not going to continue. I’ve more or less jumped off the affiliate marketing bandwagon… as a publisher anyway. Certainly next month will not be as good.
And that’s that – I’ll blame rough August app revenue on the rough August weather. It’s all your fault, Irene.
Passive Online Earnings Report #1 – July 2011
August 1st, 2011
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Ever since I first read 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, I began an adventure of attempting to make an extra bit of cash outside of my full time job. My intentions were to make this secondary income stream as passive as possible – do a bit of up front work and then watch as the cheques get mailed and my PayPal account fills up while I relax and sip margaritas. The goal was to eventually retire young(ish) and enjoy life while the cash keeps rolling in. Dan Miller calls this kind of passive cash, “SWISS” (or “Sales While I Sleep Soundly”) income in his book, No More Mondays.
It turns out to not be all that easy and to this day, a couple years after first reading 4HWW, I’m still nowhere near my goal. But the project is still going strong and some passive, SWISS cash is actually getting into my hands (albeit not nearly enough to live off of).
I’ve decided to incorporate some monthly summaries of this snail pace project into my blog. I present the first of hopefully many more articles that summarize my monthly “passive” earnings.
The “passive” earnings breakdown for July 2011:
July 2011 was actually a record “passive” earnings month, believe it or not. For some strange reason I pulled in more than usual AdSense revenue (though just $23) and also managed a couple of affiliate payments (truthfully my first affiliate payments, and they were also exceptionally small). The bulk of the earnings, however, were from my apps.
I’ve had an iOS app, WOD Timer, in the wild for a couple of years now and despite not touching it in just as long, it still manages to pull in between $100 to $200 per month. But this month also included earnings from two newer BlackBerry PlayBook apps that managed to snag me over $250 in July.
Although I call this income “passive”, over the last couple of previous months, I spent quite a bit of my free time working on the PlayBook apps, so it’s hardly passive. Fortunately both of these apps are in a good position now and, like WOD Timer for iOS, I don’t expect to be working on them much in the foreseeable future while they continue to work for me and “passively” deposit some dollars in my bank account. Though I do expect to finish yet another app in the next month and I’m feverishly trying to find time to do so.
I don’t have the numbers off hand, but I believe that last year at this time I was making less than half of July’s earnings. If my doubling rate is anual, I’m hoping for at least $1000 per month in “passive” cash in July 2012. Of course, that’s assuming we make it there and that cash is actually worth anything when we do.
Creating a PlayBook App from Old Content – Awesome RPS
May 6th, 2011
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Spurred by a comment left on a previous blog post about ridiculously simple Javascript Rock Paper Scissors game, I thought I’d see how quickly I could turn the web version of the game into a self-contained app for the BlackBerry PlayBook.
And it took virtually no time at all. The most difficult part was creating the icon and splashscreen. The rest was just as easy as making the background black and centering the content on the PlayBook screen.
