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…

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…

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.

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.

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.

I saw a movie last night from 1995 called Assassins.  It stars Sylvester Stallone, Julianne Moore and Antonio Banderas.  It isn’t the greatest movie (although it is far from the worst).  But it does have a great little story that Julianne Moore tells near the end.  I’m sure I’ve heard it before.  It goes something like this…

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold that the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. While it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped a load of hot, steaming dung on it.

As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of dung, it began to realize how warm it was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He lay there all warm and happy and soon began to sing for joy.

A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung. The cat promptly dug the bird out, killed him and ate him.

Lesson:

• Not everyone who drops shit on you is your enemy.
• Not everyone who pulls you out of shit is your friend.
• And when you’re warm and happy in your pile of shit, keep your mouth shut!

In the movie, Cooper plays a character that goes from “lack of focus loser bum writer” to “super smart successful confident and intimidating millionaire” in a matter of weeks with the help of what the movie refers to as NZT – an expensive drug of unknown origin with underground distribution.  The character gets his hands on a stash and just one tiny clear round pill a day is all it takes.  Of course, as one can imagine, the drug has its side effects – both mental and sociological.

Besides, the pill doesn’t exist…

Or does it?

Although I can’t find the reference, I can recall reading something that Tim Ferriss wrote in his book or blog about drugs that can boost intelligence.  I also know SWIM who indulged in Ritalin during university and could bash out essays faster than I could write a single paragraph.

So I turned to Google and started reading up on Nootropics – also referred to as smart drugs, memory enhancers,  cognitive enhancers.  These are pills, supplements or simply foods that are purposed to help memory, cognitive ability, comprehension, intelligence and concentration.  Some of them are mild and lack much of an effect.  Others are said to have profound effects but are considered dangerous or are associated to illness or death.

But they do exist.

While I’m not interested in going around trying to score illicit “medication”, I am interested in what I can do safely, naturally, with minimal risk, that can maybe boost my focus and ability to recall information.

Starting today, I’m switching things up a little.  Ginkgo and Ginseng have been shown to possibly help increase memory and concentration but I can’t go this route because of adverse effects of drug interactions with current prescriptions that I take.  But what I can do is the following:

Go gluten free.  This is something that I’ve already been trying to do (although admittedly not consistently).  Gluten, found in wheat based products, has been anecdotally associated with ADD and ADHD.  I’m not gluten intolerant (that I know of) but at the same time, gluten doesn’t do us any good.

Drop the caffeine intake.  Caffeine has been known to increase alertness and energy, but excessive caffeine use (which I am possibly guilty of indulging in) lowers this effect over time.  Instead it is recommended to take caffeine only when necessary to reap its full reward.

Switch to green tea.  Green tea is loaded with antioxidants and has a lower caffeine amount than coffee.  Green tea also contains theanine, which has been known to stimulate alpha brain waves, calm the body, and promote relaxed awareness.

Up the Omega-3.  Fish oils are a rich source of Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA), a fatty acid that is found in high concentration in the gray matter of the brain. DHA is fundamental to the function of brain cell membranes and is super important for the transmission of brain signals.

Be careful with carbs. The brain needs sugar.  But high glycemic sugars (cane sugar, table sugar, sugar from fruit or white bread) gets absorbed quickly and don’t last long.  Instead, I’m going to work on ensuring I take in low glycemic carbohydrates in the morning.  Organic Oatmeal is an example of a high fiber, low glycemic carb that can feed my brain for the full workday.  Likewise, brown rice over white rice will be the norm.  Lots of veggies will also consume my dinner plate (yes, veggies are carbs). No pasta, no bagels.

Train the brain.  I used to play Brain Age on the Nintendo DS.  Haven’t for a while though.  Fortunately the iOS has a slew of brain training type games available for it.  The one that I picked up was Dr. Kawashima’s More Brain Training for the iPad.  I’m happy to report that I have a brain health of a 28 year old (according to the game).  I’m sure there’s room for improvement though.  I’ve also picked up Photographic Memory Training for iOS – a training app, based on research by A.W. Volkmann that supposedly helps photographic memory training.  The hope is that daily doses of brain training can help a lot.

I’ll report back after a couple weeks of my little brain health experiment.