My Newest Discovery: A Money Making Website

I recently came across this idea for writers called a money-making website, and to be honest I’m quite intrigued. It seems too good to be true: build an informational website around a favorite topic or passion and set up ads using other companies (like Google) and voila! You will start generating income.

I’m sure there’s a catch, even if the only catch is that it takes time and years to get the kind of traffic and revenue that’s eye-popping. Or is the catch that it takes an investment up front; pay for some site building website company to give you everything wrapped up in one neat packaged platform so you can focus more on the writing than the developing. I suppose the true catch could be that it just takes time and commitment, and if that’s so, then I’m game.

I like to say I’m a committed person, but frankly there are a lot of projects I’ve started in my life that have been left unfinished. I find new projects constantly and slowly they squeeze in and suffocate my old ideas until I’ve put that work down.

This is actually something that I’d like to change in myself. Follow through is very important in the real world. If you start something, then you should finish it. It’s pretty easy. And it’s not to say that I don’t finish things. I’ve finished tons of things! I have a BFA from one of the top ten art schools in the country. I’ve written stories and made video projects and held full time jobs. It just so happens I have quite a list of unfinished business, the Appalachian Trail being one that I will complete before this life time is through.

My list of uncompleted projects does not scare me. It makes me focus on my current projects even more. I can’t let anything else into that pile. Currently I’m taking a program for direct response copywriting that I’ve been slowly chopping away at for at least 6 months. I’ve researched travel writing and would like to start building a portfolio of stories from my vacations, one such trip that will be coming up this month when we go to Ginnie Springs here in Florida. I am waist-deep in my fiction fantasy series, 4 years and counting, with hopes to publish my first book before I’m 30. I do freelance graphic design for friends and family members as needed.

And now this – a money-making website that I’d like to add to the list. I refuse to let anything fall into my abandoned pile any longer, so if I want to do this I need to follow it to the end. As long as I keep working on these things I know I am heading in the right direction. This is my time – my time to figure out what I want to do with my life, and how I’d like to spend my time making money. After all, that’s what it’s all about – making money. Sadly, that’s what life is about in our era…

I think this website will be worth the work in the end, in some way or another.

Now I just need to figure out what I’m going to build my website around. I have so many interests, truly I do. I have a serious passion for camping and hiking, and seeing as how I’m living in Florida it might be nice to escape into my writing about the wild, running away into the trees and mountains up north where I used to roam free for days on end. I also have a true love for fiction work, novels and stories. It could be neat to fashion a website around fiction stories, new and upcoming works, the classics, etc. I also love, love, love to read and this could give me a reason to read and write more. Writing about the stories that I love to read and marketing them for others! That’s a website I could get behind.

But I have to ask myself – is it profitable? Or is there some way to connect my idea to being profitable?

I have a serious love for chocolate. That could be my ticket to a money-making website. Learn everything chocolate. Review kinds of chocolates. How to make your own chocolate. Do chocolate comparisons. OMG. I may have settled on an idea. I mean seriously, I could probably write, eat and think about chocolate forever.

But, I am going to continue brewing on these ideas. As I do, I will be writing my novel – in fact as soon as I’m done here I’m switching over to my word documents and getting a chapter in. I love that I am watching myself spend so much time writing. I cannot wait until my full time job can be just that – writing – in all sorts of shapes and forms.

Hopefully this website can help me take my first step into the writer’s lifestyle freedom that I so desperately crave.

Until we meet again, happy writing!