I need to start working!

I haven't been doing much work lately since I sold WMF, I think everyone is the same, when you know you have money available you don't work as hard.

The first payment of WMF came through from escrow and the second has just been sent by escrow again, for some reason the buyer's bank couldn't send the money.

Just sending the payment now for the new DeuceAce forum design ($800).

It is def going to be done in the first week of April, really looking forward to getting it online, I think it will really help the forum with a nice design.

Once the design is up its time to get serious with DeuceAce!
I have been selling off my sites but haven't been getting anything to replace them, I will be putting a lot into DeuceAce now anyway.

I finally got the $600 from a new advertiser on DeuceAce, IslandPoker.com
The $600 is for 3 months of advertising, it will take up the last space for an advertiser on the site.

My poker experiment is going well, I am just about to change to the next level, I have $9.91 right now and I move up a limit when I get to $10, I will be glad of it because I have been playing a lot and it took over a week to get up $5!

Wa hay...there we go, $10.05!
Time to play $0.05/$0.10 limit now!

Netrepreneur - The Life of a Netrepreneur

Hey all

The webmasterforums sale is almost complete now, escrow has released the funds ($2000) but they take up to 5 days to go into my account.

Tim also sent $3000 today (Just sent him a message to see if he got it sent off) and then I am sending him the files/content, once he has that the other $3000 is being sent.

I don’t know how long it will take for the money from Tim to come through, got a lot of money from the states but sometimes it comes the same day (Quicker than UK-UK bank transfer!) and other times it can take up to a week.

I don’t have any real rush for this anyway, don’t have anything I need to spent money on and I have everything covered that I do.

Talked to Malbar today, he’s the logo designer.
He wanted me to pay by Western Union but the fees were ~$50 and that was only payment one out of two, so that would be around $100 in fees!
No chance am I paying that much in fees. Offered to split the fees but he didn’t want to.
I have to setup an account with moneybookers now, waiting for them to verify my card.
I have to use them to buy a poker domain anyway so it doesn’t matter.


Got a chance to talk to Sheldon at last about doing the design for DeuceAce, its going to be started in the first week of April.
The cost is going to be ~$850 for a base rate, any extra graphics etc. will be extra, its well worth it though.
I wasn’t impressed with the design from WebRhino for roughly the same price, I think it would be been a LOT better to go with Sheldon for WebmasterForums too.


For anyone into poker, I decided to try out a small experiment to see how high I could get starting with just $5, you can find more information on it here.
Getting your money up on the first level is really hard, I’m thinking of skipping up to the next stages because I have been doing it for two days and I’m up about $2….

Also on poker, I played a tournament on Monday night with other poker affiliates, I think some are good players and play a lot, I don’t get a chance to play as much as I would like.
I ended up 4/27 – Not too bad and I also put out the organiser and got a $25 prize plus ~$7 I think for coming 4th hehe.

Just heard from Tim, $3k has been sent ;)

Busy, busy busy!

Hey,
Been really busy with the WebmasterForums.net sale.

An offer was made at the BIN ($8000) and I am expecting payment today, $2000 is going through escrow and the remainder is going by wire transfer direct to my bank.

Don't like using escrow but not too worried since its a minority of the payment.

I will be glad once the sale is complete, its taken a lot of time selling it, I spent over an hour just on the paypal screenshots for revenue proof - I think paypal really need to sort out their reports.

If there's any new advertisers starting before the site is transferred I will just be asking them to wait and send the payment to the new owner.

The winning bid was on NamePros! That's the first ever sale I have got on NamePros!(Apart from a few $10 text links ;))
I was considering just leaving it off NamePros because I thought there wasn't any serious buyers there.


My Plans

I would say at least $6500 from the sale is going into DeuceAce and some new poker sites, not sure if I will buy any that already have revenue or just start from scratch...Been looking for some good poker domains and I got offers from at least 50 people on NamePros, most really overvalued their domains.
Got another one today, $2500-$3000 for winatplayingpoker.com - That's just a joke...

The designer of DeuceAce told me to email him around now to get started on the design for me, sent him an email on Friday I think and he said he didn't even know he was meant to work on one for me...
Been planning for this new design coming online for a few months now and I'm going to have to wait again for it to go into his queue.....................

Anyone have any poker domains for sale?
Post a comment here or email tmzmod [ at ] hotmail.com and include prices.

Don't be afraid to contact advertisers!

A lot of people, including myself, don't like to contact advertisers because they might see it as spam, the reality is if you contact advertisers that you think would benefit from your site, they will be more than happy to look over what you propose.

I have been doing this for WebmasterForums.net and DeuceAce.com and its working amazingly well! My ad revenue is up a lot more than normal and most of it is from the companies I have contacted.

I selected companies that would be targeting the demographic of visitors that would be on the sites and send an email telling them a bit about the site, how they could benefit being a sponsor and the cost.

I got a great response from most companies and only one replied asking not to contact them, I know some don't like it but think about it, would you be annoyed if someone sent you an email if you own a large site/company and offered a great deal? I know I wouldn't and everyone else I contacted didn't.

I offered package deals so they got as much exposure as I could give, one space for their ad wherever I already have advertising on the site plus including their company/site info in the community newsletters.

I did it because my earnings were down a bit in Feb over Jan because I didn't go out and try get advertisers really, that's a big mistake.
Getting advertisers is just as important as improving your site I think, they pay for anything that needs done, and you can't live off money you don't earn.

I will post my earnings at the end of this month and I am hoping it will be a nice increase :)

Go contact people you think would be interested in what you have to offer!

The slow progress on my new site

Anthony got started on my design last night and I was very happy, it was meant to be last week but he forgot he said to me and then it was meant to be earlier this week, but he was busy with other work.

I didn't mind waiting because I knew it would be good, but when I got up this morning I was happy to see he started and sent a preview of the design....then I saw another email.
Thought maybe he did more but had a look and he said he doesn't have time to work on my project.

Like I said before, the site was meant to be open last week and I told a lot of customers it would be and kept stalling them to get the design online first.

I feel really let down because I waited so long and then when it was started he said he couldn't do it.

It would have saved me a lot of hassle if I knew that last week..I could have got another designer to do a custom design and coding by now.

I was going to go and get someone else but its going to take at least a week so I am buying a premade skin and paying someone else to do a logo for it.

I don't think this was very good business after I was loyal enough to wait so long when I could have got another designer and had the site up and running now but....these things happen.

I still like Anthony and he is still a moderator at WebmasterForums ;)
Hopefully he can get himself sorted out and take a break, I think he took on too many jobs at once.
He's an amazing designer but just has to change his scheduling.

Anyway...I was getting a new logo done for WebmasterForums.net by Mugurel at www.Ypson.com already so I decided to ask him to do another for the new site.

Now that I'm just going with the premade design I should have it online very soon...I will post the address when I have it complete and up and running :)

WebmasterForums - New moderator but considering selling

Just got a new moderator on WebmasterForums.net - Hes only the second moderator.

I'm hoping my having some great people on the moderator team it will really help improve the community.

The new moderator is Anthony, he did the design for AllDotNet and I have a few other jobs on his to-do list.


Although I'm working on developing WebmasterForums and improving it, I am considering selling it...

Like I said in my last post, I might go with poker and see how that works out.
DeuceAce is starting to pick up and I think it can do well, I think if I get a network of related poker sites they can feed off each other.

I have a few threads up at forums to see what people think the site is worth, I think it could be worth a nice little sum because of the domain and size of the community.

Anyone out there interested in buying it ;)

Should I go along with poker?

I have been thinking for a while now that poker could still be a really good network to get into..

My poker site has done pretty well so far and the ROI is very good.
I am considering doing a lot of poker sites and making them part of a network, all under DeuceAce.com

Two site genres are doing well for my lately, poker and directories.

WebmasterForums could do VERY well but I don't think I have the time or the drive to work on it enough really..What should I do about it?
Its a large site with a lot of members and a great domain, if I saw it for sale myself I would think of selling most of what I have just to get it, but now that I have it I just can't get the drive to work on it myself...
I think if I could get some long term advertisers it would give me a good drive to keep working on it and improving it, right now it isn't giving a good ROI for me.

I'm back from Dublin!

Got back yesterday from Dublin but I didn't do much work, just replied to some emails and forum posts.

It wasn't too bad but it was freezing down there and there was a big riot in the main street on Saturday, 3 cars burnt out and there was a full riot squad out in most streets in the city centre.

I was on the news worldwide in the news clips! Makes me wish I had a T-Shirt/jumper with the name of one of my sites ;-)

The amount of money you spend on the small breaks really mounts up...I went to Dublin because I'm planning on taking a bigger holiday not too long time from so I could save some money, I spent over £600 (Around $1050) in 2 nights away!

If I didn't go to Dublin and Belfast the last few times I could have had a nice little holiday in one of the Spanish Island for at least a week! Its still good to break up the months and workload by getting away though, you do work a lot better after getting away from things, even if its just a few days.

This months break

For anyone that hasn't read all my blogs, I am going to go away to another city or country at least once every month.

I have already been to Belfast this month and I'm going to Dublin again this weekend.

I think I might be going to Luton (Near London in England) later this month.

I was planning on going further but I'm going to wait a few months and save up a bit more cash and go somewhere really nice.

I need to buy a new laptop though, there’s two problems with my own.
The charger wont work and I bought a new one for £75 and that worked for about a month and has stopped now too.

I can't find the charger for my model of laptop (Got it last year) and its going to be around the same £60-£80.

Second problem is I spilled water on it about 5 months ago and took the keys off to dry it out, laptop is working fine but I have lost a few bits that goes between the laptop and keys...grrrrr.

I don't need anything powerful because I will just be using it to check emails and fix any urgent problems on my sites when I'm away.

New monitor came!

Monitor came today!

Didn't think it would come so quickly with the postal strike going on here.

I didn't think it would make so much difference, there's a lot more space on the screen than I thought.

I will get a pic of it soon, sounds weird but I think I have more space on my desk now than when I had the 15", I think its because of the way the bottom/stand is.

The new speakers I got last week look nice beside it too :)

Time to go watch a DVD (The Business) to see what its like!

Advertising sales

I sold a lot of ad space today, its been a great day overall with directory submission and ad sales.

I sold space on AllDotNet and DeuceAce.

Both are now fully sold out and most spaces have been reserved for a few months.

I will be removing adsense from the header of AllDotNet and changing it to private advertisers - adsense has been REALLY bad for me this whole month - Earnings are down a lot more than I expected even with the large increase in traffic.

A coder has really let me down on a custom script I am having developed to help me manage and sell my available space on all my sites.
The script looks like its 90% complete but I just can't get in contact with him.
I might just work on it and finish it off myself - Not happy about it though because my project specs included that I needed it complete ASAP - I.e. no more than a week, never mind around 6 weeks which its been now.

Once that is done it will make ad management really easy and a lot less work for me, everything will be automated so advertisers can see what's available, buy any space they want and reserve space that's already sold out!

I will be starting to put up my prices soon, especially on the DeuceAce left navigation, that's selling like mad and I never have an available space for more than a few days.

A lot of advertisers are wanting to reserve it for up to 4 month, I put a limit of 4 months max because I know I will be putting prices up, its really low at $29.95/month for a sitewide button link.

Hungover!

I went out last night and I have been paying for it the whole day!

I am still feeling bad and its 2.40am

I took it easy today and I was just lying on my bed watching TV and doing a bit of work most of the time.

AllDotNet has been doing really well lately, I think it might be down to the new design.
I just started doing a special offer for one week, buy two listings and get one free!

If anyone has been thinking about listing on AllDotNet now is the time!
Just submit your site here (It takes less than a minute) and you will get your third listing free.
I just started this today and I have got a lot from it already!

Anyway...whats the real hangover cure :D

Increasing traffic on my sites

I have done a lot of work on my sites in the last 3-4 months to try get them ready for a good level of traffic, i.e. to start large advertising campaigns.

I think AllDotNet is at that level now, I have changed a lot and the site seems solid, I think if I can get more traffic I wont have a lot of extra work and the revenue will be better.

My other sites still aren't ready I don't think, I think DeuceAce is close enough, its basic but its still serves its purpose.

WebmasterForums on the other hand needs quite a bit of work I think, I have a lot of plans but just don't have the time to work on them.

Now you might be asking why I'm starting a new project if I don't have time for my current sites...Well once the new project is setup it will be very minimal work, it wont need a lot of updates so I don't mind.

Now....What are my plans for increasing traffic?

AllDotNet.com

I have two markets to target with AllDotNet, my general directory.

The site is large enough to give good results to visitors searching for sites with over 12,000 sites currently listed so I would like to advertise general web users and market on the fact that sites in the AllDotNet directory have been manually approved and reviewed before being listed, unlike the major search engines that can often give a lot of results that don't include sites they want.

I need to come up with more selling points for this market...have any ideas? Post a comment :)

The other market is site owners to get their sites listed, this is where I make most of my revenue from but I am still going to advertise 50% of my budget on it.

I want to sell on the strong points that AllDotNet is established, (Over a year old now!) and their money is well spent as they know we will be around for long to come.
The directory is also very large and it does attract a lot of general visitors searching for sites.
The other factor is I charge a LOT less than most premium directories the same size, I only charge $4.95 for permanent submission and permanent featured links (Above all others in the same category) for $19.95.

I think I have good selling points to both markets so now I just have to find some good sites to advertise on!


DeuceAce.com

I only have one market I want to advertise to, poker players!

This one is very simple, I have advertising space covered really so I just want to get the general traffic levels up, I am going to advertise on other poker related sites, poker directories and if possible buy signature space of people that post in other poker or gambling forums.

I want to get some other ideas though, maybe try get some pro players to come on and answer questions from the members, do a partnership with some rooms to get good deals for my members and a few other things.

Again, if anyone has any ideas, post a comment and let me know!


WebmasterForums.NET

I just started paying for posters on WebmasterForums.net

I'm not going to get a lot, its just to spark a bit of interest.

I have done it in the past and it can work well but you have to have people that are interested in the subject, not just people that are trying to get a few extra bucks..

I don't think webmasterforums is ready for a large advertising campaign, it needs to get more active members, some more sections added to the site and a few other things.

I think I will be working on it for at least another 2 weeks before I start anything big.
I'm still losing money on the forum every month, I really want to get a sponsor that will sponsor the site long term - If anyone is interested in this please let me know!

New monitor! 19 inch Digimate with DVI

I just got a new monitor today, been looking for a few weeks.

I'm using a 15" now and since I'm working more than full time I think it will be better to have a bigger screen.

I wasn't sure if I would get two 17" monitors or one 19" but the 19 will take up less space on my desk and hopefully will be enough, if not I will just need a bigger desk and buy another 19" ;)

I will post a pic when it arrives, hoping to have it by Friday!

New project update - Going well!

I posted a few days ago about starting up a new site, its the first new site I have worked on in months.

I am paying people to do what I need to run the site/business and most of the work is complete, I think it will take another two weeks until its fully complete and online.

My costs for startup are getting bigger though but that's only because I'm trying to get something great quality, I know it will pay off in the long term anyway :)

SoapForum sold for £1200! (Around $2000)

Hey all

Just sold www.SoapForum.co.uk to Martin from www.JustChat.co.uk for £1200 which is around $2000!

Most of this will be spending money for myself and a small part will be going towards the new site I posted about.

I'm hoping to get everything transferred quickly, the money has already been sent through paypal.

Anyone else hate paypal? The fees are a bitch..it cost me over £40 for the transfer!!

AllDotNet is booming!!

Third post tonight, just an update for one of my sites, AllDotNet.com

The site stats are up TEN TIMES the normal, which is a lot because I have had a steady flow of traffic for around 4 months.

I had a look at the stats but I really can't find where its coming from.

Over 85% of my traffic is coming from direct access and bookmarks so I can't work out how it has gone up so much.

I have been getting quite a few submissions on AllDotNet lately and yesterday I got a lot from a regular submitter that has spent a lot in the directory, so I offered him free submission to my three directories, I like giving something back to people that are supporting me and try to do it as much as possible with my advertisers especially.

I have done a lot of work on AllDotNet lately and I will be doing a lot of hours on improving the script/site tomorrow - I think after doing a good bit of work and getting steady traffic of both submitters and visitors searching for sites I can start advertising the site offline and getting even more quality traffic.

SoapForum.co.uk up for sale again

Well I haven't heard back from the last buyer about the SoapForum sale so I have put it back up for sale.

The current stats of the forum are:
Our members have made a total of 33,567 posts
We have 1,554 registered members
The newest member is GlasgowDancer
Most users ever online was 374 on Jul 13 2005, 03:24 AM

It is a pretty large forum so I'm sure it will sell, the current offer is $1200 on DigitalPoint.
I have the BIN set at $2500 which is what I was offered by a few people the last time I had it for sale, so hopefully it will reach that, although I am willing to take a little lower (Don't tell anyone else though).

If anyone is interested in the site please let me know by posting a comment or emailing john [ at ] global eire . com - Take out the space and [ ] of course :)

Back after a break

Hey all,

Well after finally getting the problem with my sites fixed I decided to take a few days away with my other half.

That's the best thing with running the sites I have, as long as there isn't a problem with the hosting, the sites can run themselves and I don't have to worry about them at all while I go away.

I had a great time and hopefully I will be having another short break this month.

I made a promise that I would get at least one quick holiday each month, last month I went to Dublin for a weekend, this month I went to Belfast but I think I will be going to England as well for another weekend.

Isn't it great not having a boss :D

Problem with the new host and vBulletin

Well I still dont have my sites up.... :(

I have made close to nothin in the first week because of my server being offline and it looks like it might be a problem because mysql is different from my server and the new host - Whatever it is its causing a database error on all my forums.

I have got over 2000 emails from people visiting my sites in the last 24 hours.

The sites are working fine on my own server (Which is back online) so I want to get the DNS to forward to my own server (This just means if anyone gets the settings to go to the new host, it will forward them to my own server).

I'm going to have to do something to start getting my revenue up again..I thought after I made the move that would be everything sorted and I could go back to normal.

My fingers are starting to hurt from crossing them so much, one last time, hope the forums are back on ASAP so I can get back to my work...