What Are People Buying from this Web Entrepreneur?
(Written in 2017)
Sometimes it is helpful to see what’s happening in someone else’s business. Like many other online writers, I saw a shakeup in income during the past year (2016), so I am trying to see where “the cheese” has relocated.
I know a little of where the bloggers are going… they are giving webinars and making ebooks to sell, making paid membership sites and information to some extent. The content farm writers are trying their hand at their own blogs, and others are networking, speaking, and writing books.
It is quite the fruit salad of alternatives, but back to the point of this post, I am looking at what on sells Amazon for my sites, which designs at Zazzle are purchased, and other pertinent bits of information.
Web Entrepreneurs Affiliated with Amazon
(As of 2024, my Amazon income and orders has drastically dropped and stayed depressed. After Hubpages and their partners took over almost all Amazon affiliate links were removed or penalized, but you can view the former information recorded here)
After the initial drop from the closing of Squidoo, I usually see between 7 and 20 orders which qualify for affiliate referral.
This quarter some of the items were books (mainly from my garden site), but also:
Since Hubpages has radically reduced the number of Amazon products (to zero in some cases) allowed on my pages, I may well see less of the hair careall orders in the future.
Hubpages was taken over by another company and has dwindled down to almost no income for me, and for most web entrepreneurs like me, now. For years the forums on Hubpages had complaints about effects of Google updates. In 2024, this has benefitted my own hosted websites, but the content farms continue to struggle for small-scale writers who are not employed directly.
Zazzle Web Entrepreneur
In 2024 I have to update my findings on this web entrepreneur avenue. My stores there have become one of my main sources of online income.
Everyone at Zazzle forums complains of changes leading to less income, but I don’t know the overview. For me, last year was a struggle, and this year is variable. While it seems that I am making progress at times, the orders are often small and for products that have little commission. I don’t make consequential referral income.
As I have worked harder in this sector of web entrepreneurship, I have seen much more success in my Zazzle efforts.
The sectors that are known to sell, for web entrepreneurs on Zazzle, have been the invitation areas of Wedding, Shower, and Birthday. let it be known that these are so highly competitive and saturated that it pays to find your own niche within those areas.
A more complete picture of what sells on this POD, for me, can be seen from postings on my art Facebook page.
When I began monetizing, in the early 2000’s, Google ads, affiliate advertising -including Amazon- were the main sources of income. These were incorporated into blogging for web entrepreneurs. Then came the rise and changes inside Social Media platforms, i.e. Facebook/Instagram, Twitter/Now X, et al.
I did not ever enter the Etsy platform as a store, and from Youtube tutorials this has changed and become much more challenging. I have not attempted to create my own stores with Shopify or WooCommerce. Facebook has wasted restricted its platform for commerce, etc. So, I don’t have anything helpful to say about these resources.
Youtube long ago changed so that I had no income from that platform, either.
I recently added a dog breed design that is made for the holidays, with its wreath and Christmas colors. It is a fun watercolor style that highlights fans of the Vizsla dog breed.
The "Faith" tshirt remains live because it made one sale. This is the criteria for designs to have longevity on Amazon Merch. Then, I bought one for myself- got many compliments on the shirt and people really liked the design. I will say it runs slightly small, so order one size up unless you like a slim fit. The length was really nice, and I liked the overall quality.
Details About Merch by Amazon
we are limiting the number of t-shirts a content creator can make based on tiers of designs.
The Merch by Amazon team will be hand-selecting content creators who have sold the same amount of t-shirts as the number of the tier they are in. For example: to move up from the 10 tier, a content creator will need to sell at least 10 shirts from those they have created to move up to the 25 tier.
Admission to these tiers are based not only on sales, but the quality of the products being sold by the content creator as well.
Tier levels include: 10 25 100 500 Pro (by invitation)
Learning Curve
I have to confess that Merch by Amazon has a big learning curve when it comes to creating on the site. Now that many changes have been made to the system, it is frustrating to have a short timeline to sell designs and then have them removed.
If a design does not sell, it is removed. It cannot be automatically renewed, and there is a limit to the number of designs that can be uploaded each day.
These are not unreasonable restrictions, but quite different from other sites like Zazzle or Redbubble, etc.
Comparing Merch with Other Similar Sites
I have worked on Zazzle since 2011, and that site had a similar slow start for me. It produces regular, if not large, pocket money now. I expect that Redbubble and Merch are similar. From others comments some of them have greater success on Redbubble and all who comment on their stores say that each one differs and it is helpful to diversify.
Producing content for each POD type of store is different. In Amazon Merch each product is produced individually, from the upload to writing the descriptions and tagwords to the publishing. Zazzle, while now similar in that they encourage single rather than batch operations of publishing, have the transfer feature. This helps reduce time. Redbubble and Society6 automate the designs to their products, after which it is wise to size and edit each one to look good on that particular one.
I will report on the comparisons in a more definitive way in about a year. I think that is enough time to observe sales and see the trend.
What are your experiences? Do you like one site better than another for making sales? Which one is best for your designs and style?
I have seen only dwindling income levels for my articles on this site. What happened?
Rewriting necessary for the changeover from Hubpage categories to new subset websites. Example: garden topics became ‘Dengarden‘. The sub-sites were the only way to have reliable traffic and ad income.
Amazon links were removed or else articles were penalized.
Ad income on articles dropped exceedingly in the last year.
Articles once accepted on sub-sites booted back into Hubpages.
(My suspicions: Google increasingly penalized these sites as “content farms”)
I personally became disillusioned with this place for writing when the editing became very aggressive. Over time, the editors improved from being quite so heavy handed and some of the graphics inserted did create improvement.
But overall, even if you had decent writing skills, the Editors changed your voice and creation into their own. This interfered with writer’s morale on the site, I believe. I know it did for me. The drop in income only added injury to insult in the situation.
So, the short answer to the question posed in the title of this post?
I cannot now “make money” on Hubpages which involves any promise for input of time, work and energy.
My Hubpages Review 2015
The answer to that question is increasingly “no”, but until very recently it had been a “yes”, and I think it might resume the affirmative. Right now it depends on how the transition is made as Hubpages continues to try to please Google.
For those unaware of what Hubpages is, here is a short summary:
It is a community of online writers using a module based writing platform.
The income of ads and Amazon products are shared between the writer and Hubpages.
A Bit Of Background On Squidoo Turning Into Hubpages
If you have read some of my reports in the past you know that I started out on Squidoo, which was a writing platform with some similarities. While writing there I did quite well, getting some rewards and earning enough income to help support some of my other web writing – selfhosting and domains for my blogs (including this one).
Squidoo was bought out by Hubpages and merged, after which all the articles (christened “lenses”) became “hubs”.
Squidoo struggled with the same issues that are a trouble to Hubpages, now: penalties from Google for poor content, spamminess, and just because they consider them to be “content farms”.
Hubs Get Hit
The fact that Hubpages pay compensation means they have tended to draw some very questionable authors along with the worthwhile, talented, and honest ones. After Google Panda slapdowns (where the traffic was severely impacted), the struggle was on to try to eradicate the source of the problem. This included little to no links to one’s own blogs, or affiliates, and much fewer Amazon modules.
This has resulted in dropping income for many writers on the site (which explains my initial “no”, it is very difficult now to make any money on the site).
Compensation is still paid, but it is much more difficult and greatly reduced at this time (in my own experience).
What Has Changed In Earning Income?
For the things that created income, the ad income is less, the Amazon modules are restricted and discouraged. Also, an arbitrary system of relegating articles to “unfeatured status”, wherein HP tells search engines not to index the hubs, results in less visitors for that “hub”. Ebay has not figured into my own earnings, or much for most others from what I have read.
One thing that has changed is the clarity by which a person may judge whether their writing is meeting standards on the site. Unfeatured for quality can mean almost anything for having outgoing links, to too many, to unrelated Amazon products, etc. It could also have to do with the writing… it is a mixed bag and changes often.
A portion of my dashboard
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Yes, sometimes. However it is a lot of work keeping up with many changes, and the compensation is steadily dropping. What tends to work?
Having a large number of articles still seems to matter. Part of the reason my income dropped is that I took a number of my articles down when they seemed unresponsive to improvements (I couldn’t get them out of unfeatured no matter what I tried).
Writing long articles of 700+ words.
Writing along a very tight topic focus (unlike Squidoo which seemed to reward ranging widely across the topic and covering everything).
Having few or no outgoing links, restricting them to one per text module.
Having very few Amazon products and keeping them to those mentioned in the article.
A number of strong pictures/photos, but not too many.
Another change is the scoring of articles based more on visitor interaction, and less on raw traffic.
A robot editor now corrects grammar and spelling.
Start Doing This
If earning some revenue from your writing online is a goal, try some of these suggestions.
Build up your own sites if you wish to try your hand at making an income writing.
Diversify among different streams of income: sites like Hubpages, your own blogs, social media, Amazon, Zazzle.
Find your niche
Work hard
Network
For now, that is my report on the everchanging landscape of creating a business and income online.
So many writers are complaining in the Hubpages forums and many are leaving or threatening to do so. I take that to mean that there is a sitewide drop in income. Mine is about a third of what it was last year, but I don’t know if that is the common experience or not.
The benefits remain for those who simply wish to have experience writing and possibly getting feedback on their efforts. The community there is also a way to keep a touch on the pulse of the web as it impacts this type of writing (mostly informational articles).
This is simply information given to the reader to help you decide for yourself if you think joining and writing for Hubpages is a promising endeavor for your efforts.
There is only one rule and this post will outline how that rule worked for me as I’ve been working to turn my blogging hobby into an income.
The only rule about online income:
It constantly changes.
Yes, that is it. Simple, isn’t it? And yet, that is what can make it incredibly challenging.
There may have been a time when millionaires were made overnight, but if they are still looking for their online business to provide income revenues they are working hard and still hustling.
In that sense, it is the same story as with any business. Success depends on hard work, and wild success is engined by people who love the process.
…Like gazillionaire Les Wexnerexample of someone who loved the process, who built his Limited empire less for the money and more for his drive to make his business grow and succeed ( I heard him on an interview given to a PBS show).
That seems to be the factor that almost all wildly successful business people have: they are driven to compete, most of all with themselves.
You may disagree with me… if you think it is something else I would love to read your opinion in the comments.
But Back To My Story
This is about how to make money, but mostly about not worrying if you don’t (yet)
Right. I was going to sum up my online pathway in generating income and how that looks:
At first I wrote entirely as a free service to others. I benefitted the “free” hosting, and in return I didn’t have to pay money for hosting. We weren’t allowed to have competing ads on our sites.
Then I discovered AmazonTheir rules have changed since my early days. You will need to make a sale or two to stay in the program. For years I made $0.00 -and was doubtful that anyone could make enough to qualify for the minimum for a payout.
Soon after I was able to sign up for Google Adsense. That also made me nothing, and with a higher qualifying payout. At least it kept whatever pennies were earned in an accumulating amount. Eventually, years later I did get that first payment.
Alrighty- the story here is that there is a learning curve to understanding what it means to monetize blogging or any online writing, for that matter.
Initially I was handicapped by the idea that it was crass to have ads on a blog. Yet, my html website was given ads that weren’t even my own while at Geocities. My idea translated into:
“I can’t make money with integrity on my own writing, but it is okay for others to reap income from all my hard work”
It was hard work I most willingly gave because I loved having readers enjoy and benefit from what I was offering. I wanted them to see beauty, to be inspired, to learn from me.
I can’t emphasize enough what hard work it was. But it was fun, stimulating, and gave me creative outlet. I also cannot emphasize enough how much I needed that as a stay at home wife with ten kids.
But I was using my life to give the blogs so much time and effort, and at the same time my husband and I were struggling financially.
I needed to improve the blog, and I needed for it to pay for itself. It wasn’t until much much later that I felt it should become a business (or even had the idea that it could)
Keys To Adsense and Amazon
The keys are placement and traffic.
source: tawheed manzoor on flickr
Now more than ever, there must be enough eyeballs visiting a page to create income from these two sources. That is traffic.
For you this means that you should not give up if you don’t see results. Keep writing. Keep building your blog
Along with those two keys, which are particularly important for Amazon affiliates, is that you must have enough places where products are included included within the posts and pages of the blog. One on the front page or a few in the sidebar won’t do it, for most of us.
That was always so hard for me because I am primarily a writer. Photos were a challenge, graphics were a challenge, and now including relevant items from Amazon? Yes, it seemed to be one more hurdle to writing a good post.
For years I didn’t even try. And I made so little income I privately thought it might be a scam. But it wasn’t, I just didn’t know how it worked.
So for Adsense there are two main things- having plenty of traffic to the blog and lots of content.
For Amazon, take the time to include links to the products you are advocating anyway. I always like the magazine resource pages that told me where I could get featured items, and that is what Amazon links on a blog can do.
I usually qualify for the minimum payout for Amazon now.
That isn’t something to boast about exactly… it is small potatoes, but at least it is potatoes on the plate.
Amazon Learning Center
Snap shot of my Squidoo lens on Ohio gardens.
That is what I would call my time on Squidooarticle about Squidoo. Before I participated in that writing community (which is what it was for me), I had no idea how to include products within my writing. Not really incorporate them, or write income producing pages. I just wrote.
Squidoo (It is no more, it was sold and closed) had so many tutorials and tips from many writers. It had traffic. And it shared income.
Google Adsense is very up and down for me. My sites were google slappeddrops in search engine placement due to changes in how google gives results, like their Panda update so many times, that if I depended on that to pay the hosting bills, this story would be over.
Squidoo articles added up in small increments. The more I wrote the more I was making, sometimes it would surprise me which topics and pages could give me support.
Eventually, it paid the way for my other sites, including my garden site, Ilona’s Garden. I was able to buy Premium themes, which was necessary as WordPress had become more and more complex, and my sites were hacked. (Hacking meant I had to keep everything updated, and have reliably secure themes).
There is so much more to these stories that can only hinted at here … but it shows that income switched from Google ads to Squidoo ad-sharing community.
And a side effect of those pages was that my own Amazon affiliate earnings were finally increasing. They sent me traffic, due to their liberal policies on linking and adding your own affiliate products.
Squidoo became Hubpages, and for me, the adjustment is only in format. The income levels are about on par. I have no idea how long that will last.
But that could change at any time.
And that is the point of my story, online success depends on making the changes, and keeping abreast of what works and what doesn’t.
Secondly, but Importantly
Always, for me, everything is servant to the writing. I am one of those people who likes to craft, who wants to provide my readers with something worthwhile. Something that means something to me.
Making money from this is always secondary and I have had issues and difficulties because of that.
Other Things I Won’t Compromise
My family comes before the blog
I write from my inner muse, not in response to whether it makes money
I must be honest as possible.
Sure I make mistakes and sometimes deviate from the path, but those are my guiding principles in what I do, to create the blogs and to build income.
This set of boundaries limited my business, but it doesn’t have to for you. I had ten children to raise and I homeschooled, which was a full time job in itself.
More Changes That Challenge
Blogging today is so different than when I started, although I saw many of these things coming.
What I didn’t foresee is how important the visuals would become. And how it would be a more proprietary environment.
We now need to have our own professional photos. Our own professional looking graphics. Participation on many social platforms ( which means lots of writing that never finds its way to the blog.
This makes a difference in income. Presently I have plough more than I make back into this blogging adventure.
Your Takeaways From My Experience
To sum up
Have diverse sources of income for your blogging/writing
SEO and traffic building are important
Each manner of generating income has its own rules and learning curve. They change.
Implicit, but previously unsaid, is the fact that you should concentrate on growing your own blogs and creating your own products.
Don’t give up too soon. The one thing it all takes is patience, work, and time. If it changes, change with it.
And it ought to be fun. You ought to enjoy creating and giving, or it just isn’t worthwhile.
My family also uses Amazon Prime often, which saves us money on shipping and more.
Please support my site by using my links, thank you. This Page may contain affiliate links. “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases”
