Does your family know your dirty little secret?

Posted by stuart as ,

I was talking to a mate the other day. He has a passing interest in web development and technology, and asked me how my websites were going.I told him that they make me a few bucks, and I get some enjoyment out of them, so it’s all good. I also told him that my highest trafficked blog (this one) made me the least amout of money, but I enjoyed doing it, so I wasn’t really fussed.

Then he asked me for the address of the blog. I baulked. I’ve never told any of my family or friends the address of this blog, or, for that matter, any of my sites other than my development business site.

So why not? Most of my family and friends know I “do stuff online to make some money”, but if you pressed them, they’d really have no idea what it is I actually do. And you know what? I’d rather it stay that way.

I guess I expose myself a little more on this blog than I do to most of my F & F, they wouldn’t understand the amount of time spent for such little return. (My family, especially, are all professional people - solicitors, surgeons, professors and the like)
I’ve had an exceptionally good couple of weeks on the punt lately. I’ve doubled my money in a two week timeframe. I wish I could do this with my online (mis)adventures. I know that punting as a long term income strategy is a mugs game, but it’s really put in perspective how much time we spend online for such little return.

For those of you spending countless hours a month on your websites, for pocket change in AdSense clicks in the hope of one day owning an autopilot automated income generating empire, what makes you any different from the tens (or hundreds?) of thousands of other would be online entrepreneurs? Why will you succeed while millions of others will fail?

Can you proudly stand in front of family and friends and tell them that your sixty hours a month is netting you $100, but you’re sure that you will “make it one day”?

Not really sure where I’m going with this. I guess I’m saying that I’m more than a little embarassed at the amount of time I’ve spent in front of the computer to make around US$100 a month. It’s a liberating feeling to dump all those crappy AIS sites, watching the domain names expire almost daily.

As I wrote in a previous post. I now have the best of both worlds. I keep the blogs I love, and use them as a form of self-expression, I get a payment from adsense every couple of months, text-link-ads are nice enough to drop some cash in my paypal account once a month, and I get to take Mrs. PMPR out for dinner.

Everyone’s a winner!