building residual income streams

Ryan,

Love your website, lol on getting locked out.

I was all ready to post a long reply about wanting to make an income other than working for someone else, when the phone rang. The someone else wants me to come in on my day off. Since it's one of 3 days off this week I decided to do it. But I really want to change the way I make money to live on.

Evelyn

Here is something I have said about 40 times to about 40 photographers. And I suspect zero of those photographers have followed my advice.

Take a great pic, reduce the size of the pic to 700 pixels wide and post it to permies. Post the high res pic out at a stock photography site. Put a link to all of your pics at the stock photography site in your permies.com signature. Repeat daily for a month.

Now you will probably earn about $400 per year. So over the next ten years, you will have earned about $4000 - or $133 per picture.

Now do stuff with your picture to make it easier to find. Rather than the name of the pic being 10000045602.jpg, change the name to beautiful-rocket-mass-heater.jpg and set the description for the pic to "a beautiful rocket mass heater I saw in oregon". And then the text that goes with the post talks about it. And, of course, it appears in a thread about beautiful rocket mass heaters.

Now you earn $1000 per year on those images, or $333 per picture.

Now go to a few other forums and do it with the same pictures and you are getting more than $500 per picture.

Now do this for a full year and discover that you are getting $800 per picture over a ten year span of time. $2500 per month comes in and you don't do anything more. It is all on autopilot.

And if you stop posting pics, that money just keeps coming in year after year.

- - - -

Today I got another email from somebody that wants to pay for a high res pic they saw here on permies.

paul wheaton wrote:Here is something I have said about 40 times to about 40 photographers. And I suspect zero of those photographers have followed my advice.

Take a great pic, reduce the size of the pic to 700 pixels wide and post it to permies. Post the high res pic out at a stock photography site. Put a link to all of your pics at the stock photography site in your permies.com signature. Repeat daily for a month.

Now you will probably earn about $400 per year. So over the next ten years, you will have earned about $4000 - or $133 per picture.

Now do stuff with your picture to make it easier to find. Rather than the name of the pic being 10000045602.jpg, change the name to beautiful-rocket-mass-heater.jpg and set the description for the pic to "a beautiful rocket mass heater I saw in oregon". And then the text that goes with the post talks about it. And, of course, it appears in a thread about beautiful rocket mass heaters.

Now you earn $1000 per year on those images, or $333 per picture.

Now go to a few other forums and do it with the same pictures and you are getting more than $500 per picture.

Now do this for a full year and discover that you are getting $800 per picture over a ten year span of time. $2500 per month comes in and you don't do anything more. It is all on autopilot.

And if you stop posting pics, that money just keeps coming in year after year.

- - - -

Today I got another email from somebody that wants to pay for a high res pic they saw here on permies.

Is it really that easy?Seems like over time the pic views would go down and no money will be made.

Ben Mosley wrote:
Is it really that easy?Seems like over time the pic views would go down and no money will be made.

A few points:

1: some threads will become wildly popular and some will gather dust. Without a crystal ball we will never know the future of any thread.

2: Here is a post I wrote over ten years ago. The thread has now been viewed over 200,000 times. The most recent post in that thread was three days ago. I know that all sorts of paying entities are itching for pictures in that and will look at the stuff on the first page first.

3: if you post shitty pictures, your income will be about a thousand times less than if you post good pictures.

4: if you don't do this (or anything) then you can be damn sure you will have zero income.

5: TRY 100 THINGS. 2 WILL WORK OUT. YOU NEVER KNOW IN ADVANCE WHICH 2.

I like numbers 4 and 5. So true.

I don't know if many folks are just victims of life long programming to be a cog or what. I know I have seen more than once in my family a few of things that sadden me.

1) College, career, retire. Golden rule.
2) Daydreams don't pay the bills, see #1 above.
3) It (whatever it is) probably wont work. Just get a job. Referring to #1 above if the person in question is viewed as "college material".

Old school, programmed or just defeatist thinking I suppose.

Out of curiosity, have you, Paul, ever collected your gems of wisdom or thoughtful advice on residual income into a single thread? A list as it were.

I do like the picture idea. Im a fan of work hard once and toss it out there, do it again with something else.

As someones uncle said a few times "flick at the wall, if it sticks its a goodun"

TA!

paul wheaton wrote:...
Take a great pic, reduce the size of the pic to 700 pixels wide and post it to permies. Post the high res pic out at a stock photography site. Put a link to all of your pics at the stock photography site in your permies.com signature. Repeat daily for a month. Now do stuff with your picture...set the description for the pic to "a beautiful rocket mass heater I saw in oregon". And then the text that goes with the post talks about it. And, of course, it appears in a thread about beautiful rocket mass heaters...
Today I got another email from somebody that wants to pay for a high res pic they saw here on permies.

Wow, I wish I'd been one of the 40 to hear this before! This might be something I can do!

Devil's always in the details, this is an area that I know nothing about online, but I did get residual pic money from something in my previous life <g> so maybe I'm extra motivated. Although skeptical too, since I hear everyone talking about using free, royalty free images... so who is paying for them?

I don't know anything about the online photo biz of course... Googling and reading for the last couple hours, I mostly see info as extra income for professionals, which is who you (Paul) said you mentioned it too. <g> I'm not a professional, but I take a LOT of pics, and I know pics that I've looked for before, and not been able to find. And now I understand why when I look for a certain type of pic, for a presentation for example, I find lots of only vaguely related stuff... its in the keywords and descriptions. But back to the subject of how doable this is or not.... Here's a typical article from 3 yrs ago, even then saying there's more to it
http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-make-money-from-stock-photography/

and the need to be a professional caveats, "...be prepared to invest in quality equipment, including lighting. Image quality is everything, and poor image quality is the number one reason images get rejected..."

More recent articles seem to say the era is over, that there's too much available free now, “Clients more and more want simple, clear, flexible rights, and that traditionally comes with a [royalty-free] model,” says Helen Hicks, Alamy’s head of customer service and marketing. “The [rights-managed] model is more complicated and puts a limit on the extent to which the image can be used, which doesn’t suit the clients of today.”

There's an inbetween called MicroStock, "...burgeoning microstock image pool, standards are rising. “The quality level is now very high and agencies are now very good at surfacing the best content,” says Torrens, who also writes the blog Microstock Diaries. “The golden age of selling bad photos is clearly over.” "

Overall, my enthusiasm is dimmed by articles about increasingly bad deals for the photographer, a lot by a company called Getty that apparently controls too much and is doing photographers wrong...

Dang, I love to take pics, I have thousands, but it looks like the ship has sailed on this, and its an uphill trek now.

I'm in a grey area in my life, and I'm not just talking about my hair going grey from stress! LOL. My husband has been fired again, and is having increasing brain problems. Neurologist brought up disability in last visit but he went nuts at that suggestion, so we're going to have to struggle along for awhile. I keep having injury and other health stuff too, so I'm all ears for ideas like this that would fit. I'm still going to look into it a little more, I just have, and take, so many pics, but they won't be the quality that is generally paid for nowadays it sounds like. I just posted on FB today, a question for tips about managing LOTS of pics on a daily basis LOL, so I thought this was perfect. See how tempted I still am? <g>

A number of years ago, I was having different health issues, unable to work "regular" jobs, but made a get-by living from at least 6-10 small income streams, including selling plant starts, used books, specialty baking, some teaching from old career skills, some stock trading in a groove that I'd found, a specialty catalog I had that I've let lapse because doing a decent website was so much less fun, and more expensive... but I think the circle may have come around again to where there are easy ways again, even like Etsy-type stores one can just plug a few items into. I'm just out of date about what works well nowadays, and my assets and liabilities have changed from years ago, as far as what's doable now.

I think it was the previous time my husband had gotten fired, that I came here looking, as I'd recently before that heard Paul mention something about small income streams and residual income, and it resonated for me. I'll go looking again... this just sounded so great, but alas... on to sort thru the rest of the big pile, analogous to Paul's " 2 out of 100" to find ones that work for a given situation.

I REEEEEEALY hate sounding like a chuckle-head... but need some clarification so I can be the first (amateur) photographer to follow your advice . Before asking for help, I've spent the last 2 hours googling "stock photography sites" and reading some of their "how-to" manuals. So that's covered. But I don't know what my "permies signature" is, and how do I place the link between the two? Is there a "for dummies" somewhere in here that explains technical stuff to a tech newbie?

"Take a great pic, reduce the size of the pic to 700 pixels wide and post it to permies. Post the high res pic out at a stock photography site. Put a link to all of your pics at the stock photography site in your permies.com signature. Repeat daily for a month. "

I've been putzing around here for a bit trying to figure out how to post a picture so I could play around with it and maybe figure it out without bothering you, but your site wants a URL. !!

Geez... HELP!

PS... Oooooh! Cool! I figured out the quote in a box thing! Yeah me!

to post a picture, you need to have it "hosted" somewhere, that's why the forum software is asking for a URL.

you can create a signature, which is a piece of text (which could contain links) that appears at the end of every one of your posts here. You do this at the same place you indicated you live in zone 7 - in "your profile." It's under General Information.

For example, my signature says "ask me about food."

You can upload a pic here to permies. That's the one that you probably want to be 700 pixels wide.

You can change your signature by clicking on "my profile" at the top of every page here. Then expand "General Information about yourself" and you will be able to see the signature stuff.

More recent articles seem to say the era is over, that there's too much available free now

And if you have pictures of something unusual, and they need it or want it ....

Also, if your picture is better than the free stuff ...

And a lot of the free stuff is available under creative commons which does not allow for commercial use. Plus, a lot of stuff available under creative commons is pirated - so the magazines don't want to get burned. They pay for images, just to be sure.

Thanks SOOOOO much! Now to expand my knowledge and get those pic out there!

Bill Bianchi wrote:
I'm writing a dual series of novellas set in a post apocalyptic world, told in first person from the POV of a young boy in one

Did you ever write these books?

paul wheaton wrote:

Bill Bianchi wrote:
I'm writing a dual series of novellas set in a post apocalyptic world, told in first person from the POV of a young boy in one

Did you ever write these books?

Made it to TV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_%28TV_series%29

Ben Mosley wrote:
Made it to TV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_%28TV_series%29

I searched and did not see your name there.

paul wheaton wrote:

Ben Mosley wrote:
Made it to TV. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Walking_Dead_%28TV_series%29

I searched and did not see your name there.

I posted that sarcastically.I furget that sarcasm doesn't always come through on the internets.

I'm teaching myself how to code in java, thinking eventually I can build some Android phone apps that could generate residual income so I can finance so permaculture projects.

Anyone on permies have experience building income that way?

I have a bit of an odd bit of residual income. 11 years ago I was divorced. With a great lawyer who put in for alimony, which I had no idea I could get. He also worded the paperwork that it is to continue when one of the parties dies. Which means that even though I have been remarried for over a year, I still get $800 a month 0r $9600 a year income. Best life insurance my ex ever had.

About the T shirts printing, what about a set of permaculture ts and better yet, those reusable fabric bags we all use to carry home our groceries? I sew, so I could make them, or have them made???

great discussion thread.

So I love the concept of a residual income stream, but some of the steps are not clear. For example, I started a blog a few years ago. It seems to get quite a few visitors. However, I am choking on the right way to do advertising and exactly how to do that. I have earned zero dollars. My blog is www.powellacres.com. I do try to post informative articles with new information and pictures. How do I post ads that will generate income? Do I spend money to do ad campaigns? Is there a step by step that i can trust?

Sherri, not sure if you see them, but I just went to your blog and there are adverts on it - perhaps generated by the hosts of the blog site?

After I read permies residual income and posted my questions, I went back to look at AdSense that Paul mentioned. I clicked the radio button for ads to the side and below. I hadn't looked for this before. When I first set up the blog, I had to go in each page to set up ads. The thing is, they were advertising things they didn't make sense, AND I received no income from them! I kind of hate to subject my readers to that. Is there a way to advertise things you actually recommend?

Also, due to the posts here, I went into my profile to find the place to create my signature line. It was not easy to find, so I want to leave some instructions. Log in, click on my profile at the top of the page, click the plus sign beside general information about myself and scroll to the bottom to find the signature block. Don't forget to save it. I am entering this on my tablet (mobile version) in case it's a little different.

Sam Boisseau wrote:I'm teaching myself how to code in java, thinking eventually I can build some Android phone apps that could generate residual income so I can finance so permaculture projects.

Anyone on permies have experience building income that way?

I made a new thread for stuff that is almost a residual income stream:

https://permies.com/t/52383/ri/list-residual-income-streams

Sherri Lynn wrote:So I love the concept of a residual income stream, but some of the steps are not clear. For example, I started a blog a few years ago. It seems to get quite a few visitors. However, I am choking on the right way to do advertising and exactly how to do that. I have earned zero dollars. My blog is www.powellacres.com. I do try to post informative articles with new information and pictures. How do I post ads that will generate income? Do I spend money to do ad campaigns? Is there a step by step that i can trust?

I made a new thread just for you:

https://permies.com/t/52384/ri/improve-blog-income

Sherri Lynn wrote:After I read permies residual income and posted my questions, I went back to look at AdSense that Paul mentioned. I clicked the radio button for ads to the side and below. I hadn't looked for this before. When I first set up the blog, I had to go in each page to set up ads. The thing is, they were advertising things they didn't make sense, AND I received no income from them! I kind of hate to subject my readers to that. Is there a way to advertise things you actually recommend?

Would you recommend my podcasts or videos or any of the stuff I have listed in the Digital Market?

If you sell one thing a month, the affiliate fee is anything from $1.00 to $26.

Maybe put it up for a while and see what happens.

Hey Guys,
Damn this is an awesome thread. Passive/Residual income is literally my DREAM.
I always thought if I could Juuuuust make a residual income of 1.5K-3K per month
I would be free to go anywhere in the world and volunteer on as many permaculture
projects as I wanted.

It's a shame that so many of us have to go into debt to get a permaculture education
and attend workshops and apprenticeships. I know I've taken massive financial risks
doing no-pay permaculture internships simply because I want to gain experience...though
I found that's a hard trap to get out of, because you enjoy the work but it pays you nothing.

So here's my residual income background.
-Read the Four Hour Work Week which really got me thinking about the possibility of what was possible.
-Filmed Paul's RMH Dvd kickstarter, which definitely proved that a PERMACULTURE residual income stream was possible.
- I invested some money in rooftop solar 5 years ago which gives me $150 per month for the next 3.5 years.
-Invested in a climate change film (Chasing Ice) that did REALLY well, and it made me realize what I could have earned
if I got residual income from that.

Here's my permaculture income strategy
1. I've currently launched my first of a few online courses, which are products that could generate residual income.
- An online course on travel planning The Epic Travel Adventure Course
- A Regenerative design course I'm building with Neal Spackman Sustainable Design Masterclass
2. Create several more online course products over the next several years to reach that threshold, and hire V.A's to manage the marketing of them.

Currently my residual income stream is super low, but I'm inspired by what I'm seeing here!

-Raleigh Latham
www.greenthumbfilm.com

Adsense can be great, I also do Amazon Affiliates, and then I have my youtube video channel that I get advertising on. The videos and ebooks are great because once it's done you don't have to do anything else other then marketing it. Knowing how to setup up your website for SEO and Organic traffic and it just builds and builds. Just one example I did a DIY video a few years back and have been running the banner on it since then. I did no advertising, only listed on youtube and my site. I spent about $200 on materials the most I've done on any video and in it's lifetime I have made just under $2,000 from it. Do that several hundred times and your doing really well. I was busy with expanding my physical product business this year, so I haven't added any videos to my site this year and I still get deposits every month for $250-400. Crazy... It's not the perfect setup but it's a nice bonus.

I know one gal who has a popular Yoga channel on youtube and grosses over $200K a year from it....just saying...Take Action!

Raleigh, you should put those links in your signature for this (giant) website and then post all over the place. (Useful and/or encouraging words, please!) It will get your info in front of a pretty receptive audience, and it will help with SEO (although I'm not an expert on that).

Rick and Sherri, you have links (yay!) but they aren't "live." I know it's possible, because Paul has live links in his signature. I will leave it to better experts to figure out how it's done.

Thanks, I just updated mine, you just need to add: http://

On another note there are many podcasts on residual income streams, I really like SPI Smart Passive Income Podcast..good stuff on there

Mr. Wheaton,

I am running a YouTube channel about Community Endurance. I came from, (read left,) the "survival movement" because I grew sick of hearing about the best weapons to kill all my neighbors with and what type of sword works best against zombies. Weapons and self defense are important, but why not unite your community around your methods and knowledge ahead of time? Why not establish yourself as the go to person for relief, education and teaching before things go nuts? If the community sees you as the one person who is prepared and sharing that knowledge- what a difference.

So I see most clearly that our causes are aligned.

People survive a crisis as individuals, but a community endures a crisis together. A sustainable approach is a real and truly viable method of enduring a crisis. (Be that man made or natural.) Off grid methods will suddenly become VERY important in a true disaster!

As the channel takes off, I should like to do reviews of your excellent materials and obtain a residual income opportunity. I am also interested in cross advertising, as the channel gains viewers.

I tried contacting your advertising email, but have not heard back. That's likely just due to the volume of email you get!

Regardless, I would love to develop a relationship between audiences and cross promote. I am small now, but with my contacts in CERTs from around the area, I think you will find long term value as my audience grows. (CERT stands for Civilian Emergency Response Team. We are mostly an auxiliary to local first responders, but in a crisis, we run shelters, provide information, run lost & found locations for families and we even do light search and rescue.)

There is a huge audience that's cast off from the survival channels and websites that want to learn about off-grid methods and working with their community during a crisis. I hope to bring them into both caring about their community and learning about the permie lifestyle.

Your thoughts Sir? (Anyone else is welcome to respond too.)

Most Sincerely,

Jeff

Jeff Rash wrote:

There is a huge audience that's cast off from the survival channels and websites that want to learn about off-grid methods and working with their community during a crisis. I hope to bring them into both caring about their community and learning about the permie lifestyle.

I eventually abandoned the prepper crowd because of the things you mention. There's little hope amongst the preppers - there's tons of hope (and, more importantly - action!) here on permies.

Jeff,

I'd love to get a link to your you tube channel. Sounds interesting. A search with community endurance had a lot of results.

Thanks

Tyler Ludens wrote:

Jeff Rash wrote:

There is a huge audience that's cast off from the survival channels and websites that want to learn about off-grid methods and working with their community during a crisis. I hope to bring them into both caring about their community and learning about the permie lifestyle.

I eventually abandoned the prepper crowd because of the things you mention. There's little hope amongst the preppers - there's tons of hope (and, more importantly - action!) here on permies.

I hear you there! There are a lot of people involved in the fantasy of survival. They focus on the fact that personal freedom in a crisis is all one has to rely on. But instead of doing something right with that freedom, they focus on how to abuse it for personal power and pride. Hence the focus on weapons. I believe people should own a gun IF they will be responsible for it, but I have to laugh at these guys that focus on nothing but weapons and call it "survival." I laugh, because you can't eat bullets and guns. I am a farmer. I raise food. These "survivalist" will be trading all their gear to me for corn. Sure, they could hunt with those guns, but meat is nothing without the full balanced diet- and anybody can hunt. Game will be wiped out- leaving only your friendly farmer.

Well they could just shoot me...

I know that won't happen, because endurance level farming IS hard to learn. It takes a long time to develop the needed skills. (Took me four years.) So if I die quick from a bullet, the shooter dies slow from starvation. I am a one man farm and food expert- the one guy that knows what he is doing.

And that's the point of the channel, partly. I want to make other "Community Endurance" types that sway their community now, before that 100 year flood happens that knocks out services for six months like it did here in Valley City, ND. Or a manmade disaster strikes, (see the stock market crash today?) that really sends us for a whammy. Those that are in the lead with know how will be the new community leaders. They will be seen as "recovery central." (Hence my effort to build and join a CERT here in ND.)

But this is about residual income too!

I intend to place ads in the videos via YouTube. I hope to build enough videos to make it work and help fund my education efforts, that reality is about crisis endurance, not about zombies and killing your neighbors. I started in survivalism and was pretty much turned off. But it did lead me to permaculture as an alternative.

Jeff

Jeff,
Still looking forward to that link or channel info.

Stu Horton wrote:Jeff,

I'd love to get a link to your you tube channel. Sounds interesting. A search with community endurance had a lot of results.

Thanks

I started the website and the channel nearly a year ago- then came down with Crohn's disease! Just now recovered from it and got my mind and body to the point that I am functional again. (You would be shocked how many people have Crohn's!)

My point is that I only made one video and one shortwave radio review for the website before things fell apart.

The video was of how to clean out and reuse a basement cistern! Second phase is to solar power a small water pump that will allow us to at least bathe and flush. Third phase is to bypass city sewers and use the septic tank as an emergency device only. (In a crisis, people care more about taking a bath and flushing- I have no worries about legal hassles. I am sure to get a permit from the city in a true crisis.) Was a great project! However, it was a summer project. The AC was running in the basement nearly the whole time. What sounded whisper quiet to me sounded like a hurricane on the video! I was so ticked...

Going to do a redo on that video, because it's worth it to the community. MANY in the Midwest and East have cisterns that can be recovered. A source of even unsterile water that is clean enough to bathe in makes a huge difference in enduring a crisis. Disease and "personal critters" run rampant when one cannot bathe regularly.

So don't expect anything too spectacular once you get to the channel and website!

Here is the website: http://endcomm.com

It does at least have a landing page. (If anybody knows of some easy to use software to build webpages, PLEASE HELP!)

Here is my YouTube channel too: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjJHtq3hxPNXCqy6MhNTrCw?view_as=public

It's going to get busy as I add videos to it. My latest video I am shooting now is how to get "dead" AGM batteries for free and then fix them near new. (Most have one simple thing wrong with them that anybody could safely fix.) These batteries are then going into my water system to power it 24/7. Even if they are truly dead, they are valuable recyclables at around $2 to $25 depending on size. Not exactly residual income, but income nonetheless! I show how to do it, test them and how to make contacts in your community to find them for free! Most businesses consider them to be a nuisance, and will seek you out once you get a reputation.

Anyway, thanks for your interest and if you want to explore how to start your own endurance community channel, please don't hesitate to speak up! (That goes for anybody.) I will be happy to cross promote, just Like Paul Wheaton here at Permies.com! (I listened to one of his podcasts on cross promotions, really good info.)

Jeff

PS- If anybody wants info on creating YouTube video, equipment, etc, as a residual income stream, please feel free to respond! I was making videos back in the days of tape and shuttle systems and can steer you right to do this both good and inexpensive. Email is 1ylekiot@gmail.com

Wow, I've had this page and the other open for weeks https://permies.com/t/1892/tnk/promote-site-permies
I was trying to think how to say to point some things out or what I want to see or how to introduce the topic without going off-topic etc and well I just wrote a lot... Please keep in mind I'll edit it down soon.

What I want to say ranges from loving everything permaculture to not loving technology as most of you might begrudgingly use it anyway (right?) from no other alternative or lack of... or you were subtly moved on from the old systems / floppy disks because it was simply 'phased out' / obsolete or "not good enough now". The problem with the technological ways, apart from the obsolete nature / waste of it that deliberately is created by businesses to fuel itself (which can be entertaining but actually ecologically not furthering much), is that most of us also didn't realise what we were moving on to or how it evolved from beginning and now used for everything. Simply put you don't understand what you're using every moment on the internet, and stopped wondering why it's free. Not understanding is OK now because anyone can 'use' it or create an account by clicking I agree but your didn't read the Terms of Service to see how it 'uses' you. I like on this site "Be nice" is the only thing to agree with as that term does respect the ambiguous nature of human contact and what nice is, so rather than legal terms this would be better from a discussion stand pointc. Legal-speak is great.... a capital letter making it a different meaning, such as Law or small letter 'l' law - we're totally fooled with hidden meanings and old colonial idea of property and being owned. Being 'nice' holds better what meaning in reflecting the now and could actually be short-hand genius and better than anything we could derive from that together. It's not your fault but now you know consider reading your terms and if it seems too serious, that's because it is. All is driven by business which is extracting from the world (from digital bits to physical power stations) and in my estimate reached already the limits of adding anything we could consider worth digging it up for since there isn't a 'Paul' around every block more than technology pushing 'practical' other images for us to consume.

Apologise for the length of this.

In short, by using external corporate NON-permaculture mass-systems and sites to drive our own sites funding our lives sadly undersells the credibility of what's here and what we're about at least in some way if not all in the long-term chess way as the other team races ahead with our inputs and energy. I know being born into means we in a prostitute type situation / being pimped no matter which way we go but let this me a little poke in the shins to say it's not complete as far as I can see and maybe we knew from long ago all the money and everything has it's limits / isn't enough and always evolves to embed even more limits! At least the ratio was a bit more modest in the old days. Now we're on our knees from switching over in every sector to the new 'designs'.

By using people / groups / enterprises who 'underwrite' the whole site somewhat then we too as users are in bed with this emBEDded code... from GoogleAds to GoogleWords to the other things. Perhaps I'm suggesting starting to work your own engine regardless of who uses Google and offering to help you at least think about that.
I know what members want is the most complete near-to-true partnership on every level and really win things for ourselves and take it to the next level. Watching it on the telly is no longer good enough and we're realising. In some ways I apologise for dissatisfaction coming out in these ways, but I hope this post constructively breaks into digestible pieces. Maybe replacing things eventually with something you can build with more of a seal of approval (a permacultural born system) means knowing you made it and it's yours - no matter what. this perspective of doing this well vs. getting more hits/members could well be the middle or end point of choosing to change, flick the switch or switch the tables around. Eventually doing it the right way (or Paul's way) you WILL catch all the fish, no choice if we believe in the same principles. This forum didn't catch me with Google so don't worry - only lack of belief that long-term good things won't work make you think it's not possible. You got a name already. Consider making the change like you would grow your own tomato instead of buying more from Spain's export in plastic. Perhaps I'll pay you for that (name you're price).

So each time this site might be missing that crucial link / selling and using what makes more money for non-permaculture type companies - yes it's a pyramid scheme that's why they pay out, because they get something MORE and it's data, control & stat's NOT just more money to Google. So all that, if you agree, damages the environment more or risks it with unknown stems from that data, especially if you agree more money means more mistake even without connecting the super-power of supplying data to non-permaculture service provider / BIG businesses. I'm not claiming to be 100% right here or right for your perspective but what we don't know ranges from the heat generated and rising from processor & server heat sinks to where our data is going and to who (even for some nice permaculture products linking all our computers and key-wrods). All the tech involved (hardware 7 pipes) is a big jump on the wrong side of PERMACULTURE. Digging cable and not ...[I don't have the wise-crack alternative word here please fill it in yourself]

I just realised permaculture isn't in my browsers dictionary. How ironic.

So I really appreciate and agree with the open way / style of Paul I've seen (who I don't claim to know) and maybe I'm waaay ahead of myself like some "Back to the Future" film - but just maybe after any Google partnership reaching their own limits (not paying us enough or striving forwards 'permaculture' in real terms) and toleration of what we agree is not the way with technology - I'm wondering "WH?AT NEXT... WHEN YOU GET TO THAT LEVEL... THEN WHAT, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE MUCH BIGGER THAN YOU USING YOUR OWN DATA STREAMS" - that's what I'd ask in the politest of ways because what all this technology is - it's all actually political or politically made (by political I mean the 3rd dictionary term "relating to your views about social relationships involving authority or power"). Eventually the power to permaculture is what I see as the missing link. All good to have some drive until laws, land rules, policing locks it down already ahead of such movements or has the final word. Hell the dvd's will be all we're going to have to throw at them Ok that line was just for fun and some of us might prefer to keep the dvd in jail than throw it.

Those that drive or allow the technology also drive or allow the permaculture and any actions related to it - so the Land (or is that small 'l' land), tax / Tax, taking from the people... this is more business  right? Otherwise we wouldn't need Paul so much as it would be everywhere already Basically what technology has or has limits of is my point and happy to hear (or help work on something which isn't just a pyramid scheme of giving what we think is good and relying on it's member on this forum and can really SEE all the things in the chain - because with clever electrical signals - I think you can't (or it's not worth trying to play this game). At least with nature you can trust it all to be natural so even if some weed grows you can still use it in some way. There are a lot of human extras that can't be used and the excess or residue is pure TOXIC. I look at my laptop and old stuff I have see that already. Technology moves on moves market to create / drive new stuff. I don't appreciate that in the interest of 'creating more business'.
I digress slightly and finish to say

With this technology used on this site, and what screen and hardware you're using - who and what lands were the resources taken to make all of this?... Do we know almost surely it wasn't permaculture people?

Ok I will write just this for now... happy to edit it, but now I'm on-line I'd really like some PM's (private messages / purple moosages) to respect this page and topic intact and not pepper it with replies or flames to me. Basically as Paul or many of us might say "let's really build something new" and get out of pyramid schemes that feed off new members, newbie, and the debt of knowledge to keep going, because the truth is there, and that's that Google is not a permaculture company. You're getting shafted from a permaculture perspective from top of the tree (or should I say root).

I had the browser window open for ages thinking about it but then just though "hell - just write it" these guys are cool enough to understand (and will even help with writing /re-writing it). Thanks for reading.

Again maybe PM is best for now and happy to edit /refine things with basic reasoning. I hope the tone is seen as serious and not bashing you, more the principles / ethics with some light flavouring in between. Bon appetite.

Very good info here, thanks for sharing! I can only imagine that now, after five years, opportunities for residual income have exploded from what they were in 2013. The potential here is truly inspiring! I am trying to transition from wage-slave to working for myself. I know it will be a long hard climb, and I appreciate the leg up I've found here. With e-commerce, opportunities for working at home doing what you love abound! We just need to learn to tap into it. I appreciate all the information shared so abundantly right here. Thank you Permies!

I have set all of my content to have a 50% affiliate fee.  This includes:

    - the old rocket mass heater 4-dvd set
    - the new rocket mass heater 4-dvd set
    - the "world domination gardening" 3-dvd set
    - 177 hours of PDC/ATC

It would seem that somebody that is adsense savvy would set up some ads that would run for months and they would collect a bunch of money.   And then they could set up those ads to basically run forever and they could then walk away and the funds just keep coming, year after year.  

It seems that somebody could basically do the same thing for facebook.  Or whatever their favorite social media is.

I bet somebody that is amazon savvy could set up pages and have me send cases of product to amazon.

    - the old rocket mass heater 4-dvd set
    - the new rocket mass heater 4-dvd set
    - the "world domination gardening" 3-dvd set
    - the permaculture playing cards

When they get an email once every six months or so about inventory, they have that tiny spec of work to do ...  so it isn't perfectly residual, but it is up there.

I just tried to connect up to scrubbly.com and got a message from AVG that the connection was stopped because the site has phishing.exe on it

Mary Hysong wrote:I just tried to connect up to scrubbly.com and got a message from AVG that the connection was stopped because the site has phishing.exe on it

Scubbly is gone.   We built the "permies.com digital market" to replace the services that scubbly provided.   Scubbly charged 9%.   Permies.com charges 1%.

how to make passive income with $0 - using your time to generate money online.

Here’s the first lesson on creating passive income: you will need SOME type of investment to get it started. You’re either investing your money to BUY your way to passive income, OR in this case, you’re investing your time.