My Squid Life

Didn’t want the old year to go out without blogging  just once more on SquidTop.

I tried to get myself back into things. Managed to put together a few quick lenses.  I did one about Wall Key Holders.  I had fabricated my own from some ceramic tile trivets I found on a clearance table a couple of months ago and decided to put together a lens about how easy it is to do. I really need to learn to start documenting stuff like this, I miss a lot of great lens making opportunities.

I also put one together that’s merely meant to be a pleasant page to visit with tons of sunflower pictures and products from people I’ve met on Zazzle. The only photo of my own is in the introduction and it’s not for sale, it’s just a snapshot I took this past summer. The final one was on book lights (I got one in my stocking this Christmas).

But, all of that aside, the reason for my title…I made the comment in my most recent post that I had made no money on Zazzle.  Well, it appears that statement is an untruth. Amazingly enough, through a Christmas miracle or something, I sold some stamps. Wow, just under $3.00.  For some weird reason, things like that, a mere $3.00 is a better victory than earning $60/hour on a regular job. Face it, it’s the battle and the victory, not the money.

Happy New Year everyone.

Well, it’s time for me to look at my 2009 goals and see how I did. Then, think forward to next year.  My year took a dramatic turn mid-year as my mom came up with some health issues that ended up grabbing a great deal of time, and then end of year I decided to have some surgery that completely stopped me in my tracks during this holiday season. Because of these events, I know I’m going to be way off on some of my goals….but here goes…

1. To get 55,000 visits per month to my lenses. I met this one pretty easily. My visits vary alot; 60,000 to 78,000/month appears to be my range in the last several months.

2. Create a Zazzle Gallery.  I met this one as well.  In fact I have two.  This goal was mostly just for fun.  Thus far I’ve only made pennies from it so it’s good I didn’t have lofty goals here.

3.  Get Squidoo revenue (alone) to $600/month. I met this as well, in fact I’m hoping to double that for the December payout despite my inability to really promote anything for the last few months.  I’m still not using my own Amazon affiliate links on my Squidoo lenses. I continue to feel like Squidoo should get their cut. I donate to the Acumen fund and ASPCA but I still take the majority for myself, so I don’t feel that I’m being overly generous by leaving more of my Amazon proceeds with Squidoo.

4. Find a direction for my SquidTop blog.  Uh, yeah, right. I’m still directionless with this…I’m just basically providing a diary of activities and progress.  In otherwords, no, I didn’t meet this goal.

5.  Have 300 completed lenses by end of year.  I also wanted 50 Hubs.  Failed miserably on both of these!  Lol! I think I ended up with 25 hubs and 241 lenses. On the otherhand, I added probably many dozens of other pages of content elsewhere.  Bukisa, Qondio, etc.  My time was limited but I continued the effort to spread myself around a bit more.

Well that’s the end of year update.  I guess, I need to sit down and think up more agressive goals for next year.  I imagine Squidoo will continue to figure very prominently but I’m also very aware of the need to diversify and to provide support for my Squidoo work on other sites.  So next week, I’ll try to have some basic goals to talk about.

I’ve continued to struggle to get on track as far as Squidoo goes in recent weeks.  I haven’t blogged on Squidtop for a while so I’m trying to just post an update before I disappear for several days once again.  I’ve decided to have some elective surgery which although it’s minor, will have me off of my feet for a few weeks. I’ve been dashing around to make sure my mother is taken care of, Christmas shopping is done, and pre-surgical tasks are completed.  Not much time left for Squidoo!

In the past two weeks I’ve created a handful of lenses.  If I remember correctly, I created one on WiFi MP3 Players due to their popularity and another on finding a low light camcorder because it’s a common thing I’m asked about via my website. The third new lens is about camera phone accessories that you can use in order to improve your photos.  As camera phones improve some people are wanting to make the leap toward using them as their only camera.  Their small size and constant presence certainly does make that option tempting.