A Million In One Year

One month down.

Eleven to go.

I’ve probably made about 2 or 3 grand in the last month - mostly doing sound for events and doing music production.

And I’ve made practically zero online. Seriously, a few cents. But that’s ok.

However, I’ve really packed the hours in and done a ton of work.

I’ve designed content for several of the web sites mentioned in The Gameplan and put them up.

troy-ounce.com is currently ranking no. 7 in Yahoo for the phrase “troy ounce”. Not bad for a site only a few weeks old. And outerspaceringtones.com is currently ranking no. 13 in Google for the phrase “m4r ringtones”.

I’ve set up accounts with azoogleads, kontera and widgetbucks.

But most importantly of all… I’ve finished my eBook! It weighs in at over 300 pages and 110,000 words.

I decided to abandon the idea of lucky-lex.com and giving myself the pen-name “Lucky Lex.” The issues of trademark, “doing business as” and all that stuff were just too expensive to contemplate right now.

So I’ll put the book out as me - and on reflection I’m quite happy about this. I’ve scored the domain name money-while-you-sleep.biz for the eBook - which is currently being proof-read and critiqued by a handful of friends. It’s come out great with all the embedded links working in the PDF.

Next task will be to set up the clickbank publisher account and get the thing up for sale.

Then after that, my main missions will be adding more free content, and getting towards the point where I can start applying methods of driving traffic. Can’t wait!

In other news, I’ve fallen completely in love… with a Steinway “L” grand piano. It simply has the most fantastic tone. And I can’t afford it.

So.. what do you think? Am I going to win my bet? I’m feeling good about it. And I’ve been working heroically. But I’m going to have to turn up the voltage. Stay tuned…

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In the third part of the mini-series on building a ringtone web site, we come to the point where we have created several m4r ringtone files (see “Creating A Ringtone Web Site Part #2″) for full instructions on how to do this) - and now we’re ready to upload the iphone ringtones to the website and make them available for auditioning and download.

This part actually ended up being more complex than I was expecting - so if you are planning on making a ringtone web site for iphone ringtones, I hope that reading this blog may well save you some of the tribulation and frustration that I experienced!

If you take a look at my own iphone ringtone site, www.outerspaceringtones.com , you’ll see that the ringtone files are available both for “instant” auditioning and for download as m4r files. We’ll deal with auditioning and download separately, as they both involve quite different processes.

As you can see from outerspaceringtones.com, I used an html table system in order to organize the ringtone download area and keep it tidy - but of course you can organize your page however you wish.

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Step 1 - uploading m4r files and making sure they download correctly.

Now I at first thought that it would be a simple matter to upload the m4r files to a designated folder on my web host, and then link to them so that anyone could just download them - in the same manner as you might do if you were making mp3s available for download etc.

However, when I tested this method out at first (in OSX), there was a bug in the system. When the files were downloaded from the site back to my desktop, instead of downloading as “.m4r” files , they downloaded as “.m4r.txt” files - which were full of plain text gibberish.

When I edited the file extension suffix back to .m4r everything worked fine - but I wanted my ringtones to download cleanly and immediately be ready for action. And I didn’t have the faintest idea how to make the files download properly.

I posted my query on the “iphone tribe” over on tribe.net and received a rapid answer! You can check out the original thread here.

In short, my web host needed to configure the server to recognize the “mime type” for m4r files.

I opened a support ticket with the ever-awesome hostgator and they sorted it out within a couple of hours! ( Here’s my affiliate link to hostgator just in case you should feel sufficiently inspired to want to sign up for web hosting with them and earn me a little commission!)

It’s quite likely that many other servers will not have configured the mime type for m4r - so you may well need to go through the same process as I did with your web host.

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Step 2 - creating audio previewing for your ringtones.

Now a simple way to do this would be to create separate mp3 files of your ringtones - and put them up alongside the m4r files on the site, so that users can listen / download.

However, I wanted to do something a bit more fancy than this - and fortunately I knew exactly how to do it.

My dear friends over at Beathive have created a really cool free tool for audio previewing - it’s the Beathive Playbutton! This neat device lets you enter your settings - such as the location of your preview file, color of the play button - and generates code for a flash rollover button which changes color when ready to play.

So the first stage of creating the previews is to create mp3 files of your ringtones and upload them to a folder on your web site. You can create the mp3s from your original audio segments using itunes: first from the iTunes > Preferences menu select “Advanced” then “Importing”. Select “Import Using: MP3 Encoder” and then “Setting: Custom”. I recommend “crunching” the mp3s down to a low quality so that they load fast - this is what I did; because if you are making a large number of files available for audition, it will take quite a while for the buttons to be ready to play.

It turned out in my case that in order to get the preview buttons working the way I wanted them to, there was a fair amount of tweaking to do with the code generated by the beathive playbutton generator. First of all, not really knowing Java, I pretty much had to mess around with the code by trial and error in order to get the buttons configured correctly. For example I had to change the align=”left” tags for align=”center” in order to get the buttons to drop into the center of my table data fields; and I had to figure out which part of the code was the background color so as to get this to blend in with the background color of my data fields.

The worst problem I encountered was that some of the previews simply would not load, for some strange reason - in any browser. The mp3s were in place, the links were correct; but some of the buttons just wouldn’t light up. It took me hours of messing around to finally crack this; I still don’t really know exactly what the problem was; only that I found a solution in a) creating an entirely fresh mp3 with a different title and over 250kb in size, uploading this and linking to it from within the play button code as before. Strange, but whatever.

Another issue was that sometimes in Safari the previews would not load properly and the buttons would not change color / audition. I found that Safari > Empty Cache cured this but needed to be performed quite often. I never needed to empty cache in Firefox.

Well it took a lot of fooling around to get what I expected to be a simple process happening - but now it’s done; the ringtones are up - as are Bidvertiser, Widgetbucks and Kontera Ads - and it’s looking and sounding pretty good IMO. I’ve also signed up for AzoogleAds - waiting for approval from them and then after that monetization system is implemented it will be time to start a traffic driving campaign on an epic scale … I have a few ideas up my sleeve;) … I’ll implement them and see how well they work before revealing them… stay tuned….

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As part #2 in my mini-series on making a ringtone website; a full tutorial on how to make ringtones for the iphone! I might also post a variant version of this tutorial on www.outerspaceringtones.com at some point - principally in order to add additional valuable content to that site with a view to building its popularity.

Note that this tutorial has been tested by me in OSX 10.4.11 but I am not much of a PC guy and so can’t tell you whether it will work on PC, sorry about that.

There’s actually a fair amount of tech involved in successfully constructing ringtones for the iphone - more than I originally expected even though I am an audio producer. For example, I discovered the hard way that there’s another whole layer of work involved with getting the iphone ringtones to the right loudness. More on this below.

First, here’s the breakdown on actually making an iphone ringtone.

Step 1: creating / preparing the audio segment that you are going to use.

I am going to assume that you have already created / acquired the overall audio file, song, mp3 or recording you are going to turn into a ring tone. In my case, as I have been a music producer for years, I made ringtones from either sections of electronic dance tracks I had laying around, or I took audio files of synth sounds and instrumental parts I had composed and recorded. In your own case; I presume either you will take an existing song from your music collection, or you will make a recording using instruments, the sheer unbridled creativity that is bursting out of you, and recording software such as Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic or Digital Performer. (I use Cubase).

Next thing you need to know is that there is a maximum length that your ihpone ringtones can be: and not everyone is in agreement on this figure! It is often said that the maximum length is 30 seconds; however I have created successful iphone ringtones that are 32 seconds. I’d recommend sticking to a max length of 30 seconds though, just to be sure. Also, I have read somewhere online of someone who hacked their iphone and ftp’ed the ringtones to their phone - who was able to get much longer ring tones. This clever soul also did an audio edit on the ringtones and put in a long “fade-in” - and set them to be alarm clock tones which woke them up gently. Note - I am not sure but I believe that hacking your iphone will void the warranty - anyway I feel obliged to state officially that I do not recommend that you hack your iphone!

Anyway, in order to edit your audio file and cut out a 30-second (or less) segment, you’ll need to use an audio editor software. Some good examples include Wavelab (PC), Peak (OSX), Cubase, Pro Tools, Logic… all of these softwares are awesome - and cost money - but there is some free stuff out there. Check out Audacity for a free audio editor for OSX.

Specific instructions for how to cut out and export your audio segment will vary from editor to editor, but essentially the process involves cutting the audio to size, setting left and right “markers” if necessary (i.e. in Cubase), putting in any desired fade-ins / fade-outs, and then “bouncing”, exporting or simply saving (i.e. in Peak) you audio file. In Audacity this is accomplished via File > Export as AIFF.

Ideally, export your file either as a .aif (AIFF) file if you are on OSX or as a .wav (WAV) file if you are on PC. I recommend putting the file on your desktop in order to make it easy to locate as we move along. You should easily be able (OSX) to audition your new audio file by highlighting it, hitting Command-I and pressing the play button that appears in the info window.

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Step 2: Converting your audio to an iphone ringtone file.

Next task is converting audio segment into an m4r file (this is the format that apple uses for iphone ringtones).

This process is quite simple although it appears that Apple has “moved the goal posts” a couple of times on this issue - presumably as they straighten out their policy regarding the creation / monetization of ringtones. I am currently in the most up to date version of iTunes (7.6.2) and this technique is working fine!

First, open itunes and go to the iTunes > Preferences menu. Select “Advanced” from the options and then “Importing”. Select “Import Using: AAC Encoder”. You may wish to adjust the “Quality” setting but in general I’d advise using the “Higher Quality (256kbps)” setting - you want the ringtones to sound as good as possible!

Once you have adjusted these preferences, hit “OK”.

Next, drag the audio segment which will become the ringtone into the main itunes window. Highlight it, and then go to Advanced > Convert Selection to AAC.

Then, locate the file you have converted. If you are in OSX this should appear in Users > *Yourname* > Music > iTunes > iTunes music - possibly in a subfolder. It will have the same title as your original audio segment but with the file extension “m4a”. Note that it will NOT be in the “ringtones” folder… typically it will be either Unknown Artist > Unknown Album or will be in a folder with the title of the artist / album if your audio file had the relevant iTunes tags.

(Note - you could also locate the converted file using the itunes search. After entering the track title, you will see two versions of the file - one being the unconverted audio, the other being the converted file ; select the one with the most recent date and time on it and hit Command-R. If you just try to reveal the file using Cmd-R on the previously selected and converted audio, you will reveal the original audio, not the converted section.)

Next step - this is important - *copy* your new m4a file to your desktop. I have found that getting the ringtone back into itunes and onto your iphone doesn’t work properly if you try to do it with the file in situ: It seems to be that because the file is already in itunes as a song, it won’t let you re-import it as a ringtone.

Next, change the extension of the file ON THE DESKTOP from “.m4a” to “.m4r”. OSX will ask you if you are sure that you want to choose m4r, hit “Use .m4r”.

Congratulations! You have created an iphone ringtone.

You’ll want to test / audition this ringtone on your iphone. I’ve already created a full tutorial for how to upload ringtones to an iphone and audition them - you’ll see this on www.outerspaceringtones.com - along with my tasty all-original 100% free ringtones just sitting there waiting for you to help yourself!

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Step 3: Advanced - mastering your iphone ringtones for best sound quality.

When I created my first iphone ringtones, they were often either too quiet (when the phone rang I didn’t always hear it going off) or too loud (distorted and nasty sounding when the iphone was at full volume.)

I quickly realized that I would have to experiment with “mastering techniques” in order to get the ringtones right.

This step is a technical - and it’ll be greatly advantageous to have audio production skills here. However, this can make quite a difference to the quality of your end results and so it’s quite an important step in order to put the cherry on top of the cake, so to speak. Especially if you are either giving away or selling your ringtones at the end of the day - you’ll want them to be top notch.

I’ll break it down as simply I possibly can and provide links to as many free resources as I can in order to get you on your way.

Audio mastering is actually a highly advanced art and science - with top mastering studios charging mucho money for their services - and for good reason: mastering can make a huge difference to the sound quality of a piece of music when it is either heard on the radio or played back on your stereo or a club sound system.

Essentially, mastering involves fixing any digital errors, getting the EQ (amount of bass, treble and midrange) right, and getting the loudness and energy of the recording right so that it sounds great. There are all kinds of techniques and expensive equipment that mastering studios use in order to give tracks that big sound….

However, we’re not going to go ballistic. Our mission here is simply to get the tracks sounding good on the iphone - which basically means getting them so they are loud enough that you can hear when your phone is ringing, but not too loud so that they are distorted and messed up. This is actually a bit of a trick when the ringtone needs to be reproduced through the iphone’s tiny speaker… but the good news is that if you have an iPhone, you can audition your results and make sure you get them right.

In order to do this properly, I essentially experimented with creating several versions of audio files, all with different amounts of EQ, normalization, etc. - and played the resulting files back on the iphone to find out which ones sounded the best. I needed to get to the core of the matter; find out what were the causes of distortion, and find out if there were settings I could always rely on for great results when creating iphone ringtones. I’ve summarized the results of my experiments below.

There are certain types of sound which are prone to distortion on the iphone. The most challenging I found to be piano sounds. This was a surprise - I half expected low bass sounds to distort most, but for the most part I found bass to be reproduced cleanly - although obviously with virtually nothing in the way of real trouser-flapping low-end through the tiny iPhone speaker. This is good news; I found that I didn’t really need to do any EQing to get the best from my ringtones: sounds in the most audible part of the spectrum (i.e. the midrange) will usually break up before the bass does.

Here’s the simplest summary I could make, of what to do when creating a ringtone in order to get the best sound quality. If you are serious about this I totally recommend making several versions of a ringtone - each with different mastering settings - and testing them all, keeping the one which works best. So it will be important to keep all your audio files organized and LABEL THEM so that you know which one is which. It’s also good to make notes on your settings and what you did to the file; so that you can repeat the process in future if need be.

To make ringtone louder:

First, make sure that your file is “normalized”. If you are still constructing your song, you can do this simply by adjusting the master output so that the audio level of the track peaks just below zero dB.

However if all you have is a finished track or mp3 file, you’ll need to perform a normalization function. Don’t worry, it’s just a technical term for volume adjustment and has nothing to do with making your ringtone sound just like all the other ringtones…

Normalization is a built in function of audio editing softwares such as Peak or Wavelab. To perform the normalization process, an audio editor software will find the highest “peak” and turn the volume of the whole track up so that this peak reaches full volume. It’s the loudest the file can be without digital overload or without changing the sonic characteristics of the audio file. Just to confuse you, the technical term for full volume of a digital audio track is “zero dB”.

As an alternative to Normalization - say for example in Cubase, you could import your audio segment into an empty audio document and play it back, watching the output meters and adjusting the volume so that the final output peaks just below zero dB; then “export” your audio section to create a new file which will peak at full volume.

However, normalization is often not enough: I sometimes found that even when I had normalized an audio file to zero dB, it was too quiet. So if you still want the ringtone louder; which you often will, you can do one of two things: Either EQ out some of the low bass (i.e. using a shelving EQ hard or a high pass filter to remove everything below, say, 80 Hz) and then re-normalize, or add compression or limiting to the file - and this needs to be performed from within an audio editor software using a plug-in.

There are a myriad of mastering plugins available and some are bundled with audio editor software - however one I totally recommend for this process is George Yohng’s Limiter which is totally free, sounds awesome and is available as a VST Plugin for Cubase on both PC and Mac, and as an AudioUnit plugin.

Try the following settings for George Yohng’s Limiter:

Apply the Limiter as an insert effect on the master output channel and set the master output channel’s fader to “zero dB” (i.e. about 80% of the way up).

Threshold -2.5dB
Ceiling -0.1dB
Release 50ms

Adjusting the Threshold setting will adjust the final output level of the audio - with lower Threshold settings leading to a louder file.

To make a ringtone quieter:

If the ringtone is distorting when you have uploaded it to the iphone, you’ll need to chill it out a little. The simplest way to do this is to normalize it (as above) - only select an output setting of perhaps -3 or -6 dB either for your normalization function or for the master output fader. The best solution here would be to create a few files at different volumes; and test them out by playing them back on the iphone to see which one sounds best. If you are applying limiting to a file, try raising the threshold a little (say to -2.0dB) and then turning down the master fader on the output.

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Summary

Well, you’ll need to know a lot more than this if you intend to become a mastering engineer - but hopefully that’s got you on your way towards creating and using some top-notch iphone ringtones. I hope it wasn’t hideously technical and confusing - let me know!

The next tutorial in this series on designing a ringtone web site will cover how to set up the ringtones for auditioning and downloading from the ringtone web site itself….

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Ah yes, the glorious M-word… 

Well, speaking of M-words, I’m back from the Mojave Desert where I was doing sound for the fantastic Joshua Tree Music Festival.  What a wild, magical adventure that was.   A strange, fabulous, romantic tale almost impossible to tell.   Oh, and it was 114 in the shade on Sunday - a May record for JT.

I’ve created a fair amount of content for my sites - and even though there is still much work to do, I feel it’s time to get started deploying various systems of monetization.   I can’t wait!

There are some advertising systems which will not accept sites until they have steady traffic (such as tribalfusion.com - for whom you must have over 2,000 uniques per day) - however until my traffic reaches those numbers there are still many other options available.

Once these monetization systems are set up and in place, the third stage will be to start driving traffic to the sites.   I’ll do this through various methods such as link-building, viral video and PDF, and all sorts of other techniques - and I’ll post full details on this when it’s time.

After that, it’s all a matter of testing and improving: Adding fresh content, continuing to ramp up the traffic, and then testing and comparing the performance of innumerable aspects of a site in order to optimize to the highest degree possible.   I anticipate that this work will end up being the most time-consuming of all, and will expand to fill the time available.   It’s really going to be an “inner battle” to stick to my focus and make sure I keep going through the tedium of endless link-building and site optimization: But it is here, I believe, that the battle will be won or lost.   If I am going to win my bet, make no mistake, this is going to be a Mission and a Half.

Of course in my case, having created several web sites, part of my testing process will be to see which sites perform best and put the most energy into those.

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In general, when working on a web site, I divide my efforts into three areas. (My actual complete system is a little more complex and I’m saving that for my forthcoming e-book - but the three-point system is a good summary for now) : - 

CONTENT > MONETIZATION > TRAFFIC

The content aspect obviously includes the theme, all the on-site information, and all the “free stuff” that attracts people to the site and gets them to stick around.

Traffic includes a whole host of techniques I will be using to get visitors.

As for monetization - those of you who have read the introductory post will know that I was already banned (mysteriously) from Google Adsense. However, the good news is that there are an enormous host of alternate possibilities for ad networks and other methods of making money that are alternatives to Adsense.      After much preliminary investigation I have drawn up a short list; and from these I will select the monetization methods I will be exploring:

1) AzoogleAds - I read that someone is using this to make $1000 per day from a ringtone site - so I’ll be using this on www.outerspaceringtones.com for sure.

2) Kontera - Jim Karter is making over $9000 per month from Kontera on a network of over 200 sites.  Kontera uses a system of adding special “double-underline” links to your text content which generate pop-up ads.

3) Bidvertiser - this is an alternative to Adsense and works in a very similar way.  I’ve already signed up.  Some Bidvertiser clicks pay really well (sometimes higher than Adsense) but their content matching appears to be nowhere near as accurate in targeting as that of Adsense - so the clickthrough rate is a lot lower. This may be partly due to not having as many advertisers as Adsense, or maybe due to lack of accuracy in content matching algorithms; I rather think it is the former.

4) Clickbank - both for selling my own eBook when it is finished, and for hosting affiliate links to other digitally downloadable products.

5) Hostgator Affiliate Scheme (Note - this is my affiliate link; if you sign up for Hostgator web hosting through this link, I get a commission. Hostgator are great and I use them for all my web sites; never had a problem - finally a good one after serious nightmares in the past with other hosts!).
Hostgator pays $50 per person who signs up for hosting through your affiliate link and remains a customer (I think they must remain a customer for longer than 30 days but I am not sure of this figure).   There are also bonuses if you get a high number of signups.   I’ve already signed up and am driving traffic from www.PXR8.com but haven’t seen any conversions yet…

6) NeverBlue Ads - I don’t know much about this yet but Jim Karter recommends it and if it’s good enough for him it’s good enough for me…

7) Widgetbucks  - another Adsense alternative, this one seems to have been the subject of a little controversy.   They apparently featured an “Anti-Adsense” advertising campaign; which I never saw - but one thing that’s certain is that their own site does not appear in the top 10 on Google for the term widgetbucks.   (I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions!!)   Anyway, reviews state that widgetbucks is simple to set up and use - why not give it a whirl?

My own mp3s - I am either going to get these distributed online through CDBaby, Tunecore, or System Recordings.   System is a prestigious New York based electronic dance music record label I have worked with before - they are very cool and really great to do business with, and I just received an email from the a couple of days ago saying that they were interested in digital distribution of my catalogue.  This essentially means they would handle getting my music up on the download sites such as iTunes and many others, and manage the process in return for a percentage.   There may well be additional licensing opportunities too. Other services such as CDBaby offer very good percentages, but it’s unlikely that they will do much in the way of promotion.   I haven’t had a chance to chat with System yet but I will be doing this very soon.

9) CPA Empire -  said to be one of the best CPA (cost-per-action) networks

10) Chitika   I am reading good things about this ad network.    Someone said Chitika apparently pays 5x better than Kontera.  Others have said that their service has greatly improved recently.    I know nothing about what it was like before - however the vibe seems positive - I am going to give it a whirl.

Others to investigate:

Incentaclick another CPA network - currently has an Alexa rank of 1665 and climbing

Hydra Network

Casalemedia

Burstmedia

Text Link Ads It’s interesting to note - Jim Karter states that this network is making him less money all the time. The alexa ranking bears this out; it’s falling steadily.

 Adbrite - apparently works well on high traffic sites so maybe best to wait a while on this one.

Pepperjam

Copeac - another affiliate network; seems to be highly regarded.

Amazon affiliate scheme - I am going to investigate this.  If there’s a way to include links to relevant books from my pages, it might be a good way to go.

Linkshare - one of the bigger ad networks, this one currently has an Alexa rank of 837.

TNX a new site recommended by Jim Karter

AdToll

I may also investigate specific affiliate campaigns for products which correlate directly to individual web sites.

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You think there’s enough here to keep me busy? It’s going to be a fair bit of work to set up all the accounts and to keep track of all this information.   I’ll need to set up an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all the relevant info.   Additionally, there will be a fair amount of study involved in getting the best from these systems.   I may not end up deploying them all - it’s rather a lot.

Also, it’s to be expected that some monetization methods will work better on some sites than on others.   The only real way to be sure is to test - and this means running one system for a few weeks, then running another and picking the winner.  Although this work is critical I don’t want to get too bogged down in it.   One thing about this internet marketing business that I have learned, is that there is an infinite amount you could possibly be doing at any given time: you need to choose carefully what to focus on and make sure that you are spending your time in the most constructive way possible!   So I will do a certain amount of testing and tweaking of ad systems in order to pick the winners; but I would rather be spending my time when possible on developing content and driving traffic.   It’s all important, and it all helps.

The good thing about this work is that once a site is performing, you can move on to another site for a while and continue to benefit from the work you did on the first site.    The most critical work is to get the sites up, the content and the monetization in place.  Then the fun can begin…

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One of the ten web sites that I will be working on as part of my campaign is www.outerspaceringtones.com

To recap (see the Gameplan page for a full breakdown of my overall strategy); I am going to construct (at least) ten sites, mostly in different niches and with different content types - in order to see which ones would bring in the income and multiply revenue (and also to “eliminate single points of failure”).

My choices were not entirely random - and were all based either on: my existing ideas; domain name acquisitions; and/or existing knowledge of successful niches.

One such was the ringtones niche. I found a few threads with examples of people making money in this niche - and although some people are claiming it is past its heyday, other people seem to be nailing it: Here’s someone claiming to be making $1000 per day in this niche monetizing with azoogle and sending traffic with adwords.

Some say that this niche is oversaturated - however there are strong counterarguments to this - which essentially state that if a niche is saturated, it is because it has strong potential: You just have to rise above the pack somehow.

One advantage I do have is that I have steadily been building up a catalogue of my own electronic music compositions of the last several years - and so have an enormous amount of content that can be turned into ringtones. Having actual unique free content of my own to give away is a distinct advantage; also I can use this to cross-promote my music site.

I also have some ideas for creating viral traffic to the site in other ways: I could create youtube videos featuring the ringtones; and possibly free onsite tutorial content. As this recent post by Mark Barrera (Apr 2008) suggests - there is room for SERP ranking within the ringtone niche when targeting specific phone models. I am an iphone user and I know how to create an iphone ringtone - so I will start there. Looking at google SERP results, there is definite demand here - and there are all kinds of possible permutations of “long-tail” search terms for this which would pull in traffic - such as “how to create an iphone ringtone” ; “how to make a ringtone for my iphone” - “where can I get free iphone ringtones” - so some onsite tutorial content targeting these search phrases will be almost certain to pull some traffic. Two notes on this: 1 - as a general rule, the longer the search phrase that someone types into a search engine, the more specific and strong their interest in the results. Note 2 - I’m working on figuring out how to include several of these long tail phrases in a web page and still have it appear as totally natural, uncompromised content from the reader’s point of view.

Another lil’ advantage to my ringtone site is that I will feature flash rollover buttons to instant audition the ringtones. This uses a free tool available from beathive - this cool tool generates an embeddable code. Any enhancements to the user experience add to the chance of the site going viral - i.e. getting linked / talked about by others through enthusiasm - and creating a snowball effect.

A possible challenge that I may need to address is that there have recently been highly publicized investigations into possible malpractice in the ringtones niche. It seem that certain companies advertising free ringtones might not actually be legit. This obviously affects the niche and damages the credibility of all - but I also want to make sure that any ads I place on my ringtone site are legit. I’ll need to do some investigation.

**

That’s it for the preamble and the market research; on to the business of creating the actual ringtone site - which at the outset I knew very little about - and the ringtones themselves.

AN

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“For mark! no sooner was I fairly found
Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,
Than, pausing to throw backwards a last view
O’er the safe road, ’twas gone: grey plain all round,
Nothing but plain to the horizon’s bound.” — Robert Browning.

Isn’t it funny how as soon as you pledge yourself to do something, a whole host of unforeseen challenges and complications seem to appear?

So much for simply setting up a bunch of web sites, creating content, advertising, monetizing and Advancing To Go.

Nooooo sir.

Now I was to some extent aware of the legal and logistical issues involved with online business - and had done a little work investigating them. I knew about privacy policies, terms of use, disclaimers and the like.

However, I’m so glad that I decided to do further research. I might just have saved myself from making a noose for my own neck. There is soooo much involved in this - and some of it would appear to be of absolutely supreme importance.

I’ve collected a few of what I believe to be the most important links to share with my readers… (note - I am not qualified to give legal or business advice; this set of links may not include everything you need; also these may or may not apply in your location - please check).

First of all - Business Law:

http://www.business.gov/guides/business_law/
http://www.business.gov/guides/e-commerce/

Next up - FTC regs concerning e-commerce, advertising, consumer privacy, disclosures, etc etc:

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/business/ecommerce.shtm
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/business/data.shtm

Are you aware that if you purchase a domain name, you may risk losing it if it infringes an existing trade mark? I wasn’t:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Small-Business-Trademarks—Who-Needs-Em?&id=1127401
http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Shannon_Moore

So for my www.lucky-lex.com web site, I may not be able to move forward - I’ll have to check and have drafted a letter to Shannon Moore.

I found a series of fantastic books by Stephen Fishman including this one about copyright and public domain. These look like essential reading and I’m going to get a copy.

This one is all about Patents and how to patent your creations:

* http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-bin/item/1413306691/Patent-It-Yourself-eBook.html

The fascinating, surprising thing about all this is that most people seem to be quite unaware of much of it: The FTC ruling concerning the necessity for affiliates to declare their nature as affiliates with a financial interest in the products they are promoting? This gets confusing - check this post and its comments, plus the FTC PDF it links to.

It seems all of a sudden as though the internet is a kind of Wild West, with so many people making it up as they go along. I can’t afford to do that. No way. I need to construct my business on solid foundations if I am going to stand a chance of great success.

What does all this mean for me?

First, it requires a load of study. It also entails getting some professional consultation. And yup, it’s going to cost. I don’t know how much - but I want to do things right so there will probably be legal fees, possibly trade mark and other expenses. Others who are successfully selling ebooks typically Incorporate their businesses - I will also need to find out if this is the best path for me.

In a word - eek! From the financial point of view, I am probably going to have to do this stuff a little at a time. Hopefully I’ll know more soon about what my options are.

Also - have I missed anything? If you see any glaring omissions, let me know.

Meanwhile, the bet is on and the clock is ticking….

************* U P D A T E May 9th 2008 *************

I received a fantastic letter back from Shannon Moore this morning with a whole host of links to further reading on the subject of business structure and matters related:

Books:
* Ultimate Book of Forming Corps, LLCs, Partnerships & Sole Proprietorships by Michael Spadaccini
* LLC or Corporation?: How To Choose The Right Form For Your Business by Anthony Mancuso
* Legal Guide For Starting & Running A Small Business (8th Edition) by Fred S. Steingold

Sites:
* Nolo’s Ownership Structure Resource Center
* The Different Types of Business Entities
* US Business Law and Taxes

Articles:
* How to Choose the Proper Business Entity by Tom Perkins
* Business Structure – What Should I Be? by Joshua Feinberg
* Which Business Structure is Best for You? by Geoff Ficke

US Patent and Trademark Office:

* http://www.uspto.gov

Consultation on Privacy Policies, Disclaimers, Terms of Service etc:

* http://www.guru.com/index.aspx

Many thanks Shannon! If anyone else has further recommendations, please send them along and I’ll add them to this page… AN

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Ok the chores have been done, it’s time to get down to it.

Following Jim Karter’s methods (as mentioned in the last “Into The Fray” category post “Oh My”), I’m building the one-page placeholders for the six websites which I have not already developed (this excludes the “dating site”; for which I have no domain name as yet). Anyway here’s the process:

In order to do this with maximum efficiency I am taking an html index page from a site I have already designed (in this case, www.air-purifiers-online.com) , and “gutting” it - replacing all the text and image content with relevant content for my new sites.

For those of you thinking “Why don’t I use css?” the simple answer is that I haven’t learned css and don’t have time now. To make a million in one year I have to floor it.

The good thing about html is that it is “open source”. I’m not a lawyer (as you already know if you’ve been paying attention!) - but the gist of it as far as I understand is this - html code doesn’t belong to anyone. Text and image content of course does belong to people (unless it is specifically stated as copyright-free). In other words, if you see an html site that you like the layout of, you can use the view source function on your browser to reveal the code that was used (in Safari: View>View Source). You’ll need to strip out / replace everything that is not an html tag from this code (and of course, you’ll have to understand a little html in order to do this) - but this should be a rapid process. If you are new to the process you’ll most likely have to do some study. There are some great free guides online.

You could also do a google search for “free website templates”.

In order to create the graphics for the site banners, I am going to go online and search for 100% copyright-free images. Just this wikipedia page is enough to sort you out! There are several links to free image collections on here. Be sure to read and understand the terms for each collection, as they vary. You gotta love copyright-free image collections!

I will then import these as layers into Photoshop, mess around with them, then add the relevant title text and maybe some other “artsy” layers. Another web search - “free fonts” - reveals a load of fonts which can be downloaded and used. I love Apple’s Font Book and I’ll type my text into this in order to spin through fonts fast.

If you don’t have a copy of Photoshop yourself (it’s expensive), you can always go to Kinkos; or maybe search for some free graphics software which will do the job - there is bound to be something out there. Same goes for “html editor” software.

To create the text content for some of these sites, I’ll need to do some research. Doing good research is an art. I tend to follow the same formula for research: I do a bunch of web searches and do a lot of reading before starting to write. I look at wikipedia, my Oxford English Dictionary (the big one with the microprint) and anything else that is to hand. It often takes skimming through a fair number of articles in order to start finding really good content and the true authorities in an area, and I want to do my best to make sure I am on point. It’s worth it. And I don’t believe in pillaging people’s content… so I don’t just “lift” content from other pages - I research it properly and create my own articles. I’m one of the ones who go deep - beyond the first couple of pages of google. The most popular content is not always the best….

An advantage I have in this regard is that I worked for several years part time as a researcher for a historian. This was a fantastic job. The author was not very internet savvy (this was in the late ’90’s) but did most of his research from his personal library of over 20,000 reference books. Every single square foot of wall surface of his old house was covered in books… even the small spaces above the doors. After I had been working for him for a long time he would give me subject headings and send me off to work. I combined the results of web searches with what I found in his library. And if we needed to go further we occasionally ordered books from major libraries such as the British Museum. Because his work was academic I had to keep meticulous notes of the sources of all statements. It was great training.

Anyway…

I’ll do some basic on-site SEO as best I understand it - put my keywords near the beginning of my title tags, in my headings, and in meta description and content tags. A quick look at the excellent SeoBook.com and you should be on your way.

***

Fortunately I learned how to do all the tasks connected with building these pages in my dim and distant past - and so creating six simple web site homepages should take me about…. ok let’s time it… Go! It’s 12.30 am Tues May 6th.

The first one - criticalmetals.com - took three hours. I put a little energy into making it pretty but just slapped the text together as fast as I could. I’ll soup it up later. I’ve redirected the DNS from Sedo.com - where the domain was parked (it didn’t make a cent!) - to my hostgator account so the site should show within a day or two.

It’s 4am. It’s always 4am. Time for bed. To be continued.

********** U P D A T E May 9th 2008 **********

Have now created the placeholders for criticalmetals.com, troy-ounce.com, outerspaceringtones.com, synthlearn.com . PXR8.com, air-purifiers-online.com and this site are already up. dating site has not been acquired. lucky-lex.com is on hold due to trademark investigation. fantasyfutureworld.com yet to be developed - still undecided as to the direction for this site.

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Of course, you might say that if I could answer this question correctly, I wouldn’t be broke at all. Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to put down my take on this now; something of a “potted history” of my “career”. It will be fun to read this in a few years’ time.

If my childhood was anything of an indicator, I shouldn’t be broke: I got off to a flying start. Dad taught me to read, write and play chess before I started school. At age seven they insinuated that I had cheated in an IQ test because the result was off the top of the scale. Later that year I was a top academic scholar to a preparatory school. At 10 I was moved three years ahead academically. At 13 I was the first person in the history of my school to achieve Grade 8 in Theory of Music - and later that year I achieved a top academic scholarship and a music exhibition to a top English private school.

At fourteen they entered me in the National Mathematics Olympiad. I didn’t make it to the next round, but my score was at the very top of the school’s handful of select entrants - exactly equal to the score of an eighteen year old who was studying for Oxford.

As a kid I was - as they say - a high flier.

***

“Too much success is not an advantage” — Lao Tsu

By the age of about 15 I was thoroughly bored and disenchanted with education, teachers, and the repressive, arrogant, elitist all-male environment of the english private school. I must have been a sensitive child - or perhaps it was just hormones: My sole interests became playing Liszt and Chopin at the piano, listening to weird music, running cross country, drinking and chasing girls.

I was expelled from private school at 16 and never completed another education course in my life. I drifted all the more, chased more girls, went to music festivals and underground raves, and associated with musicians and other strange characters.

I lacked the self-discipline, the guidance and the teachers to pursue a career as a classical pianist.

At around 21 I drifted in and out of various cities, jobs and got into the world of electronic music. I made friendships with several musicians and had my first serious musical collaborations - with two characters who went on to become famous artists - Kenwyn House from Reef and Andy Barlow from Lamb. It was around this time that I decided that I really wanted to be a musician - despite the protestations of my seniors. I am not quite sure why they protested. Did they understand that the music world is a terribly difficult one in which to succeed? Or did they think that I lacked the convictions - or talent - and would have been better suited to a career in law?

Maybe they knew something that I didn’t - but anyway, they failed to make an impression on me. I was, as they say, a goner. I was determined to be a musician, and to “make it” at all costs.

Maybe I should have gone into law. I don’t know. I might be earning $450 an hour now instead of $25 - but it’s been a fantastic journey. As they say… no regrets.

***

I bounced around England merrily; working as a researcher for an amazing author (a historian) who had an incredible library; setting up sound systems for underground electronic music events; and getting involved for a short while with a bunch of eco-protesters who were trying to save the environment. All these things helped shape my future one way or another.

Then at 26 a random incident happened that changed my life. I met someone who said “There’s this organization Earthdance, and they need a piece of fluffy ambient music for their global link-up thing… maybe you’d be interested in submitting something?”

“Fantastic” I said, “how much will I get paid?”

“There’s no pay. It’s a charity thing in aid of Tibet.”

Here comes another one…. I thought - and was about to tell them where to shove it when my dear friend Marcus interjected: “Never forget Alex, that when you do something with a good intention, the universe is compelled to respond by sending good things your way.”

Well, it was in aid of Tibet - and I did feel that this was a cause I could get behind (despite the fact that I was… broke… and that this was yet another in an endless series of scenarios where people would attempt to get me to create music for nothing).

So I agreed. Marcus helped engineer, and Ashera did the original voice over. And I was truly surprised when I found out that the music I submitted was accepted by Earthdance - and became their track that is played simultaneously all over the world every year in hundreds of locations. Makes me laugh now…

Cut to the next scene. Founder of Earthdance also has a live electronic band called Medicine Drum. He invites me to collaborate with him on a couple of tracks on the next Medicine Drum album.

He then moved to California and got a record deal.

The next time I spoke to him, it was January 2001 and he was inviting me to fly to California. So I went for it. I ended up meeting a girl, getting married, settling in California, getting a green card… and becoming part of Medicine Drum.

I thought I was on my way. However, this was the music industry. And of all the years to show up in America, I would have to pick 2001….

***

The last seven years have been a mad scramble to try and “make it” in the music world. I’ve played hundreds of shows. Toured America and Australia. Headlined a festival in Japan. Played on massive sound systems at 3am in the scorched dust and epic landscape of the Burning Man festival. Produced nine albums. Formed another band - Alcyone - and we got a record deal with System Recordings.

Being in Medicine Drum was a lucky break. Chris had built the band up through years of work and so I hit the ground at a point where he was already playing internationally and commanding proper fees. It was immense fun and did I ever have some adventures!

When I started with MD I knew approximately bugger-all about the music industry. I was, as they say, “as green as a blade of grass.” And the music world is about as predictable as the lottery. The bands, festivals, shows and scenarios that I was involved in were typical of the lower-to-middle echelons of the music world; chaotic, renegade and often poorly managed. We did get paid - mostly - but there was no real career structure or true objectivity. There was an element of dilettante-ism to the whole thing. I was determined to succeed (and boy did I ever work hard - I practically ran myself into the ground). But I was up against forces beyond my control; and I had no real idea how to navigate in such waters. I just wanted to play my music and rock out. Suddenly I was in the Wild West and there was all this other drama in the mix.

Medicine Drum’s record label was a Virgin Subsidiary: CyberOctave - and I produced an album for them “Original Face” which got some rave reviews. But remember the famous Wired article in 2003 that said that illegal downloading was killing the music industry? Yeah, that was right before the album was released! CyberOctave was axed by Virgin as part of the “restructuring” (i.e. downsizing) that followed. The Medicine Drum album I produced was “iced” and our new reps never returned our calls. To this day I can’t get hold of copies of my own record. And Mr. Medicine Drum himself was too busy with Earthdance - now becoming a rising global phenomenon - to do Medicine Drum any more. We carried on without Chris for a while - but it was his band and so it didn’t really work. It was game over.

Alcyone came into play - and this was good for a while but in truth, I wasn’t happy. The stress and the financial battle to stay afloat were making me crazy - and turning me into a bear who was unpleasant to be around. I started to take my frustrations out on those closest to me in ways I am now totally embarrassed about. And I later found out that one promoter had vowed he would never work with me again because of the way I had yelled in his face. I believe it to be true - although I am sad to say that I don’t even remember the occasion. Alcyone struggled through what seemed like an endless succession of crappy gigs; carrying our own equipment, doing our own publicity - everything. The last straw was a packed, chaotically disorganized new years’ eve gig in LA where there was no backstage and Suzanne had to defend my gear for an hour from drunk people trying to put their drinks down on it. (in fact, ten minutes after our set finished, the entire sound system blew out with a hell of a noise because someone spilled a drink into the sound console.)

So finally, I threw in the towel. I called System recordings and told them that the band had broken up. I fully expected them to threaten legal action - we had a three album deal - but they were happy to let the contract slide.

I guess they couldn’t sell any more of our albums than we could…

***

I think in summary, the biggest mistake I made was not that I decided to be an entrepreneur musician and go my own way, but that everything I did business-wise was essentially focused on ME and what I wanted. My business, my goals, my way. I followed the old sucker line “Do what you love and the money will follow” - rather than adopting the smart business adage that if you want success in business, you must focus entirely on providing solutions, upliftment and success for other people. In other words, it is not about you, it is about your clients. At the time, I knew no better.

I’m not in my 20’s any more. I love music - but as the song says “I can’t quit you babe.. so I’m going to put you down for a while.”

So I’m taking a different tack - we’ll see what happens. It’s all an adventure into the unknown.

Anyway - I have work to do!

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What have I done…? Am I insane?

Have I ever taken on a mad workload…. still, they say that part of success is having a clearly defined goal. Not only that, but as my old violin teacher used to say - if you aim for the stars, you might hit the moon.

So first things first… following the excellent advice of Jim Karter, I am going to start by creating single pages for all the web sites, and by linking to wikipedia.

Unlike him I’m not going to wait a month before doing anything else though…. Besides, some of my sites are already a few months old.

His method appears to be a deliberate attempt to make sites look “natural” to google - and he is currently earning $80,000 per month online… so he knows what he is talking about. I’ll tip my hat to his ideas as best I can. However, the cornerstone of Jim’s wealth building would appear to be SEO - and developing organic traffic. This is not the only method I am going to use.

Google’s latest algorithms *apparently* feature semantic indexing - this is a little complex to explain right now but in essence it means that they are better at detecting “human factors” in design and weeding out spammy content. That’s ok because I am building sites for humans. However, Google is sure to be on the lookout for “unnatural linking” - in other words, if you suddenly get a thousand new links one day, and then none the next, it might look somewhat artificial… and you might end up in the sin bin.

I will do a little on site SEO - make sure the title tags start with keywords, put meta tags in, heading tags and some text content.

Next step is to put in place the means to publicize this blog. This essentially means setting up the feedburner links, RSS buttons, and organizing things in terms of design so that the pages appear where I want them. I’m not quite sure yet how to do all this stuff as I’m new to blogging - so I have some study to do. I do love the Dark Water theme though…

I have a bunch of other work to do today - creating remixes for a record label. So will post again when all the above is done.

I’m glad I created this blog. I was nervous that I would wake up in the morning and cringe at what I had created. But no - this is good. It will also help me to stay clearly focused on the objective.

Here’s to having a clearly defined goal.

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Well, I don’t have much in the way of cash - but I do have a few things going for me and a few advantages.   I’m starting this quest with no money, but not with absolutely nothing.

• I have a G5 computer, a DSL line and a bunch of software.

• I have a small “recording studio” consisting of a few synthesizers, a nice microphone and a decent audio interface.  It’s enough for me to knock out electronic music tracks, create new sounds, and produce tracks / remixes for clients.

• I have a handful of fledgling web sites and have just scored a few domain names.   Not one of them is making me barely a dollar right now though.

• I am highly blessed (and immensely grateful) for the fortunate living situation I have. It might seem a little trashy to be living in a trailer but it’s actually really cosy and sweet - and importantly, a lot cheaper than renting an apartment. My friends whose land I am living on are incredibly cool.   I have to do some work in return for being here, but I have a definite advantage because I am able to spend several hours a day studying and working on my own projects.   Hopefully in a few months I’ll be able to afford to rent somewhere - and pay back the friends who have helped me with something a little more tangible than gratitude!!

• I do have a bunch of intellectual property gathering various forms of dust - tons of music I have created, articles and unfinished writings.

• I have a few part time jobs doing music production for clients, remixing tracks for a record label, and working for a cool sound library company.  This keeps me in food and pays the bills….

A bit more about me: Like so many others, I’m a refugee from the music business… clinging to a piece of driftwood as my band broke up (we had a record deal), and CD sales withered to nothing.

So far this year, I have sold ZERO CDs!!!! Admittedly, I have put no effort into this.

I’ve spent a great amount of the last 6 months studying like an absolute maniac - internet marketing of all kinds, investment, … also have been working on a book… I have done about 80-90% of it but it’s not ready for release..

I have done a lot of experiments… and learned a ton… but I am pretty much in the position that so many internet marketers are in - I haven’t “cracked the code” yet.   However, I think I am getting close to some breakthroughs.

Two things I DO have - which I believe are going to be the things that enable me to win this game…  a brain full of knowledge….. and a determination unparalleled.   I am determined to win this bet, save my ass from oblivion, and show everyone who’s interested exactly how I did it.

I’ll post full details of the various internet marketing strategies I try here - and as the game unfolds, these will become a valuable resource to anyone wanting to learn how to make money online.

If I achieve a million in one year; it’s going to become an essential document for all internet marketers.

If I don’t achieve it, this record will still be essential reading - because you will get a ton of first hand knowledge of things to avoid - and you’re bound to pick up a ton of incredibly useful ideas for your business.

Watch me try every internet technique under the sun.   Watch me do a bunch of testing of a bunch of marketing techniques and reveal all the results.    Watch me no doubt fall on my ass and get back up again.    Watch me, armed with only a brain, sheer determination, a positive attitude, plus my life’s experience and skills, go from almost broke…. to one million dollars in one year online.

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