What's Going on in My Freelancing World

This is just a short post to document what's going on with me as a freelance writer at the beginning of 2012:

YouTube
Two weeks ago, I began experimenting with adding my own YouTube videos to my writing. I placed knitting tutorial videos in my knitting articles. (Side Note: Thank you to my writing pal who first told me YouTube videos pay! Before hearing her advice, I'd never considered that you could make passive income from them.)

Anyway, my videos aren't very good because my camcorder is old, but I've ordered a new one. I'll quickly be replacing those junky videos when it arrives.

I'll share what I've learned from those low quality videos. In two weeks, I've gotten 420 views on 5 videos. If you do the math, that is 42 views a week for each video. I've earned $2.28 from Adsense in those 2 weeks. There's a lot of potential there. Just imagine, if they were higher quality and they'd been promoted!

The videos help my readers understand instructions. I get a lot of feedback from people who say that they can not seem to read knitting patterns. My target audience is "beginners" because I write my patterns without abbreviations and with more explanation. For some people, the easy to read instructions are still a challenge to understand. The videos are just one more way to help loom knitting newbies and they seem to be a good way to earn a buck.

Squidoo
I finally reached my goal of making $1000 a month from Squidoo this January. I'm already working on my next goal of $2000 a month in passive income by next January. Upward and onward.


Amazon Sales
My most profitable niche online is patterns for the "Knifty Knitter" brand looms. Every online retailer has been sold out of them, or had them in limited quantity since November. Today, I spoke with the manufacturer on the phone. They assured me that they were still making them and that they would have them back in stock by March.

I spent yesterday checking local stores and I've been looking online for months. They are very difficult to find. Since I have an Amazon store, I've applied as a retailer of the looms with the manufacturer. That will be an entirely new type of freelancing for me. I never thought of myself as an Amazon retailer, but it will help my writing niche, and my readers, if the looms are more available. The few I've sold online have been purchased within only 2 hours of listing them.

Wishing all of you a wonderful and prosperous 2012!