Webzine Launch!

Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road officially launched yesterday with the december issue. Five articles/stories. The reception has been better than expected at this point in spite of the lack of time I've had to put into this. Given my enthusiasm for the project a boost. I'm hoping to have a couple of selections that are written by someone other than myself. I've got a month of encouraging and maybe arm twisting in that department. Looks like putting together the next issue is going to be fun.

Since the launch I have added a page for links to friendly cycling sites. The page address is http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/p/cycling-friends-and-websites.html There are a couple other riders I met on Bike Forums that will likely post their sites there as soon as they see it's available.

Only real hiccup that I ran into yesterday when I was trying to make some noise on Facebook about the site. In the past I always got to post the link along with one of the pictures I added to the post. Suddenly all it will let me use is my Google account avatar. Very frustrating. I'm hoping that the problem will resolve itself. How's that for putting my head in the sand like an ostrich.

Link for the webzine is http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/

Webzine Slowly Coming Together

Worked quite a bit today on Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/. Don't know if I'm on track to launch at the beginning of December or not. I have four of the five first articles already posted onto the site. I will write one more and then an introduction/table of contents post. With that it will be ready.

Did a Bubblews post on it today called "Launching a Cycling Webzine" http://www.bubblews.com/news/1629816-launching-a-cycling-webzine  Didn't get much hoped for response but on the brightside one bubbler did express interest in being a contributor. I will need those if this is going to be a success.

I was intending to take this idea to Book Junkies but I'm tired and feeling a bit shy. Maybe once I've posted this I'll go and do that. Tough enough to get my posterior in gear for this.

Revised Weekly Writing Goals

I think I have a vision for increasing my writing income and over the past few weeks I've distilled this down to a concrete plan.

I of course will continue writing a post per day on Bubblews and on my days off try to do two or three. With my participation there I am making a very stable fifty dollars per month. My wife makes roughly twenty five with her efforts. This does help the family budget.

My profile link is: http://www.bubblews.com/account/34385-koopharper

My wife's is: http://www.bubblews.com/account/32591-daisy

We get paid a penny for any view, like or comment on our articles and stories. For those who visit there. Thank you. It is always appreciated.

I have begun assembling a new stream of income online. That is through advertising on my blogs. I have created a few niche blogs for that purpose. I am looking for appropriate advertising that I can add to the site without ruining. Unfortunately Adsense and I have had a falling out in the past and I don't feel like going back to that well at this point. Besides looking for advertisers I'm looking for ways to increase traffic to my sites. Starting point for that is to make a post per week here at least. I do have quite a few sites to work with so the potential here is interesting.

I of course have my author's blog right here. I like what I've started and will continue to improve it as I have time.

My wife surprised me when she told me that she could add advertising to her Fine Arts America site. We will see what affiliate advertising we can include over there. She is also working on adding a cafeplus store to her site. I think it's a good idea. A lot of her artwork looks good added to products from there. She pays thirty-five dollars per year for that site and while she gets a lot of attention for her work she has yet to sell any. That is disappointing but we may be able to turn this all around with the advertising and added products. For it would be nice to make that small investment pay.

Her website link is: http://francine-heykoop.artistwebsites.com/

I have created two websites that I think have some value. If the subjects interest you, please check them out. If you like what you see please follow and share.

The first site is called Pico's Online Work At Home Journey. I do make a small amount of money online and would like to take it further. On this site I talk about what I've learned along the way. I discuss successes and failures. For anyone trying to do the same, I think it's worth the time to visit. The site only opened at the beginning of this month and traffic and followers is already exceeding expectations.

The link for this site is: http://picosworkathome.blogspot.ca/

The second site is called Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road. This is being developed into a touring/road cycling online magazine. It is not officially open yet but my official launch is planned for the beginning of December. Some of it will look familiar to friends because I'm drawing articles and experience from my old cycling blog at kincycling. There is an important difference though. I am hoping to draw articles from other writers. The basic format is a five article magazine each month. Articles will range from 500 - 5000 words and must include pictures. I will allow links for the author's own websites and advertising. I will be the author of all the articles in the first issue (which is being built online and is viewable). I know better than to think I can spit out enough material to keep that going long term. Attention writers please submit your stuff. You will retain all rights to your work. I can't however offer any remuneration at this time.

The link is: http://picoscycling.blogspot.ca/

In the spring I hope to roll out a site for my wood turning again. I will build a new site here so that I can manage it from the same blogger account. That will simplify things for me. I would move on that earlier but I don't currently have shop space at all. Hoping to fix that in the spring with earning from my online efforts.

An article per week for each site should make a huge difference to the amount of traffic I get. The combined traffic should open some affiliate advertising doors for me.

My noveling efforts at this point will centre on getting Rat in the Shadows done. NaNoWriMo for me this year was a hopeless case. My schedule was difficult to begin with. Then everything at work changed. This week I even ended up assigned extra hours. Eleven hour days for four days per week means not much gets done in the way of writing on those days. I just don't have enough left in the tank when I get home. I'm excited about the challenges.

Euphoria and A Big Month Ahead!

The big news this week was the arrival of a box of fifteen copies of my novel Let Sleeping Dog Lie. To finally hold a physical copy of my first published novel was a huge high for me. I love it. The book looks terrific.

I'm intending to sell fourteen copies and try to use the third one to garner some publicity with one of the local radio stations. Nine are already sold and there are four other people who have already stated their intention to buy. At this point it is a first come first serve. The people who were promised first choice have already got their copies. I expect the rest will be gone early next week. I wish I had the resources to carry a larger inventory. I'm sure at work I could sell off more than twenty-five copies. Have to stay within my finances though.

Today is the start of NaNoWriMo. Our family has five people taking a shot at it. Again I'm probably the weak link with a brutal schedule. I will try to make it happen though.

The only other writing project I'm working on at this point is preparing to put together a few niche websites. I want to see if I can make a small income doing that. I have good solid ideas for two sites. One of those site I have sufficient content already written to get started. My focus right now is experimenting with several different advertisers. I haven't been terribly impressed at this point. I will update progress on this project here periodically.

A plate full for November, I hope to make it a very successful month.