I earned $2341 in February and with flights to Haiti to pay for and pints to buy in London, the timing couldn’t be better and I’m breathing a little sigh of relief.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $328 - More of the same with Adsense but with February being a short month, it’s actually a better result than it looks.
• Affiliate Sales - $390 - My main affiliate is continuing its downward spiral but a couple others are stepping up to the plate a bit more each month. I have ideas for how to put a push on these other two affiliates but, as always, need the time to implement.
• Advertising - $1623 - Woop woop! This month was huge for advertising with $350 in renewals, $330 in monthly payments and just over $900 in new sales. I love those emails out of the blue asking to advertise and that was what happened this time as well. It’s not predictable but when it works, it works.

I wasn’t able to do any work on my sites in February and I haven’t actually done a thing for several months since I’ve been working on my ebook so I really couldn’t be happier! I have been waiting for the passive income bubble to burst and for things to nosedive for months now and everything seems to keep chugging along as normal, always seeming to average out to my goal of around $1500 a month.

The outlook for the next several months doesn’t look great for working but, with my ebook almost finished, I will be able to dedicate my free time in Haiti to my sites instead of to writing about volunteering for hours at a time. I didn’t have much luck last time in Haiti just because the work life and play life were both so full-on but this time around I’m going to try to make a better effort.

I’m about to board my plane to London! I won’t have any time to spare while I’m in London but I will be in and around Glasgow for a week from March 5th. If anyone is around and wants to meet up, drop me a line.

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It’s been months in the making and now I’m down to the final two weeks before I release my ebook on international volunteering. I’m not exactly ready to launch the thing just yet, but a looming trip to Haiti means that if I don’t get it done and out there soon, I probably won’t be able to do it for months.

So with the pressure on I am working frantically here in Kuala Lumpur on all of those little jobs that seem to add up to a big job. I have a couple of friends proofreading the first draft while I continue to add a few more interviews and bits of information, I’m wracking my brain for a decent title, I’m attempting to come up with a passable design using my limited Photoshop skills, I’m trying to figure out a price and way to distribute it, and I’m trying my best to come up with marketing ideas and gain support from friends out there in Internetland to help create a buzz when it goes live.

As always, I’m turning to you guys for some advice and ideas.

Creative Stuff

My ebook needs a name! If you have been a reader of my blog for any length of time you will know that coming up with catchy titles for my posts isn’t my strong point and coming up with a good title is an even huger pain in the ass. The best I have so far is ‘The International Volunteering Handbook’. Concise, to the point but no points for flare or creativity. As for some sort of catchy tag line, I haven’t got any ideas. If there are any wordsmiths out there with an idea, I would love to hear it. I will pay you with endless amounts of gratitude and a free copy of a yet-to-be-titled ebook, written by me.

I’m a bit of a design junkie who has never quite made the transition to computers as a medium. I could whip up a cool design with paint on paper but ask me to do something with Photoshop and I will be left swearing at the computer screen because I can’t make it do what I want it to. I’m not sure if I want to invest in a design or just go it alone but if anyone has recommendations for PDF designers I would love to hear them. As it stands, Openoffice allows me to convert my documents to a PDF file and I think I have figured out which fonts I want and how to make things go where I want them to. I could do ok with this stuff on my own but the design freak in me wants to take things a step further.

Also, can anyone recommend software similar to this that will allow me to make an image that looks like a ‘real’ book for free or cheap?

Pricing

The whole idea for this ebook came about because I want to raise $10,000 for a good cause. The plan was to sell it for about $10 with 100% of the proceeds going to Hands On Disaster Response. Since that idea was born, the ebook has grown into something a lot longer and more involved than I had originally intended and it has eaten up a lot of my time at the expense of working on my websites. I have also just decided to head to Haiti to work with the organisation there and dropped an assload of money on plane tickets to get me there. With all that in mind, I’m thinking of going 50/50 with half of the revenue going to Hands On and half to the “Get Kirsty to Haiti Fund”, at least for the foreseeable future. I’m also thinking of upping the price to $14 based on the awesomeness of it.

How does all of this sound to you? Are the people who expressed interest in the ebook when the idea was $10 with 100% to charity still interested or does that change things? Do you think going 50/50 will put people off? Do you think web people will still help promote it, even though I won’t have an affiliate program? Is the price too high/too low for a 50+ page, straight-talking ebook with a bunch of interviews, a list of free a cheap volunteering opportunities, reviews of pay-to-see-the-listing type websites and a candid look at paying to volunteer among other things?

Marketing

I’m not much for marketing and self-promotion. I got made redundant from a job as a travel agent because I suck at sales and I can’t stand people and websites that are blatantly trying to sell me something. It seems like ebooks inspire people to put out those long, garish, one-page websites like this, this and this and I’m not sure I can bring myself to do one, even though they must work or why would people make them? Do you think a post on my blog about my ebook along with an image and blurb in the sidebar leading to that post is enough or should I go the whole hog and create a sales-y website and point people to that instead?

I’m also going to attempt to create a bit of a buzz when I launch the ebook and have gotten in touch with about 20 bloggers I really like who have expressed interest in reviewing the ebook or allowing me to write a guest post about international volunteering on their site with a link back to the ebook page. That’s pretty much all I’ve got. Other ideas would be appreciated.

Distribution

I plan on using E-Junkie to get the ebook out there. I’ve seen it used by loads of other people with ebooks and it seems easy. The only downside I can see is that it can only accept Paypal as payment. If Hands On get behind this a bit and let their volunteers know about it, I imagine many of them would want to pay with a creditcard. I’m not too sure how to deal with this except to have Hands On set something up on their website to accept payments. They said they would be willing to do this when 100% of the proceeds would be going to them but I’m not sure what the take on this would be with half going to me. I will email to find out but, in the meantime, can anyone suggest an ebook distribution site that allows Paypal and creditcards?

So that’s where I am with the ebook. I’m heading to bed now with lots of ideas in my head and two work-filled, Starbucks-sipping days ahead of me. I want to bang as many details out as I can in the next couple of days and get it done so I can spend at least a week marketing it before I head to Haiti.

Ideas? Comments? Ideas? Questions? Ideas?

Having a product for sale is a completely new thing for me and I’m excited to see where this goes and will share what I learn alog the way.

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I’m sitting here in Kuala Lumpur on a comfy couch in front of a giant TV showing Olympics results while surfing on a remarkably quick internet connection with a belly full of Mexican food. It’s a far cry from the last three plus months I’ve spent in rural Sumatra hauling rubble, throwing rocks, knocking down walls, building houses and being generally dirty and sweaty working with Hands On Disaster Response but I think I could get used to it. While I think I’m ready to move on, I really had a great time volunteering in Sumatra and will miss it a lot.

Here’s a bit of a summary of my time there:

The Work

The first couple of months were filled with rubble removal, rain or shine. It was tough but getting behind a shovel and wheelbarrow again was an amazing feeling. The salvage part of the work wasn’t quite as inspiring but separating river rock and bricks from crumbling mortar and saving tin and wood from the roof was important to be able to give people some materials to start with to rebuild their homes. Leaving people with an empty concrete foundation and a pile of rocks and/or bricks was kind of a bittersweet feeling but seeing them use that space and materials to build shelters was very cool.

I had a few attempts at joining deconstruction teams to bring houses safely to the ground but it wasn’t my thing. There is far too much pointing at things and thinking involved for me. Plus being responsible to bring down a giant structure scared the crap out of me, to be completely honest. But we had a bunch of people who stepped up to lead the decon teams and pulling down unsafe buildings as a team was always an exhilarating experience.

This past month has seen us building temporary shelters with a really awesome design. Wooden frames are built, chain link fence is wrapped around the outside and thin layer of concrete is put on top to create the look of a concrete house with more flexibility and less weight to fall on people if there’s another earthquake. I love the design and I love working with concrete so it was great to be a part of this process. I also got to work on prefabricating the pieces for the wooden frame which meant fun with circular saws. I feel like a learned a lot of handy new skills beyond just being a wheelbarrowing monkey (although I do love wheelbarrowing) and these are things I hope to build on when I head to Haiti.

The People

I loved the locals I came into contact with during my time on the project. Our translator Rena is always smiling and giggling, our driver Hamdan is so quick to jump in and help out with anything, and Rose the cook busted out meals and washed laundry in record time. A bunch of Indonesians came through the project as volunteers and it was great to meet them all, especially Redha, our first and most frequent volunteer who helped whenever he could on his breaks from university. Arman was a great addition later in the project and he taught me the way of the concrete wall and it was just really inspiring for me to see this older guy with a family to show up for work each day. The ice cream men on motorbikes were two of my favourite people each afternoon and Welly the fruit shake master was a lifesaver next door with some refreshing fruity creations after a long day at work.

I have made a lot of friends through Hands On with my time with them in Bangladesh and Haiti and it was great to see a lot of them in Indonesia. There seem to be a bunch of us who follow the organisation around and these people have become a sort of family on the road for me and knowing I can count on seeing them each time I head to a new project certainly makes my choice to go a lot easier. I made a bunch of new friends on this project as well and I’m convinced that HODR attracts people with a certain level of craziness that means I will always have people around who I have something in common with.

The Culture

The community in Sungai Geringging is rural and religious and there were a few issues with us descending on them to help out. Drinking beer in town was outlawed fairly early on. Boys and girls had to sleep in separate places which meant the construction of the ‘man tent’ outside and a girls-only sweet deal on the inside. A group of volunteers unwittingly caused a near-project-ending incident by walking down to a river late at night in boy/girl company. Old guys apparently were against us from the start, no matter how good the work we did was. Signs were erected saying ‘Volunteering, yes! Christianity, no!’ and the powers that be were paranoid that we were there to convert them. The work ‘Christmas’ was banned over the holidays. And so on, and so on.

Yay to culture! Boo to having to tip toe around it and having it affect our ability to do work there. It was probably inevitable that we would screw up from time to time. Things have always worked out in the end, but there have been some stressful moments in between. On the other hand, learning about the culture in rural Sumatra on such an intimate level was pretty fascinating and something I’m grateful to have experienced, even though it frustrated non-religious me at times.

While my time with HODR in Sumatra is over I don’t have much time to relax with a flight into Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 15th. Between now and then the plan is to hang out with some volunteering friends in Malaysia before shipping off to the chilly UK to spend a couple of weeks visiting friends and family in London and Scotland. My ankle is still sort of screwed from when I hurt it a few weeks ago, my clothes are all gross, the cuts on my hands are still unhealed, my websites are neglected, and my bank account is hurting from expensive plane tickets but Haiti is where I want to be and, while two and a bit weeks between HODR projects could be a bit of a killer for my body and business, I can’t wait for the challenge.

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My good friends here with me in Indonesia knew before I did that I would be heading to Haiti instead of Pakistan… I just didn’t believe them at the time. Well I have just proven them right by booking one of the most ridiculous set of plane trips I have ever taken: Kuala Lumpur - London - New York - Haiti - Cape Town with a couple of side trips to Glasgow and home to Canada for 10 days each. Sorry about the carbon footprint thing.

In the end I guess I couldn’t resist the pull to head back to Haiti and help out. My motivations for previous volunteering stints have always been a bit suspect but this time around I really feel a responsibility to help out, even if just a little bit. This will be a tough one emotionally, I think. With the earthquake claiming more than 200,000 lives in such a small area, I am bound to come across endless stories of lost loved ones and grief. I’m not sure how I will cope with the whole thing but I will never know if I don’t go.

Strangely, my parents are dead set against me going back to Haiti, although somehow they were ok with Pakistan. I haven’t had a TV for months so haven’t seen any coverage of the quake and the only news reports I am getting are in print. It seems like, according to the Canadian media at least, things over there are bad with reports of rape and looting and fears of disease as the rainy season rolls in. From my personal experience I know that the media tends to make everything sound scarier than it actually is but in this case I’m not sure what to think.

I do have plenty of friends over there working in different capacities and all are safe and sounds and getting on with the work at hand. Several have been working with Medishare putting in 20 hour days in some very trying circumstances. The need for volunteers in support roles at their trauma hospital is huge and a couple of friends of mine have put out a plea for interested people to contact them. If you want their contact details, email me and I will pass them along, internet connection willing.

I will be working with Hands On for a fourth time and this time around things will be a bit different. They have already received over 5,000 inquiries about volunteering in Haiti (as a comparison, the Indonesian project I’m currently on has only received about 400 inquiries over the course of the project) and, as a result of the expected influx of volunteers they will have a capacity of 100 people at a time. If you want to volunteer with them you will have to submit your first and second choice for dates along with an application-style form. The project is due to run for a minimum of six months, check out their information page for more details. I’m locked in for March 15th until the end of May… maybe see you there?

I’m looking especially forward to seeing some of my Haitian friends from Gonaives as I imagine some of them will come up to volunteer for awhile. I’m a bit apprehensive of what I’m getting myself into but at the same time, I can’t wait to get there.

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January was an improvement with earnings coming in at $1347. For the third or fourth month in a row I haven’t done much work so I’m obviously pretty happy that the money continues to roll on in. I am completely aware that I have to get back into work mode but I didn’t manage to get anything done in Kuala Lumpur and won’t be able to do much until the end of February when I leave Indonesia for London.

Oh ya! I bought a ticket to London for March 1st. The plan is to head there to attempt to get a visa for Pakistan and, if that doesn’t work out, I will probably head to Haiti. The Pakistan plan is good for working online and I’m hoping it works out. The Haiti plan isn’t so good for web work but it’s too tempting not to go. Either way I will have something interesting to keep me busy for a few months.

Earnings Breakdown:

• Google Adsense - $319 - Yay! Adsense is back over $300 after a scary month in December. January started as a slow month which was a bit of a worry, especially since in past years January has usually seen my Adsense earnings jump up a lot. It’s not at $500 where I want it, but it’s moving in the right direction.
• Affiliate Sales - $498 - My main affiliate program is still sucking but others are stepping up finally. I’ve set up some programs on my moving to London site which are a perfect fit and the early results are promising. I have a couple more products from the same company to add so hopefully that will be what bumps me up to above $500 consistently.
• Advertising - $530 - It was a month mostly of renewals and I also did a few new deals for monthly payments. I have stopped pursuing direct advertising but I’m still always open to it so it’s nice that people are still coming to me occasionally.

January was good and February will probably be more of the same until I get off my arse and get some serious amounts of work done. The good part is I have the sites built, I just need to dedicate a lot of time to building links and attempting to get them into Google.

But that’s for March… in the meantime it’s more of the same in Sumatra, Indonesia. We’ve moved onto building houses and I get to play with a circular saw which is fun and it’s nice to be building houses instead of destroying them.

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