Make Money with Google Ads!

I recently added ads to my blog using Google's AdSence program. The thought of making less than a dollar (in most cases) for each click your ads receive might send you running to the hills, but it doesn't scare me. Being a microstock photographer, most of my sales are right around the one dollar mark. This might sound like chump change, but those small sales start to add up quick. I think Google ads are right up my alley.

If you are a microstock photographer like me you probably already have a website. Chances are even if you are a stay at home mom you probably have a website too. There are many ways to set up free websites and blogs. Blogger and Wordpress, to name a few. All you need to do is set up an AdSense account and you can start making money from your free website! If you have a Blogger page adding Google ads is as easy as a couple of right-clicks. Before you know it you will have ads that blend seamlessly into the background of your site.

Now hold on fella, I'm not telling you to run out and quit your day job just yet. Like I said earlier, you will probably only get around a dollar or so per person that clicks on one of your ads (generally). If your blog is truly awesome and you are seeing some serious traffic, you might be surprised how often those checks from Google start showing up in the mail.

Good luck and happy blogging!

Adorama.com

If you are like me and have to buy all your camera equipment online because the nearest camera shop is a couple hours away you should really check out Adorama.com. Hey, even if you have a camera shop around the corner from your house chances are they dont have what you need or if they do it cost two times what it should.

I just added some ads for Adorama.com on the blog. I buy about 90% of my photography equipment from Adorama so I am glad I can get these ads up and drive some customers their way.

Adorama always ships out my orders super fast and the one time I needed to return something they were very helpful and replaced the product without any trouble. Shipping is always reasonable and they have lots of great "Adorama" versions of products that are very affordable and great products.

Live Long and Tweet!

Twitter has become my #1 tool for promoting my photography and following other artists that I am interested in.

Is Twitter just another Myspace, Facebook, etc. place to waste time? Twitter like Myspace and Facebook is whatever you make it to be. You can use it to let your friends know your brushing your teeth now, or you can use it as a professional resource for advertsing yourself.

I think what makes Twitter so great is its simplicity, the learning curve is about five minutes. There are no silly apps that let you send your friends "gifts" or constant polls and contests to enter. Another great thing about Twitter is you choose who's updates you want to follow. If one of your followers is annoying you with random updates about whats on TV you can chose to stop following them.

How do I use Twitter to promote myself? Simple. Maybe you just wrote an interesting blog post, hop on Twitter and let your followers know about it and if your lucky and they like it you might get a RT (Re-Tweet) and they will share it with their followrs and the next thing you know you have fifty new followers all waiting to see what you are going to Tweet next.

If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, Twitter is a very simple tool for sending and receiving status updates (140 characters or less) via web, email, or text message.

There are also quite a few add-ons that make Twitter even better. Firefox users can install Twitterfox adds a status bar to your screen so you can keep updated on "tweets" while your doing other things on the web. Power Twitter adds helpful tools and options.

Live long and Tweet!

Follow my updates on Twitter.

http://twitter.com/travismanley

Found My Photo in a Magazine!

I got a little shock when I sat down to flip through the latest edition of GD USA magazine and just a few pages in there was a two page spread with one of my photos! It was used in an ad for one of the stock photography websites I sell my images at Shutterstock.com.

My photo is one of several that were made into a "collage" and its pretty small on the page, but im still pretty excited. He is something I created in actual print, not just floating around on the web somewhere.

Here is the ad.

and a crop on my photo

Looks like they flipped it and added some smoke.

I have found a few of my photos in books too, but im not sure if I need permission to post photos of the book from the author. Im going to look into that and try to post them later.