When it rains it pours

You know that saying “When it rains it pours”? Well it’s starting to pour over here.

I’ve been off sick from work since December 4th 2005. By January 2006 I had a feeling I would be off work for a while, and I started this blog to keep me busy and to let out some of my feelings about being sick, in pain and house bound.

By the end of February I was starting to think of ways to be creative, and possibly ways to make some money on the internet because I wasn’t getting any better and I had a feeling I’d be off for quite a while. It didn’t help that my workplace put me off work in March for 4 months either.

So I spent a lot of time searching for ways to make some money – putting Google ads on my blogs etc. Of course the Google ads didn’t work because you aren’t allowed to have them on your site if you are running your site through traffic engines. They sent me a letter about generating artificial impressions and told me I was breaking T.O.S. so I took them off my blogs immediately.

I wasn’t having much luck finding ways to make money on the internet that didn’t take up all of my time or that were worth while. However near the end of September things started to roll for me. I found P and registered with them. By early October I was accepted and started writing some posts for them in order to make some money. I also hooked up with Mylot and I’ve made a bit of money there too. Then all of a sudden I had people writing me emails asking if they could ad links to my sites – the links were acceptable so I took them up on their offer and allowed the links to go up on various sites I run.

Then something else happened …

I’ve always helped others on the internet. Whether it was giving advice on the specialized care of reptile pets, running reptile related mailing lists, or helping others by creating websites, or graphics for their sites, working on site promotion (SEO), or fixing up code on their sites – I’ve always been busy, like for 11 years, doing that kind of thing.

A few days ago Mr. Fab from Pointless Drivel suggested that I start a business of helping others. I thought about it, and decided – why not? I’m good at fixing up messed up sidebars, organizing sites, creating headers and I’ve been doing it free of charge. Why not make a nominal amount of money doing something that I already do anyway?

Well, all of a sudden I have two customers! Two customers and I never even mentioned this on my site until now. Cool!

So sometimes when it rains, it really does pour and luckily this time it’s pouring in a good way.

I’ll write more later on the kinds of service that I hope to offer. I haven’t come up with any pricing yet but I’m certain that it will be reasonable. Feel free to contact me if you are sick of trying to maintain your site and have relatively simple things you want fixed up. My email link is in the top left sidebar.