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Making money with your sailing blog

7K views 49 replies 21 participants last post by  dylanwinter1 
#1 · (Edited)
its done now
 
#2 ·
barefoot, I'm one of the (many) followers of your blog. It's one of the very few I follow. I thoroughly enjoy it and find it well-written and intelligent. Keep it up please! Now that I know you have "buy me a beer' button (I hadn't noticed!), I'll have to do so!

Abraços!
 
#4 ·
Copacabana Thank you for the kind words but seriously no need to buy me a beer. I added that when I was out cruising without a single penny in the kitty, it was hot as hell and really was wishing for a beer. The very next day I was sharing an ice cold one in paradise.

BJ I completely understand what you are saying, I have been blogging for 7 years 4 times a week and never thought about doing it for money. When I got the statistics today it showed my number one search for the year was for Boatyard Pirates my old blog, oops :) that one has hugely more popular but I suspect it had more to do with my lovely ex wife than me.
 
#9 ·
I like how you think Paul but the reality according to Google is that its worth $2.00 a day. Some quick work in penny stocks and I have a grand in one month. I roll that on the Russell 2000 and I have 5k in short order. NASDAQ has some great buys right now and 60 days and 5k is looking like 20k to me. Roll that 20k around S&P for 10 months and I have a cool 250K. Gold is a buyers heaven right now so I go all tangibles and when the market crashes I turn my gold into millions in real estate for pennies on the dollar. I rent those houses out for top dollar on VRBO as luxury vacation rentals and make a killing. Americans have a very short term memory so when the next real estate bubble comes I make millions. I donate it all to my favorite charity buy a small boat and sail away :) Been there done that. If you don't think a dollar is a lot of money you don't understand basic math :)
 
#13 ·
I have no expectations of making money from my boat log but I also have no remorse about running ads on it. Maybe it will pay for its own hosting some day. Or not. I write it because I love doing it, but if it makes a little money on the side, that's cool too.

It's really difficult though. I've made way less than bljones.
 
#14 ·
I wonder if the YouTube channels are making people any money. They often seem like extraordinary effort to publish. Maybe its for love, maybe not. I know some that are clearly designed to ultimately drive you to buy a product they sell, like a DVD set or even go to a retail store.

Somehow, I think there is a model out there where you can drive a few bucks, if you have a following. "Few" may be the operative word.
 
#15 · (Edited)
My blog (if I blogged) would bore people to death.

There are so many blogs out there, it's hard not to be drowned out by all the static. We're all basically doing the same thing. It's a writer's style that mostly sets you apart.

Your blog, and BLJones' blog are examples of that. You both have a writing style that draws people in.

"Sequitur" is another blogger that seems popular. His "schtick" seems to be exotic cooking, while world traveling. Smack seems to like it for that, plus the fact that the guy took a Hunter production boat into arduous sailing conditions.

It doesn't appeal to me. I found his writing style to be ponderous and pretentious. It didn't matter that they were achieving amazing things, I simply couldn't stomach his writing. It seemed just more of the "Rich People sail around the world! Film at 11:00!" Whoop-dee-do. Some folks loved it, and that's fine.

Your and Jones' blog appeal to me more.

Jones is the "everyman" and BFN seems to be a "Captain Nemo" type, who is/was brilliant with finance and numbers, but eschews today's shallow society for a monk-like existence on his little boat.
 
#17 ·
Yeah I agree. I like Brian's writing style and I like the writing of Barefootnavigator. Both have potential.

As this is BFN 's thread, I'll say he is aiming high with his writing and has a raw talent for words, if a bit self indulgent. When he actually starts going places and the subject matter is different I think the blog could really be special.
 
#18 ·
The way people make money is studying sites like this: blackhatworld.com. It's worth the big read and has an amazing amount of profit making techniques.

For me I use advertising to pay the bills on most sites. Selling a one year ad to a local company for $500 keeps an honest profit. Know your Google Analytics as well and own a few key domain names pointed at your site. ie saillakehavasu.com or similar. You'll get a pile of hits over a $10 investment. It's more about driving the traffic to you and having the content there when they arrive.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Never can imagine myself clicking though to an ad whilst I am reading an intersting website, so I have noever though money can be made from ads on my site. Well, not big money anyway.
Plus my site doesnt get the hits, maybe 100 per day.
But i did want to test of the power of the internet and making money off a website so I thought I might put a "donate" button on my site. Yes, a little tacky, no doubt, but i wondered if someone reading the site and liking it may chuck a few dollars in. At least thats direct payment for something thats entertained someone.

Well, either my writing needs to pick up or something cos no one has been splashing me with cash!

I think the wesbtoe that make money are selling something, like a product. Thats why Amazon is doing well, but also a myriad of smaller merchants. There be the difficulty when cruising that its hard to ship stuff. But if that can be worked out then selling something would make more money than click-through advertising... Or donate buttons!


Also, i took 100 magazine quality photos of a small superyacht burning to the waterline and every magazine wanted the photos... But not to pay for them and I was only asking for $40 for the bloody lot!


Mark
 
#22 ·
Sal is right. A while back, I read that successful blogs are updated very, very frequently. A very successful woman estimated that she adds content several hours per day.

Exactly how you "add content for several hours per day" and still manage time to do something worth blogging about, I have no idea.

The premise is sound, though. You usually need to add content frequently, in order to retain loyal readers.

Another thing I that I realized that I like about Jones' blog- He does not just write about himself. It's not all "me, me, me". He writes stories about his environment. The house, the dock, the characters. It's fresh because people (and their boats) go, and new ones enter the scene. Now he's added racing.

He does kind of violate the "frequent update" rule though. He doesn't write daily, yet he has loyal readers who wait around for the next outburst...err, update. ;)
 
#24 ·
I enjoy working on my boat. Not too many blogs for a Nor'sea 27 so I figured I would start one. I figured it would be a good way to post ideas and projects and to document what I do with the boat. I have no intention of ever trying to do it for money.

Right now, it's too cold to do anything with the boat so the blog posts have slowed down.
 
#26 ·
I have been working on this article for a few weeks (Between beers)

We just uploaded it today. Posted here in its entirety so you don't even have to go to our web site to see it:



Internet Income for Cruisers

Question: Is it possible to make money on the internet while cruising?

Having done that myself for several years now, I can answer with an unqualified yes. Based on my experience it is quite clear that it is possible to make a nice living using the internet. With current and near-future technology I think one might earn above average income even while at sea given reliable fast internet service.

Regular employment via telecommuting comes to mind. In my opinion, however, it would be incompatible with cruising, simply because managing a boat at sea is a full time job, more than full time because it must be tended to twenty four hours a day. Even with good internet access one would have to have a very understanding boss as I doubt one could keep up an acceptable level of productivity while passage making. While living aboard in port, though, it would work just fine. Just like a regular job. If you are already an established author or photographer you may be able to sell your work using the internet, uploading creative product when in port; but if you are a novice with no publishing contacts it will be very difficult.

There are other ways to make money on the internet. Perhaps the most obvious is selling things on eBay or similar sites. A family member supplements his Navy retirement income buying and selling sports cards online. That may not be the best solution if you are moving around a lot. You wouldn't want to bring a fragile product like collectible cards on a boat. Simple and direct as it may be, handling any sort of physical inventory while cruising would be a challenge. If you are selling things, like our sports card trader, you need to figure out how to handle order fulfillment. How do you do that during a thirty day passage to the Marquesas? For that matter, how will you fulfill orders once you are in a foreign port? Better, I think, to avoid handling any sort of inventory at all. If you want to sell things, consider Café Press ( American Vega Ship's Store). A Café Press store or Amazon A store (Lealea's Book locker) can be set up in a few hours. There are people who will sell you a turn-key e-commerce site with all the bells and whistles guaranteed to make money, usually including an Amazon A store or similar. They work on the same principle that made so many entrepreneurs wealthy during the gold rush years selling outfits to gold seekers. They know that there is more, and easier, profit in selling the pick than in swinging it.

There are day trading and gambling online, which I put in the same category, and porn - profitable, I hear, but…

I like affiliate marketing programs and advertising. The business model is much the same as ink-on-paper magazines. The way it works is this: Editorial content serves a niche market and supports advertisers targeting that market. In a nutshell: You build a web site aimed at a niche market, fill it with creative content, sign up for appropriate affiliate programs and an ad server and you are off to the races. For a little extra icing on the cake you can open a Café Press store to sell logo items, photo prints etc. and an Amazon A store featuring selected books and so forth. The difference is that while the ink on paper magazine has long since been tossed in the trash and is no longer producing revenue for the publisher, our internet model continues to yield passive residual income, meaning that it continues to earn even when you are no longer actively working on it. Sweet!

What is the catch? If your goal is to replace a $60K income, we estimate it will take 40 to 60 concentrated hours of work per week, every week. Also, it may take years to get to that income level. It certainly will not happen overnight. The simple, brutal truth is that it takes a lot of work to make a lot of money. The good news is "passive, residual income". Once you have put in all this work, the income will continue to flow without your attention, at least for a time, gradually tapering off as people lose interest and your content loses relevance. So you go to work again. (See where I'm going with this?)

What kind of work?

Let us go back to our sports card trader and take it to the next level. In addition to selling cards on line, he is haunting the forums and gaining a reputation as someone knowledgeable in all things related. He decides to start a blog to address the information requests he gets. He signs up for Google Adsense and starts getting a few dollars from advertising. A couple of affiliate marketers are appropriate so he adds them to his web site. He opens a Facebook page and a Google plus page to promote his blog. Traffic increases. Looking around he sees that the same questions keep coming up so he writes and publishes an ebook, offering that for sale on his sites. His Café Press store features mugs, t-shirts and other items with reproductions of classic sports cards imprinted. His Amazon A store focuses on sports: books, equipment and memorabilia. Over time, our card trader notices that his income goes up with the frequency of fresh content added to his sites and down when he neglects to log in and upload fresh material regularly. He begins to spend more time on research and writing, and more on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). He realizes that by putting in enough hours you could make a fair amount of money…

Yes you can. But I thought you wanted to go cruising.

How much work is it, really? Before I answer that, let me say that we regard our internet activities as a hobby and social activity, not as a business we rely on to sustain us. We know how to turn it into a profitable enterprise but we choose not to work that hard. And that is the whole point. We are cruisers. Not internet entrepreneurs. But we could be.

Building a good web site and keeping it fresh with new content is very time consuming. So is search engine optimization (SEO), as is social media marketing (Too time consuming if you are not sufficiently disciplined) and if you let these things slide for a week you will see your income start to slip. When we are in port, as we are now, my goal is to write 1000 words per day or produce 5 minutes of finished video, each day, five days a week. After all, we are just waiting for spring. Why not? Besides, we all need goals and a purpose. Sometimes the juice just flows and it only takes a couple of hours. More often it is six or eight hours and I discard the whole mess and start over. Such are the perils of producing creative content. Laura works on the web site pages, ad placement and, of course, graphics and photography. We both write blog posts, monitor comments and posts on social media and niche forums. While we are in port, our numbers invariably go up as we are able to create and upload content and interact more on social media. When we cast off for our next destination we continue to receive passive residual income, gradually declining, until we are able to resume publishing fresh content. People visit our website regularly looking for something new each time. When they figure out that there is no fresh content being presented, they stop coming back, traffic drops, ad rates follow and income from the site tapers off until we reach port and get back to work uploading fresh content, gradually rebuilding traffic and income.

How much do we earn on the internet? I can't tell you. It would be a violation of the Adsense terms of service to publish that information. I can only say that since building my first web site, americanvega.org, in 2006 and uploading our first YouTube video five years ago, we have built the total income from all internet sources to an amount almost, but not quite, equal to two pints of draft beer per day at Kito's Kave in Petersburg, Alaska. About 85% of that comes from YouTube.

From January 2009 through December 2013 our total earnings from two Café Press stores and two Amazon A Stores totaled just one draft PBR worth over $300. Now, you may think '$300 over four years is not exactly a fortune', and you would be right. Let me introduce you to the concept of "Golden Crumbs", or as Mom would have said "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" - Passive residual income.

Is it possible to make enough money on the internet to support the cruising lifestyle? Yes, but only if sufficient passive residual income has been built before you cast off. That will take a lot of work, a lot more work than we have put in on AmericanVega.org, CruisingLealea.com and Cruising Lealea on YouTube. Better, I think, to consider internet income just one source of golden crumbs among several.

Chuck Rose

Additional resources:

2createawebsite.com

networksolutions.com
 
#35 ·
Having done that myself for several years now, I can answer with an unqualified yes. Based on my experience it is quite clear that it is possible to make a nice living using the internet. With current and near-future technology I think one might earn above average income even while at sea given reliable fast internet service.
We "my wife and I" look forward to the next post form Lealea. We, like most, have a dream of casting off one day, in fact we hope to leave in the fall of 2018. My wife, has carved out a niche' in the software industry, which will be worked into the sailing lifestyle. We will need 2 to 4 hours a day of good internet service for her to keep this income. I, on the other hand, I will design a truck driver Web based safety training website and do on-site company speaking to cover D.O.T rules and regulations. I also hope to speak at trade shows. I will complete the toast-Masters speaker program this comming year. I will also have a small book on driver safety and inspections. As a transportation safety training consultant, I have made some really sweet money. I will spend the next phase of my 10 year plan making this business work from the boat. We are now 50 and hope to untie at 55. We hope to sail for 10 years. "SOUTH"
Thanks again, its folks like you that have given us the courage to do this.
P.S tell the admiral we would love to see more of her cooking on you-tube.
Cheers, Lt
 
#27 ·
having been blogging and youtubing since 2007 and I am starting to learn a bit

The sailing blog does not make me any serious money - I have tried adverts on there and a donate button

but sailors are not great advert clickers.

I have an Amazon link on there and a link for a UK harbours guide - they earn me around £50 a month

Youtube was at one time my main web earner - I have now had 30 million youtube views - they are worth around $1 per thousand

I have had six films get over a million hits - none of them about sailing

the highest hitter was 18 million hits on trucks

after that the subjects are trucks, trucks, tractors, starlings and flower pot heaters.

so that is worth around $30,000 -

or it would have been

sadly I got chucked out of adsense by a computer for unusual algorhythms

the story is here if you can be shagged - but there are thousands of youtube producers in the same boat

Duckworks - All boat design is a compromise - Rubbish

google now owns the first year of films I made

I now have around 700 sailing films up on youtube - the best hitting one is 15,000 hits - which would be worth around $15 - so not worth the three days it took to make

I did try Blip and vimeo but for me they do not work - sailors just cannot find them, they do not deliver the local bandwidth and they are harder to embed in forums so spreading the word is really hard

My son told me that youtube is the only platform that works and to give everything away on youtube and people will buy the DVDs, pay for the downloads, offer me journalism jobs and invite me to talk at sailing clubs

this made little sense to me... but I tried it and now I sell around 400 DVDs a year - I sell them for £15 each

but on that I pay postage, repro, jiffy bags, VATtax -

so about £10 a pop - not bad income but per hour spent at the desk it is truly awful

on the American/canadian ones I make 50 per cent of the $25 each

I hate it when an Aussie or Kiwi buys a DVD because I make bum all

Around 300 blokes pay $4.99 (for everything on the website) to download the films in HD so that they can watch them on their big screen TVs or to take them to their boats on the laptops. They get around 20 hours of decently made films for their $4.99

As for costs - I run and regularly kill some pretty good cameras, the editing gear is not cheap. I have space on an Amazon server that costs me around £50 a month - bang on what visit my harbour pays for the link on the pages

... the boat is now in Scotland so petrol costs last year were around £1,000, mooring, harbour and license fees were £1200, gear replacement £600.

so I make a loss every mile I sail even if you cost my time at zero

- but that is not really the point

I now earn some money as a sailing hack at £100 a 1000 words

and give talks at sailing clubs at £250 a time

basically the sailing more or less pays for itself

but I love sailing, I love making films, I love writing

so that leaves me shovelling pretty hard at the day job (two kids still at university). the day job is mostly creating content for small company websites - that involves writing copy, taking snaps and making small promo films.

As for a blog - people will look at a blog to see what happens next

at the moment I am trying to track down an old boat for the next part of the journey

I update the blog perhaps ten times a week - sometimes with just a curious video I saw soemwhere - sometimes about another bloggers efforts, sometimes about the marsh pirates I meet occasionally

people come back to it to see what is going to happen next

 
#28 ·
...basically the sailing more or less pays for itself

but I love sailing, I love making films, I love writing
There is an old adage. "Do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life."

I would alter that drastically. "Do you what you love, that isn't easy for many people to love, and you'll never work a day in your life, without making a living." :)

I would probably be teaching people to fly or running a dive shack on a beach in the Caribbean, if it was simply doing what you love. Particularly, when the activity is filled with people that aren't really doing it for money, but rather as a hobby. Hobbyist's often accept a recovery of cost, not a return on investment.

Dylan, thanks for the primer on the economics of these matters. I found it fascinating.
 
#31 · (Edited)
that is not on my blog

it is on youtube....

I can embed it here and embed it on my blog,

you can embed it but not host it

google has a deal with all the major music owners

so google now owns the film

it is in the 20,000 word google contract many of you guys have signed

I have a friend who is a corporate lawyer

she read the google contract - she said that I had given them permission to come into my house and take my babies

she was only half joking

the music on my proper films has come from bands I know personally or from places where you buy tracks for about $20 a time - for a license of up to 50,000 downloads or copies with a video - and I can assure you I will never reach those numbers on sailing films

Google are still making a handsom profit on the trucking films I made five years ago

D

the thread, in my case, should really be called "losing money with your sailing blog"
 
#36 ·
As many have shared, it's certainly possible to make money with a sailing blog, but it likely won't happen overnight and it likely won't happen without effort. I've got a handful of web ventures going that create "passive" income.

My sailing blog, SailFarLiveFree.com, ranks third in income but takes the majority of my efforts. It also happens to bring me a lot of enjoyment, which I can't quite put a price on.

My advice:

1. Don't consider making money online as passive income - it takes persistence, dedication and effort. If you're passive about it, then don't expect an income!

2. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket - diversify! (For example use a mixture of SEO/Google rankings, advertising, Adsense, Amazon, social media, other affiliates, sponsorship, etc. so that if one goes south you're not sunk.)

3. Quality content is king. If it isn't well-written and you weren't inspired to write it, it probably isn't adding value to your blog/website. Quality content seems to produce good traffic...eventually.
 
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