Two Contracts in Two Days

December 10, 2006 Posted by Tyler Cruz

Guess what? A scout from Alliance Atlantis motion pictures has requested my permission to write a movie based on my life. Titled Two Contracts in Two Days, the biopic follows…

Okay, just kidding. Obviously. But hey, it captured your attention didn’t it…

  • Bookmark Updates
  • TLA on TylerCruz.com
  • PublisherForums Contest

Bookmark Updates

It’s been over a year since I had first mentioned my involvement with Bookmark.com. In November of 2005, I signed a contract which stipulated my role as broker for the domain.

I’ve worked fairly hard and contacted a lot of companies and indiduals during that span, however have not received an offer in the area my client and I are looking for.

Our contract expired recently and fortunately yesterday we met up again to resign a revised and updated contract.

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I’ve just listed the domain on Sedo and parked it there as well. It’s already generating revenue from being parked and so I feel good that I can give the owner a source of passive income. I’m currently awaiting Sedo to answer my e-mails and to acknowledge that I’ve paid for premiums on their site for maximum exposure.

I must say that I’m pleasantly surprised as to the ease and effectiveness of parking domains. It takes mere seconds to actually do and you’re instantly making money that you otherwise wouldn’t be making. Aside from Bookmark, I also parked my domain Halflife.org. It hasn’t been 24 hours and it’s already made me $0.27. So let’s say $0.30 a day. That’s $109 a year. Buy 500 half-decent domains, and that’s $55,500 a year. Subtract $4,000 (500 * $8) for registrar fees and you’re netting over $50,000 a year from doing nothing. If that isn’t pure passive income I don’t know what is.

I’ve known about domain parking for a long time, of course, but things don’t really hit home with me until I see proof of the pudding in front of me. This is definitely something I might consider getting into. I love domain hunting and buying, and I love passive income. Yes.. this is something I could definitely get into…

I must say that while Sedo has great reach and features such as domain parking, that their customer service is quite horrid; they do not have a phone number for me to contact and it’s been several days and I haven’t heard back in regards to my e-mails yet.

Nevertheless, I hold hope that Sedo bodes well for Bookmark and that the domain finally sells. Wish me luck.

TLA on TylerCruz.com

Just a small note here, but Text Link Ads finally sold a spot on my blog. I’m still annoyed that they set their price so high for my blog which is why there aren’t more advertisers, but hopefully one day they’ll improve their system.

If you look at the very bottom left of my blog, you’ll see a text link for Income Tax linking to H&R Block, a large tax/accounting company. I found it interesting that it links directly to their site which means that they are actually SEOing their site through non-traditional means (for large companies).

My links go for $50 a month and appear at the very bottom of my blog, not noticed at all. Not too shabby if you ask me!

PublisherForums Contest

In my last blog entry I announced Something Major. As promised, here it is. Be forwarned, however, that the following is not official yet.

I will be holding a contest for PublisherForums. A big one. A Ginormous one.

How big? Let’s just say that it will dwarf Lee Dodd’s famous (or infamous) one for EarnersForum. At least in prizes it will.

How can I manage this? Well, I had somebody who is interested in me and my websites and asked if he could invest in any of my projects. A few weeks later after a bunch of MSN and ventrillo conferencing we have an agreed contract made up:

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I won’t be starting work on the contest or anything until I have the contract back signed by him and the cash in my account. I am infamous for getting too excited about things and getting my hopes up too high. I’ve been careful about that this time.

I just sent him my signed contract this afternoon so I should have his copy in a day or two at the latest. I then hope to have the money within 1-2 weeks.

If everything goes through well and the money is in hand, I will be putting forth a good chunk of change of my money as well for marketing and advertising the contest, including a press release.

Stay tuned on this contest. I have huge hopes and expectations for the contest, as I believe PublisherForums to be a great forum, but only lacking traffic and activity due to poor public awareness.

And don’t worry, the contest will be giving away prizes based on many different factors; it will not be a simple highest-post count wins deal. Instead, it will be more of a ‘highest quality poster with minimum of 200 posts’ and ‘best community spirit’ type of deal.

Stay tuned! There’s one massive PublisherForums.com contest coming soon (hopefully!).

That’s it for now, hopefully by my next update I’ll have the contest stated as confirmed.

Good luck and good earnings!

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Posted: December 10th, 2006 under My Websites  

13 Responses to “Two Contracts in Two Days”

  1. scoby says:

    Have you made an effort to diversify with domain brokering and publisherforums since the issues with online gambling?

    Looking forward to the contest, do you have any plans to integrate publisherspot into the forums?
    similar to aspen/chris does on
    http://www.websitepublisher.net/forums/showthread.php?t=281
    any mention of adsense in the forum gets turned into a link to his review of the service.

  2. JKZaba says:

    I’m glad to hear it has to do with Publisher Forums I joined a week or two ago and it’s been fairly inactive, which was somewhat of a disappointment. I love the look, feel and idea of the forum and hopefully this picks things up.

  3. AndrewR says:

    Hey,

    Shoot me a PM on PublisherForums if you need any help with the contest. My username is “Andrew” and I would be glad to help. I really would love to see PF get off this inactivity streak as it was a great place to talk in the beginning when more people were active.

    Regards,
    Andrew

  4. Matt says:

    You’ve been this guy’s domain broker for over a year now and have only just started listing it on Sedo (which is one of the internet’s most effect domain marketplaces on the web – especially in respect to high dollar domains)? That just doesn’t make any sense to me.

  5. tylercruz says:

    scoby:

    No, I’ve made little changes, if any at all, to what I’ve been doing as a result of the US poker ‘ban’.

    I wouldn’t call that integrating.. that’s simply a basic vB hack that does that, which I’ve been using on PFO for years.

    JKZaba:

    Thanks, but don’t wait for the contest… participate now! Who knows.. maybe you’ll win a special pre-contest prize…

    AndrewR:

    Thanks, you could help revitalize the forum though by posting 🙂 However, I understand that it’s a chicken and egg sort of thing. I’d appreciate it though.

    Matt:

    New contract, new possibilities…

  6. Laura says:

    Hey Tyler – you have me curious:

    What made you decide to start another publisher-targeted forum? I find it hard to visit all the good forums out there related to online publishing, so I have to pick a choose a few to visit with any regularity.

    What was it that made you decide to start one? What did you feel was lacking on other sites? Can you give me an idea of the juicy stuff to find there that would make we want to jump ship from my ‘regulars’ to visit a new forum related to this niche?

    (I am not criticizing at all – I am sure you will do well – I am just curious about what took you down this road when there are sooooo many other options out there that are untapped.)

    Laura (a lurker most of the time, but still following along… :D)

  7. tylercruz says:

    Hi Laura,

    I’m glad to see a female visitor here (I remember you from my Where’s all the Women post however).

    It seems we have a common link in that we’ve both used Sheldon as well..

    Anyhow, to answer your question – why another webmaster forum? I won’t argue that there are more than enough of them out there. I, too, have to pick and choose which ones I’ll visit.

    First off, I’ll comment about the fact of jumping into a niche that is already saturated (contradition?). Pretty much any niche or subject is saturated nowadays. With some exceptions, I really don’t think it’s an issue, simply for that very fact; there will always be competition. Now, more competition usually means that the market for that niche is big enough to go around, or valuable enough to compete after. Especially on the Internet, it’s so easy for a small site to fight vs the big boys (look at any successful web2.0 site..)

    As for what will give PublisherForums the edge? PublisherForums is different in that it focuses on monetizing websites and the entrepreneurialism of them as well. It does not focus on technical issues such as server adminsitration, or CSS and HTML for web design, it does not focus on W3C validity or even SEO. It’s main driving force and auroa, if you will, is again of the entrepreneurial spirit.

    On top of that, my plan with the site is to KISS (Keep it simple, stupid). I don’t plan on having any other parts or sections to the site. It is an area for discussion and an area for discussion period. Advertisements are pretty minimal and the site is clean and conducive for good conversation.

    I believe that it’s clear and focused, and right now simply needs traffic and discussion, which is where my contest comes in.

  8. wesley says:

    No offence, but the guy that owns that domain must be pretty stupid. All you’ve done so far (since the new contract) is list it on sedo? WOW! Great job! What have you done in the previous year?

    I predict this domain will never get sold (by you)

  9. AndrewR says:

    wesley,

    I would love to see you broker a domain name. Last year, Tyler got a few offers that he had mentioned on his blog. And with a domain like bookmarks.com, it is worth waiting for the best offer to come around.

    If memory serves, last year, Tyler parked the domain on the owners website to monitor any traffic he may be getting from it.

  10. Matt says:

    “it is worth waiting for the best offer”

    Andrew, I think wesley’s point was that’s all Tyler’s doing: waiting, instead of actually pursuing buyers.

  11. Small Potato says:

    Matt,

    He did look for buyers. That was why he had to park the domain (somehwere) for those interested to monitor traffic.

  12. Matt says:

    I was clarifying what wesley’s point was 🙂

  13. tylercruz says:

    wesley:

    I’ve done a lot to try to sell the domain. Just because I don’t write the details on my blog doesn’t mean that I’m not actively contacting people. I mentioned putting it on Sedo because it is a new avenue that I previously couldn’t really do due to the nature of the contract.

    Also note that I’m trying to sell a domain for a quarter of a million dollars. I’m sorry you think it is so easy to do andapologize that I’m not as proficient as you.

    AndrewR:

    I’ve received scores of offers. Many in the mid-high 5-digit range. I just don’t keep an active log on my blog as I don’t want possible bidders to have a lot of insight on our end. I’m also obliged to contractual obligations.

    Matt:

    See above.

    Small Potato:

    Basically, but that doesn’t really have any relation to looking for buyers 🙂

    Matt:

    Wesley was just trolling. Trolls rarely have points.

PeerFly

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