Naomi’s note (to everybody): This is Johnny’s third post here. There is a video in it. I have not watched it because it is midnight and I should’ve posted this 15 hours ago and my kid’s in bed now. Hopefully it’s not too bad.

This is the post where Johnny realized what I had been telling him all along, that maybe — JUST MAYBE — it might be smart to make money doing what he already knows how to do. Yup. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.

Hey. Wait a minute. He’s not paying me nuthin’! And he didn’t even pay for his copy of Online Business School — he got it as a Christmas gift from his mom.

Naomi’s note (to Johnny): Fucking freeloader.

There’s a bit of growing and learning at the beginning of any new thing, and this thing is no exception. The only new thing that didn’t require any learning was the new Thing movie (well, 1980s “new”) starring Kurt Russell, because it was obvious that they didn’t learn much after the original Thing in the 50s or, for that matter, after any of John Carpenter’s other movies.

But what I discovered with this thing, thanks to all of your feedback, was that I was probably including too much info with not enough organization. And that’s totally accurate, because “disorganized” is how I roll. I also roll “semi-manic” and “itchy.”

So, subheads. Key points. All good ideas.

So let’s try that.

WHAT I DID THIS WEEK

1. I added to the Diabetic Weightlifter blog.

I added some posts and a video. I also started the e-book I mentioned, about how to control your diabetes the Diabetic Weightlifter way, by “not just managing it — kicking its ass.” Not a lot of this is visible on that website, but some is.

I also made a list of things I want to do going forward. I want to finish the e-book and would like to have that ready for sale in maybe two weeks. I also got some great suggestions to do merchandise, like shirts and coffee cups. I’m figuring I’ll use CafePress. Some friends of mine used it in the past for a forum I’m really involved with (Training Anarchy) and the shirts were actually pretty great. They were also way easy to set up. Lastly, I need to register a more sensible domain name and redirect it to the current URL. Because let’s face it… from a branding standpoint, “weight diabetes” as a site name sucks giant balls. Not just balls. Giant ones.

By registering a better domain name and directing it to this blog, I can have my cake and eat it too. I get the search engine boost from that “weight diabetes” thing, but I also get to tell people a better domain name that ends up at the same place.

2. I realized there are a lot of different needs here.

See, the tough thing about a project like this is that you’re all at different levels of experience with this web stuff. Me, I’m fairly advanced. I’ve launched dozens of websites and am a professional website developer, so when Naomi says, “Make a site about this,” I just do it. But not all of you have launched a site before. I’d wager that most of you haven’t, actually. But some of you have.

If I explain every little detail of every little thing, the less experienced folks will be happy but I’ll lose the rest of you because I’ll move too slow. There simply aren’t enough words here to explore details and make a lot of progress.

But if I leave those details out, I lose the people who are less familiar with it all.

So…

3. I went off on a tangent and started a new venture.

Of course. Because “randomly, in too many directions at once” is also how I roll.

Here’s the guts of that venture:

* I wrote an e-book. A totally different one from the diabetic one I promised.

Last week, I explained how I set up a blog. I included a paragraph about installing Wordpress, and Naomi axed it with a suggestion that I might write a guide to doing this and give it to all of you.

Admit that you didn’t think I’d do it. But I totally did, nyah-nyah.

It’s called How to Launch a Blog in Under an Hour for Super Cheap, Even if You’re a Total Idiot, and you can get it for FREE here.

It’s full of screenshots and step-by-step instructions. You can literally read it, click the links in the PDF when I explain what you need to do, and be done quickly with a real, live blog. You don’t need to be a tech wizard at all. I honestly doubt you’ll have trouble, but feel free to email me if something is unclear.

* I launched a “teaching” website.

If you clicked the link above, you already know about it, but it’s called Learn to be Your Own V.A. (Yes, I know it’s currently using the exact same blog theme on this site as on the Diabetic Weightlifter blog, wiseass. Hey, it’s been one fucking week.)

If you’re new to all of this, a “V.A.” is a “virtual assistant” and refers to someone you hire (usually for around $35 an hour, but sometimes more) to set up your shopping cart, start your mailing list, and stuff like that. You hire one because VAs have specific expertise that you may not have, but more importantly, you hire them because setting up shopping carts isn’t usually the best use of your time.

You know how you’re supposed to do the most important stuff (doing your primary skill, prospecting, etc.) with your time and outsource lesser stuff to others? Well, this is a recession. So fuck that.

Especially for IttyBizes, budgets are tight. And, you often have time to spare because business is slow. So maybe you’d rather violate the “highest and best use” rule for now and just learn how to do some of this yourself. Maybe you’d rather spend a half hour and $20 to launch a blog than spend $1000 or more to have a developer put up a custom site. Maybe you’d like to set up your own shopping cart.

That’s what I’ll teach here: How to be your own VA.. Learn a few tricks. Save a few bucks.

So I’m going to offer free webinars, maybe write some more free e-books. That should bridge the knowledge gap that I mentioned earlier.

So please, hit me up with your ideas! Does this interest you? What do you want to learn about? I live and breathe this stuff, and I’m good at it. So I can totally teach you. Then we’ll all know how to do the stuff I describe here.

WHAT I EARNED

As I mentioned in my first post in this series, I’ve been at this for maybe a month longer than I’ve been writing for y’all about it. I launched a bunch of little niche websites (tiny blogs designed to get some search engine traffic and make a few bucks when visitors click on AdSense ads), referred some affiliate products to people (mainly by publishing articles on E-Zine Articles; more on that in later weeks), and tried some other random stuff.

Earning has been slow; I won’t lie. Luckily 1) I have high hopes going forward and 2) you can all learn from my mistakes.

But let’s talk turkey. What has my half-assed internet marketing ability earned to date, in about two months?

• Google AdSense earnings from niche websites: $33.42

• Affiliate sales using article marketing: $19.50

• Affiliate sales through blog posts: $1.40

TOTAL: $55.32

Not terribly impressive. But shit, that’s still $55 made online, and most people never make a dollar. So screw you if you’re not impressed.

And I expect about $150 or so in affiliate sales to show up by the time this post goes live. That’s $100 per month for my first two months. And here’s the thing: The more you learn, the more you know what does and doesn’t work.

Which brings us to…

WHAT I LEARNED

Let’s go to the video, shall we? That should save some space in this ridiculously long post.

You should watch this. My #1 lesson learned is that you have to be authentic and add real value. Sounds really obvious, right? Well, not on the internet. But it’s vital in my humble opinion.

As always, please hit me up with your comments and questions. And as usual, be sure to visit my blog. My blog is awesome and totally underappreciated. I need the shallow ego boost that only traffic data and RSS and newsletter subscriber numbers can satisfy. So yeah. Read my shit.

See you next week. And by then, you totally need to have downloaded that blog e-book I wrote and you need to have done what it says. I show you step by step, with screen shots. All of the links you need are in the document. Read, click, and do. A half hour later, you’re done. Cheap. Easy. So don’t be a slacker.

Get on it, yo.