First, there are a few basic things to get out of the way:

Fully transparent – All of the lenses I make are going to be in the squidoo account here. Feel free to look at them, dissect them, use ideas from them, ask questions about them etc.

Fully accountable - As we progress, I’ll post regular income, traffic, and other updates to illustrate how far along we are. I will probably adapt the current ‘Earnings’ tab to reflect this new information since the current graph and info on there is a bit outdated and not applicable to my new focus.

Multiple Revenue sources – I am reserving the right to use other affiliate networks and programs in additions to the ones that Squidoo natively supports. However, any Amazon revenue will go through Squidoo’s modules (i.e. I won’t shortcut Squidoo’s share to get to the goal faster). I will make a point to try to pick affiliate programs that are easy to get into. If you are planning on following along, I would recommend signing up for Commission Junction and Pepperjam for starters. It’s free and both have a huge array of programs to choose from.

How to get the most out of following the Captain on this dangerous, monster-filled journey of the high Squidoo seas :

Subscribe to the RSS Feed - so you don’t miss any posts that can help you.

Ask Questions – If you don’t understand what I’m doing or why it’s working and you don’t say anything, I can’t help you. If you can’t find me in the chat room, just drop me a PM and i’ll get back to you. With any luck there may be any number of people hanging out in there willing to help out.

Participate – As time allows, I’m planning on holding several chat room webinars on different concepts, tricks, methods etc. These will be free, but I reserve the right to limit the number of attendees to keep things from getting out of control (100 people in a chat room makes any kind of discussion tough).

Actually do stuff – By far and away the people I’ve seen that are the most successful at anything in life, online or off, are those that are willing to actually put in some work. Build some lenses, then build some more. It’s the only way to learn what works and what doesn’t. I can help a bit with best practices, but at the end of the day, it’s up to you.

Next: The Quest Begins

As I’m starting a new phase in my pirate life I’ve also decided to begin a new phase in my Squidoo life as well.

Now, in the past I’ve made several thousand dollars a month from Squidoo but with the demise of Ebay and various other affiliate programs that has fallen off somewhat.

However, I don’t believe for an instant that this means that you can’t make money (and have fun!) with Squidoo. So, I’ve decided to rededicate myself with a new Squidoo quest to prove that anyone can make a couple thousand bucks a month from Squidoo in a relatively short time.

We are going to see how long it takes to go from $0 to $2000 a month from Squidoo lenses.

Not using Squidoo to direct traffic to another site you have but instead using Squidoo lenses to make money directly.

It can be done, I’ve done it.

And we are going to do it again.

And I’m going to show you all how so you can do it too.

Looking for a good idea for a ‘commercial lens’ you can make a few bucks on?

Try this.

Next time you are watching TV sit down with a pad and paper. Each commercial break watch every commercial and write down the one that strikes the strongest emotion in you (interest, hate, disgust, warm and cuddly, piratey, etc).

When you pick your favorite commercial for that break, jot down 3 quick facts about it on the notepad (if you didn’t learn 3 things from the commercial you should probably watch something else).

Do that for every commercial break.

At the end of a half hour show that should leave you with 4 or 5 commercials at least that were worth noting, each with a few facts about the product or service being advertised.

These commercials were all selling products that are clearly profitable enough to pay several thousand dollars a night for air time for (if not much much more) so they should definitely have enough search volume on the search engines to make it worth your while.

Okay, you’ve got all your Lens Titles and Module Titles sitting there on a piece of paper looking at you. Go make a kick butt review lens of the product!

Get to work before I make you walk the plank… arrrrrr

Make huge piles of money with no work and no effort, anyone can do it regardless of who you are?

Sorry, not this time.

Why can’t everyone just be rich? That would fix everything, right?

Squidoo is an awesome tool and is used by tons of people to raise money for charity, make a little money, tell people about their passions, and find new friends. The time put in by volunteers to police the SquidU forum and new lenses boggles my mind. It is certainly the most powerful community on the web that I’ve ever found.

Will most of the lensmasters on Squidoo ever make significant money from Squidoo? Probably not, but then again that’s not necessarily Squidoo’s fault.

Actually, the more time I spend on technology related projects the more I come to realize that the internet is really just life on a timer. Sometimes it moves at fast forward and sometimes it slows wayyyy down. However, that doesn’t make the internet any less real.

In fact, I would argue that traits that make you successfull in the real world can make you MORE successfull on the internet. Conversely, your worst habits are also magnified.

Squidoo is still growing very quickly (as is the rest of the internet!)

Instead of trying to come up with that latest ‘niche’ that no-one else has found, why not take a look at yourself and see what qualities you are good at?

Leadership, Teamwork, Creativeness, Attitude, Work Ethic, Communication, Determination etc…

For me, I tend to do okay at Leadership, Attitude, and Work Ethic. I love coming up with new ideas and can conceptualize where things will be (hopefully ). However, I can’t really draw a picture, sometimes I don’t play very well with others, and while I’ve been working on my Communication skills, they aren’t there yet a lot of times.

If you play up to your strengths, you will find that not only do you make more money, you truly enjoy what you do. And that is worth more than any bajillion dollars ever, no matter how easy.

This week Pepperjam announced that for July Only they are offering $10 to every new member that signs up under an existing member. (Disclaimer, there’s $7 in it for me too – yep, massive riches).

Anyway the deal works like this, you sign up for Pepperjam using the following Banner:

and once your account is activated, Pepperjam will drop $10 in your account, Presto!

A few things I’ve learned about PJN since the last review:

Their Reporting Rocks – Usually updating every 2 or 3 hours, it’s not instant, but it’s close enough as to not matter.

The interface warms the cockles of my heart – It’s fast, clean, and easy to find stuff.

They are generous about payout bumps and communicate well - Every time I’ve sent an e-mail asking questions or requesting information, the reply has been quick, courteous, personal, and informed. On every offer I’ve started earning significant commissions on, Pepperjam has been very willing to bump payouts proportionally.

I’ve broken 4 digits in commission with PJ the last several months and it just looks to keep increasing.

If you decide to give it a try and run into any problems or anything, give me a shout and I’ll help you out if I can.

So, go make your $10.