How it works -

Very similar to eBay, you can place listings for sale, offer Squidoo related services via Classifieds, or buy lenses from other lensmasters. Fixed Price, Buy it Now, and different auction lengths are all supported.

I’ve also got Paypal integration and Google Checkout should be coming soon.

Listing Lenses on the auction house is 100% free. There are some fees for Classifieds and listing Upgrades (bold, featured, etc.) as well as a 2% final value fee (which is less than a third of what eBay charges last I checked..).

I’m planning on starting an Adwords campaign to drive traffic to the site, so get your lenses up quick!

Special for Captain Squid Readers -

If you haven’t signed up for my Newsletter yet, go over to Sell My Lens and sign up from there. I’ll deposit $5 in fee credit in your account to play around with.

If you already HAVE signed up for my email, contact me and let me know your login to Sell My Lens. I’ll give you $5 for free also!

Questions? Let me know. Also let me know what you think of the site design.

-The Captain

Unfortunately, This month’s earnings from Squidoo and CJ activities was not as zesty as I had hoped. All told, My payout dropped by about 50% from last month, down to about $275.

�Squidoo Earnings for November 2007 (Paid in January):

$125

CJ Earnings for Dec. 2007 (Paid in January) :

$150

�Why did earnings drop?

1. Squidoo tightened the payout tiers: As far as I can tell, the LR cutoff for earning the top tier ($6.23) this month went from around 2,700 to right at 2,000. Obviously, this caused fewer lenses to receive the big bucks, resulting in a lower Adsense share for yours truly.
2. Squidoo’s LensRank algorithm changed: The Lensrank algorithm went through a change right in the middle of the month, weighing traffic more heavily. I made changes to my lens portfolio to adjust to the new ranking method, but not quickly enough to be reflected in these earnings.
3. CJ was awful for me in December: I was set up to sell many more services and business products in CJ than consumer goods. Since December is historically terrible for these things, I’m not terribly surprised my earnings fell off.

Why I’m Still a Salty Old Pirate

1. �Traffic is improving – It’s taking work and difficult to balance building new lenses with traffic generation for old, but my traffic is swiftly recovering from its christmas slump. More traffic = more $$ = higher LR.
2. Hey, it’s still $300 – Not bad for doing something I have a blast doing
3. CJ has already passed Decembers numbers in 8 days – well, almost. My CJ earnings this month are rolling right along, and I am back up to.
4. Rankings are returning to previous levels – I now have fought my way back to the same number of lenses in the top 10,000 as I had before the algo change crushed me. Onward and upward!

Brief Squidoo Stats Update:

Current # of Live Lenses: 253
# of lenses built in Dec : 31
# currently in top 10k : 60
Total Earned with Squidoo in the last 4 months :$1500

-The Captain