S is for Squidoo

Unusual Angles

Now, in case you are wondering what on earth a squidoo is, I shall tell you! Squidoo is a website for anyone who wants to write an article or multiple articles but doesn't necessarily want to start a whole blog. It's a publishing platform with a vibrant community and a great side effect of this is the ability to earn a bit of pocket money too.

The beauty of Squidoo is how simple it is to build a single page, called a lens, to write about almost anything you want to. There are some subjects to avoid such as anything illegal (d'uh!), medical, diet or health products, adult content and copyright fraught areas too but for most ordinary people, these won't be attractive topics anyway!

I've enjoyed making lenses over at Squidoo, mainly for my photography topics (10 Tips for Great Flower Photos or How to Shoot The Moon) that don't really fit here or over on Auction House Addict (my WoW gold making blog) but there are a few 'written to order' lenses too.

Craft or home making lenses do really well over there and if you enjoy browsing Pinterest you may have seen some of the great recipe lenses already. My How to Make an Ice Bowl lens did really well last summer and I'm hoping it will bounce back up the ranks again for this summer!  

Connecting my love of travel with photography and writing has proven to be a successful topic for me too - I have won some on-site awards for a few of my travel lenses, including my favorite Places to Visit in Thailand! I just pulled together some of my Thai holiday photos and threw some words in as it was a weekly topic challenge with a deadline but it turned out so well.

Topiary Elephants in Thailand

Squidoo run a club called Rocket Squids which I highly recommend for beginners. It's designed around a weekly challenge topic for a lens with hints and tips to make the best lenses you can. There's a separate area of the forum with more experienced Squids designated as helpers, to answer any questions you may have.

The site has been through some drastic changes and tough times over the last year or two and with my measly 29 lenses, I have seen a drop in my earnings but I also decided to back off a bit and to let the dust settle. Another great thing about Squidoo is the residual income - now I'm not saying you don't have to work at it, you most definitely do need to work if you want to make cash but the work you do now will probably still be paying you a bit next year.

If you do your maths and work it for a year or two, how much could still be dribbling in to your paypal account in 3 years time? The potential is definitely there for those willing to learn and work it. Personally I've been a bit distracted for the last two years so I haven't made the most of it.

Squidoo also has an agreement with Amazon so if you are one of the unlucky Americans who can't become an Amazon affiliate because of the State you live in, Squidoo might be a partial answer for you. Each lens is allowed up to 20 related Amazon products although that is overkill for most lenses. You sadly don't get the full Amazon commission (Squidoo has to make some profit!) but the more you sell via your lens, the higher ranking you get on the site and therefore the higher payout from the text ads system.

Would I recommend Squidoo solely as a way to make money? Honestly? Not really, it's about so much more than that but if it clicks with you and you enjoy writing  and the community aspect, the potential for extra cash is most definitely there! It's not a get-rich-quick scheme and it will take time and effort but from some of the earnings articles I've seen from other lensmasters, it could have quite a nice effect on your paypal balance!

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Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

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G is for Greek Islands

Yacht at dusk, Keri Beach, Zante

I've been lucky enough over the years to travel a fair bit around Europe and so far have visited 3 of the Greek Islands, Kos, Rhodes and Zante. Sadly I was ill for much of the Rhodes holiday and it was so long ago, I don't have any digital photos.

Kos was a wonderful trip and although it was pre-digital camera, I do have a few images from that trip but they are faded and tatty now. I had a leak in the attic where all my old photos were stored so I lost many memories that day, especially as I didn't know about the leak straight away.

Zante however, is a different story! I was fully into my photography by then and have splashed out on a full digital SLR set-up. My images from Zante are some of my best sellers on various sites and this one in particular always gets the same comment!

Can you guess what almost every person says when seeing this picture for the first time?

'ooh, that looks like it's floating!'

I always laugh and say it is a boat after all but then they flounder & fluff, trying to explain what they mean. It makes me smile every single time.

That water was crystal clear and this is only one of many great shots I took that day. I even went for a paddle later in the afternoon but I soon regretted it - it was icy cold to the point of my toes being numb within just a few minutes! Considering the air temperature was almost 80F (27C), I never expected it to be quite so cold!

You can see lots more of my Zante images over at my Squidoo page where I wrote an article about Places to Visit on Zante which is just one of my travel related photography articles. I also write other articles there when the urge strikes me - it doesn't earn me a lot these days but I did quite well there to start with.

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Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

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Yet More Changes at Casa Nev!

Last week I mentioned that I had a job for the next 10-12 weeks & here we are on a Sunday afternoon & I'm just waking up from a much needed afternoon nap! My body clock time keeping has changed drastically over the last few years to the point that actually getting to sleep before 2am is near impossible which hasn't been a problem whilst I've not been working!

Now though, I'm awake at 7am & by 4pm, I have no idea how I'm staying awake for that last hour of work, let alone driving home! I have been able to sleep by 1am though so I'm guessing another week or two & I'll be back to a 'normal' sleep pattern.

So what's the next lot of change coming to Casa Nev, I hear you ask? Well, I started this blog originally to talk about WoW stuff that wasn't gold related. It turns out I don't have as much non-goldmaking stuff to talk about as I thought but I do have lots of other stuff going on in my life so I think I'm going to change the direction of my posts here.

I have an Etsy shop & a couple of Zazzle shops for my photography & fractals, I write pages at Squidoo on all sorts of stuff, I have WoW stuffs, I'm learning new cooking styles & of course, I have my new single life stuff. So I thought rather than start yet another blog, I'd just re-purpose this one! Luckily 'She Rides Dragons' isn't an obviously WoW name so I don't even have to worry about changing that :)

The only WoW stuff I've done in the evenings this week is to relist my auctions & do the Tailoring & Leatherworking cooldowns to get the new PvP patterns.

I did get my priest moving over Easter weekend - she's almost 86 now :P Yeah, I may have forgotten how slow leveling a priest is even with almost all ilevel 415 blue crafted gear! It's almost as if I've lost the ability to quest for hours or even do anything productive in game. Again, I'm sure I'll settle down again eventually so I'm not going to stress it for now.

I'll still be doing some WoW posts here - especially the to-do list ones as I find they help me stay focused in game but with everything else going on, sometimes I just need to get my other thoughts out there too. I'm not totally sure quite what will end up here but I hope you'll tag along out of curiosity if nothing else!

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Check out some of my Squidoo lenses!

Eclectic? Me? | Shoot The Moon