I'm working on a massive ebook about how to grow an ecommerce business. It's shaping up to be about 30K words. The plan is to earn money from selling copies it but I'm really just doing it to push myself out of my comfort zone and try something new. Also, I think it will help my build my personal brand and will hopefully turn into speaking opportunities because public speaking is something I would like to get better at as well.

Thanks Neville! Really appreciate you taking the time. Will consider adding more info and test different variations ;)

While 30k words isn't nothing to sneeze at, that's actually a short book. You'd have to add about 100k words to that for it to start to qualify as "massive". Books published by the conventional publishers tend to be 50k–100k words long. Some niche markets are lower, but 50k words is the usual minimum.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with your project—I think it's a great idea for your purpose! I'm just passing along a heads-up that, when you pitch it, the word count might not convey what you intend if you try to use it as a metric to convey how much content you have. :)

Edit: I meant to say "is nothing to sneeze at," not "isn't." Sorry about that.

I run a blog where I go and review restaurants in the local area so people know where the best places to grab something to eat.

Im branching out to doing recipes and looking at getting into podcast and youtube to increase my social presense.

Oigo a las canciones en español por YouTube.

…I think that was the right preposition. I need to find my grammar handbook and reread it.

Anyway, if you want more vocabulary flashcards to supplement Duolingo, try Memrise.

If you want a better grasp of the grammar (because, frankly, some common transliterations of Spanish grammar are outright wrong, and Duolingo tends to explain grammar in ways that are misleading unless you already know exactly what they mean), the official reference for Spanish grammar is the Real Academia Española (http://www.rae.es/recursos/gramatica/nueva-gramatica). But if you just want a helpful summary guide in English, the most useful resource I've found for that is actually the Bantam New College Spanish & English Dictionary.

If someone else reading this wants to arrange to chat with a native speaker regularly, they might be able to find a barter situation on Simbi (https://simbi.com/; @ I'm https://simbi.com/misti-wolanski/welcome).

Hope that helps with the Spanish!

Develop language learning courses? What languages? Do you have a link?

I'm asking as someone who has a goal to take introductory courses for 15 languages by 2020. I've been doing modern Greek this summer and am on-track to finish that this month.

Preparing for WBFF bikini model competition. I am doing it for .. um... I faced death 3 times in my life. the last thought in my mind was always the same. I have not get the body that I want. very weird feeling. but I just want it .. more definitions. I think also for the respect of human body and the gratitude of having a healthy body. hopefully, my journey can inspire more people to live a healthy life. Ive never taken any PE class before 15 and have never been active, now I do 30-60 mins cardio every day. very intense strength training as well. really enjoy this new life style.

Hey Neville,

Thanks very much for the reply. I know the dedication it must take to reply helpfully to everyone. Look out for emoji domains in the wild and let me know if you fancy having an emoji link to your videos. I reckon http://🎥.ws/kk would be the most pertinent!

Hey, Nev!

My problem is that I started many side projects in the past and abandoned them sooner or later. Sometimes I "reactivate" one or another, but can't stick only to one that really brings value. Could you provide me a tip on how could I get rid of all the old projects and focus only to one?

Anyway, for the moment I feel like the project I need to work on (and I would like it) is a "contents and reward programs" membership website (and I hope this one will be "the one"). I mean I join every single contest (buy this product, send the codes via SMS to win a prize; listen to the radio station and send a SMS with a specific text to win a vacation, etc.) and also I join every single reward program and make most of them. I feel like I have already accumulated a lot of knowledge in the field and sometimes I can provide valuable info to show people how to save tens/hundreds of dollars by combining offers, rewards programs, credit cards, etc. There really are some moments when some of these combinations can save you hundreds! And very few people know about. I feel like offering 100 (1000?) free coupons for the first registered members for a free 6-months (or less?) subscription to my membership program where I share this valuable information and let the others pay for it. What do you think? Also, do you have any idea of how much could I charge? Also, would it be better to share the knowledge through a "secret posts" on a website or simply create a membership only newsletter?

Thank you!

Oh, dang, that reminds me of one of my side projects I've been forgetting to work on: a book, for recruiters, about how to hire technical people, from the POV of such technical people, focusing mainly on how to stop pissing us off. More of an exercise in catharsis than anything I think will make money, but . . . .

Hi Nev,

My side-project is a booking site of far-from-city and fully-equipped accommodations located in Spain (on the long run we will be adding more countries).

I am doing this side-project because I LOVE travelling and writing.

I always have side hustles going.

I work 8 to 12 hours a day whether I'm at the job site or at home.

Side-Hustle 1:

My wife and I fix band instruments. She works on flutes and saxes, I work on trombones, trumpets, and saxophones. I just overhauled 5 instruments I got dirt cheap - 3 trombones and two trumpets and I'll sell them either on eBAy or Reverb.

Working on band instruments like this is not easy. You have to go to a good school that'll teach you all you need to know about it. There is a lot of sensitive dent work, and soldering work you must so that looks pro. That takes quite a bit of time and experience, plus you'll need about $3000 worth of tools to use.

Side-Hustle 2:

I also make my own courses and sell them on Amazon. I made a video course that shows you how to use Corel's Paintshop Pro so that you can edit images just as easy as using Photoshop. I actually used that in a classroom environment teaching 7th through 9th grade students. Because the course was on DVD all I had to do was watch my students as they watched the video lessons.

Side-Hustle 3:

The other side-hustle I've been doing is copywriting. Even though I'd like to specialize in a particular area, I've kind of generalized myself. I've done: blog posts, advertising copy, web sales pages, business plans, company manuals, promotional brochures, articles, marketing plans, phone scripts, email sequences, etc.

I also wrote a 200 + page book on the art of blogging and copywriting.

I don't take on too many clients in this area because most of them want to pay you zilch.

Very few people understand how much research you must do in order to write copy for their products or services. If you do it right, you'll spend at least 6+ solid hours researching a product or service before you even start writing.

Most people don't see that part.

Anyway, whatever your side-hustle is, you'll have clients that will want something for next to nothing. You need to avoid these people like the plague, because they will eat up your time and you'll never make any living wage working for them.

Personally, I'd rather write for myself and my own products, than write for someone that doesn't get it.

Anyway, that's my 3 side-hustles.

Peace out!

Elmo

Hey Misti, thank you for asking! The first course is a general language skills course about maintaining a language after you've studied it so the skills don't atrophy and will be up in the beginning of September. The next products will be in a variety of languages (my partner fluently speaks 8+), starting with Japanese. The courses will go up at the company website, polylingualsolutions.com and there is already a free grammar series in Japanese and other resources on his YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLifeOfRob

Neville!

Good luck on you busking adventure!

You're a braver man the me.

We've talked a little before on my side project, www.startupproperty.co.

This is my attempt at finding my tribe of likeminded investors. I want to unite a community of investors looking to improve their investing and life through innovative technology.

Let me know you thoughts.

Thanks for the URLs, Darren! [hops off to look into them]

You nailed it. Must be childhood conditioning.

LOL...that's what I do!

I'm working with local businesses (brick and mortar)...mostly service and food industry-go from offline to online. Using direct response copy to help them build an online list and consistent month to month paying customer. My goal is to make their income predictable.

Some clients pay me to also manage their list (segmentation and email) as well as write their direct response copy, auto responders, scripts and/or marketing strategies.

Seeing Neville's photo gives me an idea depending on your area...how about charging more for a more advanced dog walking extreme (package) experience. Like going to a beach and playing in the sand and water...or an extreme hike up a mountain side? Might set you apart from other walkers and give you some more exercise options too...lol.

So, this is half for fun and possibly for profit.

I am involved in the cannabis industry and recently discovered that the bible is full of cannabis references as it was a key ingredient in the holy anointing oil that Jesus used and was part of the Judaic tradition.

Kaneh-bosum (or fragrant bush) is widely believed to be cannabis, not Calamus as it was mistranslated in later editions of the king james bible.

I'm not religious in anyway (brought up by hippy leftist atheists) but find the history of the plant and how much it was integrated into religious ceremonies across multiple religions to be fascinating.

Since we produce topical products and have access to premium oil and distillate, I decided to recreate the recipe in the bible (converting Shekles to metric was fun).

The landing page is a first attempt, I know it's a bit of a mess, but we did sell a few units in the first week with no marketing, so I'm encouraged that there may be a market for this (curiosity mainly, although some devout people may also be interested).

I'd love some thoughts on Kopywriting and landing page, as well as any channel ideas you may have.

(selling these through church groups was a thought, think chocolate bar fundraiser, but more ... "in line" with their message) :)

(I know, I'm risking eternal damnation and all my religious friends get this sort of ... uncomfortable look when they hear about this plan which started as a bit of a joke, but is quickly turning into something more serious).

I'm also curious as to your opinion as I know you're also a Zoroastrian. Seriously not intending to offend anyone with this, it's mostly a historical curiosity thing.

The end product is very heavy on the cinnamon smell (you smell like a cinnabon bun after a treatment) and has a very 'tingly' feeling to it, like all other cannabis based topical medicines, it has a numbing and pain relieving effect - although I doubt I can say that on the packaging - I'll position it as a novelty product).

http://JesusOil.us is the domain name.

I welcome your feedback

Neville,

I wanted to wish you the best of luck with your side-project, as that's certainly something I don't think I could get myself to do!

For my side project, I recently launched a supplement website (303supplements.com) with the goal of supplementing and even replacing my income from my 9-5 job as I want to eventually quit my job to become a full-time entrepreneur!

The first product I launched is called Brain Hacker, a nootropic stack that can help improve your cognitive function. Specifically in regards to focus, concentration, memory, and energy.

Our nootropic stack, Brain Hacker, is the first of many products that we plan to launch. As my goal for 303 Supplements is to become a one stop shop for all things supplements!

Great post, Neville!

My "side project" is an online clothing, accessories and grooming store for "the modern wild man". We're called Labrador Supply Co., and we operate as entirely using a dropshipping business model. We're based in Western Canada, and have not yet utilized advertising streams like Facebook or Instagram ads. There's a lot of work to be done still with the site, but interest seems to be picking up and we're making sales!

My main focus right now is improving the site's SEO, UX and pagespeed (desktop and mobile), which seems to be a rather daunting task.

I spend a lot of time on the copy but I'm no pro -- does it speak to you? I want it to have personal character, but of course also need it to aid in converting viewers into customers. I'm open to any and all suggestions!

Thanks folks!

-Andrw

Hey Neville,

My "side project" is building a Drone as a Service agency, serving the high end real estate market and adding other services as they are requested. I am ready to take the FAA certification exam and will do that in the next two weeks. I also have a few friends properties lined up (providing free service) to build the portfolio quickly. My goal is to have three paying clients by the end of the month.

Thanks,

Matthew

I'm blogging at HubPages. I want to post there thousands of my poems plus a few essays and other articles. It's a fine site for poets, writers, experts and hobbyists who have something to say about anything and hope to earn a good income while doing so.

hubpages.com/@lordofpoetry

Thanks Neville!