Ways to make money from your site

I wrote about the various different earnings I made via my site over the last couple of years from methods which were not selling my games if you are interested: http://greyaliengames.com/blog/no-more-affiliate-games-on-my-site/

Cheers - I love reading your tips and stuff.

You should really pay some of the money you made selling your framework to the members who helped you all the way through it's creation. The routines you nabbed and shoved into your framework, the members knowledge you relied on, used and incorporated in your framework and then in the end you sell it to BFG. Is it / Was it "all" your work alone to sell?

Don't get me wrong... Congratulations for moving on to bigger and better things but for the love of God, please cool it down a little with the self promotion.



That's like saying "I'm a director of my own business" but fail to give the full picture that you went self employed as a window cleaner.

I'm sure you're a nice guy and all but give yourself a reality check on that ever expanding ego of yours.

* Cue GA fanboys :/ *

I think you've got Grey all wrong! He's never brayed about how good he is - just shares his story that's all.

Qube: I'm not sticking up for Grey (he's a big boy now and can fight his own corner) but your post seems somewhat out of place for a public forum let alone a public forum for a programming language. Posts like that end up with a thread being locked, which is detrimental to everyone.

Grey: Thanks for the link.

Qube: Yes, Grey Alien has 'nabbed' some functions that were posted on the forums. But on numerous occasions he has posted a bunch of functions that he uses in the framework on the forums to help other people with problems -- it's hardly one-way.

Jeez, Qube.

...and the suggestion that anyone that disagrees with your "someone peed in my Weetabix" attitude is a "GA fanboy" is obscene.


Thanks for the behind-the-scenes info, Grey - always welcome, from anyone.

Nothing wrong with succes and enthousiasm.

Agreed. I find all the sales data and what not, extremely helpful. Especially in terms of motivation.

Mucho appreciated. :)

I don't really see any kind of ego or chest puffing involved here?? This is just straight to the point, useful information.


....Except how you spelled them ;-)

Hahaha, that would be my dutch :)

There you go spellingnazi ;) sucess and enthusiasm

@Qube: ^5's

Still wrong!

You know, sometimes what we see `in others` is really in ourselves, we're just projecting it onto other people.

I think that a lot of people have been generous is giving tips and information and help to GreyAlien over the course of time, participating in research and testing and all that. But I don't think many people have really thought `I'm giving this advice and help with strings attached, I want something in return, you owe me`.

We all help each other when we can't do everything ourselves and it's always great to be able to ask a question and have people provide not only feedback and comments but even source code and ideas. Where would the forum be without that sharing and willingness?

So I think it's not really fair to say that GreyAlien has just blatantly taken/stolen all of this stuff from people against their will, or that it is unfair that they aren't getting something in return. What they're getting in return is that when you share something with someone without strings attached, you open yourself to receiving support and help from others, and the giving itself becomes the reward. That's the payment. It's only when YOU withhold full giving and you attach strings and conditions to your giving that you feel you haven't received as much as you should, because you've limited yourself. In the end, you receive in proportion to how you give. To get all, give all to all.

I think we would all feel less jealous and less needing to take away something from somebody if we were more willing to give unconditionally in the first place.

I'm a GA fanboy.

Offtopic or what! :P

Dabz

P.S. I think you really want to change that to 'I'm a Grey Alien fanboy', because saying that sentence out loud, without taking notice of the acronym, is a tadge, erm, alarming! ;)

Thanks all. I will continue to post information because I know that people find it useful (and motivating). I found similar info useful when I was starting out.

Yeah big time. I was just talking to my partner Helen about this the other day. It's a pretty interesting topic. What you said about giving is very true also. Anyhow, I don't want to derail to much.

GA for president!

Maybe Big Fish has to face a true competition, the average indie and his niche product dont. Indy/hobby developers marketing budget is a joke and your best option is to hype and help each other while following a common sense (no excessive spamming etc.). Unless you make Match3 Nr.1225 of course:D

Ha ha sorry I couldn't resist :) Creepy eh?

Anyway, is Adsense the same as Google Ads? If not, how much have your Google Ads made you?


And what's wrong with that?

Yeah Adsense is GoogleAds. Has the name changed?

Does anyone really do anything on their own in a vacuum?

Isn't that one of the reaons anybody involved in anything creative tends to put "thanks to" and credits on their work? Because we know that almost everything we do is a combination of all the experiences and help we have had from everyone else.

I think unless anyone puts a specific caveat on the help/advice they provide and they offer it on a public forum then you can't retrospectively demand money for it. Not that anyone is actually doing that, and until they do, it seems a rather pointless point.

I read what Grey put up on his blog and it seems refreshingly (compared to blogs in general) free of any kind of ego or self-promotion. He shared, with figures, his experience and allows us to benefit from it, that's a jolly decent thing to do IMHO.

If Grey works for Big Fish Games and his title agreed with his employer is "Lead Programmer" then it is an entirely accurate description and completely appropriate for him to use it.

Darkheart

@Darkheart: Yes good points thanks. Pretty much everything made or done was influenced by someone else at some point.

Alot of suction in this thread ;o)

How else can you make money other than the ways you mentioned? I don't have a site that has any potential for revenue but I'm still curious.

1. Put porn on it.
2. Put ads on it.
3. Hope your visitors don't have a custom hosts file.

What does that mean?

Good question. Paid for ads I guess, sponsorship, doing paid reviews for software/books/sites/products, Amazon affiliate links, Internet Marketing affiliate links, selling ebooks, selling membership to a special club, selling some kind of e-course, posting videos with ads in, posting flash games with ads in, using those ad services that turn words in your blog posts to link ads. There's probably more ways. Anyone else?

Come up with an (original) idea

That would be fun, and I do enjoy critiquing things/writing, but everyone has opinions and what would make mine more 'sponsorable' than the next, given that I've done nothing revolutionary in any industry.


Never really thought of that before... being a writer always intrigued me but I've been too caught up in music/programming to really worry about publishers or what not... but an e-book is very economic. Again though, what would convince someone to buy a book by me?

Everything else requires a lot of site traffic, which would require me to have something substantial to offer.

Thanks Grey, although I'll probably never seriously pursue making money from a website, the suggestions are nice and fun to keep in the back of my mind :)

@TonyG: Ah yes I remember that, it was a good idea, but copies failed of course.

@Sauer: First you have to become popular by building a following by blogging or whatever. So when you are popular and an "authority" then you are more of a viable candidate for people wanting to sponsor you or get you do do reviews etc. You don't have to be an authority to write and ebook if you market it right, but it helps.

Yeah I find it fun too thinking of ways to make passive income.

T'was a joke cause people were sticking up for you, quite rightly :o) (as in sucking up to you)

OK just checking you weren't trolling like a couple of others ;-)

Ebay Partner Network affiliate ads are another good way to monetize websites. There's a free script for running these ads available from: http://mcjiffy.com/

This script is great to slap up on unused domains. I put it up on a heap of domains I just had placeholder sites set up on and made around AU $370 from doing that last month.

wow excellent tip thanks Bill"

@Bill. Did you use that script on the domains in your sig? I noticed them a little while back and that they were all very similar.

Yep I used a slightly modified version of the script for those sites, GA.

OK interesting thanks.