You asked me what I considered a decent living, and I have to say $2000.00 to $3000.00 a month would certainly help out, but, to be able to replace my husband’s and my income and be able to pay off all of the debts and costs incured in owning and running your own business in a slow economy, and have a enough left over to help my mom out. I would have to say that I would need to have an online business make between $5000.00 and $8000.00 a month. I realize that wouldn’t happen overnight but if I could start making money and build on it over time that would be fantastic.

My dream is to be able to get out of our current business and work strickly online. My mother was a widow at 46 and never remarried, so she and my dad never got to enjoy growing old together, or traveling, just worked forever and that’s not something I want for my husband and I. I want to be able to travel or garden or whatever, while I’m still young enough to enjoy it.

Guess I’ve rambled again, sorry.

I suppose I am almost ready. I have given things a lot of thought.
(I do a lot ofthinking.)

About the autoresponder, do you have to pay extra for each list?

Better see what I have to do about GST (Goods and Services Tax).
If I break 50,000 AUD per year, I pay 10% of what I keep out of
money paid by Australian customers, and money paid by other
customers is GST free.

I suppose PayPal can tell me which customers are Australian. Then
what does $50,000 a year mean – $4,167 over the last month,
$50,000 over the last year? Not your problem but interesting to
find out.

On the other hand, some marketers have a similar problem – VAT
in the UK (and NZ?) and I believe some US states have a similar
tax. Possible info product.

I would not discriminate by price. Too much hassle and it would
not look too good anyhow – charging my fellow countrymen more.

In any case, I need not even try to make money right away, simply
get people interested in my blog. That could include asking what
people might want in a spreadsheet.

That’s it!
Here’s the auto responder I use…
http://www.idiotproofblogging.com/recommends/autoresponder.html

If you start blogging and start bringing in Money, you could take it to hire writers, buy books to learn selling, etc… But for now, what you listed is all you need.

There are a lot of internet marketing products out there that are very good at talking you into thinking what they have are must haves. And if you ever write such a letter, you’d need to do this as well but the fact is, when just starting out, all you need is what you listed.

If I run a blog and monetize it, I need a domain name, a web hosting service and an autoresponder to do things properly. I have the first two.

You have just told me I also need to learn how to lock down my blog. Is there anything else that will cost me money?

As to his question – I use a blog to communicate with prospects, clients and (sometimes) other ghostwriters and copywriters. Blogging allows me to write more personally and let readers see a less serious side of my business.

And the serious side? Well, in my case (and this is not the only way to do it), I have the html ’static’ pages on samuraiwriter.com for people interested in checking out what exactly I do without going through a zillion blog posts to find out… seems to be working so far.

@Mary Blackburn – you wrote: “even though my high school creative writing teacher told me I had no talent to write”
With a blog you can write in whatever style works for you. One thing I’m having to unlearn is to stop writing like I’d swallowed a dictionary… yep, my English teacher wouldn’t be impressed. But then, he never had to craft words that sell…

Thank you for the WordPress Guide. It is easy to follow and I picked up some
useful tips outside the subject of blogging – Google likes domains registered
for more than a year, Omnis is worth looking at.

I am reluctant to store passwords on my computer. I make up nonsense
passwords and write them in an exercize book.

I use Go Daddy now and it can be tedious find my way through the upsells.
Who would have thought Google was concerned about the length of domain
registration?

I host with Web Hosting Buzz and have to pay for a year. I was able to find
Fantastico on it and there is no reason why I should not be able to follow
your instructions from there. I read the terms and conditions of Host Gator
and it says double opt-ins are not allowed.

I was programming in the days of MSDOS and quite enjoyed it. I am now an
accounts clerk with a young company. I use Excel a lot in my work and have
been learning about Excel macros, which are written in Basic. If you think
you need a program to do a simple task, a goodknowledge of Excel may
save you having to find and purchase a program although Excel has its limits.

As for a text editor, it is worth downloading and installing NotePad++. It is
totally free and you are even encouraged to give it away. The best text
editor I have ever seen is VEDIT but, when I had to get a new computer,
I could not find the old install program and am not willing to spend 89USD
to purchase it right now.

I noticed that you used social bookmarking plugin for your blog. However, I cannot figure out how to make the Display Title non-clickable like you did. ===> Bookmark It

John