On the entrepreneurship forum, a new reader has asked some interesting questions that deserve an article of its own. Even if you’re not interesting in the custom T-shirt or silk-screening business, the questions can be important to any new entrepreneurship.

The reader, Mahyar, asks about a book he found on Amazon: How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit!

I checked the book out with some of my local silk-screen business friends, and was surprised to find that almost all of them have the book. It seems that it covers many of the important questions regarding the T-shirt market. I am usually not a fan of most “how-to” business books (they don’t get deep enough) but this one seems like a winner. I’ll be getting a copy today to read and review.

Mahyar also asks about the fine line of copyright protection. In the past, I’ve “acquired” headlines from major newspapers to make fun of society — the Janet Jackson boob garbage was a big seller. Yet one has to be very careful what one borrows from the works of others before printing. Copyright is a very complicated set of laws that makes it very hard to use ideas that others have created. It is sometimes OK to make a parody, but it is definitely not OK to lift logos, photos or anything considered artistic. When I made funny knock-offs, they were always parodized enough to be free from copyright protection, but I was always careful. Don’t make bootlegs, make fun of common items.

Mahyar asked about how to promote or sell your creations — when I started printing T-Shirts, I didn’t have access to eBay or the web, I had to go out and do it. I still think this is the best way to sell your work, especially if you have a decent group of friends (”real” social networking). I was able to sell shirts in so many groups that it was almost always profitable for me. I sold shirts at small local concerts (at some you can rent a table for under US$50 per night). I sold shirts at little league baseball games (slogans for parents, slogans for friends of players). I sold shirts at community fairs and carnivals, and I sold shirts even out of the trunk of my car at the local car club meets. If you get out enough, you’ll find a market wherever people get together.

For many new T-shirt makers, they can also use the internet to create a market, but it is a very competitive market. Differentiating yourself from the millions of other sites and sellers is very hard, and I’m not sure if I personally would get involved there until I had experience and success in the local market. How a slogan or company gets popular is very difficult to understand and track — sometimes you just get lucky. That luck can come from working hard at learning the basics of graphic design and social trends. Both come from trial and error.

If you’re not good a graphics design, this is one place where you can learn a lot by mimicing and even directly copying a famous logo or ten. Pick up a simple vector graphics program (Corel Draw is very commonly used) and learn to make an exact duplicate of any logo you like. Don’t use it for anything other than learning, but during the process you’ll find the harmony of a good logo or design. Even the best selling plain slogan T-shirts at Target have a unique look and feel — size of fonts, colors of cloth and inks, drop shadows, etc.

Even better, look into hiring a friend to do graphics for you. For most student graphic designers, you can help them get their portfolio built while not spending a huge portion of your budget. The idea of teaming up to design and sell together sounds tempting, but I’m not a fan of partnerships — they can quickly fall apart. I also find that graphic designers have their own style that is quite visible, and it makes sense to change it up once in a while, especially if you build a following.

In the short run, just learning to silk screen is the best first step — even before you have a business plan. See if it is something you like to do. Make a few dozen shirts, sell them or give them away to friends, and see how it works out. Some people have the talent (and patience), some don’t. For every 1 success I know 10 failures because they didn’t want to invest the time and patience to building a market. Over time, a popular local market can turn into a very lucrative national one. A look at any punk or trendy T-shirt seller online will find you dozens of companies and logos that started in the basement (or living room) just a few years ago.

Discuss this article at the entrepreneurship forum.

There are 4 “R”s to the equation of a successful entrepreneur, the 4 I listed in the title. They’re fairly simple to define:

Risk - Doing something that might have a chance at failure
Responsibility - Following through with what you’ve committed to do.
Reinvestment - Taking some new assets and using them to produce more
Reward - A gain. usually called profit but could be more than a financial gain

The first half of the equation requires more of both to get the latter half of the equation. The less you expect of the latter half, the easier your business will be to maintain. It is nothing like a see-saw: as you put in more of the first, you’ll get more of the latter. If you skip on any one part of the equation, though, it all falls apart. Ignoring your reinvestment and never getting a reward will quickly lead you to not focus on the first part.

The Reward part I’ve focused on before — I like to call it profit. Profit does not mean financial gain, necessarily. Profit can mean an increase in knowledge or an increase in free time to spend with friends, family or hobbies. Profit can also mean a gain in assets other than money; I call these incentives. They’re all profit, in the end. If you end up with more of something (time, money, knowledge) than you previously had, you’ve profited.

The Reinvestment part is very important, and this is one place where many entrepreneurs fail. When I start a business, I don’t focus on the reward at first, I focus on the reinvestment. How much of my gain do I put back into the business for more gain in the future? If you gain some money, you should put a little extra in every month towards both long-term savings (which can help you through cash flow shortages), marketing or even branching out a little. Forgetting to save a bit of your income for reinvestment will leave you without growth and could even cause you to lose a little of your profit every month. My belief is that businesses either grow or they shrink: there is no status quo where you can stay the same forever.

Risk is the biggest deterrent for most people from starting their own business: they’re afraid to move forward since the risks far outweigh the rewards. The biggest reason you might be afraid to take a risk is because your life has too many negatives that keep you in the same job, the same lifestyle, the same town. My recommendation to knock these negatives out by working quite a bit harder for a year should be taken now — in a few years your energy won’t be what it is today, and you might be even deeper in the negatives that prevent you from taking a risk. My new businesses today are almost no risk — the money I had available isn’t huge by any means, but I don’t depend on it to pay the mortgage or the bills.

The Responsibility part is a killer for me — the follow through. I can step into any risk and make it work, but following up in the long haul can be a real bore and a real concern. Looking around your life today you have to take note of the places you’re irresponsible and fix those before bringing a new one on. If you don’t think you’re irresponsible in any areas, ask your friends and family first. If all is green-lighted, you’re ready for that risk — take the jump tomorrow. If you do have responsibility problems, focus on what you can do to clear those out, the headaches you cure today will be even more important tomorrow when you’re running against the random problems that come up when you are your own boss.

Discuss this article at the entrepreneurship forum.

The Wall Street Journal today had a nice back-and-forth debate about the possibility of making money online. The article focuses on blogging, but it ignores a few basics in the profitability of generating articles for income.

Making money with your own weblog site is more akin to writing an article for publication in the print media. Some of my more favorite articles I publish online I also submit to the local papers and magazines — when and if they’re picked up, I usually generate a nice dime or two. That is the focus of my sites, as well. I’m not writing for an emotional outlet, I’m writing to create a market for information I am interested in writing in.

If you’re looking to write about a topic, you will not gain a reader base within a few basic necessities in your writing:

1. Be interested.
2. Be unique.
3. Be dependable.
4. Be outrageous.
5. Be grammatically correct.

Going from a newbie writer to an amateur writing is a huge step — you’ll succeed, you’ll fail, you’ll learn. I highly recommend promoting your first site in order to gain the criticism you need to perfect your writing skills. Openly request criticisms from your readers — even one time readers — and learn from their comments.

The Wall Street Journal debate is a good one, a short read, too. They bring out a fact that most web readers don’t realize — there is a very low supply for good information, but a very high demand. In a free market economy, this creates a better income for those looking to excel, which drives more people to writing. Yet 99.9% of writers will not try to be interested or unique, they won’t be dependable or outrageous, and their grammar could be a bigger failure in attracting a regular audience.

Don’t enter the world of writing online for profit, not right away. Get in on writing to see if you can be dedicated for the long run. Just like any business I promote, there should be a dedicated of at least 18-24 months before you can realize a good income. I believe that there is a huge amount of cash out there waiting to be paid to people who are ready to dig in and learn and excel at writing. I’m not the one who is looking to take advantage of it, but I know there are dozens of regular readers I speak to through e-mail who want to give it a try.

Don’t look for quick and easy money, look for creating a career for yourself as a journalist. Starting as a common blogger is nothing to be ashamed of, but as you gain notoriety and fame, you’ll soon find other avenues of income (republishing in papers and magazines, working for dedicated media network, providing resources for other writers, etc). Starting today will set you ahead of the rest of the world who is still learning the basics of reading the new media format. Get in now so you’ll be ahead of the pack when they all race to make a dime online.

Discuss this article at the entrepreneurship forum.

Thanks for the e-mails asking me about the previous post in this short series. For those with similar questions:

1. I don’t write my blogs to make money, but I do see the value in those who try.
2. I don’t make enough to pay more than the cost of hosting and access to certain subscriber-paid newsletters.
3. I use my blogs specifically to raise my billable rate in my regular career.

Yet I have numerous friends who have been asking me what the options are for making a real income, and I do believe the opportunities are there if you go about it responsibly.

There are literally thousands of “Make money blogging” sites out there, but most have something to sell. I don’t. Most of these sites repeat the same facts over and over again, each one just trying to be the first site that a wanna-be blogger goes to to buy whatever e-book or secrets the website owner has to sell. I don’t see value in any of these as most of the information is available free of charge if you know where to look.

For those I know who actually earn their living writing online, I’ve seen 5 things in common:

1. They love their topic, and they love researching their topic.
2. They commit to writing as a full time job, even if they’re still working. NO business will succeed unless you treat it as your full time job. They commit to writing for a certain period of time (18-24 months).
3. They commit to writing on a scheduled basis, so their readers know when to expect a new article.
4. They give their readers access to their previous articles by tying them in to new ones through links and references.
5. They build a community with their “competitor” bloggers, which helps them all reach better positioning in the search engines.

Today I’ll focus on the third common feature of a successful blogger: the schedule. Because I don’t consider myself a successful blogger, I also don’t consider myself a full-time blogger. If I would get on a more regular schedule, I know I could build my readership base, but the RSS feeds I provide seem to do a good job of things. I don’t necessarily want any of my sites to be the site you visit daily, but I also appreciate those who read one or more of my sites on a daily basis. It feeds me more information in what I should share with others, and it helps me rethink mistakes in my life that lead to successes.

Once you’ve discovered a topic, the best thing to do is research the competition. Find out how often they made new posts — did they write multiple articles every day, one article a day, one a week, or are they all over the place? Look at their archive history and see how well they stuck to a consistent schedule.

If someone is writing exactly what you want to write, and they’re doing it on a very consistent basis, you may not find success in writing. In most topics there are hundreds of blogs, sometimes thousands. Most of these blogs are completely unscheduled and inconsistent — the authors had high hopes of replacing their real jobs, but never committed themselves to a schedule.

My number one recommendation for all new bloggers (professional, amateur or hobbyist) is to get a nice calendar and write down when they’re going to publish an article. Getting a nice sized calendar helps — not only can you write that you will update a blog, but you can also write future topics you’d like to write about. Fill in the calendar at least 3-6 months in advance, and keep expanding the calendar as you find success (readers, not income). When you hit a day to write, highlight the day to signify that you did write. When you write a new article, look back over the past few months in your calendar and see if you can reference a previous article to the new one (item 4 in the list above). This is a great way to stay on top of updating, keep your readers interested, and give your new readers a way to dig deep into your past articles.

Give yourself a deadline to write — no later than 1 day, or 2 hours, or whatever fits your lifestyle. Also give yourself 3 strikes: if you miss 3 deadlines, delete the blog and move on to some other business. A “real” writer can’t miss deadlines or their publisher will cut them. Your publisher is yourself, but your advertisers are the ones who pay you. Inconsistent blogs are quickly become worthless to the advertisers and the search engines.

If you’re serious about writing, don’t write for an income right away, write for content, write to build a history, and write to build a following of people interested and intrigued with what you have to say. This year (2006) will be the year of the blogger — everyone will have one. Next year will be the year that many authors go back to reading others, because they could not commit to all (or any) of the items in the list above.

Discuss this article at the entrepreneurship forum.

I get the occasional daily e-mail asking me questions about making money online — is there a decent and quick way to make money with a blog or a website. Since I run 15 websites myself (most public, a few private), I’ve decided to offset the costs of hosting with monetizing the website through various programs such as AdSense and affiliate links. I try not to clutter the site with too many ads, and I always take ads down if they’re not relevant to my topic.

I firmly believe that there is a ton of money to be made online — whether it is with a blog or with an informational website. The downside, though, is that there is no easy money to be made anywhere. In my experience, there are a million ads about how to make thousands overnight with your website — none of these offer information that can’t be had for free on numerous forums and in free e-books.

Because I do receive an e-mail or two a day about making money with blogs, I planned 2-3 articles regarding the right way to do it, and a comparison as to why I don’t work that way. I don’t want to make thousands a day off of my blogs, I just like to cover the cost of hosting (which I do). Whatever is left I give back to my readers in promotions and giveaways. My blogs bring me enough real life business that I don’t need to charge for them directly, and over time I hope to be more consistent in updating them all every morning as time allows.

Here is the simple breakdown of how to make money online. It is not different than running a real life business:

1. Spend 18-24 months working 30-40 hours a week on your website(s).
2. Invest every dollar of profit back into promoting your site through paid advertisements on competitors sites and other sites.
3. Sell what you know: don’t try to scam your readers and visitors. If you’re not really familiar with a topic, any profits you make will be very short term.
4. The only way to make good money for a long time is slowly but surely.

There are numerous get-rich-quick schemes out there: they all make their authors rich but the readers end up doing nothing. There is money to be made early on with a website, but even at US$5 per day, I recommend putting it all back into promoting your site by buying advertising elsewhere. You will gain a better readership base and this means you’ll likely make more money in the long run. If you’re picking a topic to write about just because you heard it is a money earner, you’ll lose out. The best paying ads are affected by supply and demand: when no one is writing about a topic, the ads tend to pay more. When tens of thousands of people start writing about a topic, the best paying ads are taken, leaving you with low paying ones instead. Topics come and go in terms of profitability, it is the one who sticks with it in the long run that makes a steady income. This is also true of running a store or a consulting business: stores come and go, it is the ones that stick around that have the best return business.

If you’re interested in starting a small site in order to try to earn a living, I have a lot of experience in the information communications field: I’ve been in the business of writing since I was 13 when I ran my first text file BBS. For 19 years I’ve been writing and getting paid for it — it has never been easy money, and the time I spend writing would be better spent doing my regular gig. It is only because I like to pass on my experiences (good and bad) that I do it. But I know if I wanted to write for a major profit, the opportunities are out there, they are just not for me.

Discuss this article here.