Eating crow: My making money online series and its delays

Crow on the cob.

After receiving numerous comments and emails from eager and angry individuals who have been waiting for the first part of my "making money online" series to kick off, I just want to take a few minutes to respond to everyone and explain myself. If you don't want to take the time to read, then the short version of this post is that I greatly apologize for letting some of you down who have been waiting, but the series IS still on and I AM diligently working on it now that I have things sorted.

For those who care a bit more about the issue, the primary reasons for the delay are two-fold:

1 - Formatting issues for the series: I've wrestled much more than I'd hoped to with how to approach the series. It was a no-brainer that it would consist of multiple parts, but I had no idea how many times I would completely rewrite just the first part. Initially, it was a 4000 word monster to consist of screen shots and baby steps. That felt a bit pretentious and once I got so far in, there was just no end in sight; thus, it was time to start over.

While I want to be thorough, I don't want to reinvent the wheel; it's not necessary and I fear that information overload will occur if I don't focus on brevity. (It's REALLY EASY to hit information overload with this topic). I want to make the parts concise, yet informative. I want to give plenty of links out to great resources and leave it up to the reader to engage further in any given facet based on what they read from me.

2 - Feeling like a fraud: You know, there's something strange that happens sometimes when you write for a wide audience. I had never experienced this until writing for ZDNet, and it's the worst feeling ever. Essentially, it's where you feel like you're a fraud who is just BSing everyone. Even though I have successfully used ALL of the techniques I'm going to cover; even though I LOVE freely teaching people things that others charge a premium for; even though I KNOW the series will do a lot of good for the right people who read it, I still feel like the end result will be a disappointment. Well, I'm finally over that where this series is concerned, so I'm extremely clear-headed once again and ready to fulfill my initial promises.

I understand I have let some of you down for not yet following through with what I started. I've had people understandably accuse me of everything from thieving page views with my introductory post, to being an absolutely horrible human being. While neither are the case, I understand the frustration. And in a day and age where companies like Sony and Nintendo remain silent when the s#*% hits the fan, I don't want to be perceived as someone who doesn't address issues. As such, I decided to write this post in response to everyone who has been patiently-to-angrily waiting on the series to actually kick off.

Here I've eaten my crow, but I hope I find understanding from most of you as opposed to unbridled harsh criticism. Believe me when I say I want to get this stuff out and in front of as many people as possible, as soon as possible. I'm excited at the prospect of helping others while not asking for a single thing in return, so if nothing else, just consider the wait time thus far to be the only price you have to pay where this whole thing is concerned.

Now that my ducks are in a row with the series, I will have the first part posted this Friday, June 17th. To give you a heads-up, the first part discusses ads and focuses primarily on Google AdSense. The aim is to form a foundation for people who have no idea how the Internet operates on ads -- much less, how to monetize their own site with ads so as to make money. Future parts will discuss various money-making endeavors with niche blogging, affiliate programs, marketplaces like eBay, and much more.

Thank you for reading and I once again apologize for the delays. We'll get this party started by the end of the week. Thanks for your patience, everyone!

-Stephen Chapman SEO Whistleblower