This story reminds me of an interview I've heard on an online radio with Joel Comm, he explained he started like that, he published a website about video games and bought games and reviewed them, then he got some publishers to send him the games, then he got readers interested in receiving the games in exchange for a review, so Joel could add more game reviews on his site without paying the games and without spending the time to write the review. But it all started as a hobby since the earnings were very low (it was years before adsense) and if it wasn't a hobby it couldn't exist, nobody would stay long enough in such a business with lot of work and no earnings.
Mmmm.... so ? Once again your point is ? Mine is to stop doing amazon at all or at least stop selling books for million visitors and $15k in earnings.
Are you talking to me or not? I have a doubt since I'm not the only one to have posted a comment on the original story after you've posted your last comment.
Ok then. What was my point? I guess none, just reading the story reminded me of Joel Comm's interview. In fact I was perhaps seeing how the earnings stayed at less than $1,000 each and every month, and for me that's not growth, so something is obviously wrong in the business side. A review you did last year should continue to earn you money today, so one year after and many reviews later the monthly earnings shouldn't be more or less the same as before.. The money he is earnings is probably more than enough for a hobby which for some people cost them money, so he's lucky to earn money with this hobby. If he wants to get his site to the next level he has to focus on what works and probably improve ad placement in order to increase CTR of both amazon links and adsense. But that's another story, I wasn't giving any advice, just commenting on the story and unconsciously about the earnings which didn't really improve much over time.
I tried reviewing games as well but gave up pretty early. It's difficult. 1. There's lots of competition, and they have huge resources to create compelling content -- video reviews. 2. Reviewing games takes a lot of time, and if it's not published quickly, the review will be overwhelmed by others. Also tried reviewing game guides. There's no competition but again, it takes a lot of time and the review has to get out fast or it will be overlooked.
"A review you did last year should continue to earn you money today, so one year after and many reviews later the monthly earnings shouldn't be more or less the same as before.." That's quite true. But more importantly, the traffic must grow as well. I admit that I'm "lucky" because I got a sale relatively early that gave me the motivation to explore more on reviewing books.
It's just book reviews. Just that my style of reviewing differs from other reviewers, and that style sets me apart. I'm a top 20 reviewer on Amazon.
You know what one could do that is a good idea for traffic, is to review websites. You make a blog/site and you offer to review other people websites. but you don't wait for people to send you their sites, you start by reviewing the most known sites, you take the Alexa top 100 list for instance and start producing content. If you do good original reviews of several hundreds words AT LEAST, then soon you'll get traffic for those and get the ball rolling. It's hard work yes, but for someone who enjoy writing and reviewing things, why not go for websites, at least there will be way less competition than for video games, and the traffic/money will be here.