I’m sure that you have heard this before — in fact, I’m sure I’ve said this before and will say it again (and again and again): One of the most difficult aspects of creating a virtual business or trying to make enough money from blogging to enjoy an Ageless Nomadic lifestyle, is deciding what topic or subject to focus on and what niche to specialize in.

Sure, it’s possible to build a brilliant and successful virtual business based solely on what your past work or leisure experiences have been — but you have already been there and done that. For a lot of people making a change as significant as starting a mobile, virtual business provides an opportunity to explore something new — perhaps becoming a social entrepreneur, or developing a hobby. After all, if you are going to put your time and effort and money into developing a business from scratch it might as well be a business that  is based on you doing something that you really, really enjoy.

Over the next 8 weeks or so, I will be providing information that can help you explore the 8 Key Elements of Your Authentic Life. The objective is to (hopefully) help you determine what type of virtual business you would like to develop, and what topic and niche you would like to specialize in.

Enjoy

Not being able to fit in to the community in which you live can result in feeling lonely, being disengaged from the community,  loss of motivation, etc. This can be particularly unsettling for individuals who are creative (writers, photographers, painters, potters, weavers, etc.) and for individuals trying to develop an online business.

Journeywomen.com, a highly informative website of all things travel for women, recently published an article by Heather Markel, a Culture Transition Specialist, on 20 Tips to Feel At Home In a New Culture, located online at http://www.journeywoman.com/travel101/20TipstoFeelAtHomeInaNewCulture.htm.

20 Tips To Feel At Home In A New Cultures.

This article provides solid advice on how to begin feeling at home in a new culture and is well worth a read.

When you move into a new environment, what do you do to ‘fit in’ and make your new environment feel like home??

Recently Technorati, http://technorati.com, released it’s 2010 State of the Blogoshpere, a report that “… chronicles the rise and evolution of the Blogosphere as we know it.”

Technorati’s 2010 State of the Blogosphere

Technorati has been producing its State of the Blogosphere report annually since 2004, monitoring trends and developments taking place within the virtual realm.

One of the trends that Technorati has been following over the years is the generation of income from blogs. I thought you might be interested in a recap of some of the highlights :

• In 2010, 36% of bloggers made some money from their blogs and this number is increasing
• 65% of all blogs are ‘Hobby Blogs’
• 21% of all blogs are run by self employed people
• 13% of all blogs are run by part-timers
• 1% of all blogs are run by Corporations
• 11% of Self-Employed and Corporate bloggers claim that their primary source of income is generated through blogging (this translates into something like 2% of all blogs or roughly 2 and a half million blogs!!!)
• The average non-salary income generated from blogging was $9,985 (in US dollars)
• Income was generated through a combination of income sources, including display ads, affiliate marketing links, and search ads
• Professional bloggers have an average of 3.5 blogs and spend over 10 hours per week working on their blogs
• Social media is being used increasingly more frequently than Search Engine Optimization (SEO) by bloggers to market their blogs

From my own look around at various blogs that I tend to visit regularly I would like to add the following to the list of income sources that bloggers use to generate income from:

• self-generated information products, and
• services that the blogger provides (e.g., web design, copywriting, content development, tour guide, etc)

So it looks like, if you plan on getting serious about earning a reasonable income from blogging, you need to develop multiple sites (at least 3.5 ) and have multiple streams of income on each site — but it can be done!!

What income generating tweeks have you made to your site?

Greetings All

It’s been a while since we last connected — but Ageless Nomads is back and is gearing up to introduce some interesting and exciting material over the next little while.

If you have visited Ageless Nomads recently, you will have noticed that there have been a few changes made to the website recently. A new design, a tighter structure, some new articles — and this is just the beginning!!

If you haven’t visited Ageless Nomads recently, then please come and take a look.

Some of the new items that can be found at Ageless Nomads include:

Short videos, featuring:

1. Seth Godin speaking on the Value of Tribes, and on How the Publishing Industry is Changing;
2. Tim Ferriss discussing the 4 Hour Work Week and How to Start a Business;
3. Loic Le Meur from Seesmic speaking on Building Communities;
4. Laura Day on the Power of Intuition;
5. Words of Wisdom from Barbara Sher;
6. Martha Beck explaining how we can Unleash Our Inner Genius.

There is also an amazing vide0 called Crazy Little Thing Called Life by Garbandage — well worth watching

A couple of new articles have also been added to the Lifestyles Design Skills Section, and the Communication Skills Section.

New articles and videos focusing on helping you develop the skills needed to become an Ageless Nomad will be added to the Ageless Nomad website on a regular basis. So check us out and let me know what you think of the new Ageless Nomads site.

Cheers

Anne

In order for a nomad to also be an entrepreneur, the career they choose to develop must be portable. It can’t be tied to a physical location by clients, by technology, by products, by visas, by whatever.…..

Writing has long been the most portable of all careers. Even today, when we think of travel and entrepreneurship the image that pops into most people’s minds would be that of the travel writer or some other type of non-fiction article or book writer or  published author of some kind. Writing gives nomads the flexibility to earn money anywhere, and doesn’t tie a nomad to a specific technology — if your computer gets lost or stolen, or stops working, you can always use a pen and a notebook or a napkin or any scrap paper to write on.

(I can hear a number of you, dear readers, expressing a collective “Well, Duh!!, but please bear with me for another moment or two).….….….…

continued on the Writer Nomad’s Skills page at http://www.agelessnomads.com/the-writer-nomads-skills

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