Well after a bumpy December things appear to be picking up thankfully this month. January is usually a pretty good month in the travel sector as people plan their holidays for the year and dream off far flung places.

Talking of people in far flung places it is good to see an old friend hit the road as a Working Nomad. Kirsty is in Manila, Phillipines living the dream. Be sure to follow her Asian adventure on Nerdy Nomad.

I am finding it much easier these days to work and have a good routine of working at least every weekday morning and most of the afternoon. I am sure this has contributed to an overall improvement.

Having said that I have just come back from a weeks walking in the Tongariro National Park! That’s why I continue to enjoy self employment.

Today I have reached a minor milestone of selling 500 E-books online. I wrote the E-book two years ago and have updated it at various stages with new information.

Most of my buyers have been from the USA and I experienced a big push in sales during August 07 when CNN Money wrote the article about Extreme Telecommuting.

I have been thinking about approaching publishers for a while now to produce a hard copy with more general information about being a working nomad and feel that 500 copies sold on my own should provide a good backup to my quest.

The E-book is still for sale and can be purchased here….

WN E-book

So December has hit me quite hard in the income stakes, although things have picked up a little. The days of $10,000 a month seem a long time ago!

My traffic to sites have been steady but a number of affiliate schemes that I promote have moved the goalposts and slashed commissions. I have come to rely on these schemes recently and now paying a little for not diversifying more.

In the early days all my sites were travel focused but about a year ago I decided to move into other areas which was a smart thing looking back. My problem is that I have not further diversified.

So I urge people to take diversification seriously if they want to maintain a web income. Things change fast and the best protection is to spread the risk.

I have a steady stream of enquiries now regarding direct advertising on my sites. This is all good but I often find myself not knowing where to pitch my rates.

I have been thinking for a while about creating a rate card for individual sites. I am wondering whether any of you guys have adopted this strategy?

So how do you value your site? I guess the value must be derived from these factors…

- How many impressions do you get on the page?
- What is your market and what is the value of the keywords?
- How large is the advertising space?

So one of my challenges is to come up with some sort of guide for how much you should be charging an advertiser.

I believe a lot of folk who are new to this game are giving away advertising space at well under the market value, simply because they are afraid to ask for more.

If anyone else has a guide they use for calculating rates then I’d be interested in taking a peek.

Being a working nomad gives you freedom in two flavours; time and location. For me I am now experiencing more of the benefits of freedom of time after two years of going where I want.

In the early days back in 2004 when I first starting imagining working on a tropical beach somewhere with a laptop I only really considered the advantage of being able to work anywhere. That seemed to be the most attractive thing about this lifestyle.

Now that I am stationary and happily living in Auckland, NZ I am now really appreciating being able to work when I want. I think the reason for this sudden appreciation is living with 14 other folk who all have regular jobs with regular hours.

I think they believe I am very lucky to be able to choose my hours and take an afternoon off to go surfing if the waves are good, but am I lucky?

Perhaps it is hard for other people to appreciate the year or so I spent building things up, spending a lot of precious free time learning about the web and sacrificing my social life for very little money (the days of earning $5 a day).

Would I do it again? Well of course I would. It is still as hard to break into this business and make good money but the opportunities for those willing to crack on with things are not going to go away soon. More and more money is being spent online and more and more advertising revenue is available.

If you want a career where you are totally in control of your destiny then this takes some beating!

So I look back at those times when my weekend involved trawling forums for information and not having much social life with very little regret.

OK if it was not for the fact that I have someone sitting here with me working away I would probably not be writing this now. I am not sure what I would be doing but it’s a sunny 23 degrees outside and I live near a beach!

For the last month I have had someone work along side me. The work they have done is excellent and I am very pleased with the way it has gone. What is especially pleasing is that my own productivity levels have increased and I fear that when I go back to working alone they will slide again! I cannot really afford to continually employ someone yet.

I may have the additional incentive of quite a severe downturn in earnings over the last week and quite a big drop in traffic as well.

My earnings report are now a part of history as far as this blog goes. Too many friends, housemates etc now look at the site mainly due to this blog’s exposure on Facebook. I have got to the point where I don’t want to shout my salary from the rooftops.

However, I will be monthly reporting in the Forum so people that are really interested can still find earnings details there.

Firstly here is a picture of my new (used) car that I purchased from the Internet auction site trademe here in NZ and my house in the background.

Things are going pretty well and I have a couple of people helping me out now on a casual basis. It will be a while before I can see if it has all been worth getting extra help but the additional productivity has been a welcome boost. It has also helped me focus more.

There appears to have been a Google PR update. To be honest I have long lost interest in the value of PR. It appears to only add value if you are selling links which is something I no longer partake in!

I think WN has gone back up to PR5. The site appears to alternate between PR4 and 5 these days. Traffic on the site is up and steady though but ebook sales have virtually come to a halt since the CNN boost in August.

As for me I have wheels now and off later to look for a surfboard and wetty so I can get out in the ocean again. Summer seems to be here now so its all good!

Anyone who has travelled a lot or done the working nomad thing will have probably met many great friends on the road. This is one of the high points of travel and has certainly opened up my mind.

For instance I recently met a guy from Zimbabwe who certainly gave me an insight into his country that you would not see on CNN or the BBC. I have met people from all corners of the globe and feel very privileged that working remotely has allowed me to do this for so long.

The downside is the intense friendships you have knowing that the person or yourself is moving on somewhere else. After two years I have grown a little frustrated with this to be honest. You almost get into a state where temporary friends become the norm.

I think it might also have a negative effect on a persons ability to maintain longer term relationships but that is just a hunch of mine.

As you know my situation has changed and I am now in a house share with people that live and work in Auckland rather than just passing through and I am lucky enough to be somewhere with a great bunch of people. Being stationary is also enthusing me to get on with work.

So I would be interested in how other people feel about this. It is just as relevant to people that have just travelled as well.

I have been in Auckland for three weeks now and have found somewhere to live. I am staying in a big house share in the suburb of Ponsonby which is one of the nicer areas of the city. My house has 14 other rooms so lots of people to meet!

I have not really been doing much work over the last few weeks, been too busy meeting people, watching the Rugby and looking for a car / room etc

This is the first time in two years I actually have signed a contract to live somewhere!

So my friend joins me two weeks today and it will be back to business of websites. Quite looking forward to getting stuck in again and introducing someone else to the world of online marketing.

It has been a while since I have written anything on the blog but I have been busy getting things sorted out here in sunny Auckland. Looking for somewhere to live and something to drive is a full time occupation.

So I have often banged on about taking things to a new level. It is easier said than done to raise your game especially if you have been lacking in motivation!

So after two years of growth I am finally getting someone on board to work with me full time for a month initially. A friend of mine in Auckland has been stuck in an employment rut and I am helping her out which I am sure will help me out as well.

I have used freelancers in the past to help on certain requirements but I have never had someone working with me side by side.

I am hoping that this temporary partnership will…

- Motivate me more to continue working and innovating
- Add lots of new content to existing websites (she is a good writer)
- A fresh pair of eyes and feedback for what I have done up to now
- Help kick start some new projects that have been on the back burner for a while
- New ideas for web projects through market research

So I am finally re-investing some of the money I have made and I am confident of an excellent return on this outlay.

It will be nice to work with another person for a while and I am hoping this could be the start of establishing a more serious web business.

My only regret is that I did not do this before now!