Newbies wanting info on how to make an income

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by pesarsten

Well, I guess that I am also looking for the same info. I am retired, on a fixed income, and looking to start my cruising life. My one question is how much can a well written and well read website/blog bring in? I would love to have any supplement to my income!


Sent from my iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum

If you want to put in 10hrs/wk to get the equivilent of a case of beer per month...go for it.

To make anything substantial takes luck, effort and good writing skills. The days of posting anything as a blog and making money were here and gone in a flash.

[zboss]

Originally Posted by Cadence

Good luck with that approach.

Well, they will never know unless they try right?

You can always try facebook as well.

Facebook video monetization is here - Fortune

It always helps if you look great in a bikini or short shorts.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by zboss

Well, they will never know unless they try right?

You can always try facebook as well.

Facebook video monetization is here - Fortune

It always helps if you look great in a bikini or short shorts.

I thought I'd try a selfy and bring the whole system down.

[grantmc]

Originally Posted by zboss

It always helps if you look great in a bikini or short shorts.

The photos don't need to be of yourself, but photos really and truly do help. You need photos of happy people wearing very little on boats and in the sea. That's if you want to build up the viewership to receive something more than a minimal amount from advertisers. Just take a look at the adverts for boats, cars, diets, anything and everything.

There is plenty of money to be made passively from web site advertising. And it's pretty easy to organise (but it does take work). But the web site must be interesting and helpful and very regularly updated. Otherwise people wont bother returning or giving referrals to their friends.

Here we all are on Cruisers Forum, posting on a web site that is a good example of making considerable money from advertising. The site has built up a significant viewership of people (with a specific interest in boats) whom repeatably visit. The content is updated on a moment by moment basis (all for free by the members).

Just writing this post the site is displaying tailored advertising to me for:
Army Recruiting - that's weird
Air Kayaks
Rainman Desalination
Ocean Planet Energy
Solbian - whatever that is
Mantus Anchors
Gioco Solutions - never heard of it
Lexus cars
Sailblogs.com
Adobe Cloud

[mstrebe]

Sorry to be my usual "debbie downer" but here's my experience in matter.

You aren't going to make significant money writing for the web. I setup a tech humor site in 2003, published daily for three years, had 10,000 visitors per month, and made about $400 per year off of the effort in passive advertising. And that was a decade ago, when there was still money in the web. My experience was very much typical. And in case you're wondering, yes, I was professional tech writer at that time.
Amazon.com: matthew strebe: Books

The problem with everything advertising based is there's always someone younger, faster, and hungrier than you willing to do whatever it takes to get eyeballs. You read those shitty "click holes" all the time from facebook links, proffering "jaw dropping" automatically generated content just trying to get people to keep clicking links, with their photoshopped crap and "you won't believe" titles.

If you've truly got some unique value to share, you can setup a nice community forum (like this one) and sell some advertising on it. That kind of site, well managed, well moderated, and started 15 years ago, makes about $2000/mo. for friends of mine that do it.

I've also worked from a home office for the past 20 years.

The technical part of my job I can do from anywhere. What I cannot do from anywhere (and neither can anyone else) is business development--i.e., sales and marketing. Most people aren't going to hire someone they haven't met. Yes, it's happened, to me, but it's very rare. About 2% of our clients hire us sight unseen. That's not enough to build a business on for me or for anyone else. I have to be in the community elbow-to-elbow with people to generate business.

Unless you're extremely lucky to know someone who can act as an agent for you (or unless you have an agent) you will have the same problem.

My brother-in-law lives and works aboard his Ranger 33, taking tech support calls on his boat and remotely fixing other people's computers. He works in port via LTE cellular internet. How does he get work? He works for me. I'm his employer, and I go dig up the business that he works.

He also cannot work at sea. Satellite Internet has extremely high "latency" (round-trip times) that makes it useless for anything except downloads and email. You can't do real-time connections over it of any useful sort. It would be fine for blogging, but that doesn't make any money.

I do intend to write fiction while I cruise in my retirement. Maybe that will come to something, maybe not. But it's still not that much money. the top 1% of --published-- authors only make $100K per year. Most authors make less than $20K per annum off of book sales alone. That makes writing nice for supplemental income if you're very successful, and otherwise merely a hobby.

What consistently sells is hard labor. If there are other cruisers around, and you offer to wash and wax their boats, and you do a good job, you can make a few hundred bucks a month. Diving boats at anchorages (rather than marinas) to clean hulls will also net you $50 a go.

Everything else is buying lottery tickets with your time, that generally isn't going to pay out. Sometimes you get an S/V Delos, but I'm personally past the age where I look good in just bikini bottoms.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by mstrebe

Sorry to be my usual "debbie downer" but here's my experience in matter.

You aren't going to make significant money writing for the web. I setup a tech humor site in 2003, published daily for three years, had 10,000 visitors per month, and made about $400 per year off of the effort in passive advertising. And that was a decade ago, when there was still money in the web. My experience was very much typical. And in case you're wondering, yes, I was professional tech writer at that time.
Amazon.com: matthew strebe: Books

The problem with everything advertising based is there's always someone younger, faster, and hungrier than you willing to do whatever it takes to get eyeballs. You read those shitty "click holes" all the time from facebook links, proffering "jaw dropping" automatically generated content just trying to get people to keep clicking links, with their photoshopped crap and "you won't believe" titles.

If you've truly got some unique value to share, you can setup a nice community forum (like this one) and sell some advertising on it. That kind of site, well managed, well moderated, and started 15 years ago, makes about $2000/mo. for friends of mine that do it.

I've also worked from a home office for the past 20 years.

The technical part of my job I can do from anywhere. What I cannot do from anywhere (and neither can anyone else) is business development--i.e., sales and marketing. Most people aren't going to hire someone they haven't met. Yes, it's happened, to me, but it's very rare. About 2% of our clients hire us sight unseen. That's not enough to build a business on for me or for anyone else. I have to be in the community elbow-to-elbow with people to generate business.

Unless you're extremely lucky to know someone who can act as an agent for you (or unless you have an agent) you will have the same problem.

My brother-in-law lives and works aboard his Ranger 33, taking tech support calls on his boat and remotely fixing other people's computers. He works in port via LTE cellular internet. How does he get work? He works for me. I'm his employer, and I go dig up the business that he works.

He also cannot work at sea. Satellite Internet has extremely high "latency" (round-trip times) that makes it useless for anything except downloads and email. You can't do real-time connections over it of any useful sort. It would be fine for blogging, but that doesn't make any money.

I do intend to write fiction while I cruise in my retirement. Maybe that will come to something, maybe not. But it's still not that much money. the top 1% of --published-- authors only make $100K per year. Most authors make less than $20K per annum off of book sales alone. That makes writing nice for supplemental income if you're very successful, and otherwise merely a hobby.

What consistently sells is hard labor. If there are other cruisers around, and you offer to wash and wax their boats, and you do a good job, you can make a few hundred bucks a month. Diving boats at anchorages (rather than marinas) to clean hulls will also net you $50 a go.

Everything else is buying lottery tickets with your time, that generally isn't going to pay out. Sometimes you get an S/V Delos, but I'm personally past the age where I look good in just bikini bottoms.

If your young clean topsides, exercise engines for absentee owners. You can make a couple of bucks, if the marina help isn't in front of you.

[grantmc]

Originally Posted by Cadence

If your young clean topsides, exercise engines for absentee owners. You can make a couple of bucks, if the marina help isn't in front of you.

In respect to the original post. If he/she intends sailing outside of their own country, then any labour for money, without a work permit, might get one in a whole heap of trouble. Most marinas too, have rules about who can work on the boats within, along with a requirement for public liability insurance etc. The local people keep a watch out (and report to authorities) for such moon lighters doing work too.

[hellosailor]

One morning in Bermuda...horrid weather, the shuttle bus was terribly late, the bus driver was struggling to load suitcases for the passengers. The hotel doorman/porter thought he'd try to make sure no one missed their flight and picked up a suitcase, placed it in the back of the shuttle while the driver had gone around front to help someone else.


Driver comes back and sees the suitcase, and shouts "WHAT YOU TRYING TO DO, MON? DAT MY JOB, NOT YOUR JOB. YOU TAKE THAT BACK OFF DE BUS NOW OR WE DON'T GO NOWHERE."


People get very territorial about their jobs, even when it makes no sense to anyone else. I wouldn't put it past a marina worker to say "Sure, no problem" and then just as quietly call his cousin's uncle, who might be down the next day to arrest an illegal foreign worker. Everybody makes more money that way.


The casual days of a wink and a nod and a greased palm, those went out in the 50's. Sad to say.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by grantmc

In respect to the original post. If he/she intends sailing outside of their own country, then any labour for money, without a work permit, might get one in a whole heap of trouble. Most marinas too, have rules about who can work on the boats within, along with a requirement for public liability insurance etc. The local people keep a watch out (and report to authorities) for such moon lighters doing work too.

It was in gest with the couple of bucks. You are absolutely correct. Possibly today you could make some with an on line business based in your home country. Then there is the problem of how much money you can export or import. I feel sure some doing extended cruising have figured out all the ins and outs.

[mstrebe]

If you're doing what anybody can do, you'll make hundreds.
If you're doing what nobody wants to do, you'll make thousands.
If you're doing what most people cannot do, you'll make hundreds of thousands.
If you're doing what nobody else can do, you'll make millions.

That's the long and short of it. On shore, at home, in the bay, or at sea, making money is about providing unique value. Find a way to be uniquely valuable, which is advice nobody else can give you.

[jwcolby54]

Originally Posted by Hudson Force

I think it's a mistake to promote the idea that cruising requires giving up a well paying job or living on the edge of poverty.

I agree wholeheartedly, though it seems like that has been mentioned already anyway. There has been a ton of "internet job" responses. That's me, but importantly, that is me now in an apartment on land. I am just trading my apartment for a boat.

I am a database analyst / programmer. My "day job" is remoting into servers and building databases and the applications that use said databases. I am about to "live aboard", and do my job from wherever I can "see" a cell tower. No, I can't do my job as I am sailing, but I can do my job from wherever I am between moves, as long as I can "see" a wifi or cell tower.

Additionally, in my case I have a ton of free time. So personal boat maintenance (on my own boat) becomes possible. Also I understand electronics and programming and will look to do things like virus cleaning, computer repair, installing marine electronics and the like as work more in line with that mentioned by many "in port for whoever needs such". I do that already (though not for money).

I have to say that the best "job" advice I ever received was "do something you love". That is so true. If I love doing something it is easy to spend time at it, and I am not "watching the clock" wanting to be somewhere else.

[FamilyVan]

One really solid way to make money and cruise is to find a full time job that offers income averaging. This won't allow you to take off for years, but will allow for some pretty decent sailing. For example, my employer offers the following:

10% reduction in pay for 5 weeks additional vacation equals 8-11 weeks (depending on seniority) annual vacation if you want to take summers off and sail.

Maximum 20% reduction in pay for 13-16 weeks annual vacation for up to 4 months of sailing over a year.

Or, you can spread your averaging out for up to 5 years, meaning you can take 1 year in 5 off or 6 months every two and a half, and still get your vacation time.

Plus they offer one time leave of up to 1 year as well.

I took a year off in 2011/2012, it wasn't really cruising as most people here would define it, it was more full time live a board with mostly day sailing and partying- it was a good year.

If you want to find jobs with income averaging I would look in the public sector. I'm not sure how common it is in the US, but in Canada and Europe its fairly common.

Sent from my XP7700 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[kerrydeare]

Originally Posted by douglasstyle

We are in the process of cashing it all in and getting a boat. What do you do for income on a boat? We will be a family of four. My husband will be going to marine and mechanic school and then we will be off. Any help would be great.

In some parts of the world, it's possible to sell one or more of your children to build up your cruising funds. This method is not popular on the US Eastern Seaboard.

More seriously, you should do your research to estimate your periodic expenses (a massive amount of information is available), continue researching the type, size, and cost of a suitable yacht (more massive info available), research cruising areas, and then having done so, come back to the forums with specific cruising questions.

Many readers here are well versed in specifics, but the generalities available are not very useful when the time actually comes.

[kerrydeare]

hellosailor: ... you need a rather large boat if you're going into cattle farming ...

Yacht World has an older model ark listed, condition fair.

Excuse the levity (and perhaps poor form), but questions like this indicate insufficient research on the part of the questioner. Sooner or later people on boats realize that they can usually rely only on first hand experience in personal matters such as finance, family arrangements, and so on.

[makana]

We have been living aboard our catamaran, Makana for the past nine years. Our daughter crossed the Atlantic with us aboard Makana when she was three and since then has visited 23 countries in both hemispheres. We've been home schooling her, I'm a certified/licensed secondary Chemistry teacher, however my wife has been our daughters primary teacher covering 90% of the structured instruction.This will change next year as our daughter enters the 7th grade. Our daughter recently turned 12 and has the intellect and social skills of an adult. Over the years I've encountered numerous boats with children. All of the kids were far more advanced academically and socially at their ages than those students whom I encountered during my 10 years of teaching on Maui prior to cruising. Checkout this link to a family we met in the Bahamas several years ago:

http://www.threeatsea.com

Making $ is always an interesting subject in the cruising community. Many of the kid boats we've encountered were out for the short term, 1-3 years with plans to return back to their "lives" ashore when finished. I do know of several who had plans to return to "land" and remained cruising. They all had/have jobs which could be done remotely via the internet. Most of the kid boats we encounter in the Bahamas, where we spend our winters return to the states to work each summer. This scenario works out well as it's hurricane season in the tropics anyway.

To make "ends meet" aboard Makana we do a little of "this" and a little of "that" each year. I've been freelance writing with articles published in several cruising magazines. Its taken me several years to get to the point where the editor's will even respond back to my submissions. Expect to be paid anywhere for $75 for a short piece to $1200 for a feature article with good high resolution pics. I also edit several cruising guides which pay between $1000 to $4000 and require approximately 100 to 300 hours of labor respectively. I also build and optimize web sites for small businesses which I often trade "products" for in lieu of monetary compensation. My favorite way to make $ is by running a few charters aboard our boat each year, I love to cook! We are currently in Maine where my wife is working in a conference center waiting tables and bar tending. Here is a link to a YouTube video I made about a "typical" day its named, "A Day in the Life"

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeb...hIrzgRrveJdBPQ

I would recommend calculating your monetary needs for a year than add 50% more to that and you'll be set for the first 12 months. You'll either figure out a way to make $ or return to "land" with a years worth of memories which will last a lifetime.