Brief myLot Update

I haven't been active much on myLot recently, so here's a brief earnings update for September, October and November:

September:
My earnings: $0.10
Referral earnings: $1.31
Total: $1.41

October:
My earnings: $0.02
Referral earnings: $1.18
Total: $1.20

November:
My earnings: $0.00
Referral earnings: $0.53
Total: $0.53

MochiAds Payment Received

I've just received my first payment from MochiAds of $200.51. It took approximately 15 months since signing up to reach the $100 payment threshold - or about two days since Picture Find went live on MindJolt. It shows that with a more popular game, you could easily make the payment threshold every month. Now, to try and make some more popular games.

Kongregate November Earnings

Total earnings from Kongregate for November were $0.59, down from last month. No new games had been added, and the revenue from Spooky Pairs and Spooky Slots was lower than expected. Oddly, UFO Assault, which is by no mean a particularly good game, keeps outperforming the other games.

MochiAds November Earnings

MochiAds earnings for November are now in. Total earned was $0.28 as a publisher, up from the previous month, and $165.68, which is something like five times the total for all the previous months combined.

The biggest earner was Picture Find, which made over $140, almost all of that earned from the MindJolt game. Pyramid Solitaire also did well, its earnings for the month putting it in second place for total revenue of all the games.

Massive Links Payment Received

I've received a payment of $57.50 from the Massive Links affiliate program. It's taken slightly more than a year to reach the minimum payment threshold of $50 there. I'm going to consider this program Recommended, although it works best with the right sort of site to promote it on, namely a web directory.

MochiAds Payment Threshold Passed

I've passed the MochiAds $100 payment threshold this week. This is entirely down to one game, Picture Find, being approved on MindJolt, racking up over 200,000 ad impressions in under three days.

If you don't know what MindJolt is, it's a Flash gaming portal. It's popular in Alexa traffic, but not as big as portals such as Kongregate. Where it is big is on the social networks. The MindJolt app on Facebook is currently the 15th largest app there, with over 14.5 million players. They also have a MySpace app. This is a huge number of players who will view your game, and it will usually remain on the front of MindJolt for several days. It will be interesting to see how it does there after it's no longer in the new games section.

Kongregate October Earnings

Total earnings from Kongregate for October were $1.50. This was mainly from the release of two new games, Spooky Pairs and Spooky Slots.

I did notice that it took much longer than it used to for both games to come out of judgment. I don't know if this is because the quantity of games submitted has increased, or because the new games pages have been redesigned.

Mochi October Earnings

MochiAds earnings for October were $6.85, slightly down from last month. Two new games, Spooky Pairs and Spooky Slots were released at the end of the month for the Halloween season. These provided a boost at the end of the month. Space Slots is still performing well; Spooky Slots is a different version of this game.

Earnings as a publisher were
$0.17, down from last month as were total impressions.

Spooky Pairs Released

My latest Flash game, Spooky Pairs, has now been released on Kongregate.

In this game, I decided to try to improve the overall graphics quality of my game design. Whilst the quality is better, I did make a number of mistakes in the creation of the graphics which unfortunately increased the size of the game.

Kongregate Earnings for September

Total earnings for Kongregate for September were $0.44. Earnings were slightly down from the previous month. Again, no new games had been added.

MochiAds September Earnings

MochiAds earnings for September were $6.99 as a developer, which I believe is the second largest to date.

One game, Castle Match 2.1, was put into Mochi's distribution. The rest were already being distributed, with Space Slots, Easter Egg Match and Picture Find still doing the best.

Earnings as a developer were $0.20, mostly from my Games Portal, but $0.01 earned from the new site, Planet of Zombies.

New Flash Games Site

I've made a new Flash games, site, Planet of Zombies. It's a niche gaming site, the niche being - pretty obviously - zombies. The site is still under construction, although I've been sending some traffic there using MochiAds Traffic Share program, which is free. I'm currently adding zombie related games to it. Once that's done, I'll look into a custom theme for the site. My own theme mostly shows off my less than brilliant design skills. Still, at least it does look at least slightly different from all the other sites out there. The site runs on an ArcademPro base. Once up and running, and if it proves successful, I'll look into making some sites covering other niches.

NeoBux Update

Here's an update of where things currently stand with NeoBux:

Money invested: $5

Money received to AlertPay (after fees): $1.80
Renting balance (can only be used to rent referrals and AutoPay): $0.961
Main balance (can be cashed out or transferred to renting balance): $5.414

Total money owed/received: $8.175

There is currently a paper profit of $3.175, hardly spectacular.

Kongregate August Earnings

Total earnings from Kongregate for August were $0.50. No new games were added in this period, so all earnings were from previously submitted games.

MochiAds August Earnings

MochiAds earnings for August were $0.23 as a publisher, which I think is the highest to date. As a developer, they were $3.84, with the highest two earners being Space Slots and Picture Find.

myLot August Earnings

myLot earnings for August were only $0.56. I wasn't very active at all there last month, too many posts that didn't seem to make much sense because of poor English.

Second Facebook Application

I have added my Flash game, Quiz Me, as another application on Facebook. This game hasn't been very widely distributed due to problems with getting the questions to load on other sites. The application is here: Quiz Me

Facebook Application

I made my Flash game, Picture Find, into a Facebook application. It's only a very simple integration currently, as I was just trying to work out how to do it. The game is available here: Picture Find

myLot Earnings for July

Total earnings from myLot for July were $1.81, one of the lowest figures in some time. Neither I nor my referrals were particularly active during July, which accounts for that.

Kongregate Earnings for July

Kongregate earnings for July were $5.57, up substantially from the previous month. This was basically due to submitting five new games during the month, rather than much in the way of residual income from existing games.

MochiAds July Earnings

Total earnings from MochiAds in July were $2.69. with Easter Egg Match still one of the better earners. Several old games were monetized in July, although not all of them have been put into distribution yet. Space Slots, despite being basically pointless, performed better than expected.

Total earnings as a publisher were $0.09, slightly down from the previous month, although total impressions were up again.

New Product Site Launched

After a gap of quite a few months, I've just launched a new product site, "The Rational Memory." The affiliate program pays 50% and can be found here and is as usual being run through PayDotCom.

I had taken such a long time to launch this site because it seemed like the others weren't going anywhere. Finally, there has been some progress and sales made, so it looks like they just took longer to get going than I originally planned.

MochiCoins Launched

MochiAds have launched their Mochi-Coins micro-transactions system. Here are the highlights as posted in the MochiLand Blog:

60% revenue share for the developer on all transactions.

Universal wallet and login system, so gamers can spend across all games in the network, across any website they are playing on.

Universal saved games and user data, through server side persistence and storage of game data tied to user accounts.

Distribution through Mochi’s publisher network of over 30,000+ sites. Publishers will earn revenue by collecting affiliate fees based on sales from games played on their site.

Multiple payment methods through credit card, PayPal and incentivized offers so that your gamers can easily and safely fund their wallets.

Test and update your games, even if they are already distributed across the Internet. Use Mochi Live Updates and our Coins reporting tools to dynamically test pricing, game upgrades and other changes to optimize your revenues.

Global monetization for your international gamers coming soon. We will be rolling out additional payment methods such as mobile and gamer cards in the near future.

Easy to use and implement, like all of our products and services!

Fortunately, I think, you have to apply to join the system, otherwise you'd get a lot of games using it in such a way that it didn't add anything to the game. These sort of payments need to be only for extras to make the game better. You shouldn't have to pay just to play or complete the game.

Product Sites Update

At the beginning of the year, I launched a number of product sites. Although these have not yet been as successful as I would like, I have made sales from two of them so far.

How to Grow Beautiful Roses has made one sale. This was a personal sale, and resulted from organic traffic. I know this because I haven't as yet tried any other advertising for this product, so it was from the earlier web directory and article marketing efforts done on the initial launch.

Self Development: A Handbook for the Ambitious has made more sales. Three have been from affiliates, four from personal sales. I have been advertising this on Google AdSense. The profits from this just cover the expenses. Hopefully, as the emails of the people purchasing the book have been captured, money can also be made from them in the future.

Now, both ebooks have a fairly substantial number of affiliates. How to Grow Beautiful Roses has 137, Self Development: A Handbook for the Ambitious has 58. Affiliate performance is pretty poor though. Two of the three Self Development book sales were by the same affiliate. On checking some affiliate sites, the promotion is merely the provided banner.

I have been watching Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Marketing 2.0 and one thing he's stated is the amount of affiliate promotion tools he provides, emails, tell-a-friend, banners, forum signatures. Basically, any way of promoting something of his has a tool made to help you do it. No, my products currently only have banners and forum signatures. It appears assuming that people will be more active in promoting a product without providing the tools to do so doesn't work. I'm therefore going to look into adding more affiliate tools.

Adverbux Currently Down

The Adverbux site is currently down, giving a Page Load Error, and has been for several days. Before that, the site was just showing as a blank page, which has happened several times recently.

myLot Payment Received

I have received a payment of $10.12 from myLot for earnings from April, May and June.

Kongregate June Earnings

Total earnings from Kongregate were $0.19. Not particularly high, but I didn't upload any new games, and my games aren't really good enough to get large numbers of impressions after their initial release.

I've added two new games so far this month, which will create a larger amount of revenue next month.

myLot June Earnings

Total earnings for myLot for June were $4.65, again mostly from referrals. Combined with the outstanding earnings from previous months, this is enough to get paid this month.

MochiAds June Earnings

MochiAds earnings for June are now in. Total earned as a developer was $1.13, with Easter Egg Match still performing the best. Picture Find is also doing comparatively well. This is despite the fact that neither game is the among the better written ones.

Total earned as a publisher was $0.10, slightly up from last month, although impressions were slightly down.

myLot Payment Threshold Passed

I've passed the $10 myLot payment threshold. This means a payment can be expected by the 15th of August.

Passing the threshold took longer than it has for some time, mostly due to less activity from my referrals.

MochiAds Earnings for May

Total MochiAds earnings for May were $1.42 as a developer and $0.09 as a publisher.

Publisher earnings were up from last month, as were total impressions, although total earned is still low.

Developer earnings were substantially down, as no new games were released. Easter Egg Match is still the largest earner.

Kongregate May Earnings

Total earnings from Kongregate in May were $0.13. Nothing spectacular, as no new games had been added, so any earnings were purely residual from previously submitted games.

myLot May Earnings

Total myLot earnings for May were $2.62. Together with the previous months' balance, this brings the total owed to $5.47, still below the $10 payment threshold.

New Article Directory

I've started a new niche health article directory using the Article Friendly Pro article publishing script. This is partly because I've been having constant problems with the Article Dashboard script that currently powers my main Article Directory. The AD script is basically abandoned and, because it's encrypted, it's impossible fixing the problems with it. Pages in the article directory frequently time out or take a long time to load, which damages the directory's usability.

I've started the new site so I can test the new script out to see how it works before trying, if possible, to convert the existing article directory to use it. I chose a niche market to see how it performs.

New Bux3 Payment Request

Well, it seems that Bux3 has cancelled my payment request, in exactly the same way that bux.to did as I posted yesterday. Also, they've changed their payment terms - a convenient excuse for cancelling current payments. This is the third time I've requested payment from this site, and still not received anything. Their terms say payment will be instant; however, the cashout page states that you have to wait 30 days before payment,

New Bux.to Payment Request

I have today submitted another payment request for bux.to for $73.63. I was checking on the status of my previous payment request from April last year, and discovered it had been cancelled without any notice, instead of being paid. Not very impressive behaviour.

Flash Game Distribution

I've submitted Mars Slider to Flash Game Distribution to see how that goes. This is the first game I've submitted there, and it took a while for it to be approved for distribution

myLot April Earnings

myLot earnings for April were $2.85, pretty low and nowhere near enough to qualify for payout. Referral earnings were substantially down.

Kongregate Earnings for April

Total earning from Kongregate for April were $0.27, mostly from the Picture Slider game, and old game that I recently updated to AS2.

MochiAds Earnings for April

MochiAds earnings for April are as follows:

Total earned as a developer was $7.19. This is the largest amount earned in one month to date, and several times all the previous months added together. This is basically due to the success of one game, Easter Egg Match.

Even though there were a number of problems with releasing the game, due to making it at the last minute, it being the first proper AS3 game I've tried and the first time I tried using any encryption software, all of which combined to make the initial releases' leaderboards not work, which more than likely cut down on plays, and the only distribution was done through the Mochi network, this game still out performed every other game in terms of both paid impressions and revenue generated.

The success of this game suggests it may be worth while developing a bunch of holiday themed games ahead of time, and releasing them near the holiday in question.

Total money earned as a publisher was $0.04, substantially down from the previous month even though there was a slight increase in total impressions. This suggests eCPM for the hosted games was substantially lower.

myLot Payment Received

I have received a payment from myLot for $12.09 for the outstanding balance from February and March.

Kongregate Earnings for March

Kongregate earnings for March were $0.84. The majority of this was from the new game added their this month, Sphere Avoider 2.

myLot March Earnings

myLot earnings for March were $2.12. Together with the previous outstanding balance of $9.95, this is enough to receive a payment this month.

MochiAds March Earnings

Here are the MochiAds earnings for March:

Total earned as a developer was $2.62. This is a substantial increase over any previous months' earnings, due to some time being spent distributing the games. Although still not stunning, it is a great improvement.

Total earned as a publisher was $0.16. Again, this was a substantial increase, due to Mochi games being added to my Games Portal and integrated with the scoring/trophy system there.

This would still require a long time to reach the payment threshold of $100; however, I hope this can be built upon.

World-Bux Gone

It looks like World-Bux has gone, possibly for good. The domain name expired over a week ago, and hasn't been renewed.

Castle Match & Space Match

Castle Match and Space Match are a couple of old Flash games I made. Space Match was probably one of my first, and Castle Match is based on the same engine.

Although they were coded in AS1 for Flash Player 5, I decided to see if they could be upgraded easily to AS2 and Flash Player 7. That way they could be made to display MochiAds. With a couple of minor changes, that was possible.

I have no plans to upgrade them further, because I am already converting the sequels into AS3, or promote them much, as they are a bit dated. However, they do still get a few plays.

The games can be downloaded from the following locations:
Castle Match
Castle Match (Amod/Arcade mod version)
Space Match
Space Match (Amod/Arcade mod version)

Sphere Avoider 2

Another game in the Sphere Avoider series, this uses the spawn method from Variant 3, with new features added.

Currently, the game can be played at Kongregate: Sphere Avoider 2
My Games Portal (Arcade mod version): Sphere 2 Avoider (arcade mod)
My Flash Games Site: Sphere Avoider 2

The normal version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider 2
The Arcade/Activity mod version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider 2 (arcade mod)

myLot Payment Threshold Passed

I've passed the $10 myLot payment threshold, so a payment will be due from them by the 15th of April. Current balance is $10.04, but there's time for that to get higher.

Sphere Avoider Variant 3

This is yet another version of the Sphere Avoider game, with the respawn methods from Variant 1 and Variant 2 combined.

Currently, the game can be played at Kongregate: Sphere Avoider Variant 2
My Games Portal (Arcade mod version): Sphere Avoider Variant 2 (arcade mod)
My Flash Games Site: Sphere Avoider Variant 2

The normal version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider Variant 2
The Arcade/Activity mod version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider Variant 2 (arcade mod)

Kongregate February Earnings

Kongregate earnings for February are in. Total earned was $0.96. This was largely from releasing three new games on the site. Oddly, although they are my highest rated games to date, they aren't the best earners so far.

myLot February Earnings

myLot earnings for February are in. Total earned during this period was $4.77. Together with the outstanding balance from January, balance at the end of February was $9.95, unfortunately just below the $10 payment threshold. I imaging that will be passed pretty quickly though.

MochiAds Earnings for February

MochiAds earnings for February are in. $0.20 was earned as a developer, and $0.01 as a publisher, totalling $0.21, the largest amount to date.

I've worked out (hopefully) how to integrate the publisher bridge with my phpBB Arcade, so I shall be adding games there. Games get played more often on that site, so publisher earnings should increase.

Sphere Avoider Variant 2

This is another version of the Sphere Avoider game, with a different respawn method for the enemies.

Currently, the game can be played at Kongregate: Sphere Avoider Variant 2
My Games Portal (Arcade mod version): Sphere Avoider Variant 2 (arcade mod)
My Flash Games Site: Sphere Avoider Variant 2

The normal version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider Variant 2
The Arcade/Activity mod version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider Variant 2 (arcade mod)

Two New eBook Sites

Just realized that I'd forgotten to post the latest two ebook sites, "From Poverty to Power" and "Self Development: A Handbook for the Ambitious." In addition, an instructional video site, "PLR Brainstorm." The affiliate programs are available here: From Poverty to Power Affiliate Program, Self Development: A Handbook for the Ambitious Affiliate Program and PLR Brainstorm Affiliate Program.

SFI Payment Received

I've received another payment from SFI, this one for $48.90, the accumulated commissions from the past months having passed the payment threshold.

NeoBux Update

It's been 31 days since I purchased the second batch of referrals at NeoBux, which is normally when they would have all expired. This time I had AutoPay switched on, so all the referrals have at least 10 days left to run, and two have 21. Of course, they will more than likely last longer than that if they keep clicking. Total clicks so far are 477 from this batch, although this is probably the last time I can accurately measure this, as I am planning on purchasing more.

Here are the current stats:

Money invested: $5

Money received to AlertPay (after fees): $1.80
Renting balance (can only be used to rent referrals and AutoPay): $0.776
Main balance (can be cashed out or transferred to renting balance): $3.10

Total money owed/received: $5.676

This means that NeoBux is currently showing a paper profit over money invested.

AdBrite

I've decided to change the ads on my Flash Games Site from BidVertiser to AdBrite. I haven't been really happy with the ads being displayed by BidVertiser - mostly for gambling sites - so I've decided to give AdBrite a go.

Yuwie Earnings for January

Yuwie earnings for January are now in. Once again, no actual money was earned, due to insufficient activity by both myself and my referrals.

Sphere Avoider Variant 1

This is another new Flash game I've just released. Thanks to Frozen Haddock's tutorial which helped make this. I will shortly be releasing another version of this.

Currently, the game can be played at Kongregate: Sphere Avoider
My Games Portal (Arcade mod version): Sphere Avoider
My Flash Games Site: Sphere Avoider

The normal version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider
The Arcade/Activity mod version can be downloaded here: Sphere Avoider Arcade Mod

Valentine's Day Recipes

I've started promoting the Valentine's Day Recipes ebook using the free classified ad sites list. I thought of doing this some time ago, but kept forgetting. I'm going to promote the other ebooks the same way, I started with this one due to the fact that Valentine's Day is pretty close. I also removed a couple of sites from the list that no longer existed.

MochiAds January Earnings

MochiAds earnings for January are now in. Total earned as a developer was $0.10, above Kongregate earnings for once.

Also, the first $0.01 was made as a publisher. The screenshot shows more than last month though, due to the earnings being earned over all the months as a publisher, but only just passing the first cent.

Kongregate Earnings for January

Kongregate earnings for January are in. Total earned in this period was $0.08.

myLot January Earnings

myLot earnings for January are now in. Total earnings for this month were $5.18. This is not enough to qualify for payment this month.

Mars Slider Submitted to GoofyGamer

I've finally remembered to submit the Mars Slider game to GoofyGamer. This should increase its' distribution (currently, according to MochiBot, it's present on 28 hosts) and therefore its' MochiAds revenues.

NeoBux Update

It's been slightly over a week since a rented another 10 referrals from NeoBux, this time with AutoPay switched on. Here's where things currently stand:

Money invested: $5

Money received to AlertPay (after fees): $1.80
Renting balance (can only be used to rent referrals and AutoPay): $0.505
Main balance (can be cashed out or transferred to renting balance): $1.54

Total money owed/received: $3.845

Now, currently, this is showing a loss of $1.155, however, I believe this will be made back from the new batch of referrals. Although the last lot didn't pay for themselves, with AutoPay switched on the length of the referrals is extended every day they click an ad, for a fee of course, but a lower fee than renting a new one from scratch would be.

Currently, of the 10 referrals I rented, each of which originally started with 31 days of rental, they all still have at least 27 days of rental left, and one of them has 30 days.

GetRef

I've decided to be a lot less generous with rewarding GetRef signup credits to people who join my programs. I've noticed with an awful lot of people, there entire activity in your program is join, then make credit claim. This pretty much defeats the object of getting them to join, and is also short sighted in their case.

I'd assume that the reason they are joining a program in these cases is merely to get credits and to be allowed to promote their own program, in order to get referrals. Are they wanting people to do exactly the same with them as they are doing with programs they join? I doubt it, I think they expect their referrals to be active. So, I think they should do what they expect others to do, and only join a program if they intend to at least try to be active.

I've put in my myLot program description at GetRef that, if you aren't active, you won't be credited. Still, either people aren't reading that, or they think merely joining a program - and that's the first, last and only time they visit it - counts as being active.

NeoBux Referral Update

Well, my rented referrals from NeoBux have now expired. Total credited referral clicks was 404, earning $2.02. This was less than the $3 invested in purchasing them, however there were a number of factors that probably decreased their worth. During the Christmas period, there was probably at least 1 week in total where I was unable to click ads. This decreased referral earnings. Secondly, this more than likely applied to the referrals also. Finally, I hadn't activated the AutoPay feature, as I didn't know what it did. It apparently extends the life of referrals who are clicking, by automatically deducting a daily payment - less than the cost of renting a referral from new.

I am going to give the rented referrals another go to see how it goes.

Stats to date:

Received: $2.10
AlertPay charges: $0.30
Invested: $5.00 of which $3 has been spent on referrals
Owed: $2.205

How to Study Birds

I've set up yet another ebook site, "How to Study Birds", which is designed to sell an ebook of the same name, plus a free bonus ebook. There's also an affiliate program, run by PayDotCom, which pays affiliates 50% on each $14.97 sale made.

This is my third site so far this year, and my aim is to make one a week.

myLot Payment Received

I have received a payment of $11.09 from myLot. This is for affiliate earnings for December 2008.