I'm currently learning to build some really fun websites and blogs using Wordpress. I tried once before and ended up frustrated that I could not get the code to do what I wanted. Today, with CSS, I am able to much more than before so I'm trying it again.

On top of the Wordpress code I am using a great theme called Thesis. I have enjoyed learning everything this combo can do and they can do bunches!

My first website is taking shape. It may not look exactly as it does now but it should stay pretty close. I'm combining my love of web design, amateur photography and entrepreneurialism to create my latest venture.

I am uploading many of my funnest and best photos, along with a collection of vernacular photographs, and will be offering low resolution images for free use on non-commercial websites and blogs. High resolution images will be available for print with just the click of a button.

Check out the site and give me some feedback! As I stated above, it is currently a work in progress... Life's A Photograph (www.lifesaphotograph.com).

Labels: entrepreneur, Internet, make money, niche, Photo

"Adventures with Travis and Presley, Part 1" is a DVD and book set that teaches children the importance of good manners while helping Presley find his bone. The series, the first of eight, is designed for ages 2 to 6, but it is entertaining and fun for all youngsters.

My company, The Curtoons Cartoon Company collaborated on the project to help bring it to market.

The DVD/book combo can be ordered for $9.99 at www.travisandpresley.com.

Watch the trailer here... http://www.youtube.com/user/travisbrorsen1

Labels: Cartooning, entrepreneur, make money

Have you missed me? I didn't think so. I have not been able to update much because I've been keeping myself busy. Wanna hear about my latest venture?

Well, you're going to anyway. My goal is to one day have a very large, thriving greeting card company. I started my little greeting card studio in 2002 and named it ChuckleBerry's. We've been taking orders and printing cards right out of our house for years.

I've sold cards in most every state in the Union and created a good wholesale business that has been supplying cards to gift shops, book stores, casinos, and hospitals.

To make a long story short, I've moved my entire operation from out of my little studio and teamed up with a company called Zazzle. Zazzle handles cards and merchandise for companies like Disney, Hallmark, Build-A-Bear and many others.

Zazzle.com now holds my greeting card catalog, takes my orders, prints my cards, ships the order and handles returns. I'm finally free to spend more time marketing and promoting my cards. I've actually only uploaded a portion of my entire collection but will have all cards online soon.

If you need a funny greeting card and would like to help out the little guy in the greeting card business, please consider buying some of my cards. You can see my live greeting cards here.

If you are remotely interested in investing in my growing little company please let me know. I know the ChuckleBerry's characters and brand will be a huge success in the very near future. If you need wholesale greeting cards or would like to earn extra money by becoming a rep visit this wholesale site and read all of the opportunities.

Thanks for checking on me! I appreciate it. I'll try to add more funny thoughts, photos, videos and more as I create a little free time.

Chuckles!

Labels: Curtis Tucker, entrepreneur, greeting cards, make money, Work at Home

Labels: Curtis Tucker, entrepreneur, make money

I've been busy trying to build up my cartoon empire. I will be releasing some fun new t-shirt designs with cute cartoon animals and funny sayings. They will be created under the brand WeinerDuck but will be sold through ChuckleBerry's. Enjoy the first design and order one already!

Labels: Cartooning, entrepreneur, make money

At 12:34:56 today all of the numbers will align. That is because today is 7/8/9. So, today will be 12:34:56 7/8/9. Numerologists consider this a good day to make money.

I will let you know how things turn out on my end. Let me know how things turn out on your end.

Labels: make money, Superstitions

I'm a pretty lucky guy. Not because I have an awesome wife, wonderful kids and my dream job. But because I pick up and collect lucky pennies, nickles, dimes, quarters and bills.

I began my lucky adventure somewhere around 1997 and have been collecting ever since. I now have one milk bottle full of lucky money and I'm beginning my second. I'm gathering up all of my luck for that one day when I'm really going to need it. When will it be? For what? Why? Who knows.

I'll keep picking up those lucky coins that most other people pass by and one of these days I'll put them to good use. I encourage you to spend a little time looking at the ground and you might be surprised at how many lucky coins you can find. I wish you all the best and good luck!

Labels: Curtis Tucker, hobbies, make money

I've often wondered if I'm an entrepreneur. As a kid growing up I never really thought about it because I had no idea what an entrepreneur really was. When I look back on the things my best buddy and I did I see that we had a hint of entrepreneurism all the while.

We both happened to be interested in magic and began doing magic shows in my garage in the sixth grade. We would charge a quarter a person and one time might have actually had five or six kids at one show. We eventually ventured into doing birthday parties and added a fun guitar/singing puppet show to the act. I did the puppets and he played guitar and sang. We did shows for our church (picture above) and other interested places.

We also had Kool-Aid stands, raked leaves, pulled weeds, cleaned garages and many of the other kidpreneur type businesses. We even put together a haunted garage every Halloween with a fun maze inside. We didn't charge money for that but it was quite an operation to put together.

As we got older we formed a garage band and became very famous for only playing in the garage. Again, it was not a money making venture but did teach us about buying equipment, organizing schedules and working together.

It was around this time, which was high school, that I began to doodle cartoons. When I went off to college I was doodling enough that I began to do small cartoon and logo projects. I also designed and had my first line of greeting cards printed, which I sold mainly to friends and relatives.

Once I started freelancing I never stopped. Even with full time jobs out of college I always looked for freelance projects on the side. Because of the portfolio and knowledge I was able to gain I eventually turned my freelancing into self-employment.

Self-employment freed me from working 8 to 5 but if I wasn't working money wasn't being created. That's when I turned to the Internet looking to become an entrepreneur.

As of today I am all three. I am self-employed as a freelance cartoonist. I earn half of my income from cartooning, web design, graphic design and a few other side things. I earn the other half as an entrepreneur. I have created a group of web sites that generate money whether I am in my studio or on vacation. I have also created a small greeting card company that sells itself online.

My goal is to eventually drop the freelancing all together because of deadlines, collecting money headaches and dealing with complicated clients. I will then be a 100% entrepreneur running multiple money making web sites and a growing greeting card business that will one day have a large number of employees.

Labels: Curtis Tucker, entrepreneur, make money, Memories, Photo

1. Clicks on Google AdSense ads
2. Had advertisers pay me to run independent ads on my sites
3. Made affiliate money through Commission Junction & others
4. Sold pieces of clip art
5. Created custom cartoon logos and mascots
6. Hired for 2 creative naming projects
7. Collected web hosting fees
8. Had online orders for paper greeting cards
9. Built web sites for a couple of clients
10. Updated several client web sites
11. Sold royalty free cartoon characters
Get busy! There's money to be made online!

Labels: Cartooning, Internet, make money

1. Create a video on YouTube, optimize it, link it to your site.
2. Leave comments on blogs related to your site, with a link back to your site
3. Join forums related to your site, leave comments with a link to your site
4. Optimize ALL of your pages for multiple high traffic keywords
5. Email friends and family, ask them to email friends and family
6. Run an ad in your local paper with your web address
7. Put your web address on your car, business cards and a t-shirt
8. Open accounts on social networks linked back to your site
9. Optimize graphics and photos with keyword names and alt tags
10. Start a blog (if you have a website), update it regularly
11. Submit your site to a dozen free directories
12. Announce a free give-a-way on your site
13. Create press releases and post on PR sites
14. Volunteer to give speeches and do interviews about your business
15. Trade links with as many web sites as you can
16. Twitter
17. Write awesome articles, submit to article sites
18. Build more than one web site
19. Add five pages to your site every week
20. Run a Pay-Per-Click campaign, only bid a penny
21. Interview a very popular web celeb
22. Pin up your business card at Starbucks
23. Join local message boards
24. Teach a class on your subject or business
25. Write a newsletter or be a writer for a newsletter
26. Join web rings and traffic sharing sites
27. Post ads on Craig's List and other classifieds
28. Create an ebook to sell on Clickbank
29. Add a RSS subscription button
30. Send your story to The Big Idea on CNBC
31. Get a magazine to do a story about you
32. Buy cheap links on hot sites
33. Pick a memorable domain name
34. Get people to Digg & Stumble Upon you
35. Send funny lists to bloggers to use on their sites
36. Choose high traffic keywords
37. Book a spot on Oprah
38. Create the world's funniest video
39. Run late night radio ads
40. Join associations and clubs
41. Be controversial
42. Create a Cafe Press store, sell stuff
43. Give away a prize on another site
44. Collect a mailing list and email to it
45. Guest post on another blog
46. Create a forum on your site
47. Create a fun Google Group
48. Start a podcast, submit to iTunes
49. Attend conferences and seminars
50. Add nude photos to your site (kidding)
50. Be patient!!

Labels: blogging, Internet, make money

Have you ever wondered what the secret ingredient is to make money online? When you boil it down into a nutshell there is one important factor to making money online and that key is eyeballs. Yep, good old fashioned eyeballs.

I can almost guarantee that you can have the best web site, the best content and the best offers in the world, but without eyeballs you're not going to make one red cent. I have been guruing (not a real word) several people over the past year and they have taken my tips, ideas and strategies and created great little empires. The only problem they are finding is that they are not making much money and the reason is... not enough eyeballs.

Eyeballs is of course just another term for traffic. Even the worst offer in the world will convert to cash with a large amount of eyeballs. With that said I would suggest that you learn how to direct eyeballs to your web sites. I will post 50 ways to add extra eyeballs to your website before the end of the month. Keep checking in and start learning how to drive traffic!!

Labels: Internet, make money

Labels: Cartooning, make money

I was just emailing with one of my new readers and he brought up something I have not eluded to yet. As of today, I do not use any form on PPC ads, AdWords or pay for any other form of advertising. That is not to say that I wouldn't try some of those forms of traffic building in the future. I'll let you know when I use any form of paid advertising.

All of my traffic and income is based on natural SEO. That means I do not spend a dime on advertising, zip, zilch, nada. My traffic comes from my natural rankings in the search engines. My only reoccurring costs are for domain names and web hosting.

My web pages had over 5.8 million page views in 2007 and I aim to shatter that number in 2008. I have not optimized my sites very well for advertising and have relied heavily on Google Ads. This year I am trying new forms of income generation and I will share with you what has worked best for me.

I would guess 90% of my traffic is generated by Google. Another goal in 2008 is to create a large amount of new traffic using viral marketing. More about that later.

Check back and I will soon write some posts on how I can create that amount of traffic without spending a dime.

Labels: blogging, Internet, make money

What in the heck is a personal brand image and why do you need one?


Don King has his hair, Superman has his cape, Linus has his blanket, Dolly has her big... voice, Teller has his silence, Elton John has his glasses. Each of these individuals stand out from the crowd because of a brand image. There is something about them that you remember! Do you have a brand image, a style of your own, or are you just part of the crowd? Would anyone remember you if they only met you for a moment?

What is my brand image? My brand image is my casual style and my really cool sneakers. I've begun a campaign of wearing old school Converse sneakers everywhere I go. I'm even using my sneaks in all of my website headers.

I'm trying to establish a brand that will be easily and quickly recognized. I've taken to wearing sneakers and white tee's every chance I get. People know me as that sneaker wearing cartoonist.

I gave a talk the other day to about 40 sixth graders. I was speaking about how I was able to start my own business and work from home. I wore shorts, a white tee covered by a Polo sweater vest and my trademark sneakers. I had almost as many comments about my sneakers as I did about my cartooning and Internet businesses.

Stand out from the crowd and you will be remembered. Your brand does not even have to be physical. Your brand could be that you give the fastest service with a smile or you do the best job and always throw in a bonus. Those type of things can become your brand if you stick to them and people know they can rely on them.

Find your brand and you'll be on your way to rising above the crowd. I'll try to do a future post on great personal branding examples. That's all for now! It's lunch time and my girls want their McDonalds! Talk about a company that knows a bit about branding.

Labels: Curtis Tucker, make money

Labels: Curtis Tucker, greeting cards, make money, video

Self-employment has so many perks that every individual should strive to run their own business. The freedom and the control make it worth the many frustrations you will encounter.

One big frustration you will soon discover is those very nasty quarterly tax payments. Today, June 16th, is the due date for every one's second quarterly tax payment. Whether you know your income for the year or whether you've made any money this quarter you still have to pay your quarterly tax. Paying your tax payment with a check that is deducted out of your bank account is blast of reality. You can easily see how much of your income goes towards running our government.

The biggest frustration you will find when writing that big check is knowing that some yahoo up in Washington is tacking on a pork barrel project that is about to waste every penny you've worked hard to earn. I believe everyone should pay their fair share of taxes but the question then becomes what is fair. Many people in our country live off the welfare roles and never pay a cent of taxes. Others cheat and still others complain that we don't pay enough. If you don't think we pay enough taxes, especially the "rich", you should seek some mental counseling.

So, enjoy self-employment, but get out your pen and write Uncle Sam a big fat check. Some elected yahoo is needing the money to help build a highway to nowhere.

Labels: make money, taxes

Labels: blogging, Curtis Tucker, make money, niche

Are you wondering how a sneaker wearing dad gets to stay home and watch his two really cool daughters? In case anyone is curious I want you to know that anyone can make money online working from home because I've done it!

Here are many of the money making ventures I have created online...

1. I created and run a custom cartoon logo design web site. I create funny cartoon logos for clients worldwide. Visit The Curtoons Cartoon Company & eCartoonLogos.
2. I own a graphic design studio in my hometown. I create logos, brochures, web sites and design ads, radio spots and TV commercials. Visit Shaggy Duck Studios.
3. I design and sell my own line of funny paper greeting cards. My cards can be purchased retail or wholesale. Visit ChuckleBerry's Paper Card Company and Wholesale Paper Cards.
4. I design content rich web sites, directories and blogs. I sell advertising on these web sites and also display Google ads and affiliate links. I now have between 50-80 running or near running sites. Visit Baby Dog Names, Zoinkies! and The Classic Baby Store for an example.
5. I create and sell my own collection of cartoon clipart. Visit Free Clip Art Pics.
6. I own the rights to a wide variety of cartoon characters which I license to interested partners. I also sell merchandise from these characters. Visit Cartoon License and WeinerDuck.
7. I sell royalty free cartoon characters and retain the rights to each of them. Visit Life's A Character.
8. I run and update a few fun and informative niche web site/blogs. Visit this site Curtis Tucker, Enid Buzz and Make Life Happy.
9. I also host web sites, build them and update them for outside clients. Here is an example of one of those simple sites - Inboard Helmet Lights.
10. There are also a few more random ways that I make small amounts of income including a few Cafe Press stores, selling greeting card racks (drop shipping) and thinking up fun brand names.
11. Watch for a new eCard website soon!

Thanks for reading. Stay in touch and I'll be providing tips from time to time on how ANYONE can make money online and can get to stay at home just like me!

Labels: blogging, Curtis Tucker, make money