Somehow I Became An Author

Life at the moment is a huge struggle. My wife and I are quite literally out of money to pay the bills. We have well over $1,000 worth of bills coming up in the next two-three weeks and about $100 to our name. Awesome, right? The worst part is, I'm still striking out when it comes to finding a job. So, I'm trying something a little different.

If you've been reading my posts from the beginning, you know that one of the reasons I started this blog was to work on my writing skills in preparation of writing my book. Initially, I wasn't expecting that to become a reality any time soon, but within the the last week or so, I've put together a basis for an entire marketing strategy to sell this book that doesn't even exist yet. I'm at a point where this is what I want to do...full-time. Of we all know the probably is, this isn't going to help us pay the bills in the least. So right now I'm feeling really anxious and nervous about what the next two-plus weeks hold. 

To try and gain some more income (outside of Rev.com and TextBroker,) I've signed up for Fiverr and figured out how to reinstate my AdSense account on YouTube, but again, it's not much. However, with Fiverr, I sold an article to a website called Meaws.com, and it was published today. The good news is, if it does well (in terms of shares, likes, etc.) they might take me on as a regular paid contributor! So I'm really holding out for that because anything that has to do with writing is exactly what I want to do.

The one other thing I'm doing is working on a Kindle book (which I may also have printed.) It's not as personal or "exciting" as the big book I'm working on, but my hope is that it sells enough where I have a steady stream of passive income coming in. All I've been doing lately is writing, which has actually hurt my YouTube career (which I need to get back to ASAP!) But, writing has been really good for me. 

As stressed out as I am about the money, and believe me it's a really bad amount of stress, nothing makes me happier than spending my days writing and marketing myself online. I've created a new author-focused website and Tumblr profile, I've update my Facebook page, Twitter profile, and YouTube channel, and basically I've been coming up with ways to get people excited about this book so it will sell better when it comes out...and it's been really fun!

So to say the least, this is a make or break time for me and my wife. I either bring in enough money to help get these bills paid doing what I'm doing now, or I don't and things start going downhill real fast. The third option is getting a job (which I am trying to find) and settle, which will yet again put my dreams on hold. The first option is the only one that will make me happy, but something tells me it's just not going to work out, and I really don't know what to do...

Positive Life Changes

Today is September 6th. It has been 40 days since I've worked for someone else. These past 5+ weeks have been quite the adventure, to say the least. I spent the first week on my honeymoon and then the next couple weeks filling out job applications. Soon after that, something happened. Something inside of me just said to calm down and take at look at the opportunity within the madness. So, I did.

For the past two weeks, I have been working part time online as an independent contractor for Rev captioning videos as well as taking on some freelance writing jobs through the site Text Broker. Due to working at home, I was able to take some time to really focus on gathering information for my book as well as concentrating on expanding my photography business. I also recently hit my one year on testosterone which meant working on my documentary as well which I have released on my YouTube channel (yes, that was a shameless plug, but check it out!) These things are what I really enjoy doing, and through doing them, not only have I felt more in control of my life, but my depression has become less crippling which has been so great.

Aside from taking control of certain aspects of my life such as these, I have also made some improvements or have taken steps to improve my overall health. I won't go into any specifics, but so far everything is going well. Just an example of one thing I'm doing is going to physical therapy regularly to hopefully end my neck and back issues that I've had for years. Working from home gives me the flexibility I need to make appointments and get stuff done.

The one downside to all of this is the pay, BUT the good news is my wife started her new job two weeks ago and her pay is more than we could have imagined. We're not sure how, but we're not complaining! Now, I do hate relying on her to pay the bills, but that is a part of marriage, and it's not like I'm making nothing. I am making something. It's just mentally and emotionally messing me up a bit, but eventually I'll be making more and we'll be back to sharing everything 50/50.

There are some drawbacks to the current situation, but overall I am 10x times happier than I was working for someone else. I set my own schedule, I have time to do the things I love, I see my wife everyday for more than five minutes at a time. and I have time to watch my favorite shows, read my favorite books, and really just relax. I think becoming unexpectedly unemployed has really become something really positive which is something I was hoping for with all of this.

There Are Actually Some Legitimate Ways to Make Money Online

If you have been keeping up with my posts, you've read about how I've always wanted to work from home. I'm socially awkward which makes it very anxiety provoking to deal with people (usually customers rather than co-workers just for clarification.) Because of this, and my love of working on the computer, I have been heavily seeking out legitimate ways to make money from home, online. So far I have come up with three main sites that I plan on making an income off of.

The first site is TextBroker. TextBroker is a straight up freelance writing site where you take on as much or as little work as you would like. Clients post their needs on the site with a specific definition of what needs to be written, the preferred length in number of words, and any key words that must be used in the article. So far, just to try it out, I've completed three assignments. I have earned $8.41 for a little less than an hours worth of work (which equates higher than the national and NH's minimum wage of $7.25/hr!) One of the three assignments was just coming up with a slogan for a website. It took me all of 15 minutes to check out the website and come up with something, and it was accepted. That one only garnered me about $0.20, but the pay rate is set at a certain price per word (usually a few cents.)

The second site is Amazon's Mechanical Turk. This site offers HITs (human intelligence tasks) which can be anything from surveys to being a secret telephone shopper. The pay isn't great, but I've made $11.96 so far and still have one pending HIT that needs to be approved or rejected. The clients for the HITS approve or reject your hit, but the approval rate is pretty high. I have had 1 out of 16 HITs rejected, and it was because I took their survey "too fast." The money can be withdrawn to PayPal 10 days after completing your first HIT. This site is better as something to do to pass time rather than a full time job, but you can make some money none the less. The trick for me has been to ignore anything under $0.50 as it will most likely be a waste of time (like some pay $0.01. I'm not wasting my time for a penny.) When I was really bored, and there were no HITs $0.50 or higher that I qualified for, I took on a $0.40 and a $0.33. It's really all up to you.

The third site, and the one that is so far the most fun, is Rev. For Rev you can apply to be a translator, transcriptionist, or a video captioner. I signed up to do video captioning as it seemed like a really fun task. I have completed my base application, which includes a test video that's under 2 minutes long you have to caption. Since I "passed" my first caption test, I now have two more videos to caption before I can start getting paid. There has been a bit of a setback today though. I went on to complete my second test video, and Quill, the sight Rev directs and uses for their caption software, had no record of my account. I was confused but decided to try and create an account with all the same credentials. Some text popped up saying that there was already an active account with that username. So I emailed them and am waiting for a response. I need to have the videos completed by midnight tomorrow, so I am a bit worried at the moment. This job would be a lot of fun though, has steady pay (every Monday right to PayPal,) and does provide the opportunity to grow a little bit and become a grader. There have been very mixed reviews for the site, but I figure there's nothing to lose trying.

There are also a few other sites I've tried out. ProductReportCard is a survey site where you can make $8.25 just for signing up and completing your profile. The only problem is there has only been one survey available so far. It was worth $2.50 though so I'm up to $10.75. You can cash out right to PayPal when you hit $25.

MintVine is another survey site. I'm still not 100% sure how it works, but you get points for your surveys that can then be turned in for rewards. Be careful though as some of the points from Points Place will not post to the account (I've been shorted 140.) You're better off taking the regular surveys. 

With all these options, I should be able to make a pretty decent income from home, one that should actually be able to help pay the bills! With Rev alone you can make anywhere from $250/month to well over $1,500/month which equates to roughly $8.30/hr working 40 hours a week. My goal is to be able to spend more time with my wife, start really working on my book, and just be less stressed. My prospects are good. Now I just wait to see if everything pulls through.

Our Last Shred Of Fun For A While: Our Honeymoon

Last week my wife and I finally went on our much anticipated honeymoon. With the job loss, it was a little more stressful than I wanted it to be, but we had fun. The hardest part was feeling guilty sharing what we went out and did the whole time because of the job loss. All the "maybe you shouldn't be going out all the time if you don't have any money" business got real old. What everyone doesn't understand is that last week was paid for and was possible because of wedding gifts. It was 100% paid for before I lost my job. We didn't use anything from our bank accounts. It was all gifts! Are we not allowed to have fun? I just wish people would stop judging others when they don't know the whole story...

Anyway, our trip started late on Sunday (August 2) after my softball game. Our first leg of the trip was in Connecticut. We stayed with my wife's grandfather (because despite what everyone believes, we are money conscious...) On Monday we went to New York City which was a surreal experience for me! It was my first time, and I enjoyed it a lot. I never thought I would ever make it to NYC with my anxiety. As a photographer though it was overwhelming. I felt as though I was missing a lot of photo opportunities. The best part was Madame Tussauds! We took a train from CT right into Grand Central Station (which was surreal in itself since it's in like every movie.) I remembered to get a real NY bagel too (which definitely lived up to the hype!) 

After our time in CT we headed to Hampton Beach which is where I proposed two years ago. It's one of our favorite spots, but after the past few days I think we both agree that it's a place that is better with more people. It was also too cold to actually go swimming in the ocean which made that leg of the trip a bit of a bummer (but what are you gonna do?) We went and sat on the beach twice and took a few strolls down at the water. We ate a lot of good food and discovered a lot of new places that we didn't know about the last time we were there which was cool. And of course we spent a lot of time at Coffee Cann which has the best coffee ever! It's Green Mountain Coffee but it's the only place we've ever seen Brownie Toffee Crunch! 

To round out our honeymoon we went to see Andy Grammer and American Authors at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom (the tickets of which I got for my birthday, and actually ended up being the entire reason we spent part of our honeymoon in Hampton.) It was an awesome concert! We got pictures with Andy's guitarist and bassist and also with Zac (lead singer) and Dave (bassist) of American Authors which was super cool! We just missed Andy after the concert though. My wife also found one of the guitar picks that American Authors threw at the end of the concert on the floor after the majority of the people cleared out, so that was our souvenir. 

So overall it was a fun week, but now we're home and I am in full "job search" mode which is really getting me down. The bills aren't going to be able to be paid with just my wife's income which is why I set up a GoFundMe page. I also have my unemployment orientation coming up. I haven't heard yet whether or not I qualify for unemployment benefits, but I really hope I do! I don't monetarily qualify for anything close to what I was making before, but it will definitely help! So if I'm not around the Blogger world for a while it's because I'm hardcore job searching and working on ways to make money. 

Taking A Hard Situation And Finding Some Positivity

The other day something unexpected happened. I was sat down and told that my job performance just wasn't what it needed to be and that I could either:

1. Go through training again.
2. Interview next door.
3. Leave the company

As unexpected as this was, I did know that I wasn't the best server in the world. I just don't have the confidence and personality for it (although drunk me would probably excel greatly!) I thought about my options for the last 48 hours, and decided that this could be the opportunity I've needed to get out there and start my career. However, this still puts me in a tough spot and poses the obvious question, how am I going to pay the bills while trying to find a job in my career field?

I could have gone through training again, but training isn't going to fix my anxiety and confidence issues. I could have interviewed next door, but when I really thought about it, I didn't want to be trapped again. I have a very bad habit of taking jobs purely because I need a steady income to live. Since there's steady money coming in, I just lose all ambition to look for a job that actually requires my degree. As much as I love the place, I didn't want to do that to myself again. So, with a heavy heart, I chose the third options of leaving the company.

The good news is that there are no bad feelings between me and anyone there, including management. I just wasn't cut out for serving tables, but now I don't have a job or money to pay the bills.

I panicked and went to the unemployment office to see what my options were. I was told to file for unemployment although due to the circumstances, I doubt I will be approved. None the less, I am keeping close track of everywhere I have applied for work, and I have an orientation meeting to go over everything on August 13. I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Since I am expecting to be denied, I did create a GoFundMe account with a goal of $1,000 which should be enough to hold me over until I find work again. It is really hard for me to ask for help, but I swallowed my pride and set up the campaign. I am hoping there are people out there willing to help us out, because my wife can't pay the bills alone.

The most positive aspect of all of this is that it has given me time to think about what I want in like. I stopped thinking about what would help me out now (which would be to apply to any open position anywhere,) and started thinking about what would benefit me in the long run, (applying to open positions within my intended career field.) It has also motivated the crap out of me! Just in the last 48 hours I have applied to 3 positions in my intended career field, reached out to people and created a master reference list, cleaned up my online presence (which wasn't really bad,) updated my LinkedIn profile, and updated my resume. That is more than I have done to try and find a job in my entire life (in such a short amount of time.) So all in all, this could turn out to be exactly what I needed to kick myself into gear. As stressed as I am about paying the bills, I'm proud of everything I have done within the last two days. 

It's hard struggling with depression and then losing your job, but for some reason, I have been more optimistic in the last 48 hours than I have since we graduated college, and I think that says a lot about how I'm turning this into something positive (even though I'm screaming internally about how I'm going to pay all these bills...)