My muse: thoughts?

[letsjumpnow]

Hey all,

I'll try to sum it up as quickly as possible.

I'm a college senior, and wrote/designed an insider's guide to my school. The website is www.iubguide.com. I designed the website myself, paid a friend $25 to tie up the loose ends programming, am paying $4/mo hosting fees, and have sold--I believe--eight copies since I launched the site in mid-October.

I have spent only $20 advertising on Facebook, but also had my local newspaper do a nice story (http://iubguide.com/IUBguide_tribunefeature.pdf)on it, but it surprisingly brought the site under 40 hits!

This sounds lame, but I've tried to set up a Google AdSense account, but it repeatedly won't work (I only have a debit card and perhaps it doesn't like these?). I've emailed lots of outlets in my school for possible advertising, but they all deny me because it seems schools won't touch anything to do with selling anything!

I have also tried to be a campus tour guide to schlep it to people on tours, but there are no positions open, and they're secretive about when the tours actually happen. I also tried to contact current tour guides to sell it but I think they're afraid of getting in trouble for soliciting.

I've made about $120 with it, about enough to say I've broke even, but even if I could make $500 with it, I could buy a plane ticket to Europe (and, not to mention, multiply the amount of money in my bank account 5x!).

Also, around the same time, I put up the site www.nycinternshipsuccess.com, about finding and succeeding at NYC internships. When I tried to get info on this before doing it, there was nothing out there. However, I've done NO promo for the site at all, and it's been sitting there completely unknown for five months!

Any thoughts, guys? If you have any questions, I'm glad to answer! Also, if any of you are college students, let me know - I'd like to form a little mastermind group over the long term, because I'm about to graduate in six weeks and am freaking out about how to make some money!

Alec
alecquighardworker.com

[AntonTheKhan]

Hey all,

I'll try to sum it up as quickly as possible.

I'm a college senior, and wrote/designed an insider's guide to my school. The website is www.iubguide.com. I designed the website myself, paid a friend $25 to tie up the loose ends programming, am paying $4/mo hosting fees, and have sold--I believe--eight copies since I launched the site in mid-October.

I have spent only $20 advertising on Facebook, but also had my local newspaper do a nice story (http://iubguide.com/IUBguide_tribunefeature.pdf)on it, but it surprisingly brought the site under 40 hits!

This sounds lame, but I've tried to set up a Google AdSense account, but it repeatedly won't work (I only have a debit card and perhaps it doesn't like these?). I've emailed lots of outlets in my school for possible advertising, but they all deny me because it seems schools won't touch anything to do with selling anything!

I have also tried to be a campus tour guide to schlep it to people on tours, but there are no positions open, and they're secretive about when the tours actually happen. I also tried to contact current tour guides to sell it but I think they're afraid of getting in trouble for soliciting.

I've made about $120 with it, about enough to say I've broke even, but even if I could make $500 with it, I could buy a plane ticket to Europe (and, not to mention, multiply the amount of money in my bank account 5x!).

Also, around the same time, I put up the site www.nycinternshipsuccess.com, about finding and succeeding at NYC internships. When I tried to get info on this before doing it, there was nothing out there. However, I've done NO promo for the site at all, and it's been sitting there completely unknown for five months!

Any thoughts, guys? If you have any questions, I'm glad to answer! Also, if any of you are college students, let me know - I'd like to form a little mastermind group over the long term, because I'm about to graduate in six weeks and am freaking out about how to make some money!

Alec
alecquighardworker.com


Maybe the product just isnt that good and there isnt a market for it. Don you think?

[badhank]

i think that for ur school insider thing, u should b hitting up the highschools no?
thats the main ppl interested in knowing about college. try places where highschool kids hang out, contact the pta, *wink* donate *wink* a few bucks to get them to allow you to hand out a promotional flyer to the parents.
Also i would hit up any service where ppl are searching for jobs, throw a flyer on the wall with ur site on a removable tab. the unemployed have the option of school at times.

[webgal]

Incoming freshmen. That's who would be interested. Find the orientation groups.

It's hard to read the italic subhead, by the way.

[LanguageConnector]

I like your copy! The color combination makes it a little hard to read.

I agree that freshmen would be your ideal target group. Thoughts of where to advertise:

- local hangouts (bars, etc. where they have message boards)
- real estate agencies that do most of the student housing in town (for students who live off-campus) - give them a printed copy in a nice binder to have sitting around in their offices
- registrar's office message board?
- write an article for the school newspaper about one topic covered in the book, and do a nice "resource box" at the bottom, mentioning your site and book
- find out where students who want info about the school during their decision process go online
- is there an orientation for freshmen? Be there! or open house type event?
- can you find a professor who'll endorse the book? Someone who typically teaches freshmen courses? Or an admin assistant in one of the departments? or someone at the computer lab?
- the gym message board

BTW, I lived and taught college in NYC for a few years - if you'd like me to look at your book and see if I can add anything - let me know!

[zoeinthecity]

I love your idea!

I'm Australian and would love to know the ins-and-outs of getting an internship in NYC.

That being said, i have no idea what IUB is, and i doubt that local students would want to pay for such things.
good luck!

[Stayaz]

I like the concept and would echo the comment on the color scheme, very hard to read. You may also want to craft a version that is geared towards the parents of incoming students. Keep the site you have for the students, but build out another one for parents. Think of what your value proposition is and build it for a parents perspective. You could probably generate quite a bit of traffic just by writing some articles about your guide. The good news is that searching IU bloomington only had 475k listings. It would be relatively easy to do some SEO with some good articles to get you up in the top of the google search and watch your profits skyrocket.

Good luck!