As mentioned in the latest post I started with a new project to earn a residual income. This project is writing articles for a website which shows 75% of the time my Google Adsense ads.

I write for InfoBarrel, a revenue sharing website. The idea is really simple. There are two big ads on the website and 75% of the time they show ads with the ID of the writer of the specific article. Now, the writer only needs to write articles and he will have his ads on the internet!

Really? That is all? Yup. That is really all!

Passive Income: the Intriging Aspects for Students

I got interested in this website after listening to tons of podcasts from Pat Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com. He talks a lot about how to create passive income streams to get a steady income without doing anything. Passive income is all about working hard now and chillaxing later while getting your income automatic!

As probably everybody I am interested in automatic income without doing anything. The main problem with passive income though is it takes a really long time to create. I am not going to lie to you, if you start now with creating passive income streams, you are not very likely to have a good stream of income in the upcoming year. And that is the main problem for students: we don’t need money later, we need money now. As a med student I am pretty certain of a good salary later for instance. But there is still a big reason to work on passive income anyway:

A free income stream. Not only for the near future, but for forever.

The thing with passive income is you don’t need to put any money in it right now, you can start writing articles for free right now and create some income. With that money you could start some niche sites and earn even more money.

My personal goal is earning around 100$-200$ by September 2012, most of all because I will start with residencies by then. I will be in the clinic for 3 years, without payment. Besides that the Dutch government took some measurements which make the life of students way more expensive in the upcoming years. Because I won’t have any time anymore to work side jobs, I find the idea of a passive income stream interesting!

Passive Income Stream: InfoBarrel

I started to write for InfoBarrel, a revenue sharing site. As said above, you write articles and your ads will be shown to your audience. This will result in clicks which result again in money!

Why InfoBarrel is interesting for students:

• Students have tons of knowledge. On InfoBarrel you write articles about every subject you want to write about. We have the advantage of continuously learning new information as students. You can put this information straight into an article and you will have an extra article to make money from! For instance, if you have a class and you make really good notes, it can be pretty easy to write an article from your actual notes. As we are learning everyday something new, we can share this new information and make money from it.
• It’s free to use. You don’t need a starting capital to register a domain name, no need to buy hosting, you can just start writing and start earning!
• It has a great revenue sharing model (especially if you have time). No we don’t have a lot of money as students, but most of us have free time. The good thing with InfoBarrel is that it is great if you have time. The revenue sharing model is you get 75% of the income. But if you write more articles, or write on certain topics, you can earn up to 90%! When your goals are only long term, this won’t really work for you, as you have to keep writing, but if you want to earn a buck now as well, this is better, because you have a higher chance for clicks, thus income!
• InfoBarrel has a great community. I knew something about internet marketing. I did knew a couple of things about SEO as well. But I learnt a lot in a small time frame, thanks to the community. InfoBarrel has a forum where even the top writers are sharing their secrets. The thing I love the most about the forums is how motivating they are.

Writing for InfoBarrel: What is the Next Action?

Hopefully you got enthusiast about the idea to write for InfoBarrel. But what is the next action? What do you need to do right now? Let me give some advice:

1. Sign up for InfoBarrel right now. Get an account and see what is what. Introduce yourself in the forums and enjoy the reactions.
2. Browse the forums and find some nuggets concerning keyword research and how to write for InfoBarrel. My biggest mistake with InfoBarrel is I just started to write. I had no clue about what keywords would make money and which not. I actually wrote an article about a button on Facebook and things about Barney Stinson. But if you want to write successfully for InfoBarrel you need to write articles which could make money. Things about finance for instance do good on Google Adsense, so will do pretty well on InfoBarrel as well probably! But this is a high competitive niche, so it will be hard to have a successful article. This all comes down to keyword research. I will later devote a complete article on keyword research here for you guys. A good forum post to start with is the ‘Consolidated, Ongoing, InfoBarrel 1-tip Thread‘!
3. Write articles and learn while doing! Just try something, just write and see what works or not. When you are writing more you will find what type of articles work for you and what not.
4. Don’t stop because you ‘are not earning anything. At InfoBarrel your success won’t come overnight, well, it won’t even come within two months. The articles need time to mature and you need to write more to make more money. Give it time and have a steady pace with your writing, but make sure you don’t give up!
5. Share your success here! I would love to hear from people who give it a try! I would love to help you as well with your InfoBarrel career. With over 60 articles I learned a few things. I did actually made money with it as well already, around 15$ now! Although it is not a lot, I am already really, really happy with it!

Hopefully you got interested to write for InfoBarrel. It wouldn’t harm if you just tried it out.

Please note: I used a referral link in this article. If you sign up for InfoBarrel, 2% of the time my ads will be shown on your article, which is taken off of InfoBarrel’s cut. Not yours. Besides this I can see how many people sign up. So if you sign up, I can directly friend you and therefore help you!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

College success starts with attitude. There is only one thing in life you have full control over: your attitude. Pay attention to your attitude and you will find that studying becomes easier and your grades will improve.

Towards the end of fall, when the weather starts to get darker and colder and college classes have turned into nightmares taught by evil demons it’s easy to let your attitude slip. Dorm room living can make the entire experience seem like you are stuck in some level of Dante’s Inferno. However don’t despair, here are some quick and easy tips you can use to beat the dorm room boarding blues.

• Add a few funny customized ring tones to your cell phone. Many free and inexpensive ring tones are available and there is no better way to meet new people and brighten up even the dreariest day. An added bonus is that most smart phones will let you assign different ring tones for everything from notifications to calls from special people.
• Buy a bag of mini marshmallows. Marshmallows actually have a medicinal past and they can be good for your health! Even if you don’t like hot chocolate or marshmallows it’s a sure bet some of the people on your dorm room floor will. It’s amazing how fighting over melting lumps of gelatin can instantly turn enemies into friends and brighten everyone’s mood.
• Clean up your dorm room and get organized. No matter how many classes you have, take some time to make your dorm room clean and inviting. This is where you come to rest and recharge. If your space is horrible it will most certainly affect the quality of your rest, your attitude and your studies.
• Along the same lines, get a warm, comfortable dorm room bedding set. All mammals make a nest when they sleep. If you are cold or uncomfortable in your dorm room bed there is no faster way to get the boarding blues.
• Make amends with your horrible roommate or move. By now you and your roommate either like each other or you don’t. Take an honest look at the relationship and decide if it is taking a toll on your attitude. If it is, get over and talk to your resident advisor. If they can’t or won’t do anything for you, talk to the manager of the dorm. In roommate situations the squeaky wheels get to move. Living with a gargoyle who makes it impossible for you to study is absolutely not an option.
• Use music to lighten up your mood and improve your attitude. The power of a new tune is unbeatable. Humming and singing have also been proven to improve circulation and stimulate multiple “feel good” centers in the brain. Music and radio are fantastic because they free up your hands and body to do something else. For students who spend so much time sitting and studying movement is critical for maintaining a healthy body and spirit.

Depression among young adults isn’t funny. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young adults ages 15-24. Take care of your attitude because this is your most valuable possession. Feeling glum this time of year if you live in dorm is pretty normal. Lets face it the rooms are pretty small and uncomfortable and the food is usually less than divine. However, with a good attitude you can make almost anything fun- or at least funny!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

My very dear readers of StudySuccessful! I’ve not handled this site as I should. To be honest, StudySuccessful, my baby, got to the background the last couple of months. Not because I was that busy with offline life or something (well, as well actually). I got busy with other things online, which I will share in a second.

But I am back to business. A recent guest post, The Best Music for Writing, Reading, and Studying went viral on StumbleUpon and now there is simply a big mass of readers coming to the site. (A really big mass, I almost fainted when I saw the number.) Now that is some motivation, right?

Let’s dive in what got me busy and what I have in store for you.

What Got Me Busy?

Basically it was both an online problem as it was an offline problem.

In real life the academic year started again, which is always a busy time. Starting going to lectures again, starting with a committee I am doing and some parties of course. Not a lot, but it got me busy. Besides the normal curricalar stuff I am going to do research in the psychiatric field. Research in sleep, which should bring up a ton of interesting articles, both about sleep and about doing research.

Online there is more I want to talk about. To be honest there have been two major things I have been working on. Both of these are money-generating adventures, while StudySuccessful is, in the first place, an information-sharing place, where I just want to write what interests me and what I think will interest you as well. I do earn money from this site, but not a ton. As I am going to start with my clerkships next year, where I don’t have any time for anything, I want to build up a residual income, therefore I started a couple of projects. Let’s get into them.

Revenue Sharing Site: Writing for Money

I started to write for a site called ‘InfoBarrel‘. At InfoBarrel the writers can write up articles and 75% of the time the website will show the ads of the writer and 25% of the time the ad of their own.

This site is becoming a bigger and bigger authority site on information. With over 30,000 writers and some critical admins there is being put a lot of (quality) content on that site. You can lift on the success of the site because when others are doing good, you will do better as well.

One of the most amazing things of this website is when your content is on there it will stay on forever. And even better, your ads will stay on this content as well forever! So if I write an article right now, people can still find that particular article in 3 years from now and I can generate income from it.

The thing is writing a lot for the website. If you have a lot of content you are more likely to generate traffic and therefore revenue. So I am writing a lot for this website. I have some amazing goals for October which I am, if I continue like this, am going to reach.

InfoBarrel is an amazing platform and I will talk about it a little more in the upcoming future! Check it out yourself right now, I can highly recommend the nice forums and the easy way to start writing! (If you click on this link I will earn a commission on whatever you earn (2%), of course this is paid by the admins, not by your income!)

Niche Site: Legendary Barney Stinson

You guys know I am a fan of How I Met Your Mother and in particular of Barney Stinson, one of the five main characters.

As ‘Five Things We Can Learn From the AWESOME Barney Stinson‘ continued to be one of my top posts (in traffic) on this website I decided to create a niche site out of it, called ‘Legendary Barney Stinson’. A Niche site is a website which is focused towards a niche or only one topic. StudySuccessful could fall under the ‘college’ niche, but I don’t write specific enough to think myself of a college blogger alone.

LegendaryBarneyStinson.com is a niche site. The articles only focus around our Legendary bro and nothing more. My aim with this site is to provide content about Barney Stinson with, where necessary, links to Amazon. I have a post about Barney Stinson’s Halloween Costumes for instance where I link to Amazon where you can buy the complete outfits. There are articles as well about Barney Stinson’s Bro Code and Barney Stinson’s Playbook.

Recently I started a newsletter at this site, which enable me to cater the readers even better with even more targeted articles.

One of the cool things is: I have an amazing PDF file for your in store when you sign up. 214 Quotes from the Legendary Barney Stinson! And there are more good things coming your way when you are signed up to that newsletter! (How many awesome high fives do you want? )

What Do I Have in Store Now?

So that is cool. Did I sell out? I don’t think so, I just had to focus a little more on revenue generating opportunities, most of all because I am starting my clerkships next year and also because a little extra money never hurts.

For now I have a couple of things in store. As said, I am doing research in the field of sleep, so I gained knowledge about that subject. You can expect an article about sleep soon, with real references.

Besides that I have a podcast scheduled for tomorrow! A podcast with a Dutch buddy of mine solely about Dropbox! Two nerds talking online storage for 45 minutes.

Thirdly I am going to talk a little bit more about InfoBarrel soon, revenu sharing sites are really interesting for college students and a great way to earn some passive income!

That is it for now. I know Darren Rowse from ProBlogger says you should never excuse yourself for not being as up to date as you should be, but I feel good I told all of this. I think being honest can make the SSF community even more awesome!

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

Dear readers,

With 2010 being almost at the end, it is time for some reflection. If there is one mantra for StudySuccessful, it probably will something be like ‘Evaluate and Improve Yourself’. So let’s do that a little in this Christmas letter from me, Stefan Knapen, author of StudySuccessful.com to you, the reader of this blog!

The year has been good, very good, to this blog. I had a vision in the beginning of the year, I wanted to make a ‘business’ out of my internet experience, earn big bucks and learn the Cloud Living internet-lifestyle. Did that work out? Not so much, of course not. Not a problem at all, I’ve learned a lot in the past year, about blogging, about internet marketing and about Studying Successful. I’ve finished my first year as a medical student and I am currently busy with organising an international medical student conference. (By the way, if you are doing research in the medical field, I can definitly recommend this conference to you. One of the biggest in the world with student presentations and 4 keynote lectures. I can tell you two of those keynote lectures will be given by Nobelprize winners!). Besides all of this I am still enjoying my life. I’ve had a lot of fun with friends, with my girlfriend and just general in everything I do. I can call myself a happy person.

StudySuccessful has also grown in the past year. Last year with Christmas, I was pleased to announce the new lay-out, which I still use. It is the Thesis theme, one of the easiest and most professional looking themes there currently is. This site has now close to 200 posts, remember the 100th post? That was also the post where I released my first ebook! ‘9 ways to get motivated for college‘. The ebook has been downloaded around 350 times, which I find nothing but a great compliment.

Besides the ebook, at the end of the summer I’ve also launched my first video course! It is called ‘Successful Students Motivational Course‘, which contains the ebook, a workbook and 6 videos of me talking to you about motivation for college. This course is a short, but surefire way to get motivated for college. I don’t have the exact numbers, but after putting the course up, there have been a lot more newsletter subscriptions!

A couple of weeks ago I’ve also shared my report on how to start a blog as a student. In the short time it is up right now it has been already downloaded 110 times! I am really proud of it. If anybody has taken this advice to the next level and actually started a blog, shoot me an email, I would love to see it!

But the best of all this year has been helping you, the readers. I’ve had a ton of emails with questions, wonderings and thoughts. That is where I feel I am the most lucky with having a blog. Helping people. Launching ebooks/courses is great of course, but actually helping somebody, really direct, through an email, makes me feel REALLY happy. So please, keep the questions coming, I love to answer them.

I’ve had a fantastic year. StudySuccessful as well. I hope to continue on this in 2011, I hope that I can keep coming up with great content, great materials to help you succeeding in college life. How has your year been, let me know in the comments!

Dear reader, thanks for the past year, I hope we can have a great year in 2011. Next post will be a ‘normal’ post again, but I just needed to reflect a little. Underneath you can find the most popular posts in 2011, I hope you can enjoy them again.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Newyear.

Kind regards,

Stefan Knapen, http://StudySuccessful.com

###

Top 5 posts from 2010:

1. 100th post: Ebook!
2. Cornell Notes: How to take good notes
3. 12 tips to get productive
4. Why rewards suck: A guide to intrinsic motivation
5. The Ultimate Guide to Speedreading

With my new Flip Video I want to make more videos. This includes Do It Yourself videos on how to make easy things which would cost you a lot when you bought it in an actual store. This will be the first video.

Having a laptop stand can really increase your notebook-experience. For one thing, the laptop has a nice little angle which makes working on it looks a little bit more cooler. Besides that, the laptop stand will hold your laptop cooler! Which is good again for the laptop. But the stands are awful when you have to buy it in a store, around 20$ for a simple stand? I don’t think so. Here I will show to you how you make an easy laptop stand yourself. From nothing but wine corks! Have fun.

Any thoughts? Please share it in the comments!

Everybody faces fears and frustrations in college. Whether it is a fear for the upcoming final or a frustration of the mark you got back which was totally uncalled for! There are always frustrations about college and frustrations are solvable.

And that is what I want to do. I want to help you conquering and rocking the college experience! In order to do so, I want to give the full 100% to my readers. You are the guys who have supported me for a long time. After almost one and a half year of blogging I can only say I am really grateful of what I have got so far from my readers and from everything blogging can give to you.

Now, I want to take that to a higher level

I want to give more specific advice to you guys and girls. I want to talk about things that are bothering you! In order to do so, I would like you to share your frustration, fear or problem you are having in college. Where do you want to know more about? What is something that is bothering you for a long time, please share it with me.

How?

Ok, you’ve 3 options here.

1. You can contact me. Visit the contact page, shoot me an email and I will respond.
2. Share it in the comments. If you want to share your comment in the comments, it might actually become a nice discussion not only between you and me, but also between other readers as well. I am sure there is way more knowledge on your side of the screen than on mine. Especially combined!
3. Use this nice little form. This form requires you one thing: just type. If you are shy, please use this form. I want to know problems which I can solve in blog posts or videos. If you just post your problem, fear or frustration, that is enough for me! You can’t get a free consultation though.

Free consultation

Let’s take this seriously to the next level. If you have a problem/frustration/fear, let’s talk about it. Send me an email or comment on this post (I will have your email as well in that way) and we can connect. I can give you a little 15-minute skype call about your problem and we can discuss it. Make sure you can handle my slightly Dutch accent though!

So, please share your frustration/fear/problem in the comments or shoot me an email. Or, of course, use the form below if you don’t want to be shown public (something I can understand!). If you are leaving your contact details somehow I will get in contact with you in the upcoming week and we can schedule a little meeting to talk about your problem! If you have just a tip to share, you can also contact me! I am in for anything, I wanna contact with you!

Please share the things that are bothering you in college life. Awesomeness is awaiting.

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

Have you ever watched ‘Field of dreams‘? This movie is a lot discussed in How I Met Your Mother, Barney Stinson is a big fan of it. If you have, great job, you will understand the upcoming post way better. If you haven’t, read on anyway, I’ll try to explain.

The voice inside
Ray is told (by his cornfield) to ‘build it and he will come’. Ray doesn’t have any idea on what to build and on who will come. And suddenly he sees it in front of him. He needs to build a baseball field and shoeless Joe Jackson will come. He suddenly sees what the voice was telling him, what he needed to do.

Do you ever here these kind of voices? Maybe not with that specific assignments, but with something you need to do. Maybe you don’t even here a voice, but you have a certain feeling. Do you ever listen to that feeling? And if you do, was the feeling right? It probably was.

That is instinct. And instinct is somehow right, most of the times. When you make a multiple choice test, you should always pick the answer which you feel it is the most likely. And if you check your test afterwards, and you see something you want to revise, you always correct it wrong! Instinct is a strange thing.

Call it instinct, call it ‘the cornfield’, try to listen to it more often, it might be telling something and it might be telling you something useful! I want to learn a lot more about this subject, if you have recommendations for me (and the rest of the readers), please share it in the comments!

This is a guest post by Lauren, also want to send in a guest post? Visit the contact page!

Whenever I go to a bar or other social gathering place in which it is typical to be approached by men, I am aghast at how terrible some guys are at hitting on girls. Freud and just about every man have wondered since the beginning of time, “What do women want?” Well I’m here to clear up some things and tell you what the deal is, if only to put an end to the seemingly unstoppable tsunami of cheesy pick-up lines and desperate attempts made by men everywhere.

1. Don’t be so transparent. To me, the biggest turn off is obvious intentions. If you approach a woman with a cheesy compliment, or if you make it apparent that you are trying to hit on her, then your chances of success plummet. Trust me.
2. Be interesting. Some men think that if they’ve got good looks, they don’t even have to try. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. While it is not advisable to try too hard, the best way to approach a girl is with an interesting conversation topic. Don’t come off as conceited, but don’t just stand there either.
3. Listening is sexy. Once you’ve started a conversation, it is imperative that you ask a girl what she thinks, and then you actually have to listen. There’s nothing sexier than a guy who listens and responds.
4. Touch, but be subtle about it. Women really like being touched. And when I say “touch”, I don’t mean “grope”. The gentle shoulder graze, or lightly tapping the girl’s knee when making a point in conversation–these are all great, indirect ways of making physical contact without being creepy about it.
5. Teasing always works. Once you’ve made some headway in terms of conversation, humor is the best way to make women comfortable. Making fun of yourself and gently making fun of the girl are great flirting strategies. Girls love a guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Even though it may seem slightly counterintuitive, teasing a girl without insulting her is a legitimate way to become intimate with someone quickly.
6. Finally, don’t try so hard. Many enterprising young men approach women with the ultimate objective of–to use the old euphemism–”scoring”. While this can be a noble goal in and of itself, putting on the goal-scoring blinders can inadvertently give you tunnel vision to such an extreme extent that you’ll end up failing. If you go in with the simple goal of having pleasant conversation, you’ll at the very least leave with a solid acquaintance, perhaps even a long-term friendship. And, who knows–if you don’t try so hard, you may just end up achieving some sort of physical gratification.

Now of course, these are just basic tips, and they aren’t meant to be read as a manifesto on approaching every single woman in existence. Successfully approaching a woman is highly contextual, so different situations will call for different strategies. These tips, however, are just general guidelines that will hopefully help you get the foot in the door. The best advice I can offer you is pretty simple–be confident, and be kind.

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who writes on the topics of online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99[at]gmail[dot]com.

Next?	Stefan Recommends
View the StudySuccessful homepage.	9 ways to get motivated for college – The ebook by Stefan Knapen (free)
More on the author.	Learn More, Study Less – Relearn learning
Get in touch.

It’s friday! So time for a couple of quick links. You have probably a couple of college sites in your Google Reader already (if you haven’t check my post on 5 great college blogs), but have you seen these college blogs before? Relatively new, but making their way to the top soon. Click them, check them, subscribe to them.

• Collegethrive. Tips, advice and resources! Ran by Dan Northern, who had a guest post over here not that long ago!
• CampusByte. Study skills & New technology. Ran by Jay Willingham.
• Pre-med Hell. Rants of Neurotic Pre-Meds. A college blog devoted to pre-meds, pretty awesome!
• Discusscampus. College questions and answers. Not that much of a blog, but a site where you can ask questions and answer questions from others.

Heard about them before or a blog you miss over here? Share it in the comments!

April 30th! Happy Queensday everybody. Huh? What do you mean?

Alright, I am Dutch, which means I am from the Netherlands. And that is a really small country, we are not the capital of Germany or something, we are not Denmark, we are a country and we are doing a pretty good job economically.

But the best part about being Dutch is the day op April 30th. That is a national holiday. We celebrate the birthday of our Queen (she is born on January 28th though). We do that in several ways.

Queensnight
The night before Queensday, we have parties already. We call that ‘prince-night’ and I don’t know why. According to a lot of people of my age (19), that is the best night to party, as it isn’t that crowded yet.

Queensday
The holiday itself. I am going to Amsterdam this year, to celebrate it over there. Festivals all over the place. The biggests artists are performing in several places all over the country. Kids are selling there stuff at some sort of garage-sale, but than on the street. That phenomenon is called ‘vrijmarkt’ and it is a big part of the day itself. The Queen will visit a place in the country somewhere (last year at my place, awesomeness!) and there will be even more festivities!

So I will be in Amsterdam, there are several places for parties. ‘Leidseplein’ will be featuring artists this year and ‘Museumplein’ will be featuring DJ Tiesto! I will be probably just stand there, in the crowd, drinking a little beer and heading back home not that late. That is because of the night.

The night
That is the night when EVERYBODY is going out. Everybody is going to bars and clubs. So it will be really, really crowded. Fun, when you are 16, but not that fun, when you are 19. Because there will be a lot of people aged 16. Queensnight is always the same, drunk people everywhere and the fighting starts around 1AM, that is why I don’t like it! But we will see what happens tonight.

I hope you understand a little bit more about Queensday right now. Let me just say it is really, really fun, mostly because it is a day for the Dutch people only and a day the Dutch people only will understand. Follow the hashtag #QD10 to see what happens. Happy Queensday everybody!