Happy Pencil by digitalart

Frankly, I’ve never done terribly well with sales lenses.  Any sales I do make seem to come unexpectedly and infrequently and I do think some of that is to do with the fact that, until recently, I haven’t been very comfortable with them.  I write because I must – it is a compulsion that every other writer will well understand.  So to then turn writing lenses into pure sales lenses was rather anarchronistic for me.

Yet there is no denying that there has been a huge shift into product or sales lenses on Squidoo and that they are earning people money.   At first I did a few, mainly I confess as part of Rocketmoms challenges.  none of them have been particularly good but I’ve made a few sales here and there.  Then I actually bought a few.   My thinking behind that influenced partly by the fact that I am in the UK while the major market audience is North American, so buying lenses froman American who knew the markets seemed perfect sense.

So far so good – we’re on a learning curve here folks.  I have now reached to point when I confess I just don’t like doing the promotional work involved in getting products lenses up the rankings and seen by search engines.  In fact I quite resent the time it takes me away from what I really want to be writing about – and – STILL I only make a sale here and there.  It wasn’t a big leap to try to sell off some of the product lenses, mainly to get my money back really if I am honest.  And sell they did – so much so that I made more money in one evening than I have made in the whole 2 years I have been on Squidoo.

Hence, the birth of my latest niche account – Product Lenses For Sale.    The lenses I bought were all $5 each and incredible value but I find that I need to put a slightly higher value on my time than that, so, apart from the occasional bargain in the basement, my lenses will start at $10.   Those represent starter lenses, they have all the necessary elements of good lenses, they even have some backlinks, but they need some TLC to personalise them when they are transferred.

The lenses then go up in levels according to the amount of time I spend on them, how much content to sales there is, how many backlinks I take the time to do and how they are doing in the rankings.  Lenses will shift between levels, for example, I may spend time  giving a starter lenses some of said TLC and it will move up a level.  Equally, I expect seasonal lenses will drop in the tiers and so they will drop a level in price too.

I’m also excited to be able to offer ‘bundles’ of lenses.  I recently sold one set which had a ‘main’ lens and 4 linking lenses and thought that would make a great service, so I will be developing that as I go along.

Presently all the lenses for sale appear on one lens – Product Lenses For Sale - later if that begins to look too busy, I may separate the levels out.

I realise there are  a growing number of people offering lenses for sale for $5 but I am sticking to my guns.  I really believe my work is worth more than that, even my starter lenses have something going for them.   I’ve discovered I really enjoy doing the research for product lenses and I hope that will come over in what I am offereing.  Do come over, take a look, and you tell me.