Zen and the Art of Making Money Online

Dreaming of retirement to a sunny island? Visions of vast riches lying just beyond your grasp? Think you deserve better than the 9-to-5 treadmill?

You've heard stories of self-made millionaires whose online enterprises have made their dreams real! You've read tales of fat rewards reaped by sparkly-toothed go-getters who sit at home or on the beach, type a bit and watch the coins roll in.

You want to join them! Of course you do!

It is human nature to be lazy. There's no point in quibbling over this simple truism. Reality is as it is, and if offered a choice between working a ten-hour factory shift and dinner at Claridges there will be no prizes for guessing which option would prove the most popular.

Can you feel the call of elegant living? Do you wake in the morning and groan because it's Monday? Did you watch The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin and not understand why this TV program was branded as a comedy when you knew full well it was a serious social commentary on the plight of the weary worker?

Do you spend your working days with your eyes on the slowly-ticking clock and your heart already out of the door? Do you look forward to retirement if only so you can call your life your own once more, free from the drudgery which is the lowly lot of the wage slave?

There is hope! Other people have done it and so can you!

You too can have it all!  Money!  Fast cars!  Big house!  Three big houses!  Pristine yacht! Horses!  Someone to clean up after the horses!  Indoor pool with optional jacuzzi bubbles! Leisure!  A waistline! (Oh, hang on, that's going too far.  After all, if you want to laze around you have to make some sacrifices.)

Want to learn how? Read on!

• Fake it till you make it! You need not have any talent or have actually done anything worthy of genuine celebration. Many of those familiar faces which beam from magazine front covers or the TV screen haven't let such minor details keep them from fame and fortune.
• Grab an audience! Getting rich usually requires that people give you money in return for something of yours. First of all, you have to get their attention. You could start by opening a HubPage site and writing Hubs which generate an interested audience. Other options may include abseiling naked down ancient monuments.
• Make em' laugh!  Why do people browse the internet? Just like you, they're bored with feeding data into an Office program and want something funny to help them survive until the next coffee break. 
• Share secrets!  Or at least give that impression that you might. For example, many Hubs on money-making simply repeat, in a more verbose manner, Hubpage's own information about how to make money through Adsense, Ebay, Amazon Associates or Kontera. (See, there're five Google-friendly keywords in that last sentence alone!)  Don't ever share genuine secrets to wealth, as this will only flood your niche with unwelcome competition.
• Use keywords!  Such as rich, money, millionaire, pots of gold, filthy lucre, dollars, yen, pound sterling, deutschmark, krugerrand, cash, bullion, get rich quick schemes, personal finance, silver, platinum, gold card, dosh, et al.  (Note:  'et al' is not a keyword.)
• Hubs about money! Most of the top-earning Hubs are about how to make money online. Now why is this, if not because so many people dream of sitting on a sunny patio, sipping something cold and tasty, while they miraculously earn money without effort? Write about money, even if your track record at actually earning any is dire. Few readers will bother to verify your credentials.
• Form an exclusive club! Once you've got your captive audience good and hungry, slavering at the prospect that you might share the magic Instant Wealth Pill with them, let them think they're part of a unique and select band of people. Members, and only members, will be in with a chance of learning the recipe for your unique Instant Wealth Pill.
• Don't make promises you can't keep! Otherwise people tend to sue and then you'd be poor again or sewing mail bags - and where's the fun in that?

When your protracted and exhaustive struggles to earn money have come to little, there is one foolproof way of helping yourself.

_{Get useful qualifications, then get a worthwhile job.}