Put that curiosity and penchant for technology to good use, and learn some methods to make money!

Internet Marketing

You should know first of all that internet marketing is likely one of the fastest-growing interests, but it has a high rate of failure. A lot of people never invest the time needed to succeed, never treat it like a business, or simply don’t understand how people’s attitudes to buying online work.

It’s my belief that geeks may just have a slight advantage here. Often, we are quite likely to buy online ourselves, so if we step back and critically think about marketing and human psychology, we can understand the buying triggers behind our own decisions and use this to help other people.

Geeky or not, a lot of internet marketers genuinely enjoy helping people. We’re often great at digging up information, cures, and solutions, so an example of an internet marketing product you could get into is creating your own information products and selling them. There are a lot of options and almost limitless niches, so you’ll have to research how to find a niche, write a product, and run an ecommerce site for digital products first.

Website Design and Techie Skills

There are plenty of people who hate doing “techie” things. It’s amazing how many people will pay others just to take care of fixing problems, installing new plugins or themes on WordPress, coding HTML sites, and other relatively simple tasks.

If you’re one of those people who actually enjoy these kinds of tasks, it can be a fun way to make some extra money on the side. Advertise your services and try to attract repeat clients who use you for all their technology skill-related needs.

General Computer Skills

You might not be so keen on designing websites or fixing them, but you still might be better at some aspect of computers than a non-geek who only just started to learn how to use a computer. If you’ve ever been complimented on how well you can fix Windows errors, how fast you type, or how patient you are, have you considered teaching people computer skills?

This is a fantastic way to help other people upgrade their employability and skills while making some change for yourself. You do have to be patient and resist the urge to say, “Here, give me that mouse, I’ll do it,” every time your student runs into an issue. Teaching them the “why” as well as the “how” can help them understand issues and solve them on their own next time.

Non-Computer Geeks

Don’t worry, I’m well aware that there are plenty of geeks who don’t really obsess over computers or technology glitches. Maybe you obsess over knitting, anime, or something else entirely; if this is the case, you still might be able to turn a profit from your interests.

See if anyone is eager to learn what you know. Teaching or tutoring others about the things you’re passionate about is immensely satisfying and relatively easy if you know what you’re doing! If your skills involve creation of things (digital or not), you can sell what you make or even the knowledge of how to make it (knitting patterns are a booming trade, or so I’ve heard).

Be Creative!

If you just can’t find a job anywhere else, or you want some spare change and have some spare time, think of how your geek status enables you to do, know, or be something that challenges others. You may just hit upon a goldmine.

Been There, Done That?

Have you ever tried to make money from your interests before? How did it go?

Are you interested in learning more about the topic, or are you happy to leave your interests as hobbies and not income-generating activities?

Stationery doesn’t have to be terrible pens you lifted from your workplace or boring sheets of lined paper that make you remember school and start rocking back and forth in a self-calming manner. There are some people who are very fussy about the stationery they use, and this post is my attempt to pay tribute to them while explaining why this is so fascinating to those out of the loop.

World-Famous Stationery

Until I stumbled on the stationery flavor of geekiness (and, I’ll admit, adopted it just a bit myself), I wasn’t aware that the Bic pen I got from the dollar store was any different from a high-end metal pen with doodads attached. But apparently there’s a world of difference!

For instance, those spiral-bound notebooks aren’t the only option for recording ideas, notes, rants, poems, or anything else you need to remember. A lot of people swear by Moleskines, and there’s an equally devoted and fierce crowd of supporters for other brands who swear theirs are better. Who’d have known?! I just got my first Moleskine, and I’ll let you know if it lives up to expectations. (Psst… if you like hard drive hacks, check this out! I think it looks awesome and classy.)

Then there are world-famous pen brands, like Midori (which also sells a lot of famous paper) and Mont Blanc, just to name a few brands. Let’s not even get into the famous brands for highlighters, rulers, stickers, paper, and just about everything else in your home office.

Making Your Own Stationery

With such amazing laser printers available at home now, and with there being a strong chance you have a fairly or very good printer yourself, this is an option I couldn’t resist recommending. What could be more awesome, after all?

With the fact that you can print just about anything you like on a piece of stationery, you can customize to your heart’s content with home printing or by having a stationery designer do it for you. If you want to reference memes, Rickroll people by letter, or add witty quotes from well-known geeks, go ahead!

There are plenty of applications you can use to do this, from Microsoft Word to Photoshop and InDesign, depending on how much time you have to invest in your stationery creation and whether you’re really super-serious about it.

If you’re up for a challenge, try making your own personalized stationery with some kind of logo or motif that appears on all the pieces (envelope, letter, notepad, etc).

Just Plain Geeky Stationery

There are a lot of stationery makers who moonlight as geeks, and the existence of Paper Wheel Press proves it. After all, they’ve produced one of the best “I’m sorry” cards I’ve ever seen. Check it out here. Brilliance.

And I want to get these w00t postcards…

A quick Etsy search for geeky stationery turns up so very much more, and that’s just the beginning… (Try searches for “geek card” and “geek notebook” if you don’t believe me.)

What About You?

Are you a stationery geek, and if so, did I do a good job portraying a little bit of your geeky world? What famous brands or ways of bringing geeky back to the dark ages before computers do you think everyone should try?

If you’re not a geek about stationery, are you at all picky about what you use, or do you just grab whatever comes to hand?

As I write this, it’s 3:13 am.  This is the third night in a row that I’ve been up past 3 am working on the site.  My eyeballs are dried out, my brain is fried, and I’d sleep if I could stop the lines of PHP from floating through my brain like the Matrix.

At least tonight I’ll make it to bed before DaveTheGame wakes up for work.

First, let me tell you a bit about why the change happened in the first place.

The Goals

• Put the business face of GDG forward. Since I’m currently a full-time writer, I needed to be sure that I was promoting my services to newbies to the site.  As it was, the blog was front and center and the services were kind of a side note.
• Have a theme that’s currently supported. While I loved Justin Tadlock’s Structure theme, we were outgrowing it and it’s no longer being updated or supported.

Pros and “Cons”

Pros

• StudioPress is amazing.  Not only do they have great themes, they have utterly fantastic tutorial videos and a very active support forum.  Many thanks to SoZo for putting up with my questions!
• Because of the facts listed above, I was able to do the majority of the work on the site myself rather than spending money (or hounding friends).
• J and I feel the site retains the vibe of GDG but improves upon the design and layout.  What do you think?

“Cons”

• I apologize in advance if you hate change, especially if you’re the type of person who thrives on the status quo.   Unfortunately, I’m the type of person who believes there’s always room for improvement, and this change was a long time comin’!
• There are going to be people who miss having the box on the top right with the Recent Posts, Popular Posts, and Categories.  You’ll be glad to know that the featured boxes on the home page show the most recent 6-9 posts, with thumbnails and excerpts!  You’ll also find your familiar Recent Posts widget in the sidebar of all posts.
• You’ll notice a few new widgets promoting our services or particular blog posts or features.  Please also notice that all other advertisements are at a bare minimum.  We like it that way and we hope you do, too.

Code Monkeys, I Bow Down To You

I’ve learned a lot in the past couple weeks, mainly that I have no business being a code monkey.  What probably would have taken you four hours of work has taken me many, many sleepless nights.

But in true geek fashion, I pressed on because it was important for me to learn something.

And I have.  I’ve learned a ton about CSS and PHP.  I’ve also learned that if I can afford it, I’m hiring a code monkey next time so my site can get redone in 1/16th of the time while I’m sipping iced tea and planning my Eberron campaign.

What Do You Think?

Poke around the new digs for a while and come back here to let us know what you think.  We’re pretty stoked about the new look, but open to feedback – and bug reports! -  from our dear geeky readers.

Let’s just start this by saying that I adore both Chatty DM and Men with Pens.

(…I’m beginning to think my calling is to move to Canada!)

Either way, the Drive-by-Shooting is a blog consult where Harry and James of MWP go to your blog and basically shoot as many holes into it as the possibly can. It’s actually a pretty scary thought (which is why I haven’t signed up… yet), so I applaud Phil for rolling high in testicular fortitude.

Here’s the post where Musings of the Chatty DM gets shot up… and here is Phil’s response at Chatty DM.

I think that every blog has something that needs to be improved. Heck, I can find things in Men with Pens’ design that I don’t like! A big chunk of design is personal preference, but I agree with Harry and James that a larger chunk is usability. The best content in the world will be overlooked if your blog is hard to navigate.

I wrote a giant post in Phil’s comments about the drive-by and it gotten eaten by a 404 monster. *sniffle* I will try a dramatic re-creation here:

• Cartoons = Bad
  • I disagree! I far prefer to have a “face” to connect to a blog rather than a generic image. In instances where the blogger does not wish to show his or her face to the world, what’s wrong with an avatar? Besides, I think the ‘toon versions of Chatty and myself are pretty darn sexy!
• Comments Placement
  • I’m with them there, Phil. The comment link does need to be at the bottom of the post. We want to comment after reading the awesome post!
• RSS buttons
  • I think this is an easy fix – why not change the color of the bar to dark blue so the orange pops out more?
• Color Scheme
  • I love your color scheme! It’s very soothing and calming and lets me focus on the content rather than “bling” trying to draw my eyes elsewhere.
• Overall
  • The most important thing, Phil? You have great content. That’s what’s going to keep us coming back. That’s what’s going to make other bloggers link to you. Keep up the good work, we love ya.

So I’m a little too scared to ask for Men with Pens drive-by at the moment… so I’ll ask my readers – is there anything about Geek’s Dream Girl that you think should be changed or tweaked?