Does a 4 hour work week sound like an inconceivable dream to you? Tim Ferriss, author of the bestselling book The 4 Hour Work Week, doesn’t think so. The man is living the dream. He’s living my dream. What would you do if you could escape the 9-5 job, live anywhere, do anything, and join the ‘new rich’?

Matt Propst suggested I pick up The 4 Hour Work Week from Amazon. I checked it out (here) and decided to buy a copy.

I’m only about 4 chapters in so I can’t give you a thorough review just yet, but from what I’ve read it’ going to be a very interesting read. What Ferriss is telling the readers is that you can be rich even if you only make $50,000 a year. Making 50k a year but being able to do what you want, when you want, and where you want is more valuable than someone who makes $250k a year but works 70 hours a week and is on call 24/7. Which life would you rather have?

The book promises to teach you how to focus on your goals and not waste time dilly dallying around (something I have a problem with).

It preaches that we need to outsource our work so we can take adventures and plan mini-retirements. Why wait until your 65 years old to start having fun? Start living life on your own terms and pick up his book.

YPN is looking for that competitive edge over Google. And it looks like they may have found it. Yahoo Publisher Network was down last night for 3 hours due to updates. Come to find out this morning that what they were updating was an additional means to be paid. Enter Paypal.

I plan to stick with direct deposit. I’d rather have my money instantly. Why add a middle man? I can understand why they wanted to add PayPal though. A lot of webmasters use Paypal as a way to hold their money for transactions. We buy and sell links, sites, and content with Paypal so we don’t have to send other people checks or cash. It’s almost like buying stuff if fake money.

Another reason why YPN is adding PayPal as a payment method is probably to compete with Google’s own version of Paypal. In the future, Google will have their own Paypal and will probably offer payouts through it. I don’t know, but maybe they already do have this? By Yahoo jumping in with PayPal they are sticking it to Google. Tons of webmasters would rather have money put into PayPal than have a check sent to them.

These are probably steps towards Yahoo’s end of beta. When Yahoo officially opens their doors to international folks.

This blog post is proudly sponsored by Screen Listing, a new directory from our friend at KingNomar.com

I have a new website in the works. Starting this one from scratch. Already have the domain. Already have the site files loaded.. I just need to start adding the content. This type of site is a new venture for me. I going into the unknown world of affiliate marketing.

I’m going to be reviewing products in Wordpress format and then giving a buy this product link at the bottom of each post. Similar to how Bob runs Think Computers, except mine won’t be nearly as developed and in depth as Bob’s. My site will be very simple. A paragraph or two about the product plus a nice picture and the buy it link.

I haven’t decided yet on if I want to promote this site through adwords or not. I Think I’ll try to get organic traffic in the beginning and see how that goes.

My biggest obstacle right now is getting back into CJ. For some reason the disable my account due to inactivity. I guess if you don’t login in 60 days or something then your account gets disabled. The thing is, I couldn’t find a way to reactivate it. And when I tried to make a new account of course they tell me my info is already in use. So I’ll have to work around that and perhaps place a phone call.

So like I said, the site is already up. I just need to ad one or two reviews to it before I post it here on my blog for the world to see. Stay tuned!

Valueclick Media reviewed my appeal yesterday afternoon and accepted me back into their network! Yay!!! VCM is an excellent compliment to my network. A couple hundred dollars back in the bank.

Lessons learned:

• Have a backup CPM network
• Don’t accept a termination without asking for an appeal
• Read the TOS even if it’s 20 pages long
• Don’t give ad companies an email address you never check

I have not heard from ValueClick Media yet regarding my banning. They did not reply to the emails I sent. I attempted to give them a call at their corporate offices, but I don’t think the receptionist understood what I was calling about. She forwarded me to some Director of Operations and I just left him a voicemail. There’s no way he’s calling me back though.

I think it’s crappy they don’t have a tech support phone number on their website. If any of you know what it is, please post it in comment.

As for now, I replaced VCM with Azoogle, but it’s not performing well at all. Over the 3 day weekend I only made $13, which is about 1/3 of what I would have made on VCM. $13 is better than nothing, but it doesn’t make me happy.

I received some bad news yesterday regarding my network. Valueclick Media, my second largest source of income behind Yahoo Publisher Network, canceled my account. This puts a huge dent in my monthly earnings and will force me to rethink how I do online business. VCM made up almost 40% of my total online earnings.

The removal from their program was not some random act against innocent people, like Google and Yahoo are known to do. Without knowing it, I was infact breaking a rule in their terms of service. According to ValueClick Media you are not allow to place ads at the bottom of your page (in the footer). I did not know that. Like most people, I chose not to read the 50 page user agreement. I just clicked ‘I agree’ without reading anything. And now I’m paying for it.

The worst thing about this is that the infraction came from a website that I don’t even own anymore.

I replied to the ValueClick support email they sent me with a plea for an appeal. I stated my case and asked them to check my other sites in my VCM account to see that the rules infraction was an isolated incident and not something I did knowingly. Hopefully they will hear me out and give me another chance.

Historically, appeals with big ad companies don’t fare to well. Just read the Google and Yahoo forums on DigitalPoint. I’m hoping that VCM is different. If I don’t get an email response by 3:00-4:00 PM today, I plan to call them to see if I can talk to someone directly.

And here’s a bit of irony… A few days ago I almost purchased a couple hundred dollars worth of VCM shares on the stock market. If I did pull the trigger I would have been really pissed knowing a company that I own banned me.

Moral of the story: Read the freakin TOS.