2009 has been a tough year for a lot of domainers. Not just newbies but many people who would also be considered vets! Since the domain industry is small and some what of a newer industry, if you have been doing it for 5 years, you are a vet.
For me, I can say this has been the hardest year that I have been domaining. No Question!
The majority of my revenue has always been domain sales. When your main revenue dwindles, it makes you try new things, work harder and smarter.
The biggest problem, you can try a lot of things and not hit on anything to get you going the way it was before.
This is what is happening to me.
Domain sales are light.
I have tried affiliate marketing using DotWeekly as it is the busiest site that I own but domainers are known to be "cheap" and it is hard to stay on target with "domain" related topics and make some money in the process.
When I first started blogging, DotWeekly was never done to solely make money or be my main source of income. DotWeekly is about helping and I think that is why so many people enjoy it.
I also never thought that DotWeekly would end up taking up the majority of my day. I am a one man show and it is not easy to come up with things to write about, that is worth reading and coming up with these things are not always "fast".
To say the least, I have been digging, trying and testing a great deal of things to bring domain sales back up. Most deal directly with domain names, ways of listing them, single page lander for sale sites and affiliate marketing.
When your main source of income drops and you have a pretty popular site, in a way it would make sense that a site owner would focus on making money with it.
Since DotWeekly also takes up the vast majority of my day, it would make sense to be one, if not my main source of income. Sadly it is not.
You may have noticed that I have not been posting as much as I normally do and this is due partly to all my testing that I have been doing lately. We all know you need to pay the bills, so all these tests are important!
I feel like I’m rambling 
My biggest points are the following:
- When things are not working, try some new stuff
- Test and test again
- Shift priority even though it is not easy
- Keep thinking outside the box
As for me and DotWeekly.com . I can not say DotWeekly will be around forever. I can not say DotWeekly will always be solely domain name related. I do not know for sure right now because I keep testing and trying things.
Right now I have not found the right thing. I hold a great deal of passion for domain names and the domain industry, so if I find something outside of domaining, it will be hard to walk away, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.
I will have to see what happens and I will keep plugging away. Knowing when to say when is important, so I just do not want to over step that point.
Thank you again for being a DotWeekly reader. It means a lot to me and I hope you keep on the journey with me where ever it brings us. 
Leonard Britt
I can relate. With light sales, I tried some development. I enjoy working out so developed several exercise-related sites. Competition is intense however, so I still found it difficult to gain organic traffic. Light traffic means very light earnings so the motivation to continue spending time at development wanes. That doesn’t mean I stop working out. But after a few dozen pages, the basics have been covered. And the more sites you have the more difficult it is to maintain them. Some fall by the wayside.
While I still plan to develop some South Florida geos, my focus of late has been marketing domains again…
Bryun
I feel you brother… There just isn’t enough time in the day, and in your downtime, you keep thinking about what you are going to do when you get back to it… LOL… This can be very frustrating, especially when the rewards seem insufficiant. I will say this though… Dot Weekly is part of our industry, and you have made significant contributions to the domaining community. Keep at it, keep innovating, and if nothing else, be proud of what you have given us.
andy kelly
Nice post and I totally relate.
This has been a really tough year for domainers (in general). The worldwide economy hsa certainly hit a speculation driven domaining market. Like you I’m a vet (over 5yrs at it). I too have never known things so bad.
Of course impressive sales are all over the place but like you I’ve been hit by a massive drop in my core income ~ serious end user sales.
I’ve consolidated my portfolio massively. Tried some small scale development. Let many domains expire (which is unheard of for me). It used to be so easy to sell expiring domains on the forums. it’s a sign of the times when even those types aren’t shifting.
Even posting goodish quality dns on forms in the $30 – $50 bracket is like pulling teeth lol.
On the upside I do believe the market will recover but the main guess is when?
Lol you are so right when you say domainers are “cheap” most of us don’t like to spend unless we have to.
Another upside none of us ever know when our next good / great sales is coming. One day you’re in the dumps and next day you get a bite and hopefully sell at a good profit a domain you’d almost given up on.
Mike
I would say, as one piece of advice, pick a single domain for development and go nuts (rather than deving out 3 – 5 sites at a time which divides your focus). If you can get that domain ranked in the first page of Google, then you’ve got yourself a winner. Even if you can’t monetize it yourself, someone can. If you could build out and grow a single solid niche domain every 3 months, not unreasonable, I’d say you could potentially bank some decent supplemental income between domain sales. This is somewhat the trajectory I’m exploring.