There is a contest going on between John Chow (Chow’s prizes) and ShoeMoney (Shoe’s Prizes) to see who can get the most subscribers by the end of the month. Before the contest started, ShoeMoney already had a few more subscribers than John Chow. Since the month is midway through now and the numbers are getting close, both sides have stepped it up with their own promotions and contests. The most recent contest promotion is a massive one from ShoeMoney, where he has received over $13,000 worth of prizes. Most of them being ebooks, reviews or services. I decided to throw in a prize of my own to the contest as well. You can win this sweet limited edition Spiderman statue valued at $100! (I can’t think of anyone better to represent this blog) If I was entering the contest, this is the prize I would be aiming for!

Who will win the contest in the end? We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, feel free to join either or both of these great feeds. New winners will be selected from John Chow and Shoemoney throughout the month.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnChowDotCom
http://feeds.feedburner.com/shoemoney

Looking for even more contest fun? Don’t forget, I’m still giving away plenty of Free Conference Passes to Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas during February 2008. This prize is valued at $949 and attending this event will change the way you do business online forever!

Enter to Win "Zac’s Free Affiliate Summit Pass!

Last year around this time I was telling myself that I wanted to make sure I had a Halloween site up and running before Halloween the next year. Well, a year later and I never got around to making my awesome Halloween site like I planned… however starting an awesome blog instead will just have to do! So last year I was looking for a really cool costume and found an amazing Spiderman Costume on eBay. The quality was awesome and it was really expensive, I think it ended up around $1000. The costume was designed in Japan and he sold a decent amount of them through eBay.

Last year was my girlfriend’s last year at Rutgers and we always went to the Halloween Let’s Make a Deal show. This time around I ended up winning for the BEST COSTUME! I won a $250 gift card to Target and a free George Foreman grill. It was great to win, because it paid for some of the costume cost! Unfortunately the costume is a little small, so I don’t get to wear it as much as I like… though it was fun to run around the local mall and get thrown out!

With the new Spiderman 3 movie coming out this year, I’m sure we will see even more Spiderman costumes, and plenty of Black Spidey costumes too! The marketing on that movie is insane. Even the Dollar Store is loaded up with Spiderman candy and cheap toys. It’s amazing how much money is being made, everywhere you look someone is cashing in!

My blog has been receiving a decent amount of traffic from Google based on "Spiderman" image related searches. I have not monetized the blog for this type of traffic, but I’m sure it’s a very profitable niche to be in… not to mention you could have some fun with it. Here are a few of the past posts I’ve had on Spiderman.

- 8 Facts About Zac Johnson
- Spiderman Returns
- I’m Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman!
- Zac Gets a Call from SpiderMan

Let’s see if I can get listed #1 for "Spiderman Costume" and cash in on the Halloween traffic. Have you cashed in on any Halloween traffic and what are you looking to dress up as this year?

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For any visitors looking for a Spiderman Halloween Costume, please refer to the costumes below.

A lot of us bloggers are writing and spending a lot of time on our blogs, so much that it has become a passion more than a hobby or part/full time job. We talk about our lives, marketing strategies and share stories of how to make money online… something others would charge endless amounts for, and that people are paying! In the end though, we all keep writing, but are really only in touch with a few of our readers. How many RSS subscribers do you have, but your daily traffic is so much higher? How many RSS subscribers do you have, but your comment postings are so much lower? I love to write about how to make money online, my experiences with online marketing over the past 10 years and I also like to throw in some lifestyle posts about becoming Spiderman or my recent trip to Atlantic City. So, in the end… who’s really reading your blog?

I was checking out my latest postal mail the other day and saw an envelope from Hilton Casino Resort. My first response to Reena was, "Yes!  Another promotion or invite to pick up something sweet on our next visit!". I handed the envelope to Reena and I went through the rest of the pile real quick. Reena started to read me the letter and it said the following:

This was certainly a surprise! Not only did this Casino Senior Host go out of their way to contact me, but the letter was completely hand written. I’m flattered enough that they managed to find and come across my blog, then went to further look up my information to send the letter. (I did a little research and found that I’m #1 on Google for "Gambling at Caesars", so this may have been how they came across my blog)

As much as I ran about the bad parking garage and the poor rooms at Resorts, their staff and player loyalty always seems to outweigh everything else. I was just at Resorts again this weekend and picked up my free four piece luggage set! I didn’t stay over, but we did play in the casino for a couple hours and got something to eat. We had a great time.

The point of this post is that you really never know who is reading your blog! I had no idea that Hilton or any casino staff would ever come across my site, nor did I ever plan for that to happen. Either way, I still would have written about my game play and experiences at the casinos, as it’s part of my lifestyle posts and what I do. Some readers hate lifestyle posts, but I think it makes blogging only better. Don’t you want to know more about the people you are reading on besides just seeing their check stubs?

Keep on blogging and pouring out your hearts… you never know who may be reading!

I just returned from my town’s “Founder’s Day” for Tom’s River, NJ. My church was there and they were handling out pamphlets that were based off the new Spiderman movie. My mother first saw the pamphlets about a week ago and mentioned to the pastor that I had a Spiderman costume. At first I had dread the idea of putting on the ridiculously tight costume again and it was also super hot outside today. In the end it was worth it and I had a good time making a lot of people happy, especially the children. Here are a few pics for the event.

Handing out pamphlets at the “Son Rise Community Church” Stand

Everyone Wants to Get a Picture with Spidey

Lots of Spiderman High-Five’s Throughout the Day

Even the Radio Stations Wanted some Spiderman Footage!

Helping out with Army National Guard Recruiting!

Spiderman’s New Hummer!

Making money online is great, but giving back is even cooler. Nothing better than seeing all the kids faces and how happy they were. Will we see Spidey again? Who knows… that costume sure is annoying to get on and off!

Business is business… but make sure you are also enjoying life too. We are already living the life by doing business online and working for ourselves… remember not to take everything too seriously. Forget the emails, forget the marketing, forget the search engine positions… imagine being Spiderman for a day!

SPIDERMAN, COMING AT YA!

As mentioned in an earlier post, I love comics and marvel heroes… so much that I have my own expensive Spiderman costume I purchased for Halloween. This morning I woke up and decided to watch a few episodes of "The Amazing Spiderman" (the 60′s collection)… they are so simple, but so funny. It then gave the inspiration to have some fun! I called up my friend Jay today and said we should go out and have some fun… as Spiderman! So we did…

First we went to Comic Relief, an awesome comic book store in my area. I have been going there for years, they have changed location several times, but always have been a great source for comics and memorabilia. A few years ago I went in looking to get some new Marvel statues for my collections. They had a huge showcase and I liked everything inside. I ended up making a deal with them for $2000 for the whole setup. So Comic Relief was my first stop as Spiderman. At first the guy that runs the store looked pretty confused (as expected). I headed right to the Spiderman comics and picked one out. He already had some customers in line, so they were wondering about the costume as well. Once they left I went up and paid for the comic, he then asked if I would like to come back next week when they are having a comic book show at the store. Before leaving I asked if he would like to take a picture, he gladly said yes.

Shopping at Steve’s Comic Relief

Next was the big plan! Jay and I were headed for the mall where I was planning on purchasing some Spiderman action figures from KB Toys and even get my picture taken with the Easter Bunny. Right when I got out of the car and headed for the mall, I was getting stares and laughs. People were even taking out their cell phones to get pictures with me. Once inside the excitement grew even more, all the kids were loving it and thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I’m now in line to see the Easter Bunny, then not even two minutes go by that I am in the mall, these two rent-a-cops come up and tell me I need to leave the mall. Their reasoning was the mask…. and they told me I needed to take it off. My response was I could not let anyone know my true identity! So they kept insisting that I leave… and told me to take the mask off right now and walk out. So I said I can’t do that… and ran out the mall waving to everyone… with the mask still on! Even after leaving the mall, they had a rent-a-cop car follow me to make sure I left. (The highlight of these guys days are pushing around young teenagers and thinking they have some power!)

Disappointed by not having some fun in the mall, I said we should go to castle park, a local playground. Usually this place is packed, but it was a bit cold today, so not too busy. The kids that were there found a lot of joy in chasing me and telling me I couldn’t catch them… one was nice enough to tell me I was making a mockery of Spiderman! All in all, it was a good day. I’ll be sure to hit the boardwalk as Spiderman when it gets a little warmer, and make sure to show the rent-a-cops a little of my Dark Side!

Yes, I am King of the Castle!

Showing off my Web-Swinging Skills

Another Day in the Life of a Super Affiliate…

I was on my way to my girlfriend’s house yesterday and was about to give her a call. I then realized I had a missed call and they had left a voice mail. Dialed up my voicemail and was surprised to hear "Hey, it’s your friendly neighborhood Spiderman, its web slinger weekend!"… so my first reactions were "Hey, this is kind of awesome!"… but at the same time I’m thinking… when/where did I get my cell information to Hasbro, along with permission to call me? I love comics and Marvel almost more than anyone (my Spiderman Halloween costume), so Spiderman can give me a call anytime he wants. It’s not that I was annoyed about the call, just curious. I was also thinking, if this was a massive ad campaign, how would they possibly track sales just based off a phone call telling you to get to your favorite toy store for the latest Spiderman action figures. Seems like the chance of having people complain about spam phone calls would be more of an issue.

When I got to Reena’s house, I immediately told her to listen to my exciting new message. Once hearing the message, she started laughing. It wasn’t till then that she had told me this was the "surprise" she mentioned earlier in the week that I would get on Saturday. While up at Rutgers, Reena had seen a commercial for a promotion being held by Hasbro. You can take a look at their sitehere or take a look at the "Get a Wake Up Call from Spidey" page. Unfortunately "Web Slinger Weekend" is nearly over, but this was a great idea from Hasbro and made my day! Thanks Reena… and Spiderman! So to clarify things up, this was not a "spammy / unwanted solicitation" from Hasbro at all, just merely a fun way to promote some new Spiderman products, while taking the extra step to give their customers/fan a little something more to enjoy.