Is Listbuilding dead?

[waltersweb]

Hello Fellow marketers.
I have spend well over 2 Years now on trying to find the right spot for me in IM. It had its ups an downs but there was nothing I found to be long term profitable.
I have had a big project lately where I developed a lot of stuff related to helping product sellers with a certain problem most of them have but I came to realize almost none of them was willing to invest into their product (yea... so much for belief in your own product...). So basically I turned up investing a lot of money and time into something that turned up to be a waste of both.
By now I am pretty sick and tired of the whole IM business since it is such a cutthroat world. I mean I can understand that partly. Whoever is making money will keep their mouth shut about it to make sure his niche will not get oversaturated. And once something isn't working anymore or not as well as they were used to, they will write an ebook about it and sell it to others..
I am a university student and prior to doing IM, I was doing some part time job and by now I am about to go back to that because I am so frustrated about this..
I have been to this point before and had my fair shares of hail marys, finding some last thing to try before giving up. But I think this will realy be my last one.

I always had that sentence in my mind that you hear everywhere.. "the money is in the list". So I am trying to get into that market as my last try before ending this journey.

But is it realy still working? I heard that solo-ads were something to keep away from because that market is overfloded and the people that are an the lists are sick and tired of getting 20 emails a day from the different list owners. Alongside adswaps, that are basically the same and you will destroy any list you built once you start adswaping.
And everywhere you read about that magic $1/subscriber/month value that seems to be the avarage revenue for email marketing. But is this realy true?! From what I read, average open rates are somewhere of 10% and clickthrough rates are arround 2-5%. So lets do the math here. The average WSO affiliate offer gets you arround $0.2 per click? Lets say you send out an offer once a week, makes 4 offers a month. And you have a list of 1000 subscribers. So generally you would say you get 20-50 clicks an email, so 80-200 clicks a month. at $0.2 per click, that would generate $16-40 per month wich is $0.01-0.04 per subscriber.
This is only what I read. maybe there is an error in my thinking, if so please let me know!

What is the point of my thread? Honestly? I don't want to waste another half a year building myself a list of 1000 subscribers and end up making 50 bucks a month.
I have seen a lot of praise for all the stuff I already tried but in the end it always came down to a rude awakening. I always dreamed of the posibility of making a living with IM and only studying to have something ready if I somehow failed or everything goes down the drain somehow.

So what am I trying to reach with this thread?
I would like to get some feedback/insight into listbuilding and email marketing. Some facts from people doing it, that can show me whether or not it realy is something I should try.
What I don't want:
-Someone commenting here telling me he is making 10k a month with a list of 50 subscribers and trying to sell me his method. I am tired of that shit.
-Being fed with a spoon. I dont see myself as a noob to IM. To listbuilding/email marketing? Yes! but not to IM. I have seen a lot of stuff, done a lot of things, not all of them glorious, but they all teached me one thing: no one will give you a money making machine. And who claims otherwise is a plain lier.
However, should you be willing to give me some advice or feedback, I would realy apprechiate that!

[sniraj19]

It seems to me that 9-5 job would be the best bet for you. Some people really make money in working 9-5.

You have already tried all internet marketing stuff.

God has some better plans for you!

Best of luck.

[Big Tuna]

List building definitely works, but just like SEO if you don't know how to do it properly you will not make any money. You need to build a relationship with your subscribers and not do what so many others do which is blast offers to their list until they have no subscribers left. If you want to get some pointers on how to develop a relationship opt-in to some successful marketers and learn what they are doing. I signed up to two guys who are good with their lists (Travis Sago and Mike Geary). I'm not currently building a list, but if I decide to in the future I can go back and figure out what they're doing.