I earned some pennies right away, but promoted some pretty specific niches..
And we are talking pennies, for months, I told my husband about every deposit! I’m just now getting to the point where I look at my earnings before the deposit column in my stats, a year or so later, I can now see the SERP difference, I can recognize deposits brought in by search engines, compared to what I had before.
And for the first time, I can’t tell you all of the names of every depositor, at every property that provides the info! hehe 
I do get sidetracked though, I’ve written more than 1000 articles for other peoples sites in the interim, as well as forum posting, moderating, and then the opening of http://www.spiceyournet.com .. soooo.. if I’d have put ALL that effort into my own sites, I imagine I could have brought that up in the SERPs a lot faster, im not complaining though, aside from this pnemonia that just wont go away!!!!.. I’m a pretty happy girll!
~LadyH