Am I just being incapable of doing PPV or is this normal?
How long does it take you to create a profitable PPV campaign from scratch?
I don't think you're incapable but you should listen what people recommend to you...
There's no one answer for this, sometimes you start a campaign and can't pull a profit, sometimes you start simply direct linking and get a positive ROI. Just keep trying new stuff, you haven't tried nearly enough to really get a feel for what works on PPV, obviously.