Update on becoming a professional blogger

April 17th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

Update on becoming a professional blogger

Its been 10 days since I wrote the post ‘Help
me become a professional blogger’. Briefly, I have agreed
with my wife that if I can pay off our mortgage I can become a professional
blogger. I am doing this be selling my eBook and
hope to sell 20,000 copies.

eBook sales are pretty abysmal to be honest and I have only
sold 11 altogether and that was mostly down to Leo from www.zenhabits.net thanks
Leo. And thank you to everyone who has bought the eBook so far, I hope
you have enjoyed it.

The numbers:

*Original Target*	*£75,000*
*Target on 6th April 2007*	£68,871
*Savings from work*	£0
*Savings from Blog Consultancy*	£300
*Google income*	£8
eBook sales (minues affilaite fees)	£15.49

New Target	£68,547

I am always thinking of ways to make more money and I have
signed up for some affiliate programs that I think will benefit you as well
as helping me, like agloco, ebooks, review Me etc. I think over time
these strategies will work in my quest to becoming a professional blogger.

Until the next update……

Popularity: 1% [?]

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There Are 12 Responses So Far. »

Comment by kamal on 18 April 2007:

Hi Steven,

If I may make a few suggestions:

1) ebook:

a) Correct me if I’m wrong, but the ebook is a compilation of your blog articles, right? In that case, it’s far simpler for someone to read your blog than buy the ebook. What you are doing, in essence, is asking for is a donation.

So, in that case, I’d recommend you offering ebooks with things that one can’t get for free. One that does not include articles from your blog; one that stands alone

b) I saw the headings of the articles available on the ebook. I would suggest writing ebooks on focused topics, an ebook per topic. For example, an ebook on changing your thoughts about your finances, an ebook on changing your thoughts about relationships, etc. I think those would sell better.

2) Ads on your site:

I read your blog using Google reader. Like many people, I prefer RSS rather than going to the blogs themselves. I come to the blog whenever I want to write a comment.

I’ve noticed many ads on your site. While I don’t mind them, studies have found that people are more likely to click on less ads. If you have lots of ads, you will get less clicks.

So, for ads, I would suggest weaning out the ones that aren’t giving a good return. Place the remaining ones strategically. If there are too many ads, I won’t notice new ones. But if there are a few that are strategically placed, I’m bound to.

Experiment, see what works best for your audience.

Also, once in a while, or in the bottom of your posts, link to your coaching services. I had no idea you were a life coach, until, out of curiosity, I looked at your site (with “blog” removed from the URL). Many people come to your blog directly from links and might not know of your coaching services.

This blog can greatly increase your coaching business.

Anyway, those are my 2 cents. Keep up the great work.

Comment by Steven Aitchison on 18 April 2007:

Hi Kamal

Thank you very much for your comments a lot of food for thought.

You are the 6th person in as many days to suggest there are too many ads on the blog and it is looking cluttered. I am experimenting with ads just now as a way on increasing income. I won’t be able to tell for a few months if these are going to work, however judging by the small number of clicks so far they are not enhancing anything. I will rethink this strategy in a few weeks.

The eBook: It is much easier to buy the eBook rather than rooting around the blog to look for articles. some people like to read one article and think ‘I like that’ and instead of reading more articles they buy the eBook as it is quicker for them, which is why I have priced it so low as well.

I like the idea of focused topics, I will think about this one.

also, when you say offer the eBook ‘things that one can’t get for free. One that does not include articles from your blog; one that stands alone’ do you mean write a seperate eBook?

The life coaching: I originally started out with the intention of growing a life coaching practice. I increasingly felt I wasn’t qualified enough even though I have a degree in Psychology, am a practising alcohol counsellor, and use counselling skills in my current full time job as a ’support worker’. I couldn’t take the time to do another course on life coaching and until I had, I felt I would be cheating clients. I have my finger in too many pies and decided to drop, for the moment, the life coaching unless someone specifically asked for it and then I would advise of the above.

So, now I concentrate on blogging, blog consulting, and my full time job. When the time is right the full time job will be dropped, blog consulting will take over and then personal development and life coaching will come to the fore.

Thank you again for your comments, always appreciated.

Comment by Jason Tan on 19 April 2007:

Hi Steven, Wow.. what an awesome blog you have here..!! Superb!! Thumbs up for you!! Actually I’m doing the samething in Malaysia, teaching people about financial literacy, how to not work but still having income coming in. I’m holding mindset workshop, options trading workshop and internet marketing workshop to help them. Anyway I have been following your blog for quite some time and I think I might have something for you.. if you are free just have a look at a free report that I gotten lately. You can download it at http://www.studyofgettingwealthy.com/download/attractionaccelerator88.pdf

It’s an interview by Stephen Pierce and Bob Proctor. Well kinda enjoy it so just have a look and tell me what you think.

Jason Tan
Ps- Sorry for the first post, kinda posted it in the wrong post.

Comment by Erwin on 21 April 2007:

Hi Steven,

your ebook is great! But the price isn’t. I mean at the price I bought at, it was a bargain!

Lots of people out there will criticize about us coming out with our products but end of the day, I felt that it’s the passion and the willingness to share with them what we know. Our products can help people, not like those autobiography books about people’s lives where people are willing to pay more with a single complaint, isn’t that ridiculous?!

Anyway, I’m getting more out from your ebook after reading some of them a couple of times. Keep up the great job!

Success,
Erwin

Comment by Steven Aitchison on 21 April 2007:

Hi Erwin

Thanks for your comments. A few people have advised me to price the eBook higher. I am getting to know the psychology of consumers more and more through marketing and it is a fascinating subject.

Comment by kamal on 22 April 2007:

Hi Steven,

My pleasure. As a regular reader of your blog, am happy to suggest anything that might help you reach your goals. In response to your questions:

1) eBook: Yes, separate ebooks with focused topics. Or, if you have enough articles on a particular topic, you could do an ebook on it. But, if you think about what, what are people more likely to buy: something they can get for free by just clicking around your site, or something they cannot unless they pay for it?

2) As for life coaching, given the background you mentioned, you seem far more qualified than someone who simply took a life coaching course. In the end, of course, it’s up to you to decide if you’re qualified or not. But in my opinion, you are. If you still feel that you’re not as qualified as you’d like to be, then just let your prices reflect that. Coach at a rate far cheaper than others. Ask your clients that if they found you helpful, to post comments about your coaching on your site. Then, as your clients (as well as your confidence about your coaching abilities) increases, you can increase your rates.

4) Ads: Yup, not surprised others mentioned it also. Just keep this rule of thumb in mind. Anything that is not content on your site gets in the way of your users. So, unless it is giving you a strong return, remove it.

Comment by Goal Setting College on 23 April 2007:

Hey Steven,

Don’t let the results of your book sales affect you. You will be reach your target, definitely! As for the comment on ads, actually I’m using Kontera on my site too and have recently started to use the Konabody tag to limit it on specific areas of the site (eg, content of a post). It should make it less intrusive and more optimized. I’m waiting to see if this will improve the click-thru rates.

Don’t give up!

P.S. By the way, I noticed there’s a lot of ’snap shots’ pop out, what’s the purpose anyway? Perhaps your readers have confused these with the Kontera ads?

Cheers,
Ellesse

Comment by David Burch on 25 April 2007:

Love your site. Hate the ContentLink ads. Honestly, one look at a site with these type of inline text ad links and a little voice inside my head screams “RUN AWAY!”

I think these type of ads will chase away the very people you want to attract–the people who want to read your articles.

I don’t mind the other ads at all and I like the new layout.

Comment by Steven Aitchison on 26 April 2007:

Hi Ellesse, thanks for your encouragement. I am considering taking the snap shots off, but will leave them for now.

Hi David, thanks for sharing your thoughts. I am always looking at ways of streamlining the blog and monetising it in a way that is not intrusive. I find kontera ads and google the best way to go for now. I appreaciate your feedback.

Comment by rodrigo figueroa on 14 May 2007:

Really, there are so many thing someone must do to become a pro blogger. BUT, you have the core, GOOD STUFF, that people like me love to read…

what you really need its a marketing and advertising guerrilla plan…

for example… about the ebook, i think the best option is to make it FREE. The worst senario is selling it. To give you a simple example, seth godin (www.sethgodin.com) a marketer, set his book selftitled “the idea virus” for free in his blog… then the rest is history, every body got the book (because as your book most people charge for it). Then comes the interesting part… people starts SHAREING it… people start adding a digg entry to the blog post of the FREE EBOOK, you get feed back from other blogs that link to this free source…

any way, at last, seth godin ended the link to his ebook and start selling it at amazon… thousands if not millions of books where bought.. beacause of the wave that produce the free ebook…

you get the idea…

and finally sorry 4 my english…

good luck

Comment by Steven Aitchison on 14 May 2007:

Hi Rodrigo

Your English is great, no need to apologise.

I am getting more into marketing and advertising and find it fascinating. I love the whole blogger concept: writing, social marketing, internet marketing, new technologies, advertising, promotion etc. It frustrates me as I don’t have enough hours to do all the things I want to do.

I thought about giving the book away for free and now think it’s a good idea to give it away free to anyone who signs up for a newsletter, I am working on this.

Thanks for your comments, I appreciate your feedback.

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