How To Redeem A Promo Code In iBookStore

Recently, Apple allowed authors with books published on their iBookStore to use promo codes. A stable and very popular feature for iOS developers who published their apps in AppStore, promo codes were unavailable for iBookStore until now. I confess I was a bit confused on how to use these promo codes, since there is no iBooks app on Mac OS. Usually, I was using my iTunes on the Mac to redeem the promo codes for apps in AppStore, but without a similar thing for ibooks, I just had to scratch my head a bit.

Fortunately, it proved to be a much simpler process than I thought. In fact, it has only 2 simple steps. Here we go:

Step 1: Find The Redeem Button

For that, you should open the iBooks app (on your iPhone or iPad). If you’re on the “Library” mode, browsing the ebooks you already bought, touch the “Store” button and make sure you’re on the Apple store and not on your local device. Once you get there, touch the first tab button in the navigation tab bar on the bottom of the screen. It is the one called “Featured”. Now scroll all the way down to the bottom, and voila: the “Redeem” button magically appears.

Step 2: Enter Your Promo Code

Now, after touching the “Redeem” button, you’ll be taken to a new screen, pretty much similar with the one below:

After you entered your promo code, you will (hopefully) get a message saying that your item is downloading. What iBooks does is that it automatically matches the product with your promo code, looks it up in the store and starts downloading it. In a few seconds, if you have a good internet connection, your book will be available in the Library. Here’s how your iPhone screen should look like after the entire process finished:

That’s it.

A Miracle Lasts Only 3 Days

Some things in life happens fast. You have to get up, grab the opportunity and be happy for it, because that kind of opportunity will not be there again soon. Maybe never.

It goes for people you encounter and you really feel like talking to them because otherwise you won’t have any other chance, or it goes for things you really want to do. Like I did a few months ago when I did paragliding for the first time in my life, or get a tattoo, also for the first time in my life. These things are so unexpected, yet so compelling and fulfilling, that you just can’t oppose them.

Well, the thing I’m gonna write about today is one of those things.

The Scoop

Let’s take the top notch, hottest, most popular 22 personal development authors, put together their most interesting products, bundle them at an incredibly low price (and by incredibly low price I mean an insanely low price), but only keep this going on for 72 hours. Basically, that’s the scoop. The place where you can find this is called Only72.com. If you’re the type of person that really knows what he wants from life, just go ahead, grab the bundle and thank me later.

But if you feel like reading more about this, just relax and keep reading. I have a nice story about you.

The Subtle And Almost Invisible Reward Of Doing Things Constantly

If you read my blog on a regular basis, you must have recognized this paragraph title. It’s for a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago. Back then I was writing how driving my car day in and day out made me a much more than average driver (or, in other words, a very good one).

But that goes also for writing, not only for driving. Two and a half years ago, when I started this blog, I made a commitment to keep writing for it no matter what. There were a lot of bad times during those two and a half years. Yet I stayed on course, took the shift on the face and just kept on writing.

And, today, I am incredibly proud about what’s happening. Some of my products are going on this very bundle along with products of people I was looking up to with amazement just a few years back. People like Leo Babauta, the creator of one of the most popular blogs on the planet, Zen Habits. Or people like Charlie Gilkey, a true voice in productivity and life and work balance. Or people like Jonathan Mead, who’s courses are already famous all over the internet. Or… But I’d better stop right here.

And I’m gonna let YOU see what’s in this unbelievable offer. You be the judge of this opportunity. It may be that you are having the exact feelings I had when I first did paragliding, in New Zealand, a couple of months ago: uncertainty, confusion, worry, excitement and even fear. Fear that what you’re going to get won’t meet your expectation. But believe me, once your foot will stop reaching the ground and you’ll be flying, none of those feelings will matter anymore. You will even forget that you had them.

So go ahead, dive in this huge promotion (yes, it’s actually valid for only 72 hours) and use these books and courses to start flying on your own.

A miracle lasts only 3 days. So, get your goodie! $1087 goods for only $97!

How To Self-Publish On Amazon, Kindle And iBookStore

For the last 14 months I’ve been learning how to become a self-published author. And by that, I mean not only PDF ebooks available on the blog, but also printed books on Amazon, Kindle versions and, of course, for the latest hype in town, ePub-based ebooks in Apple iBookStore. What follows is a (very) distilled story of my own experiences. But as distilled as it is, prepare for a few thousands words article (I suggest putting aside at least 20 minutes to read it from the top to the bottom).

Digital versus Printed

This used to be a very hot topic a few years ago. Traditionally, the printed books industry was very hard to penetrate. The most common approach was to use a publishing house (or, to be more precise, to be used by a publishing house). It was also the most difficult one. But it worked.

During the last few years, things have changed dramatically. Now you can use online tools to make your book available in printed format and you can do this at a very affordable price. Just keep in mind the following differences between digital and printed:

• printed books are slower to reach the market. It can take weeks or months until they become available to major book resellers
• digital books have a huge variety of formats (ePub being one of the most populars) but they can also have a high rate of piracy
• in both cases, if you are a self-published author, you will need a (very) strong presence online to promote your books. Because nobody else will do it for you. Getting them “in the system” is just the first step.

Now, let’s get practical.

Self-Publish With CreateSpace

If you don’t know what CreateSpace.com is, it’s time to find out that this is Amazon’s self-publishing company. The site offers a variety of tools to make your content available on Amazon’s online selling platform (which happens to be the largest in the world, by my knowledge). You can publish a variety of content, from multi-media DVDs to songs and, of course, books.

Signing up is free and there are no upfront costs. When you sign up, you can chose what type of product do you want (a book or a mp3 or a downloadable video) and then the type of setup do you want (expert, if you’ve been there before, or guided, if you’re just starting up). Feel free to start with the guided setup, just to get s glimpse of what you can do around. Here’s how the dashboard of the guided tour looks like (the red dots means those steps aren’t yet completed, click on the image for full view).

And here’s how it looks after you completed all the steps.

The Book Setup

Once you added the title of your book, it’s time to add the rest of the metadata (author name, contributors, subtitle, volume, etc). After that, you go through the physical setup: what type of interior do you want for your book (black and white or color – of course, the color interior will mean you’ll pay more for each copy). An important step is what they call “Trim Size” or the actual physical size of the book. I recommend using an industry standard size. If you created your book with a standard word processor, you can mach the “Page Setup” sizes of the word processor with the sizes you can have in CreateSpace. In my experience, it’s better to go with a standard size, at least for your first titles.

The next step is to add your ISBN. Very shortly, an ISBN is a unique identifier for your book, which is now an international standard. ISBN used to be a tough rock for many self-published authors and, in some respect, it still is. Luckily, CreateSpace can give you an ISBN for free if you don’t have one. If you want to buy your own, you can go to Bowker if you’re in US, or you can get one for free, provided that you will send copies of your books to the national library of your country. This is the case in Romania and New Zealand, for instance.

What’s the big deal with these ISBN numbers and why is important to have your own? Because if you have your own ISBN number you will be listed as the publisher of your book too, not only the author. So, if you want to make a business out of publishing books, you should consider getting your own chunks of ISBN numbers. Other than that there is no other major impact of ISBN. If you use CreateSpace assigned ISBN, the only difference is that CreateSpace will be listed as your publisher.

Once the ISBN thing solved, you can add a cover for your book. Now it can get tricky. You can either use their online cover creator, or you can get smart and do your own. Either way, CreateSpace will provide a few templates, based on the format of your book. This is where the “Trim Size” thing become important, your cover will obviously have to match the size of your book and if the book is non-standard, well, there will be problems. A printed book cover is not just a plain PSD file with fixed margins, you have to leave some tolerances and be sure to have enough space from the margins for your title or images. Once again, start exercising with the templates offered by CreateSpace.

A very important step after you did all of the above is to upload your book. CreateSpace allows PDF file formats. That’s relatively convenient, since many word processors can save your content in PDF too, but it can become tricky if you have embedded fonts. You must be sure that you will embed your fonts in the final PDF uploaded to CreateSpace.

The Review Step

Once you uploaded all the necessary data for your book (including the actual book file and the cover) you gotta review it. This is the place where you can start spending some money, Because you will have to order a proof copy for your book. If you don’t live in US, this could add a lot of time to the entire process. You do have several shipping options, but the fastest one will be actually more expensive than the book. I usually choose the medium one, which is only a couple of weeks and around 10 USD.

Be aware that you get in the mail (in the snail mail, that is) is the actual book that will be shipped to your readers. Do not try to overlook this step. Once the whole publishing machinery is started, it’s becoming very intertial and any change to your book may take weeks or months until it is propagated. Not to mention that you will still have “wrong” items on the market.

So, make the necessary changes and restart the whole proofing process.

The Selling Process

Once you are ok with the proof copy, you can move to the selling process. In this step you’re adding a description for your book (the one that will be seen on Amazon book page) a BISAC description (a standardized, category based descriptor used by libraries), search keywords, publication date and so on.

Once you’re satisfied with it, you can go to the next step, which is the price of your book. The interesting part comes immediately after that, in a zone called “distribution channels”. With CreateSpace you have 3 options:

1. sell it through CreateSpace store (which is like your own ecommerce site) by giving the direct link to your potential clients.
2. sell it through Amazon (and making it available to Amazon searches and ranking system)
3. sell it with the Expanded Distribution Channel (which comprises, among others, libraries and academic institutions or other online book sellers)

The royalty you can get for each channel will decrease proportionally, meaning the highest royalty will be on CreateSpace and the lowest on the Expanded Distribution Channels. But there is more than that. The royalty calculation is a little bit more complex and it involves the enrollment in a so-called “pro-plan” (where you have to pay upfront and only once a fixed price for each book you want to enroll) and the number of pages of your book. The “pro-plan” is an interesting option, because it doesn’t only guarantees bigger royalties but it will also gives you lower prices when you order your own copies.

And Now We Wait

After you completed all the steps, your book will be published shortly. And by shortly I mean hours or, at worst, days. But, as I already told you, getting your book out is only the first step. Now it’s time to start your marketing campaign (if you ever thought of something like this) and start creating some buzz around your titles.

Self-Publish On Kindle

Another interesting option for self-published authors is Kindle. Until a year ago, Kindle was just a device. But in the last 6 months, Amazon made a very interesting move with this. Namely, they created Kindle apps. These apps are book readers connected to the Kindle repository, just like the actual device, only they “live” in other operating systems. So now you can have access to your Kindle books not only from your device, but also from your PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android or whatever device you may think of. That makes Kindle a very interesting option for self-published authors.

The Easiest Thing

Compared with CreateSpace, Kindle publishing is a breeze. Just a word of caution: if you previously published your book on CreateSpace they do offer a conversion service. Namely, they will take your printed book and convert it into a Kindle ready file. But at 69 USD I consider it pretty much a robbery. Read on and see why is that.

In order to start publishing on Kindle you gotta sign up at kdp.amazon.com. You may use the same username and password you usually use with Amazon, or you can create a new one, just for that. Here’s what you see when you log in (this is my real dashboard, with all the titles I published so far, click for full image)

After adding your title, you have a two steps wizard. In the first step you add your book metadata and files, while in the second you manage your publishing rights, add the price and choose your royalty level. More on that in a second.

When you add your book files, you can also add a separate file for the cover, just like at CreateSpace. But you can also choose to protect your book content via DRM (digital rights management). I’m not a big fan of DRM, so I didn’t went for it. The file format accepted by Kindle is PRC, and you can use a variety of tools to convert your book to it. But it also accepts ePub file formats and that’s quite a relief. Because the latest version of Pages for Mac is transparently creating ePubs from any document you want (as long as it is a WordProcessing based document). If you’re on Windows, I recommend checking out the Kindle formatting guide.

In the second step of the wizard, you establish the price and your royalty level. Also, you state what your distribution rights are (worldwide, or differentiated for countries / territories). I always chose “worldwide” because it was my own content, but your mileage may vary.

For the royalty, you have two plans, a 35% royalty and a 70% royalty. The 35% applies to titles under 2.99 USD, while the second plan applies to titles priced between 2.99 and 9.99 USD. You can also have the option to choose the price for Amazon UK and DE separately or based on the US Amazon price (I usually let it do it automatically).

And that’s it. Publishing your book may take a few days after you completed the two-steps wizard. In my experience, the shortest waiting time was 2 days while the longer was 5 days (but it included a week-end too). Once the ebook is published you can test it on your Kindle by partially downloading it (Amazon allows this for many of its titles).

One last word: the formatting of a Kindle ebook is very different than the formatting of a printed book. So expect your Kindle ebook to look strangely different than the printed version. Also, keep in mind that Kindle automatically converts your color illustrations to black and white.

Self Publish With iBookStore

Backed up by Apple legendary hype, iBooks is a recent player in the self-publish area. To be honest, I came to it after a (very) long detour. As you may already know, I do write iPhone and iPad apps for a living (iAdd being one of them) and that made me quite familiar with the AppStore. So, at some point I decided that it would be interesting to publish my ebooks on the AppStore, by creating them as standalone apps. It seemed like many people were doing this. I created an app, imported the book content on it and submitted to AppStore.

Surprise! My app got rejected. The message said something about publishing my app as a book, in the iBookStore. I went back and forth a few weeks with the Apple support guys until I finally got somebody on the phone. Yes, Apple is legendary for its opacity too, it may take weeks until you get a support guy to talk to you on the phone. After I discussed with him for like half an hour, I finally understand that I have no other option than to publish my books in the iBookStore.

For hose unfamiliar with the Apple ecosystem, publishing a book in the iBookStore means it will be available in the app iBooks, not under the Books category in the AppStore. It’s a little bit confusing and it took me a while to understand that. Apparently, Apple has an AppStore for apps (which may include a category called Books) and another store for books, called iBookStore, which mimics the same structure of the AppStore.

Well, it all came into pieces when I read the requirements for publishing in the iBookStore. Among other common sense things you need in order to publish your book, like an Apple account, there was something new: an ITN number (or, if you’re an individual, a Social Security Number). And that is because the revenue you get from selling a book has a different taxation process than the revenue you get from selling apps. I don’t know why is that, it’s just the way it is. Apparently, royalties have also a different cross-country taxation, so if you get royalties from US into a company based in New Zealand (which is precisely my case) you can get some sort of tax credit back. Luckily, my accountant, which whom I spoke a number of times on this topic, knows much more than me about that.

To make a long story short, I applied for an ITN number for my company, Mirabilis Media (NZ) Limited and after I got it, I started the publishing process.

The Apple Uploader

Another well known tradition of Apple is that it makes things extremely difficult for its contributors (iPhone developers are well aware of that). So, after incredibly long logistic delays and lack of information, I was finally in the position of uploading my ebooks. From this point on, things were starting to get extremely smooth. Apple created a Mac app for uploading your book. It’s called iTunes Producer and it has a very simple, wizard-like interface and it makes uploading your book to the iBookStore a really pleasant experience. I’m absolutely honest about it, it’s really simple to use and a big step forward made by Apple towards a better user experience.

I won’t go through the whole process, because the metadata is pretty much the same as for CreateSpace or Kinde. One important thing that has to be mentioned, though, is that the format accepted by Apple is ePub. As I already told you, converting a Pages document to ePub is just a matter of two clicks: “Export” and choose “ePub”.

Another important thing is that you may have free ebooks in iBookStore. Important if you plan to make available some of your content for free, for whatever reason you may think of.

Oh, and the royalties you earn in Apple iBookStore are following the general AppStore rule, 30% Apple – 70% you.

After you submit your book to iBookStore you gotta wait to be reviewed. In my experience, iBookStore had the longest delay from the moment you finished all your job, until the book is live. Minimum two weeks. So it’s a little bit of a time consumer, you should take that into account when you start publishing your books. Here’s how my iBookStoe dashboard is looking right now.

My Books

Well, this is it. As I told you, this process started 14 months ago, when I first published my books on Amazon. It wasn’t a continuous process (I’m not that slow in learning ) but rather one based on the opportunities. Basically, when a distribution channel looked both affordable for me and mature enough, I went for it.I started with CreateSpace but when Kindle and iBookStore became affordable and worthwhile, I started to use them too.

Now, here’s how my self-publishing portfolio is looking like:

Brilliantly Better

Amazon | Web | Kindle | iBookStore

100 Ways To Live A Better Life

CreateSpace | Amazon | Kindle | iBookStore

Korean version

100 Ways To Screw Up Your Life

CreateSpace | Amazon | Kindle | iBookStore

Korean version

The Productivity Trap

CreateSpace | Amazon | Kindle | iBookStore

The 7 Ages Of An Online Business

CreateSpace | Amazon | Kindle | iBookStore (free)

Natural Productivity – Assess, Decide, Do

Amazon | Web | Kindle | iBookStore

If you clicked through the links you may have noticed that there are very significant price differences between the same editions of the same book, based on the publishing channel (Kindle, Amazon, iBookStore) but also based on the territory too (in UK prices are slightly higher). Wonder why?

It’s a little bit more complicated and it will not fit in just one blog post. What I can tell you though, is that it’s partially because of some limitations in the distribution channels (Kindle doesn’t allow a difference wider than 30% between a printed title and its Kindle version) but also because of some personal marketing strategies.

Now, if you have any more questions about this article, feel free to ask them in the comments, I’d be happy to answer.

Taming Monkey Number One: Second Update

It’s February 2nd, which means there are already 2 days past the initial liveline for taming my first monkey. If you just got here and have no idea what I’m talking about, you may want to read first why I ditched my new years resolutions (and decided to tame some monkeys instead), and also how to find those monkeys, if you want to tame yours too.

Now, very briefly, what was my monkey about: to have a new iOS app in the AppStore. It was something I was wanting to do for a long time, but postponed it indefinitely. The app is relatively simple, but it does require some external storage in the cloud. So it’s not only on the iPad, it’s also on the web.

Last time I shared my progress, I was having a website set up, the CoreData model ready and so was the basic functionality for adding and editing data on the device. What changed? Well, now I have the functionality for adding, updating and deleting data on the website too. For those of you with a little bit of a technical touch, I had to create a small API for that. I also bought the artwork for the app and finished the basic layout and design on the iPad.

So, was I able to tame my first monkey in the allotted timeframe?

Short answer: nope. The app is not finished yet and it was not submitted to AppStore.

Long answer: it’s complicated. Let’s talk about that.

It’s Not A Monkey, It’s A Symptom

The moment I started to work on that monkey, I realized that there was much more to it than I thought it was. At the surface, it was just another app. But deep down, it was a symptom for some of my deeper issues. I don’t use the term issues in its negative sense, but rather as a description for something that needs to be clarified.

First of all, my desire to build a new app was not isolated. I had many more ideas and plans related to other apps. As a matter of fact I think I have around 20 separate iOS ideas. All with a clear description and some of them even with mindmaps or project stubs in Xcode. This one was just strong enough to resist at the border of my active focus, and also was “advertised” as a personal plan in several conversations.

But the moment I allocated time and energy for something that was just floating around, everything that floated around exploded. It was like instead of a single monkey I had a whole pack. Dozens of monkeys dancing in front of me, waiting to be tamed.  What seemed to be a single monkey activity became a herd management activity.

Outcome Number One

So, the first thing I learned was that this monkey was not just an app, was a way to organize my ideas and put them in the right order. Prioritize. Allocate resources properly. And build a stronger stream of value for this channel.

Wait, There IS A New App In The App Store

One quick consequence of this approach was that I realized I needed much less energy and time for some of my apps. They were relatively simple. All I needed was under an hour per day for some of them. So, I started to grow those too. And one of them is finished. Exactly

Let me detail on this. A few months ago, after I launched iAdd, my productivity app, I wanted to publish some of my ebooks in the AppStore too. It made sense from many points of view. The IOS platform offers a very easy way to consume this type of content, the ebooks were already made and so on. But somehow, I couldn’t find the time to build a template app for all my ebooks.

Well, while working on my first monkey, I stumbled upon an open source framework which does exactly what I want. It’s called Baker and it allows to create standalone apps as ebooks on the iOS (currently only on iPad). So, I started to reformat “Natural Productivity”, I put it in this framework, test it, and, hell yeah, submit it to the AppStore. Which is exactly where it is at this very moment, waiting to be approved.

Outcome Number Two

Although I didn’t have my designated app in the AppStore, I did have a new one. And it’s a very timely app, giving the fact that iAdd is getting a lot of traction lately, especially since the free version, iAdd Lite is also public in the App Store. Now the ebook will be available on the same media.

How Much Can I Really Chew?

Not much. I can only chew the size of my biggest bite. And we’re all designed like this, it’s just a fact. But I have this constant habit of biting more than I can chew. Trying to tame this monkey revealed this to me so clearly, that I cannot hide it anymore. And this is a real problem. The monkey, as I said, was just a symptom for something way bigger.

One of these “way bigger” things behind my first monkey is my attempt to get on exaggeratedly big projects. It may be because I enjoy doing them so much, but it may also be because I try to prove myself worthy of something. As you can see, we’re not talking about apps in the App Store anymore. We’re talking about some inner insecurities that are in big need to be addressed.

I somehow had a little bit of an intuition of this when I first decided that I will tame those monkeys “while still having a life”. Somehow, this was touching the core of the problem. One of the reasons I wasn’t able to finish the app in time was the fact that I did have a real life outside my work. Spending time with my kids, traveling, relaxing. And you know what: I realized it’s ok to be like that.

Outcome Number Three

One of the most important results of this taming process is that I kept having a life outside work. It may sound very counterintuitive, but, in a way, the fact that I didn’t finished the app was a good “result”. It proved to me that I don’t need to prove anything to anybody. And still have nice life in the process.

Where To With This First Monkey?

As you can see, although I didn’t have my monkey tamed in time, there was a huge process of cleaning up and evolution. In only 4 weeks.

So, I still want to tame this monkey. I wasn’t able to do it in time, so I will postpone it. The new liveline for it is the end of February. I don’t know if something else will interfere again, but if it will, I know it’s for the better. Will manage it somehow.

The Second Monkey

As a matter of fact, I know there will be something that will interfere, and that will be the second monkey for this year. Namely, the monkey related to my New Zealand company. This month I’ll be in New Zealand, taking care of this baby. There are a few logistical loose ends and there are also some strategical moves that I need to evaluate. At the end of the month I expect to have a growing and much more manageable company in New Zealand.

As always, I will keep you posted on the progress. I kinda enjoy this.

Oh, I do love my monkeys

The Utterly Incomplete Guide On Monetizing Your Blog

Half of my life I lived under a communist regime. Among other funny things under a communist regime, money, or, to be more precise, the lack of it, was something pretty common. So, I started to learn the value of money very early, mainly by the absence of it. Why am I telling you that? Well, because this particular context of my life created a very interesting situation. Namely, the ability to create money out of any imaginable situation. When you live under pressure, you learn how to breathe differently.

Years later, this very ability, which is more on the survival side, to be honest, than on the corporate, “let’s conquer the world” side, served me really well. Not only was I able to create and sustain for more than 10 years my own online publishing company and successfully sell it once I decided to start something new, but also helped me when I started this very blog. Which finally brings us to the point of today’s article.

Which is part of a brilliant series, ignited by my fellow blogger (and upcoming A-lister) Mars Dorian. The idea was to bring together a pack of internet rock-stars and squeeze the hell out of their knowledge and expertise. As you may see, we have even a visual identity for this series (which I think it’s a very cool idea).

The articles were sequential, meaning at the end of one article the author had to introduce the next blogger and topic. Well, since I’m the last one in this series, I can only have the honor of mentioning the previous articles, as follows.

The Guerrilla’s Guide To Attracting Your “Right” Audience – by Mars Dorian

“Less Followers” Is The New “More Followers” – by Francisco Rosales

The Art of (Online) Seduction (And Why You Need It To Make Money) – by Ashley Ambirge

How to Join Forces with Other Bloggers and Grow Your Audience Together – by Corbett Barr

Networking Awesomely, Kissing Digital Babies and The Lifeblood of the Blogosphere – by Srinivas Rao

Now, let’s get back to the topic. Which is, as you already know, monetization. I will skip the parts related to writing and traffic building, as I expect you to have a lot of know-how, after the first articles. I will also suppose that you have enough traffic to start monetizing. That specific threshold varies a lot depending on your niche, writing style and overall goals with the blog, but as a rule of thumb, I think that from the magical “1000 unique visitors / day” milestone you can start to apply some of the following strategies.

So let’s see what exactly can you sell from your blog in order to make some money.

Selling Real Estate – Advertising

The most affordable way to monetize your blog is advertising. It’s also the most inefficient one. You need huge traffic in order to make some decent money and you also need a LOT of real estate (or, in other terms, a pretty big, in terms of space) blog. Because you will have to have enough space to accommodate your advertiser’s exposure, without alienating your audience.

I used advertising extensively on my network of websites and tried a lot of approaches: automating it with very affordable, ready to buy online packages, selling it with my own sales force or delegating it to an agency. While I did have some positive results over the years, I have to say that this activity is both time and resources consuming.

It’s good if you want to get your feet wet in the monetization world, and learn some stuff, but in the long run it won’t pay for your jet. Unless you’re Mashable and you don’t know that yet, of course.

Selling Interactions – Affiliate Marketing

The next thing you can do after advertising is affiliate marketing. This is a very different technique and it’s also enormously diverse. You can start doing affiliate marketing on your blog with only one client, or you can sign up to dozens of affiliate programs. There are tons of affiliate marketing strategies and many of them are really working well. If you’re new to this world, I highly recommend this course Affiliate Marketing For Beginners (by Corbett Barr). And yes, that link is an affiliate link.

In my experience, no matter what strategy you choose, there are a few things which are always standing up. Those things are the cornerstone of any affiliate activity.

1. Be Honest

Clearly state the fact that you’re doing affiliate marketing. Let people know that by buying the products you’re recommending you will get some money. Many readers will choose to reward you this way, if they find the products appealing.

Also, try as much as possible to recommend only what you’re using. In fact, do recommend only what you’re using, otherwise your credibility will decline in time.

2. Be Consistent

If you started to do something in this area, continue. Affiliate marketing is not an instant business. Sure, you can have spikes and wake up one day to realize that you’ve done over 1000 USD in sales, but that won’t happen in the first day.

Also, be consistent in your niche and product choices. If you’re trying to associate yourself with too many products, or try to cover a way too broader niche, your own brand will weaken.

3. Be Useful

Think at your readers. Think at their needs. Just because you’re excited about some product or service which has an affiliate program, it doesn’t mean your readers will be too.

Selling Your Own Information Products

After you did some advertising and affiliate, it’s time to go to the real stuff: creating and selling your own information products. I consider this to be by far the most profitable and resource effective way of monetizing your blog. No matter your topic, your biggest slice of money may come from the thing you’re already doing on your blog: creating useful information.

There are many ways to create information products and I think a course on this will cover at least several hours. But let’s assume for the moment that you’re just creating ebooks. Ebooks are very appealing to your users, because they’re already consuming your content in the form of articles. They may find the whole buying process very natural. They’re already reading you for free, so if you create some premium content, they’ll be most likely willing to pay for it.

There are also a few things you may want to know about information products:

• their lifespan is relatively short. Unless you’re creating a huge hit, they’re last only a few months. After that, you can bet that all your audience already knows what the ebook is about. If they really want it, they buy it in the first few weeks.
• they must bring in something completely different from what your blog brings, but at the same time carry your own personal mark. So, packaging your blog in the form of an ebook may not create as much buzz as you think. People want something different.
• there are a few psychological levels related to pricing (and the way people are perceiving products, generally). A small but useful ebook will be priced between 10-20 USD. A relatively premium ebook will be priced between 20-40 USD. And from that mark up, you can start thinking at creating series or even more complex products, like webinars or online courses. These as well can go anywhere between 50 and 250 USD, depending on the value you put in and your niche.

Other Media Declinations

This is very similar to the one above, only it happens on other channels. It’s still selling your own products, only you take a lateral step and go into a somehow different way of packaging the information. The closest example is a podcast. It’s very similar with what you do in your blog, but it’s really different. There are a few significant examples of successful commercial podcasts on the internet, galadarling.com being one of them, for instance.

But you can also do something different than a podcast. Package your blog posts as audiobooks. This is what I did with one of my post (after this was suggested by a fellow blogger) and, believe it or not, I do sell that 2.99 USD audio file.

Imagination is the only limit here. I remember that a few years ago, when I had my car portal (the biggest in Romania at that time) I started a small radio show (3-5 minutes daily) and tried to sell advertising on that radio show. Go figure…

Real Life Interactions

This is a very interesting way to make money. In fact, many people who are already making money in the offline world are turning to the online world in order to support their offline business (that sounded a lot more complicated than I wanted to). To keep it simple, it’s about coaching, consulting, workshops or even webinars.

In this case, your blog will be a vehicle for your offline business. Although I think there is a scalability problem here (namely, how high can you go, how many workshops can you deliver, etc) there is something that attracts me a lot to this. I think it’s about the real energy exchange that takes place in these workshops. I went to Steve Pavlina workshop last year and I felt incredibly. Not because the concepts Steve taught us (many of them being around the common sense threshold) but because of the energy that emerged out of the group.

After I started to do my own workshops (on business and blogging) I got the same feedback from my attendees. “It was wonderful, but the most important thing was that we felt good together”.

So, if you reach a certain level of popularity, don’t be afraid to go out in the wild, and try some public speaking and some workshops. It may not work from the first time, it may not bring as much money as your ebook going viral may do, but boy, you’ll feel good.

iPhone / iPad / Android apps

This is a relatively new way to monetize your blog. Because this media is quite new. When I started blogging, iPhone wasn’t invented yet (I’m having a hard time to realize this, to be honest). Anyway, the fact that our content has become available and it’s consumed on an increasing number of devices creates a little bit of opportunity.

One thing you can do is to package your blog into a “hidden column” type of iPhone/iPad app. The “hidden column” is another name I give to the freemium model. You package your blog in that app along with something unique, that is meant to be available (and consumed) only through that app. That unique thing is your “hidden column”, something that people would be happy to pay for.

Or you can try to implement some of the concepts you have into an iPhone app. This is exactly what I did a few months ago. I created an ebook about my productivity framework “Assess – Decide – Do”, and I also created an iPhone app, iAdd, which implements this framework. The app is available in the AppStore and it does sell pretty well. And so does the ebook.

***

Well, that was it for now. I don’t know why, but I have a very distinct feeling that I only scratched the surface with it. Honestly, this is why I changed the title of the post too. There’s so much to be said on this topic, but I already have more than 1800 words written on this.

So, if you want to know more, just kick me up in the comments, I’d be happy to talk more.

How To Build Reputation With Your Blog – Interact With Your Peers

This is the 4th article from the series: “How To Build Reputation With A Blog”. If you came here directly, you may want to read the first articles too:

How To Build Reputation With Your Blog – The Series
How To Build Reputation With Your Blog – Clearly State Your Expertise
How To Build Reputation With Your Blog – Write Constantly
How To Build Reputation With Your Blog – Interact With Your Audience

Who Are Your Peers?

In short, they are people who are doing exactly what you are doing. They are bloggers performing on the same field as you are. From a traditional (and also, completely dumb) point of view, they are your competition. From a smarter point of view, they are your peers.

Why do I think that perceiving them as “competition” is a dumb approach? Well, because blogging is a very specific business. Although it shares a good deal of common points with traditional businesses, blogging is completely different in some key areas. And one of them is branding.

In traditional business, if two companies are making shoes, they are competing against each other. They are building the same object, using more or less the same technologies. If two bloggers are writing about personal development, they are not competing against each other. They are completing each other and, in a larger sense, they’re feeding each other audience. Although they are building the same type of “product”, which in this case is “motivation”, they’re not using the same “technologies”. They’re creating their products using their personal experiences. Putting their own life on the line. And that brings diversity and originality to the mix. Although in the same market, the final products will be really different. And consuming each product will increase the demand for similar products.

That’s a fundamental difference. The more blogging products you’ll have on the market, the bigger the demand. Your audience will always want to consume some new, fresh perspectives on their topics of choice. So, two bloggers writing on the same topic will never be competitors. Unless they are dumb enough to copy each other posts sentence by sentence which will totally wipe out any trace of authenticity in their products.

Now that we eliminated one of the most common and handicapping confusions regarding competition in blogging, let’s see how you can really interact with your peers.

Guest Posting

The simplest way to interact with your peers is to guest post. Writing blog posts that will fit in other people’s blogging pants is a great exercise. There are some unquestionable benefits like: increased exposure, enlarging your circle of influence, refining your writing skills and so on and so forth. But the real, hidden benefit is the interaction with the host blogger. I know I built a long term relationship with all the bloggers who accepted guest posts from me. Some of them are way closer than the circle of influence. They are in the circle of friends.

Massive Guest Posting

This is a special case of guest posting. Basically, it combines a series of articles with guest posting. In a massive guest posting project, you publish a few related blog posts (preferably from the same series) on a few blogs, all at the same time. I did what I think it was the first massive guest posting ever on the internet last year and believe me, it was an incredible experience. The links and exposure were great, but the connection with some of the bloggers who participated in this challenge grew tremendously over the last year.

Hosting Guest Posts

This is the obvious counterpart of the one above. Open up your blog and give other people the opportunity to guest post. Again, the visible benefits will be in the line of: more content for your readers, a little bit of diversity and so on and so forth. But then again, the hidden part of this iceberg will be the connection you build with the people who are guest posting on your blog.

Collaborative Projects

Every once in a while a collaborative project surfaces my inbox. Every time I am asked to do some writing for a collaborative project I’m incredibly motivated. I’m not accepting every request, mostly by lack of time, but the requests I accept are quickly climbing to the top of my priority list. Here are few types of collaborative projects I’ve been a part of so far, or I admire from a distance.

1. Free / Paid Ebooks

I’ve been a part of some very interesting projects, with both paid and free ebooks. One of the most interesting ebooks was How To Network Awesomely by Colin Wright, a book which I totally recommend. There are tons of other bloggers sharing their insights on networking in that book, not to mention Colin’s own thoughts on this topic. As for the free ebooks, you can check out one of the latest, Small Ways To Make A Big Difference.

2. Memes

A meme is usually a challenge launched by a fellow blogger. I get far more requests than I can handle on this area, so I decided to go on only if the topic is really close to me. One of the memes I’ve been doing lately is Abubakar Jamil’s 3 Life Lessons. Check out the page because you will start to understand why interacting with your peers is never competition.

3. Blogazines Contributions

Every blogging niche has some blogazines around. They can be collective newsletters, like the very fine SharingLifeSkills, of which I’m proud to be a part, or they can be magazine style, like The Daily Brainstorm. Of which I’m also honored to be a part of, by the way.

4. Shared Content Products

Another way to interact with your peers is to create shared content products. Put together your expertise, your strengths and some time, ask around one of your peers, brainstorm a little and voila, you created a common product. For an example of such a product you can check out Charlie Gilkey’s and Johnny B. Truant Jam Sessions.

Social Media Interactions

The same rules that applies to audience interactions applies to peers interaction when it comes to social media. If you want to read them, go back and check out the audience interaction article in this series. One word though, when it comes to peer interaction, you are what you retweet. People who are on your stream are a measure of your own value. Pick them wisely and stick with them.

The Real Value Of Links

Now that we saw the practical side of interacting with your peers, let’s talk a little bit about links. And by that I understand at least 2 interpretations of the term “link”. The first one is “link as a human connection” and the second one is “link as a hyperlink in the internet”. As you will see, there is a big confusion between those two meanings, with a huge balance towards the second one. Many bloggers are valuing hyperlinks to their blogs over real life connections with other people. Which I think is totally wrong.

The focus of bloggers on Google ranking is understandable, to a certain degree. The problem is that the vast majority of bloggers are going way beyond this degree. Meaning they’re starting to obsess over it. I know I’ve been there and I’m not ashamed. It’s just a fact and now I’m over it. And I’m also able to explain it a little bit better, since it’s something that I experienced first hand.

In order to understand the importance of page ranking (and, subsequently, the real value of links as hyperlinks) I would like to give you an army example. You know the military ranks, right? A captain will always have a smaller rank than a colonel, and a colonel will always have a smaller rank than a general. This is how it works. And you identify their ranks by looking at their insignia.

The page ranks works exactly the same. You have a 3 PR page, which will always be smaller than a 5 PR page, which in turn will be always put to shame by a 7 PR page.

Many bloggers are trying to advance in this hierarchy by trying to acquire as many stars (read: page ranks) as possible. From a certain point of view, they think that a certain rank will give them access to a certain level of reputation. This is where the big mistake is taking place. A PR rank is just like a military rank, it will just say that you’re a captain, a colonel, or a general. Nothing more. It will never say something about your ability to influence other people. Nothing about your value as an individual. Nothing about the value of your products. It will just say you have a certain rank.

Of course you can guess a little bit of information about a military by his rank. A certain degree of experience or skills. But the real value of a military is never given by the rank. It’s given by what that person is doing on the field. By how that person is engaging in combat. By how he’s applying the strategy right there, in the trenches. There’s no rule that will say that, once in the trenches, a general will be spared by a bullet just because he’s a general.

Page ranks, just like military ranks, are just a way to categorize your blogs with an incredibly large tolerance. They will never say something about your reputation.

In the army, if you do your job constantly, in time, you’ll be promoted. You don’t have to do something especially for this. Just go to work every day and you’ll be promoted. In blogging is the same. If you keep your blog alive long enough, it will eventually receive a higher page rank. At some point, you’ll receive a rank of a general.

But, please pardon my French here, I don’t really give squat on that general.  I’ve been through a real war, and I saw how bureaucratic captains were acting on the field. A real life disaster. No, siree. Those generals are not for me.

On the other hand, there were some officers who were really inspiring those days. Courageous, generous, brilliant in terms of strategy and so on. Those officers were wearing the same insignia as the bureaucratic ones. From the outside, they looked the same. But they were fundamentally different.

The same goes in blogging. Two blogs with an equal number of links will get an equal page rank in Google, Alexa or whatever. But more often than not, the real audience of a successful blog is a few orders of magnitude higher than of other, equal blogs in terms of ranking. You start to get it now?

I’m not saying that using aggressive linking and social media automated strategies won’t give you a certain Google page rank or a certain Alexa rank. I’m saying that, form a certain level of performance, those rankings are useless. They’re not building reputation, they’re building empty numbers. It’s blowing in the wind.

On the other hand, when focusing on real life interaction, on building honest relationships with your peers, you won’t generate only links and empty numbers, You will generate a movement. You will generate support and you will ignite new ideas. You will create inspiration. I don’t know how to measure inspiration. I don’t think there’s such a thing like inspiration ranking. But in my experience inspiration is far more powerful than any Google page rank.

At the end of the day, a PR 7 blog which is there only by aggressive linking and social media automated techniques, will have the same PR 7 as a blog that reached there by creating genuine trends, by providing real value, by inspiring people to propagate its message and spontaneously create links for it. From the outside, or, to be more, clear, from the mathematical point of view of the rank, they will be the same. But on the inside, those blogs will be completely different. The second blog will generate far more in interaction (and, if you really want to know, yes, far more sales) than a blog which relies only on page ranking techniques.

You will get results on both cases. And the choice is entirely up to you. You can choose to be a bureaucratic general, and you’ll be wiped out by the first genuine revolution on the Internet.

Or you can be a general to lead that very Revolution.

3 Ebooks To Read This Summer

When you summon the power to move on, to continue on your path, to just not quit, magic things are happening. Almost 2 years ago I didn’t even imagined that I would come to know so many interesting persons through blogging. Today, I think I have a close blogging friend in every country I would like to travel to. At least. For instance. I personally know all the authors presented in this article. Many of them are blogging buddies, met through social media. Today is a day when I gladly take the time to celebrate some of their achievements.

Upgrade Reality – by Dirk de Bruin (Diggy)

I met Diggy online 2 years ago. Just like me, he just started to blog and I was simply stunned when he told me he was only 23. It certainly didn’t sound like a 23 years old to me. I started to follow his blog and we quickly become friends.

Last week he launched his first ebook, called Upgrade Reality. He also nick-named the ebook: “The no-nonsense guide to overcoming personal obstacles and getting the life of your dreams.” We’re dealing with 122 pages in which he’s talking about: achievement and success, productivity, confidence and self-esteem, business, body and mind, people and relationships. And many more.

The ebook is easy to read but it’s not an easy ebook. This is just a short part that got my attention:

“The point of this book was not so much to give you solutions for specific problems rather than to give you an awareness and a sense of consciousness that it is possible to overcome anything and achieve your goals.”

If I would have to share in a single paragraph what I got from this book, it would go like this: a fresh and honest perspective on self-improvement. I wonder how many of us would write a self-improvement ebook at 25. How many of us would be ready to share their frustrations – and the corresponding breakthroughs based on those frustrations at this age? Even if it would be only for that, I would recommend giving Diggy’s book a try.

It’s available for 27 USD by clicking here.

Follow Diggy on Twitter: @UpgradeReality or visit his blog: http://www.upgradereality.com.

The Personal Excellence Ebook – by Celestine Chua

I met Celes about the same time I met Diggy. To be honest, one of the most intriguing part about those two people was their geographical location: Diggy is from South Africa and Celes from Singapore. And yet, despite this huge distance that separates us (I’m from Romania, by the way) we still found a lot of common ground.

Celes launched her first product too a week ago: The Personal Excellence Book – with a name obviously coming from The Personal Excellence Blog, the brand name of Celestine outlet. It’s not an ebook. It’s a compendium. I think it’s the biggest ebook I have ever seen. More than 800 pages of self-improvement content. Most of this content is based on previously published articles at Celes’ blog, but I don’t see how this could be a problem. On the contrary.

If you just want to get a glimpse of what’s inside, here are the main sections: Purpose and Meanindg, Awareness and Growth, Passion and Dreams, Goals and Success, Emotional Mastery, People and Relationships, Maximizing Productivity. An interesting part is the one that contains inspirational quotes.

Main impression: a very powerful feeling of ambition and persistence. Beyond the regular articles (which are way above the average, rest assured about that), this ebook gave me a very strong vibration of determination. I think the main benefit of this ebook would be exactly this: a personal example of personal power and self-discipline.

The Personal Excellence Ebook is available for 24.95 USD by clicking here.

Follow Celestine Chua on Twitter: @CelestineChua or visit her blog: http://www.personalexcellence.co.

Evernote Essentials – by Brett Kelly

Back in the golden age of GTD, Brett Kelly was one of the distinct voices. I remember that his blog was one of the first I read on the topic. Time passed by and GTD is no longer an option for me. Instead, I created my own productivity system, called Assess – Decide – Do (and in case you wonder, yes, there’s an app for that). But I kept an eye on Brett’s work, keeping in touch via Twitter.

A few weeks ago he launched his first ebook, called Evernote Essentials. If you don’t know what Evernote is, I’ll let you know briefly that Evernote tries to become the Swiss Army knife of productivity. It’s a collecting, processing and storage tool. An all-in-one pack that really works. I’m a constant user myself so I just couldn’t miss Brett’s view on this one.

This would be a completely different read, but hopefully in a very balanced way. If you’re a long time user of Evernote, you will surely find some hidden gems. If you’re using Evernote for the first time, you will spend at least a few full days only exploring the possibilities. All in all, it’s an 80 pages geeky (and relaxing at the same time, in a surprising way) read.

The ebook is available for 25 USD by clicking here.

Follow Brett Kelly on Tiwtter: @inkedmn or visit his blog: http://nerdgap.com.

2 Free Bonuses

I know I told you about 3 ebooks, but I thought to give you some pointers for another 2 additional resources, from 2 of the very well respected bloggers I know. Those 2 are completely free, by the way.

How To Get 10.000 Subscribers To Your Blog – by Steven Aitchison

This is the first attempt of Steven to create a product in direct relationship with his readers expectations. The ebook is the result of a poll Steven ran on his blog, in which he asked his readers what were the topics they want him to write on. He gave at least 7 different choices but apparently the vast majority of people picked this one.

I think the title says it all, so if you’re a blogger, or you just fantasize about how to be a blogger, grab it, read it and don’t forget to breathe. You can thank me later.

The ebook it’s available for free at Steven’s blog: 10000 Subscribers.

Follow Steven on Twitter: @StevenAitchison or read his blog: http://www.StevenAitchison.co.uk/blog.

Binaural Basics – by Carl Harvey

I’m a long term fan of binaural beats, but only recently I started to use them on a constant basis. I also realized I was a little bit behind because there were some newcomers to the party since I didn’t touch base with this area. Iso-chronic files, for instance, were something completely new to me. So, I felt the need to update my background a bit and the most interesting resource that came to my attention was Carl Harvey’s blog binauralbeatsgeek.com.

You can get this ebook completely free if you just sign up for his newsletter (which, to be honest, it’s an incredible resource in itself, if you’re interested about this). Just go to http://www.binauralbeatsgeek.com, find the newsletter form and sign up. You get a 80 pages ebook giving you a very detailed description of various types of brainwave tones, of the scientific research on which they are based and the major differences between different types (iso-chronic versus binaural or monoaural).

Either you plan to deepen you knowledge (or practice, why not) on this fascinating field, Carl’s free ebook is a very useful resource.

Follow Carl Harvey on Twitter: @pdplanet or read his blog: http://www.binauralbeatgeek.com.

Ebooks, Ebooks, Ebooks… and Friends

Running a mildly popular blog, like this one, has one very interesting advantage: you get to know a lot of people. Many of them are really great people, while some of them are downright wonderful to the point that you have no choice but to become friends. And every once in a while those friends of mine are doing great things, like providing fresh, original and useful content.

Today I will talk about some of the ebooks launched by my friends in the last few weeks.

David Damron’s Ebook: Simple Health and Fitness

I was a raw foodist for 9 and a half months, so I kinda know what’s going on when it comes to keep a balanced diet. To my surprise, David’s book was a refresher. Not only he talks about serious facts like nutrition in a very open and relaxed way, but he combines this approach with a focused exercising routine.

I won’t give you a summary of the book, because you’d better go out and get it for yourself if you want to take full advantage of that good advice. But I will tell you that I caught myself reading some of the chapters with my mouth open (which is a sign of intense concentration for me, in case you’re wondering). Some of the highlights of the book are: Menage A Trois: Travel, Health & Fitness, in which I got a glimpse at David’s digital nomad lifestyle, The Cost Of Living Of Unhealthy Lifestyle, pretty self-explanatory, and the very practical zones about Gear and Cost, in which you can actually evaluate how much you’ll spend (like in real money) in order to bring a little bit of health and fitness in your life.

All in all, David Damron’s book is a very good read and it’s packed with useful and interesting facts, not to mention the author personal experience in applying what he writes about. And for 9.95 USD I really think it’s a very good value for money.

One more word about David’s book: he launched an insane affiliate program for it. So, if you want to resell it while making a little bit of extra cash, you’re free to sign up. He’s giving away 75% for each sale, which is one of the biggest commissions I saw lately in the affiliate world. What you’ve been eating, David?

Mike King’s Ebook: Building Better Relationships

The next ebook comes from a very special friend, Mike King, from LearnThis.ca. I’ve been knowing Mike for more than a year and he was one of my first blogging pals, so to speak. He writes about self-improvement and leadership and he does it very well. Mike was also one of my first sparring partners in writing top 100 lists, specifically the 100 Ways To Live A Better Life article, a post which changed everything for this blog. His first huge list post was 100 Ways To Be A Better Leader, go check it out.

Now, Mike launched a few weeks ago his first ebook ever and it’s about relationships. I was a bit surprised about the topic, as I knew Mike as a passionate and bold leadership writer. But then I realized that leadership is all about relationships, not about management. And his ebook proves this wonderfully.

Again, I’m not going to tell what’s inside, I’m leaving that for you to discover (which means by clicking that link, you’re going directly to Mike’s page). But I will tell you that some of the parts were really touching me, especially the chapter in which Mike advises to “Change Yourself Only”. Too often, in any relationships, efforts are geared towards changing the other one to fit our own expectations. This is simply not working. If you really want to make any relationship working for both, go change yourself only. This is by far one of the best advice in Mike’s ebook, but not even remotely the only one. All in all, a warm, lucid and at the same time productive approach to relationships.

An interesting thing about Mike’s ebook is that it comes already packaged as an audio book, a part from the regular PDF. The whole package is 22 USD (more than affordable for a full package containing both written and audio content), again, a very good value for money. Mike also has an affiliate program in place for his book, you will get 50% off of each sale.

Zeenat Merchant-Syal’ Ebook: Best Of Positive Provocations

Zeenat is a fresh presence in the self-improvement world and by that I mean she’s new – with only one year of blogging at Positive Provocations – but she’s also projecting a fresh perspective. Zeenat is also a contributor to this blog, her post about Successful Excellence being one of my all time favorites.

Zeenat writing has a very unique twist: every time I read one of her articles I feel like both my brain hemispheres are involved. She’s frequently visually marking her words by making them bold or underlined, and that makes some of her articles look like paintings. More or less…

The ebook is a free download at Positive Provocations and I recommend it for anyone who want to get a glimpse of Zeenat’s writing. And if you’re not going to subscribe after you’ll read it, than I’m sure you got the wrong ebook

Anastasiya Goers’ Ebook: Balance In Me

Another new presence in the personal development blogging world is Anastasiya Goers from BalanceInMe.com. I first met her a few months ago when she published a huge list post (yeah, it seems like huge lists posts are the new black in the blogogsphere, so to speak) in which she mentioned one of my posts.

I was very surprised to discover in that post many familiar names but also some unknown (for me) bloggers. Some of them made it to my RSS readers instantly. A few days ago, Anastasiya also become one of this blog contributors, with a wonderful article on passion and business.

Her book is called “The Book Of Wisdom – 50 Ideas For The All Around Balanced Life” and it’s also a free download (yes, you should click this link like right now!). In this book you’ll find an exquisite list of articles for a lot of A-listers in the self-improvement niche (disclaimer: I also have an article in this book).

Well, that’s it for now. Be sure to check out those ebooks and spread the word. Because in the end, like the title of the article says, ebooks may come and go, but friends are here to stay

How I Wrote And Published 4 Books on Amazon in One Month

I don’t really believe in advertising as a valid, long-term monetizing strategy for a blog. There are more cons than pros, if you take the time to really look at it. Yet, many bloggers are rushing towards advertising and fill up their blog real estate with tons of banners and then dumbly wait for money to pour in.

Advertising has a very low entry point, all you need is some traffic and traffic building is relatively cheap, that’s true. But advertising also have a very, very low output: you need incredibly high amounts of traffic to make a decent amount of money. I won’t talk about the pros and cons of advertising as a blog monetizing strategy in this post. What I am going to talk about is my blog monetizing strategy for 2010.

The Strategy

First of all, let me tell you that I intend to make a huge change in my blog revenue in 2010. And by huge I mean huge, period. Second, I intend to make this happen by increasing my throughput. Delivering more value. This extra value may be contained in the form and the structure of this blog or it may be just an extension of the blog. Precisely, I’m going to build my own line of information products.

In the first 3 months of the year (including January, which is gone) I will create a series of ebooks. After that I may try a line of podcasts and/or video. If talking to a microphone is not at all unusual for me (I worked as a radio host for more than 7 years) doing some vlogging is certainly something intriguing. Which for me translates into “I have to do this”.

The very first items of my information products line are already out and they have been out for at least 2 weeks now. If you’re reading my blog on the web (as opposed to being an RSS subscriber) you noticed some changes. To make a long story short: during January, I already wrote 4 new books and also published them on Amazon. I won’t describe them now, I will let you download the free previews, if you want. Word of caution: there is one book which doesn’t have an associated ebook version and that would be The Productivity Trap (Amazon affiliate link).

Now let’s move on the “why” part of this decision.

Why Selling My Own Information Products

Because it’s more suited to my own lifestyle, to be honest. And because I find it much more appropriate to the whole concept of blogging as a business. A highly successful blogger should focus on increasing his throughput and deliver more of his personal experience, rather than relying on external, adjacent businesses, like advertising or affiliate marketing. I have nothing against that, and as a matter of fact I’m doing pretty well on affiliate marketing, I just came to a point where I want to do more. And here’s why:

1. Bigger Input

If I will build my own series of information products I will have greater control over the audience response. I can see what products are performing well and what products are not. I will see exactly what parts of my efforts are making the biggest impact. And adjust. We will grow together.

2. Better Connectivity

I will get in touch faster and deeper with my readers. Each of their responses will help me provide more value. Or, if I’m on the wrong path, I could be warned earlier. Anyway, creating more value on top of an already existing layer will streamline the existing communication.

3. Better Return

Let’s face it: in advertising, you’re the last layer from a huge pile. Each layer on this pile is retaining something of the value you deserve. At some level, this is understandable and I have nothing against it, as I already said it. I just choose to minimize this pile and keep fewer layers of interaction.

How I Did It

I started to write. Ok, it was a little bit more than that. Before sitting at a table and write, I tried to find the answers to 3 simple questions:

1. What Are You Going To Write About?

Not that I don’t have a gazillion topics ready to be extracted from my brain in the form of a readable ebook. It wasn’t the lack of topics, on the contrary, it was the prioritizing and selling strategy. What exactly would be the most fit and useful range of topics for my audience? And then it hit me: since I already have a lot of topics covered in this very blog, why not just run a content analysis and see which type of content performed better than the other?

I think the technical term for this is “crowd-tested”. Selecting topics which were already doing great in terms of traffic, comments and social media exposure. That’s one of the biggest advantages of a blog. You get all the interaction with your readers and deliver your message to a live audience, ready to validate or invalidate it. Oh, and in the process you do have a lot of fun too. Well, to keep a long story short, I chose to write ebooks based on the most popular posts I had in the last year.

2. How Much Do You Want To Write On Top Of These Posts?

I was fortunate enough to have a previous experience on this: my first ebook. It took me about 2 months of on and off writing to get that done. But it was like 90% new content. And, to be honest, it really felt like huge.

So I decided this time I will only go for 60% new content on top of the blog posts. That would lower the pages number, but this is not necessarily something bad. On the contrary. My aim is to provide easy to use and to re-use information. I’m not writing a philosophy manual. If I would write something like this, I would make revenue plans not for a year but maybe for 50. Or even 150 .

Now, one would argue that you can’t write tons of good, easy to read, appealing books just by using crowd-tested blog posts, and I would very much agree with that. I have more than 350 personal development articles on this blog now but I won’t go for more than 10-15 good books using only the best of the best.

I intend to freeze this strategy somewhere around book number 15. By that time I hope to gather enough experience and ability to be able to start writing books from the scratch, without the skeleton of a blog post. To be honest, I have 3 book projects (on personal development) that are waiting in my Someday/Maybe folder. Maybe that Someday is sooner than I thought

3. In What Form Are You Going To Sell Those Ebooks?

That was tricky, but in the end I come up with something really neat. I decided to have both electronic and printed formats. If there’s nothing to be explained about electronic formats (I already did it for my first ebook and I explained a little bit the process in the launch post) I think the printed part of this decision deserves a little bit of an explanation.

I was studying self-publishing platforms for a few months and sometimes during November last year I decided to give a try to CreateSpace.  The whole process looked clean and also easy to manage. All you have to do is to upload a PDF containing your book and a cover. You get an ISBN number and your own eStore, handling the whole selling process. The book is printed on demand, of course.

After I played a little bit with the site I abandoned the idea. And then, just a few weeks after, I saw that one of my fellow bloggers, Steven Aitchison, started to do exactly that. He published his first book on CreateSpace and… Amazon! Wow. It was like a thunder for me. I knew all the time that CreateSpace was an Amazon company, but for some reason my mind refused to make the connection. Of course! If you self-publish via CreateSpace you can make your book available on Amazon.com too.

And why is that important? you may ask. Why that thunder? Because Amazon gives exactly what you don’t have as a blogger: marketing and a HUGE captive audience (you may have a big community as a blogger, but not a HUGE captive audience).  It was really enlightening. So, I re-started the whole self-publishing process. The first one was 30 Sentences For A Millionaire Mindset (Amazon affiliate link), just to have a printed peer and then moved on the new ones. Everything was going on smoothly, but something was missing.

And I didn’t know exactly what, until I decided to start a challenge with Steven. We decide to race: whoever will be the first to have 5 books published on Amazon during January, will win. Strangely enough, I won that one. But the February challenge is already on, and we’re targeting 4 new books with that. So it’s complicated.

I started a challenge not because I wanted to win, in the first place (although the desire to win was there too) but because I wanted to be held accountable. To have somebody who can tell me: I will do it regardless of what you choose to do and I may win this. These types of challenges are a fantastic motivator. At least for me.

The Routine

If you’re going to follow this monetization strategy, you have to be aware of some of the pitfalls.

First of all: you will write more. Much more. So be sure to put aside some extra time for that, if you’re not a full time blogger. Writing blog posts is one thing, but committing to a book, even if you already have a scaffold for it, will take more energy and focus. Prepare to spend more on this side. The good thing is that books have a bigger inertia than blog posts: they tend to remain alive much more time than a blog post. So the passive income revenue potential is bigger.

Second: It will take some time. It’s not only the approval process for the printed books, this one is relatively manageable, somewhere between 24 and 48 hours. It’s about the extra work you should do AFTER everything is done. You will have some new activities or you’ll have to put more time in activities you already perform, like writing landing pages, communicating with your affiliates (if you already have a network of affiliates) and analyzing market inputs (sales, evolution, etc).

Third: balance it. It will be a huge effort. Be aware! Balance your extra work with some rest or other activities. I did feel a few times the gentle touch of a potential burn out during this month, but hopefully I made it without it.

The Goodies

Now, I know you’re curious about what’s in those ebooks anyway. I can feel it. Since you made it till here I can tell you have a genuine interest in them and you could really, really find a use for one or all of my ebooks. So, without further ado, here’s my proposal.

Are you ready?

Really?

Ok, let’s do it:

I’m going to give free copies of any of my ebooks in exchange for a review. How does it sounds? Yeah, I heard that Oh, and the best part is that you DON’T need to have a blog to get a free copy! Because you can write a review at Amazon.com too. How cool is that? You get a free ebook and all you have to do is to write a review on your blog OR on Amazon.com. Kinda neat, if you ask me .

Now let’s get practical. Here’s what you have to do: leave a comment and let me know which ebooks are of interest to you. You can have any of the ebooks, including the flagship of my fleet, 30 Sentences For A millionaire Mindset! If you want, you can have all 4 ebooks (The Productivity Trap [Amazon affiliate link] is available only in printed form, I’m afraid, so that one should be bought directly).

Also, please let me know if you want or not to become an affiliate. Ups, I almost forgot: you can promote and resell my ebooks and you’ll get 50% off of each sale. I could have pick a smaller amount and then try to lure you in with some ”extra“ discounts up to this number, but I choose to do it upfront: 50% no questions asked. And since the printed versions are on sale on Amazon, you can promote them just as you promote other Amazon books on your site, if you’re an Amazon affiliate.

Ok, after you let me know which ebooks are you interested in, I will email them to you for free. The only thing I ask is to let me know when you’re going to publish the review, where (your blog and/or Amazon) and if you found some value in what I wrote. If you think somebody else would be interested in this giveaway, feel free to spread the word.

I don’t know for how long I’m going to do this, so be sure to act now, because, based on the response I get, this offer may end really soon.

That’s all.

Go!