Blogging for Money (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Blogging for Money

[Keith]

There's a typo in the article: You pore through the forums, not 'pour'.

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

In this case I’d rather see these ideas spread as far and wide as possible and not worry about extracting every dollar.

Is there any chance of Open Sourcing it then (presumably once it's already earnt you a certain amount of money)? Personally I'm going to buy a copy, but I imagine it would be very useful to people who can't afford it.

P.S. It was interesting to read about how tight it was financially in the early days of Dexterity. Sometimes I have this vision of everything coming easily to you and it's useful to be reminded that it took time, effort and focus.

[Steve Pavlina]

Thanks for the typo report -- it's fixed. The article is nearly 5,000 words, so there are bound to be a few that slipped through.

The business decisions regarding the book are up to the publisher. I think it's unlikely to be turned into a freebie though, since the content is intended to be timeless, and my web site should be able to keep a good baseline level of sales flowing almost indefinitely. If it keeps selling well on Amazon, the bookstores will likely continue to stock it, so it probably won't die too quickly.

There's enough free content on this site already to fill about 20 books, so I think I've got the freebie side pretty well covered.

[Jake Birkett]

Great post thanks Steve. It was interesting to hear about the early days at Dexterity. The market is different now but many of the principles are exactly the same and lots of people just don't get it - they make their game, stick it on their site and wait...If people don't want to do the marketing themselves then delegation is the best thing - find a publisher who'll do that work for you (it's what I did, but I learnt from them and other sources until I could do it myself).

Good luck with the book.

[seeker5]

P.S. It was interesting to read about how tight it was financially in the early days of Dexterity. Sometimes I have this vision of everything coming easily to you and it's useful to be reminded that it took time, effort and focus.

I agree, it was great to read about the stories about you and Erin struggling, getting kicked out of an apartment. It makes you more human and gives more hope to us who have been there but aren't where you are yet.

I've love to hear stories of how you dealt with staving off despair, and how you maintained a relationship with a spouse while going through difficult times.

[Dreamlife Hero]

Great article Steve, as usual.

As for human referrals; I've recommended this site to almost everyone I know!

Good luck with the book. And when your speaking really takes off be sure to visit Old Blighty (Britain!).

Spotted another typo - 'cos I know you're a perfectionist! :

There are way too many people who are genuinely receptive to this kind of work that I’ll simple deal with them first and leave the cynics to fend for themselves

(4 paragraphs before The Money Decision)

I also found it helpful to know that you suffered some hard times before your current success.

Keep up the good work,

DLH

[povman]

It was and.

That sentence made me laugh. Thanks

[Sindre]

Great post, Steve! I've just made the decision to blog for money, and launched my selfhelp/personal development-site on February 1st. It's in Norwegian, and there's almost nothing about PD available in this language on the internet.

As you guessed - You're my inspiration behind this, so thank you! I will pick up these tips, and start thinking even more like an entrepreneur.

Do you have any extra startup tips for me (and others reading this)? On the money-part: What's the best way to get started making some desent money? Is it to get some kind of deals like the one you've gotten with site-build-it? From your experience, what products do you feel your visitors have been most interested in?

I'm planning my first "business-calls" (or at least mails) in the near future

[Steve Pavlina]

@Sindre: I'd recommend focusing your energy on traffic building first before you worry about income at all. Ads and affiliate programs probably aren't even worth fussing with until you're getting some decent traffic, maybe 1,000 visitors per day bare minimum.

Income is a function of traffic, so in the beginning it's best to focus on traffic, traffic, traffic. Income generation isn't part of the early game -- that comes in during the mid-game.

Some people may disagree, but that's the strategy I used.

[Sindre]

I had a feeling you would say that

I think that's a clever strategy, and it's the one I follow myself. However, I've already put up some Adsense and som other ads, because the template would look empty without it. (I bought a very nice magazine-template for a cheap price).

But I will mainly focus on building traffic the next months.
Thanks for the tip, Steve.

[Marelisa]

Those who don't have a business background tend to underestimate the importance of marketing. They tend to hold the view "If I build it they will come". I read somewhere that having a business but neglecting to market it aggressively is like winking at a girl in the dark; you know you're doing it, but no one else does. There's something called persistent marketing: you have to be doing something related to marketing every day.

Marelisa
Marelisa Online - Home

[BChris]

Hey nice Post!

The only one who can really abuse you is you… by failing to honor and love yourself fully. No one else will value your gifts and talents unless you value them yourself.

I'm struggling to value myself lately theres sometimes I feel I just dont have anything to do with my life.

I just put that as a note in my Desktop, to remind me how valuable I am jeje!

By the way I notice youre kind of mad when talking about Dealing with cynics wich I didnt understand to well wich people youre talking about. (sorry for my stupidity there)

And another thing I was reading this site Young Entrepreneurs Making Money Online lately and Im really wondering if is really possible to make a business as such a young age. I mean Im 19 but I dont really believe I cant make a profitable business right now at least not yet. I believe that someday I will have my own business but for some reason I just dont want money.

"Computer games dont sale"
I dont care Im still going to be a game developer at least for some time!!! jeje

[Game Producer]

Originally Posted by Jake Birkett

Great post thanks Steve. It was interesting to hear about the early days at Dexterity. The market is different now but many of the principles are exactly the same and lots of people just don't get it - they make their game, stick it on their site and wait...If people don't want to do the marketing themselves then delegation is the best thing - find a publisher who'll do that work for you (it's what I did, but I learnt from them and other sources until I could do it myself).

Good luck with the book.

Yep, good post (and thanks Jake for mentioning this).

I remember printing & reading Steve's Dexterity articles, and got some inspiration to proceed more into gaming area (although it was pretty much "a fun hobby", not business) at the good ol' Dexterity times.

The times indeed have changed in the gaming world: the casual games, portals, digital distribution (for AAA games) and not to mention all new platforms...

...but now I'm getting too deep in to the gaming side of things.

It was interesting to see how long Steve was in the gaming side of things, after eventually "retiring" to the personal development area.

Thanks for the post.

[ericabiz]

Steve,

I know I called you out pretty hard on your last post (and I still think its title should be changed.) This post, however, is excellent and contains a ton of information. Since I called you out on the last one, I felt it was important to give you a hearty "Thank you" for this post. A great read.

-Erica

[AndrewPavelski]

Not only should you focus your energy on traffic building, but the creation of quality content. With the combination of quality content efficient marketing strategies, you will build up the traffic you need to make money. It will take some time and commitment to build up traffic that you should be prepared for. You could install 125 x 125 ad squares for other blogs to purchase advertising for the month or for other bloggers to win advertising on your blog through a contest -- this way you'd initially be making some money. Setting up affiliate programs early will usually not do you any good... I definitely agree with Steve here.

Best wishes,

Andrew

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

@Sindre: I'd recommend focusing your energy on traffic building first before you worry about income at all. Ads and affiliate programs probably aren't even worth fussing with until you're getting some decent traffic, maybe 1,000 visitors per day bare minimum.

Income is a function of traffic, so in the beginning it's best to focus on traffic, traffic, traffic. Income generation isn't part of the early game -- that comes in during the mid-game.

Some people may disagree, but that's the strategy I used.

[John P]

That was a great article, Steve. I always enjoy hearing your perspective on income generation. I often find myself slipping back into the "money is bad and I shouldn't try to make any" mindset and am reminded when I read your articles that I need to redirect my thoughts.

Thanks =)

[Jonathan Mead]

Thanks for the articles steve. You recent articles congruency with your career (before the raw food experiment) and creating an online business have really inspired me. In fact, I just signed up for my own domain and hosting (greenesthost.com), installed wordpress and now I'm focusing on building content and traffic. Your podcast #20 on creative self expression really motivated me to want to change the direction of my life and made me want to be more true to myself. I appreciate all your efforts and I'm looking forward to the book. This was the first time I've heard you really talk about any of the details, exciting stuff.

[Ali from The Office Diet]

This was, for me, a perfect post at the perfect time.

I launched my first stab at a professional (as opposed to purely personal-journal) type blog in January, and whilst I have loved the content-generation side, I've been struggling to see traffic-building activities as worthwhile work rather than just "playing around on forums and other blogs".

Steve, your explanation of the difference between writing a blog and running a business was exactly what I needed to hear. :-) I've made the decision to spend my day off next Tuesday working on the marketing side of things. (I've cut down to 4 days/week in my job to start building up income streams from more fulfilling projects.) I'm not worried about money at this stage, just at building traffic.

Thanks for such an excellent article, which gave me a real boost when my motivation was flagging.

As others have mentioned above, it was also fascinating to read about your early days of struggling with Dexterity. So thanks too for your (as always) willingness to be honest and write about the personal side of things in your articles.

Best,

Ali

[Steve Pavlina]

I made a lot of dumb mistakes in the first 5 years of running Dexterity Software. I was a geek game programmer biting off way more than I could chew.

A popular article on business mistakes some of you may also enjoy can be found here:
10 Mistakes Made by the Newly Self-Employed

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I made a lot of dumb mistakes in the first 5 years of running Dexterity Software. I was a geek game programmer biting off way more than I could chew.

You know from time to time I do disagree with you, but you have my respect on business side. I would read and give things you write serious consideration based on what you accomplished.

[jamestl2]

Here's a question for you Steve:

How do you find the willpower to write such looooooong posts?

I admit that I like to write about things that inspire me, but my articles never seem to go above and beyond 1,000 words, and I consider myself to enjoy writing.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by jamestl2

How do you find the willpower to write such looooooong posts?

It doesn't take any willpower at all. My mind is often racing ahead with ideas, so I just let it run its course and type as fast as I can in a vain attempt to keep up with the flow. Writing comes easy to me. I don't think I'd have decided to be a blogger if I had to push myself to write.

One of these days I might challenge myself to see how much I could write in a single day if I really tried. I think 15K words would be achievable. I've done 10K words in a day a few times before, including proofing/editing.

[wulph]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Writing comes easy to me. I don't think I'd have decided to be a blogger if I had to push myself to write.

In one of your articles, you shared some tidbits about your early writing: that you disliked it in school, learned much from an eccentric teacher (e.g. writing an essay without using the letter "E"), and began to enjoy writing in the 1990s.

How did this transformation happen? I find it extremely challenging to string together more than a couple paragraphs; I'd love to read more (perhaps in a future blog entry) about how to release writing inhibitions and even to learn to enjoy the process.

[Steve Pavlina]

Probably the biggest thing that got me to enjoy writing was when I started journaling. I found that when I just wrote for myself, the words flowed easily. That got me started.

I've written around 700 blog posts, so maybe I've done close to 1.5 million words for this website by now. They say the second million is easier.

Just write a lot. It gets easier with practice.

[Gene]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

I've written around 700 blog posts, so maybe I've done close to 1.5 million words for this website by now. They say the second million is easier.

Just write a lot. It gets easier with practice.

I used to be online with a conferencing system that had a successful science fiction author, Jerry Pournelle as one of the members and he would say most good authors needed to write a million or two million words before they were really first rate authors.

I suspect for most people his observations are accurate. The more I write and the more I make an effort to write every day the better my work becomes.

[Animekid]

Steve, thanks for an interesting post about blogging.

I have to say that this post certainly re-enforced what I have already come to know about blogging...if you just want to write about stuff in general than you can call yourself a blogger, write about a few subjects all contained in one blog and be happy...on the other hand if you want to live the life style that you and several other well known bloggers live...even if it means going to the laptop at 3:am to write an article...you can...if you run your blog as a business instead of just a hobby. This post has made me ( along with taking a course from another well known blogger ) take a harder look at my blogging efforts, and what I will have to do to tailor my blog for my audience ( however small that might be at this point in time ) but I do realize that consistency and being able to give your audience interesting and informative, helpful content will keep your readers coming back.

Lew
Fanboy@50

[Andrew Brunelle]

I love the part in this entry where you talk about your win-win product evaluations/promotions. I have to say, you really do your homework and I have benefitted immensely from both Photoreading and Paraliminals. Although they are expensive by nature, your discount really helped me realize that these powerful tools will not help you to your goals by themselves, but prove as valuable and irreplacable tools in the path of personal development. Thank you.

[ellie]

Hi steve,

This was a really interesting post, nice and detailed.

I'm wondering how you marketed your gaming site? Did you do it through ads, visiting forums and telling them about your service?

I'm just starting to get the word out there on my site, but at the same time I don't want to seem like I am spamming. I'm visiting sites/forums and introducing myself, contributing and putting a link in my signatures, but not getting much response from that. I will say I've only put my details on a few sites, maybe 6 in total, but not sure how much is enough?

I have got a few people linking to my site (high traffic sites), but still not many people are getting involved.

Love to hear your thoughts

[Steve Pavlina]

I used a lot of different marketing strategies, but I mainly promoted my games by uploading free demos to hundreds of different download sites. The biggest one at the time was download.com. Those free demos generated direct sales as well as web traffic. I also got some decent search traffic. For a while my site ranked #1 on "free game downloads."

[suellen]

Hi Steve, thanks for a great read on blogging for money. Your article was both focused and concise and came at an excellent time for me, as I have been seriously considering shifting the focus of my blog to generate an income that, in the best of all possible worlds, would support me and allow me to grow my business further. I happen to think I have a great basis for that sort of venture. However, I find myself wondering about one thing. To attract clients who are prepared to pay money to have me review their products/services, surely I would need to have substantial reader numbers, in order to get the ball rolling (I currently have an average of 400-500 a day). It's a chicken or egg situation: how do I generate the reader numbers before I have a service to offer?

Grateful for any tips. Thanks.

ADDENDUM: I've just read a bit further upthread, and see you've addressed this issue already - however, do you have any concrete tips on how to generate more traffic?