Archive for December 7th, 2009

This is part of the the book BLOGTASTIC! Growing and Making a Difference Through Blogging. You can read the table of contents and follow the book on this page:

See the table of contents for the book here: BLOGTASTIC project

Previous article: You can’t be famous just by blogging…

BLOGTASTIC: You can’t get rich just by blogging…

Blogging certainly isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. OK, please, let’s not talk about those people who make money by selling information on “how to make money via blogging.”

There are some people who write full-time in the blogosphere. These people demonstrate, by their actions, that there is serious money in this business—enough that they can make it their career. Watch them carefully and notice that they never say it’s easy to do that. If you are pro blogger, you must be prepared to make it a full-time job – meaning be ready to put in 60-80 hours per week.

If you’re hoping to become a professional blogger, be prepared for disappointment. Your blogging career may become a runaway success, but that’s not what happens for most people.

Let’s turn from the world of professional bloggers to your world. Can you make any money from blogging? The answer to that question depends on your objectives for starting and maintaining a blog.

Here are a few basic ways to make money through a blog:

1. Advertising–You can pitch products and services through direct advertising or through an advertisement network. Google AdSense is currently one of the biggest ad networks out there.

2. Sponsorships–You can locate companies to sponsor your blog. Remember that they will sponsor for mainly two reasons – lead generation and branding. Unless you are an extraordinary thought leader, they won’t do it for branding reasons. That leaves lead generation as one of the main reasons that someone will sponsor your blog. Before you approach a company to sponsor your blog, make sure that your blog is read by that company’s target market.

3. Selling premium content–You can sell e-books, audio/podcasts, or videos.

For example, take a look at these fine bloggers who sell premium eBooks on their blogs:

1. Leo Babuata (Zen Habits)

2. Chris Guillebeau (The Art of Non-Conformity)

3. Dave Navarro (The Launch Coach)

4. Affiliate Programs–You can generate traffic, leads, and even sales for other products and services through revenue-sharing programs. Affiliate programs pay you when someone makes a purchase.

5. White Label Services–You can incorporate job boards, auctions, or games with your brand on them. Typically, you make money on a referral or a revenue share basis.

For example, here are two services that can provide job boards for your blog

1. Simply Hired

2. Job Mount

6. Get Paid to Write – On an extreme end, this is called “Pay Per Post.” This is where someone (individual or a company) pays you to write about them. This is a controversial topic and my suggestion is to run away from this as far as possible. The money that you can make from this is probably far less than the damage that you can incur by engaging in this practice.

7. Joining a Blog Network – There are many blog networks that aggregate blogs and sell advertisements across the network. Like everything in life, there are advantages and disadvantages with this approach. Most blog networks pay you based on the pageviews on your blog. Some even pay you a base fee (per month) which would give you revenue predictability. The big disadvantage is the perceived loss of control over your blog.

Examples of blog networks

1. 9Rules Network

2. b5Media

8. Ask for Donations – It will probably take a few minutes of your time to set this up via Paypal. If you provide REALLY good content, some people will be inclined to donate. Noted Personal Development Expert Steve Pavlina once mentioned that donations were the second biggest stream of income for him on his blog. The average donation amount on his blog was $10 but he had received many $100 donations. You can follow his blog at StevePavlina.com.

If you are looking for a simple Tip jar for your blog, you can check out the following:

1. ScratchBack.com

2. PayPal Donation button

The above were some direct ways of making money on your blog. There is an indirect way of making money from the blog. Imagine by how much your personal brand is strengthened because of the blog. If this enhanced personal brand gets you a higher premium for your speaking engagements, that’s one indirect way of making money from your blog.

Unless you want to be a professional blogger, best would be to focus on “indirect” ways of making money from the blog.

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Blogging Tip: Investigate potential ROI from your initiatives.

If you want to prove a point and show that you can make money from blogging, go ahead and do that! However, you need to calculate the true cost your blog. While most blogging software is free, you must count the value of your time. How much revenue will you create, and what will it cost you? If you are happy with your answer, then you can start exploring monetization options.

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Rajesh Setty is an entrepreneur, author and speaker based in Silicon Valley. He maintains another blog called Life Beyond Code and tweets as @UpbeatNow

Tagged as: blogging, monetization, revenue generation

A while ago, I had written about “What a Project is Not”? This post is an extension of that post in which I will discuss why projects are needed and what projects, in fact, are. You will probably get as many interpretations of what a project is, as the number of people you talk with and most of them, are probably right in their own way. But, we are not talking about right or wrong here; we are concerned about what makes for a more powerful interpretation and that’s that. This obviously leads us to the question:  What makes something powerful? The answer is really simple – Anything that is in alignment with why it was invented in the first place makes up for a powerful way of existence. In Projects speak, this would be the purpose of the Project.

So, Why are Projects needed?

Projects are needed when old practices and ways of doing things no longer generate effective results or worse, generate breakdowns that we have to cope with. One of the most common sources that generate the need for projects is the rapidly changing marketplace. Today’s marketplace (as opposed to the one that existed 30-40 years ago) calls for the invention of new projects at breakneck speed. All you have to do is nothing for a month (probably, not even that) and you’ll see how your competition edges you out to obscurity.

What do you need to Invent a Project

The most fundamental thing that is needed even before a Project can be invented is – You must be “Up to” something. It can be as simple as going from point A to point B OR as complex as going to the moon. What you are “Up to” defines why you are inventing the project.  Entrepreneurs are inventing projects all the time. Projects teams are enrolled in this “Project mission” and “execute” on a “plan” towards achieving this goal.

How are projects brought into existence?

Projects are brought into existence by making specific declarations of what it is that will be produced at the end. There are, of course, other parameters on which specific declarations are made around – scope, time line and resources, to name a few but, at a fundamental level these are all declarations of producing a specific result by a certain time frame.

Projects are Costly, yet Unavoidable and Necessary

This is perhaps, the only guarantee, a project carries. Yes, it’s unfortunate, but true. Projects are inherently costly (we obviously see this as an investment – that’s why we incur the cost, but I’ll continue using the word “Costly” for now)  and what makes them so is that it takes time, energy, money and lost opportunities to learn the new practices & tools that are needed to run the project, efficiently. Then there are the costs associated with resources and then there are the many unknown costs – that only show up during the execution of the projects.

It would be a disservice to the topic of projects if I ended on the rather somber “Projects are Costly” note… Projects are also unavoidable and necessary … in that, they will continue to exist and invented as long as the marketplace continues changing and businesses find themselves coping with the changing landscape. Projects have an immense capacity to produce exceptional results to take care of the concerns they are invented for – as long as they are planned for, managed and executed well.

<Shameless Plug Begin>

At Active Garage, we keep tinkering on projects. We have two projects (one completed and one still going on) and more to come. Please check out our current projects here:

1. defiant, a social media powered eBook

2. BLOGTASTIC series

</Shameless Plug End>

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This article was contributed by Himanshu Jhamb, co-founder of Active Garage and co-author of the upcoming book "ProjectManagementTweets". You can follow Himanshu on Twitter at himjhamb.

Tagged as: breakdown, commitment, costs, declaration, energy, entrepreneurs, interpretation, lost opportunities, Money, plan, powerful, Project Management, projects, purpose, scope, time, time frame, time line