How to Make Money (for me) Blogging

I was reminded of my rather strong opinions of Blogging Gurus by a recent Twitter conversation where The Deep Friar contrasted paying $5,000.00 to fix his roof with paying the same amount to some Internet Guru for 10 hours of "advice". I kindly offered to spend 10 minutes with him for the same amount, which is an astounding 98.33% savings of his time!

Needless to say, he hasn't taken me up on this. Why should he, when he can find everything I have to say right here for free? Oh, I do sell a book - Hard Truths about Easy Money on the Internet - but there's nothing in there that you can't find somewhere here for free. NOTHING. The only difference is that the book is organized better, and for that I charge a whopping $14.95.

According to many of the Internet Gurus, I should charge much more (after all, THEY do!). There's even one guy who makes a living teaching you how to OVERCHARGE for whatever you happen to be selling. Of course he overcharges for his advice about overcharging and actually tells you that he is doing just that!

If you are going to pitch a book or a course, you are also supposed to have a "ramp-up". That's where you tease your followers with what is to come, and give them special, early-bird discounts (discounts off your overpriced book, of course). Long before this, you've been slavishly sucking up to bigger bloggers and making back-room deals with some Big Names. Those deals might be as crass as a cash payment or as simple as a few dozen guest posts on their blogs in exchange for the Big Name helping to whip up the suckers - umm, faithful readers - into a buying frenzy. Make a really good deal, and the Big Name might even co-author your work! Wow, THAT should jack up sales!

And what is your book/course about? Why, how to sell a book or course on how to sell a book or course, of course. Very recursive and almost Zen-like, isn't it? It's the circle of life, my friend, and you can be part of it!

Where to start? Well, you COULD buy one of those over-priced books or courses. If I can be serious for a moment (and it's hard to be so when discussing such a snake-oil business), you actually CAN find good advice that way. You'll find nothing that you could not find for free, but like my book, it will be packaged up and will save you time. Is it worth it?

Ah, there's the question, isn't it? I'd guess that you could get a pretty good basic education on Making Money With Blogging in a couple of hours on the Internet. All free stuff. Since you happen to be here right now, I invite you to click on the "Advertising" index at the top of the left column accompanying this page. You should also scan through the "Blogging" index. You can Google (or Bing if you must) for "Make Money Blogging". Unfortunately, that's going to give you a lot of people who want to make money by telling you how to make money (circle of life again), but there will be free stuff mixed in.

If your time is worth a few thousand dollars an hour, then you should feel free to snap up a few of the over-priced books and courses. THEY ARE BETTER THAN THE $14.95 books like I sell. Better in that they are undoubtedly prettier, have more charts and pictures and may even come with notebooks and DVD's! Very exciting stuff, indeed.

Also, you'll pay a lot for them, so they MUST be worth more. Pay no attention to what I said about the guy who teaches bloggers how to overcharge. No, the stuff YOU bought is worth it!

If your time is worth a bit less, but still valuable, you might want to seek out a few books like mine. There will be tremendous overlap, of course, but we all tell stories in different ways, and a particular work might just grab you and be more helpful than another. Or a chapter from here, a chapter from there and a sentence or two from the other might all add up to great inspiration for you.

Just remember this: Nobody is going to tell you anything you can't find for free. I don't care if they are charging you $50,000 or $5.00, whatever they have to say is sitting out in plain sight for you to read.

So there it is. Feel free to read more, or if you'd like to help keep me off Social Security a few more years and thereby leave more for yourself later, you can buy my book. Or send me $5,000.00, your phone number, and when you'd like to have our 10 minute conversation. Ask about reasonably priced additional 10 minute blocks when we first talk because sometimes I forget to mention that.

Got something to add? Send me email.

4 comments

Sat Oct 17 16:18:33 2009: 7281   TonyLawrence


Consider this: If I did have some secret that guaranteed that you'd make a ton of money from it, why wouldn't I offer to GIVE it to you in exchange for a percentage of your profits?

It's like lawyers taking an injury case - if they think there's a good chance of a decent settlement, they charge you nothing unless they win.

Why don't the millionaire gurus do that?

You know why.



Sat Oct 17 18:05:07 2009: 7282   TonyLawrence


You can also find free e-books in exchange for joining their email lists. In fairness, often the email lists have decent stuff - but inevitably the Big Pitch will come.

You are free to ignore that, though.






Sat Oct 17 19:17:52 2009: 7283   BrettLegree


You would have enjoyed the conversation Friar and I had starting Thursday morning by email, that continued over a few pints on Thursday night, and back on email Friday.

(We're friends and co-workers, for those who don't know.)

We had been talking about a recent "launch" where several of the "gurus" claim to charge $500/hour.

Sounds good.

I said to Friar, "Let's say I make $90,000/year" - for argument's sake, not saying that's what I make, but for this exercise it is good enough.

Ninety thousand over 2000 hours worked is $45/hour.

But - I know that I don't *really* work 8 hours a day. Sure, I'm doing things, but the "meat" of what the company wants me to do happens in less than two hours a day, most days one hour a day.

The rest of the time is spent doing minutia. Hey, we're a pseudo-government entity.

So - I could really say, my hourly rate is about $350/hour, if you follow me.

But - I just said, I work for a pseudo-government entity. That means that I get full medical and dental coverage, and a really good pension. I also get 6 days paid sick leave a year and with my current years of service, I get 5 weeks vacation.

What's my hourly rate now?

$500/hour? $1000/hour?

Note I'm also billing one hour a day at this rate.

How many of these blogging gurus get to bill this many hours - consistently - year after year?

I'm not sure.

And I'm not sure that any of them would be willing to tell me, either.

It's all part of the smoke and mirrors, I think.

My other question would be - can you please send me a copy of your e-book and course material, so that I may evaluate it?

No? You wouldn't do that for me?

Why not? I can go to my local library and check out any mainstream business book for nothing.

If they don't have what I want, I put in a request and they'll usually order it.

Hmm... I wonder if they'd order the "Mega-Mondo Blogorific Secrets Explosion" course for me?

PS - my $5,000 is on the way, and I'll email you my phone number, Tony. I'm looking forward to that 10 minute chat.

:)



Sat Oct 17 21:04:26 2009: 7285   Friar


You know, I have no doubt that the Snake Oil Salesmen are genuine (in that they have raked in their fair share of $$$).

But I equate it to the Pet Rock fad of the 1970's. Someone gets a good idea. There's a lot of money to be made. But it can be done once. And ONLY once.

But what we're seeing nowadays, is the equivalent of a whole lot of consultants, charging an arm and an leg, to teach people who to re-start the Pet Rock fad.

And that ship has long since sailed...

------------------------

Have you tried Searching this site?

This is a Unix/Linux resource website. It contains technical articles about Unix, Linux and general computing related subjects, opinion, news, help files, how-to's, tutorials and more.

Contact us