My Success Diary

How to Write an eBook Series – The Steps at a Glance

February 6th, 2009 1 Comment

For the next few posts I am going to take some time to teach you all how to write ebooks. I’ve written a lot of ebooks in my time on various subjects. I have yet to write one for myself but I’ve written countless ebooks for my clients on anything from vegetarian cooking, iphones, dolls, how to build an opt-in list, etc. All I need to do is follow

No matter what the subject is or how much I know about it, the basic process is always the same

Choose the subject for your eBook
Write the table of contents (This is my outline).
Do some preliminary research.
Write the rough draft – detailed research as needed.
Make the final draft. (If there’s a word count, I’ll add and subtract content as needed)
Format the ebook.
Create a detailed table of contents (I may have changed the original around as I wrote the eBook).

I’ve written ebooks at superhuman speed before. Granted, my wrists hurt at the end of the day, I went to bed late, and in general I don’t reccommend doing that. But if you want to go on a blitz like that, it has its rewards. One piece of advice: do the research before you start.

In the posts that follow, we’ll conquer these steps one at a time.

Finding Ideas for Blog Posts

February 2nd, 2009 Comments Off

Finding ideas for blog posts is an art, especially if you post at least once a day. Someone on my friends list indicated that they were trolling the internet looking for information on how to come up with ideas. It got me thinking about how I come up with my own ideas, and I thought I’d share my tactics with you today.

Be Aware of Your Social Networks

Today, my blog post was inspired by a conversation on plurk. I’ve gotten inspiration from conversations I’ve followed on the microblogging sites like plurk and twitter, from people’s myspace and facebook pages, etc. I look for a need or a gap in information and answer that need with my blog post. Then, I return to the social network and make an announcement that the post is up and that they may find it helpful and give the link.

Get Inspired from Forums

I’ve also created blog posts centered around forum conversations. Sometimes I’ll take a forum post I’ve made and turn it into a blog post. I’ll edit the content slightly and add headings to make it more readable, but the content is usually the same. Or, I’ll write a post as a response to a conversation without actually posting in the forum itself.

Google Trends

I love to see what’s popular on google for the day. I do that by visiting Google Trends. This is an easy way to get some immediate search engine traffic if you write the post and optimize the keywords correctly. Today, one of the popular keywords is “new search engine”. If I had a technology related blog, I would surely write about Cuil, a new search engine that is positioning itself as indexing more sites than google.

What’s Going on in My Life?

The other day, I spent several hours researching how to increase my blog’s page rank. I turned all of that research into my blog post for the day. I did it for two reasons – so I could help my readers, and so I could find the information I gathered rather quickly. It helps to be aware of my own life and extracting information and anecdotes from that and turning them into blog posts. This will also serve to infuse some personality and life into your blog.

I Love DMOZ

On the surface, DMOZ may not look like much. It’s called the “Open Directory Project” and is a listing of websites and blogs. I like to browse through the different categories and visit some of the sites until I start to see some category trends. I turn these trends into blog posts.

RSS Feeds Are Your Friends…

I don’t use this technique nearly enough but when I do, I get tons of ideas. What I’ll do is subscribe to various blogs that are in my niche and check in with them almost daily. One of my greatest pieces of inspiration is reading what other people are writing about and reacting to that.

–

At first, it was hard to articulate exactly how I come up with my blog posts. This process has become somewhat automatic. But I took some time to reflect and realized that I use these standard tools in a daily basis.

If I can’t think of a blog post idea for the day even though I try all of those techniques, I usually just do something else, like clean my kitchen. That usually does the trick – I sit and reflect about my day’s research and something inevitably jumps out at me.

How to Make Your Business Recession Proof

January 30th, 2009 Comments Off

Do you want to know how to make your business recession proof? About six months ago, there was speculation amongst economists as to whether or not we were in a recession. That’s when I seriously started to think about how I could protect my earnings. By now, we know that the economy is in a very poor state. However, that doesn’t mean that we all have to suffer.

My main concern? Since I am self employed, I am not worried about losing my job. Instead, my main concern is to keep the work flow coming in. If you are reading my blog, chances are pretty good that you have that or a similar concern.

But, I’m always looking for new work so this is nothing new. The economy, however, definitely changes my approach. Mainly, I am concerned with learning how to recession proof my business.

Multiple Streams of Income

This is a concept that is more important than ever. If you have multiple projects, clients, and streams of income if one mode of income dries up, it won’t sting as much if I have other projects lined up. Diversify your business as much as possible without compromising quality.

Market, Market, Market

Since there may not be a lot of work out there, efforts need to be made to market harder than ever. If you’re a writer, spend time each day making sure you are securing new work. If you make money from your blogs, spend extra time driving traffic to it. It may seem like you are spending a lot of time for nothing, but your marketing efforts will pay off when the checks start rolling in.

Focus on Existing Clients and Customers

If you have a steady customer base or clients that you work with regularly it’s worth your while to keep them around. There are several tactics that you can use to accomplish this including providing great customer service and to make sure you listen to them and meet their needs. You can also launch marketing campaigns designed to target your clients and customers and potentially get more business from them. An example of this is to alert them of any sales and sending out a newsletter.

Work as Hard as You Need

You may find that you need to work harder than you did in order to make the same amount of money. But, it’s important to work as hard as you need to work in order to get the job done. Mostly everyone is experiencing the same thing. We all need to pay the same prices at the gas pump.

Those of us who love to travel are getting slammed by the poor exchange rates on the dollar. These problems are real. As business owners, we do what we can in order to keep our business growing strong. The work is there, it just may take a little longer to find it.

How has the economy affected your business? What do you plan to do about it?

Niche Blogging for Profit

January 26th, 2009 3 Comments

I am a huge fan of doing niche blogging for profit.

I love blogging.
The IM and Blogging niche isn’t very profitable.
I don’t blog for money, but I believe that if you love what you do, the money will follow.

I love this blog and I’ve had a lot of fun posting on it. It’s a great way to keep track of myself professionally. I can look back and figure out my mindset over the past few months and how my online business has evolved. And, I can share with all of you what I’ve learned.

But I have other interests, and I want to blog about those, too. So, I’ve decided to start niche blogging.

I’ve come to realize that there are two general types of blogs. Concept blogs and niche blogs. I’d classify katherinehuether.com as a concept blog because the idea is sort of general. My “niche” here is roughly “how Katherine makes money online”.

Niche blogging is laser focused. I could break this blog up into multiple niches:

How to make money writing online
Make money with associated content
Learn how to blog on free blog sites
Promote affiliate products on Squidoo

You get the idea. I have a hostgator account and have discovered that it’s easy to host multiple domains with them. So all I need to do is reserve the domains and setup wordpress.

Here’s a rough idea of the process:

Come up with a niche
Research a good list of keywords – both long tail and short tail
Choose the domain and reserve it using godaddy
Switch the DNS to my hostgator account.
Set up the domain on my existing hostgator account.
Install wordpress, choose a template, and start blogging!
Promote the blog and get back links.

That is a huge simplification of a process I’ve been using lately. You see, I have a lifetime membership at Amy Bass’s Niche Blogger and it has been well worth the money because of how much I’ve learned about blogging and how to turn a passion of mine into a steady income.

How to Create a Niche Site that Makes Money

January 24th, 2009 Comments Off

My Multiple Income Streams – What Have I Been Up To?

January 23rd, 2009 1 Comment

Most of you already know me as a writer. It’s what I love and what I do most of the time. But I’ve learned that being a writer doesn’t necessarily mean I need to work for someone all all the time. I can come up with my own projects related to writing and blogging and make money other ways.

Here’s a glimpse at what I do to make money each month.

Ehow.com – I am currently the herbal medicine expert on the site. I get paid a set amount per article, plus they have a writer’s compensation program which makes me some extra money.

Today.com – I have two blogs on today.com. I try to spend some time posting on each blog each day. I research keywords before I write my posts and also spend some time commenting on other blogs at today.com and also promoting the offsite.

Adsense – I make money from Adsense on my blogs and websites and also through Hubpages. It took me a few years to reach my first $100, now I get checks fairly regularly.

Blogging - Making money with blogging is an art and one that I am just learning. The idea is to monetize using a few different methods such as Adsense and affiliate programs. I also blog through two blog networks – today.com and orble.com.

Freelance Writing – I still take on writing jobs every now and then. But, I tend to favor blogging work for clients. I’ve been writing more queries as of late so I could be published in magazines again.

Affiliate Marketing – I promote affiliate programs to some extent on this blog (only the helpful ones). But I also do other things to bring in affiliate income such as Bum Marketing, which is article marketing done a certain way to promote affiliate programs.

Bukisa – I’ve also been submitting articles to Bukisa because I see real potential in this site. It has another revenue sharing model which I don’t mind. Once it gets going, I know my earnings will increase.

But no matter what I choose to do, writing things that are helpful and/or entertaining is always my number one priority because it is what I enjoy doing the most.

Are Paid to Blog Programs a Good Way to Make Money Blogging?

January 19th, 2009 Comments Off

You may notice that when I talk about blogging, I never bring up the “Get Paid To Blog” programs. This is because I’ve stopped using them. I signed up for and used blogitive.com before they even WERE blogitive.com. The founder advertised on Craigslist a few years ago and he said my blogs qualified. I loved the opportunity back then.

As more and more companies came into existence, I simply grew tired of it. Do I think it’s a bad thing? No, I don’t. I would use them again – I just haven’t signed this blog up for any of them. I have my hands full trying to remember to post every day and getting the word out that the blog exists.

I don’t see myself signing up for them anytime soon. But, the fact remains that this could be a good way for people to generate income from their blogs. The one problem I have with it is when someone writes a post on something that doesn’t have anything to do with the theme of the blog. If you can craft the post to match your blog’s theme, it won’t take away from the reader’s value. If you’re just writing junk to get paid the $5, people may stop visiting your blog.

Which approach do I prefer? Using helpful resources like Blogging to the Bank to help build a blog that people want to read and learn how to make money in the process. I’ve learned that it’s all about the reader first, the money second. If the priorities are switched, the blog won’t be interesting enough to bring in the traffic.

My Experiences with Helium.com – Is Helium Worth It?

January 16th, 2009 2 Comments

I’ve been a member at Helium for quite some time now. It took me almost two years until I finally made the payout of $25 dollars. It was painfully slow. I realized that for all the work you put in, you get very little in terms of financial rewards. I would not endorse signing up for the site to make money. It takes A LOT of work to make it happen and by then, you could have made even more money by focusing on something else, like writing queries or finding new clients.

But for the longest time, I didn’t participate in the site for the money. I would submit an article every once in a while. What I really like there is the profile feature because they let you put your website links. Since my website benefits writers, promoting it there is an asset.

Every now and then, they have a “reward-a-thon” – they are currently running one for summer. The pay isn’t a lot (it’s almost laughable). But if you’re like me and you use the site every now and then because of the profile, it’s nice to make a few extra dollars. However, not everyone is eligible. You need to have the appropriate amount of stars for writing and rating (1 for writing, 3 for rating). I don’t meet any of those requirements. And you do make residual income on the articles so that helps a little bit.

The one thing I do like on the site is the marketplace. I’ve only submitted one article. My plan is to see what’s being asked for. If it is in a topic that will fit any of my blogs or an article I could easily turn around and sell, I wouldn’t mind doing it. The client may not choose my article, but at least I’ll have a place to put it if they don’t so my time wasn’t wasted.

Do I think you can make money with Helium.com? Yes – but from what I’ve seen the rewards aren’t nearly enough to justify spending hours a day on it. However, when I do participate I notice that my website gets a few more hits and I do make a few extra bucks. And in helium’s defense, there are some writers who seem to make considerably more than me. They take the time to promote their articles and they participate in the community.

Still think you want to try it out? Just click the button at the top of the post to sign up.

Starting my Writing Career – What Would I Do Differently?

January 12th, 2009 Comments Off

I remember what it was like as a beginning freelancer several years ago. I felt a mixture of confusion, fear, and excitement. I wanted to succeed and make sure I did everything right. The more I thought this, the more paralyzed I became. The end result is that it took me a long time to finally get started.

I realize now how counterproductive this really is. I didn’t understand that starting my own business as a writer is a journey, and one that I needed to embrace. Once I started embracing it, I started to achieve real, measurable success. And, that success hasn’t been without failure and without making mistakes.

Here’s what I’d do differently:

Get Started Right Away

It’s easy to decide to be a writer, but much harder to actually get started. I spent a long time researching and waiting for the right time. There is no perfect moment to begin. The sooner you do, the quicker you’ll achieve success.

Make Plans

Yes, getting started right after you make the decision to be a freelance writer is a good idea. But, be careful of being too eager. Put some thought into the kind of writing you want to do and the subjects you want to write about. You don’t need to spend a lot of time on this. Make a quick list and get started right away.

Don’t Be Afraid to Make Mistakes

Fear of making a mistake holds a lot of people back. It held me back at first. I finally got over it when I landed an assignment based on a query letter with a few typos in it. I realized that sometimes, mistakes will cost you, sometimes they won’t. It’s all part of the learning process. Plus, just consider it a given that you will probably make some. That realization can bring you some much needed peace.

Work Hard and Don’t Give Up

You will need to work hard, especially in the beginning. I probably wrote around sixty query letters before I landed my first assignment. I wrote around the same amount of bids on a freelance bid site (Rentacoder.com) before I landed my first client. Sometimes, you’ll get lucky and start getting assignments right away. But, you may not. Stick with it long enough to see the results and don’t give up.

When it comes to freelance writing, if you don’t embrace the journey, you won’t last. Even if you feel frustrated in the beginning because you aren’t finding the success you need, with hard work and the right attitude, you’ll find success.