Kill Your Blog – Yes, You Read That Right!

Editor’s Note: This post is written by Buck Flogging,  a bestselling author, book narrator, and online entrepreneur. He is the co-founder of the publishing company Archangel Ink, and is the creator of 180DegreeHealth and 180 Radio. That is really him in the photo too by the way. It’s not Photoshopped. Yeah, definitely not Photoshopped. And Buck Flogging is really his name. He is a descendent from the famous sausage-making Flogging family of Milwaukee. You know, Flogging Sausage.

Once upon a time I had a blog. I blogged my little fingers down to nubs over a seven year period. In those seven years I managed to get my global Alexa ranking all the way into the top 90,000. I got 55,000 comments on my blog. I built a big, active forum. I put together a team of over a dozen writers. I managed to get hundreds of incoming links. I became slightly “internet famous” in that time and appeared on dozens of podcasts, summits, conferences, and conventions. By 2013 I was getting roughly 5,000 visitors to my site every single day on average, and my work was generating over $150,000 in annual revenue from all sources.

I’m the last person on earth that you would expect to take a blog out to the woodshed. But at the end of November, 2013, that’s exactly what I did. I totally murdered the thing. Hasta la vista, bloggie.

Don’t worry. It was quick and sudden. Very little suffering. That should please you. No bribe attempts or blubbering. It simply said “Please… please I need to live.” It was the please that caught my memory.

Okay fine, that was a movie line. Damn 80’s. So many movie lines, so little time.
Seriously though. I had the idea to pull the thing down, and in less than 48 hours my blog vanished. In its place remained something proud and mighty–dignified in all its lean simplicity. That my little blogger buddies, is a glorious squeeze page.

I never knew why they called ’em “squeeze pages” as they say in the biz, but now I totally get it.  They are totally huggable. I go and admire my site daily and give it a good squeeze. It’s easy to get my arms wrapped around it these days after trimming it down from roughly 5 million words (if you count comments, which were all systematically terminated with weapons of crass destruction) to a sexy 54.

Source

54 words.

I don’t know if you noticed that, but I just said 54.

Here are some of the things that my new approach has done for me:

1. I now get 3,000 new subscribers every month compared to just 150 subscribers when I blogged–all this on about a fourth of the traffic.
2. My kindle book sales have jumped by more than 30%.
3. I’m getting twice as much affiliate commission in my Amazon Associates account.
4. I have an extra 20+ hours of free time every week since I no longer keep up with a busy blog and comments.
5. I have had time, and more importantly–energy and focus–to write more books. I released three in January for example. No joke.
6. I have had time to dedicate to starting two new businesses (seriously, not making this up either).
7. My readers, especially NEW readers, are much, much, much happier and more engaged.
8. I’m getting twice as many paid consultations.
9. I’m much happier.
10. Some other reason that I can’t think of right now so that I have a nice, even 10-item list.

Turns out I was doing a lot of work and not having nearly as much to show for it at the end of the day. Or week. Or month. Or even year. And that is why I’m imploring you all to look much more carefully at your online business model.

See Also

Old Blogging Sites That We Thought were Gone

I sell the written word almost exclusively. I’m not a big sell-whatever-sleaze-I-can-find-that-converts kind of guy.

If you really want to make money for your writing, as opposed to making money from your writing, blogging could very well be a terribly inefficient approach. Buck is here to save you.

You can read more about why I moved on from blogging and on to something that works infinitely better for me in my new book, Kill Your Blog: 12 Reasons Why You Should Stop F#$%ing Blogging!

This is not a sales pitch. The thing is free right now: January 27-31, 2014. Go check it out.

It’s short, and it could change your writing career for the better in a profound way.