Kill Your Blog – Yes, You Read That Right!

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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.

That's me and Mr. Jingles! Isn't he meowvelous!

That’s me and Mr. Jingles! Isn’t he meowvelous!

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. [Read more…]

Are You Ready for the E-book Readers?

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sonyereaders.pngMy crystal ball tells me that e-book readers will be a strong possible source of income or quality blogs in the near future. Not as the subscription service that is available from the Kindle, mind you, because I’m having a hard time seeing it being successful. Think about it, more and more mobile devices have internet access and great screens. Why pay to read on the Kindle when you can get it for free on your iPhone, right there in Safari or using Instapaper? And if that won’t convince you, then add the fact that more and more websites actually have mobile editions.

Back to the e-readers. High quality blogs already produce great content, obviously, and the e-book spinoff isn’t far off for a lot of them. They publish reports, how to’s, and other things they can hawk for a couple of dollars (or a small bundle) to make more money. If they’re good, we’ll pay. If not, we won’t. Add some marketing and social media and you’ve got a pretty solid business model right there.

If you’ve got the necessary following, that is. [Read more…]

Simon & Schuster Enters Scribd Store

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I wrote about the Scribd Store and why it could be good for bloggers back in May. Well, that got even more weight today, as AP reports on publisher Simon & Schuster making titles available, and Hachette Book Group might join too.

Good news, because this means that more will turn to the Scribd Store, which in turn makes it easier for bloggers to benefit. We might very well see blog content branch out in the years to come, as spinoff products, not just repackaged for another platform and charged for. That’s as stupid as online newspaper paywalls.

Why The Scribd Store Could Be Good For Bloggers

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ScribdMashable writes about the Scribd Store, and it got me thinking. Ebooks is often the logical spinoff product for a blogger, and while it might sound appealing to end up on a Kindle, the chances of that are just ridiculously small at this time. No, if you want to be read on an e-reader of choice that is not in fact a disguised surf tablet, you’ll have to rely on ebooks.

Enter Scribd, the document hosting service that lets you embed docs in all their glory, and their store. If Scribd could built a central place for people to buy ebooks and reports, then that would be a great deal for bloggers. [Read more…]

Envato Relaunches Rockable Press with Free eBook

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Envato continues to push onwards. Rockable Press is their latest project, a publishing outlet that connects to their other sites, such as NETTUTS and PSDTUTS. They’re using it to publish even more books in the How to be a Rockstar series, which started with How to be a Rockstar Freelancer.

Envato founder Collis Ta’eed had this to say in a post on FreelanceSwitch:

However in two weeks we have a new Rockable Press Manager starting here named Naysan Naraqi who is a former CNN Producer and globe trekker, and he’s going to be breathing life into the business. We’ve got four books and minibooks in production, so at last we’re going to start seeing some action. We’ve also finally settled on a proper name which has been checked for trademark issues.

As a part of the relaunch, Rockable Press gives away a free eBook by FreelanceSwitch editor Skellie, called Rockstar Personal Branding. All you have to do is to subscribe to the Rockable Press mailinglist. Sounds like a good deal.

Books and eBooks have been a natural extension for larger niche blogs for a long time. Is this where we’re heading, should advertising decline?