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 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.

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.