Since then, I have seen a few posts on various blogs about implementing a point system in order to keep yourself productive while blogging. Recently, I have implemented the following daily point system on one of my websites for myself and my other writers. It is less-intensive than some of the other point systems out there, but it enables me to keep track of what is being done and how much promotion is being put into the website.

I will explain a few things. There is a slightly different grading ‘curve’ when it comes to longer posts and the amount of posts, because although I feel it is VERY important to have an excellent flow of content on a timely schedule, my ‘band’ and music industry experience tells me that promotion is sometimes MORE important than the actual writing. How many times have you heard the phrase ‘How did that band make it so big? They suck!’ uttered. Exactly my point. Promotion is still a huge key to success.

So this system rewards grassroots promotion and ways to generate traffic almost as much as content. The daily goal is to reach the standard 50 points (this is pretty common on most daily point systems). I require my bloggers (or yourself for that matter) to ‘work’ 5 times a week average. The way I look at it, is instead of worrying about ‘hours’ or ‘days’ worked, I focus on the number. 250 points per week is what I hope to get, per blogger, per blog. I personally know that I can get 50 points an hour if I really buckled down, so I do not feel these numbers are unreasonable.

The key to my system is the number 250. I really don’t care how fast you get the 250. If you do it in one day, take the next 6 off if you’re working for me!

• 5 points for any blog post that is over 200 words (content, not just a post linking to another site)
• 10 points for any blog post that is over 400 words
• 10 points for a ‘column’ (I like my blogs to have newspaper style columns weekly to keep people interested)
• 5 points for enhancing the theme
• 5 points for redesigning the theme, or implementing a new theme
• 1 point for every person signed up for the email list, or RSS feed (if it can be accounted for)
• 5 points for every bulletin or note sent out on MySpace or Facebook (limited 2 per day)
• 2 points for every blog commented in which you have commented before
• 5 points for every blog commented in which you have never commented on
• 100 points for advertiser conversion (generating a lead which in turn generates ad revenue)
• 100 points for every contest created (generating a prize in order to use in said contest)
• 100 points for a great promotional plan or tactic discovered and implemented
• 50 points for a guest blog post on a website with high traffic or RSS subscribers
• 10 points for every unique widget created (mainly for use on Facebook)

As you can see, my point system rewards usage of social networking such as Myspace. Why have a leaned heavily on those sites? Well, lets go to the stats! I will be referring to one of my blogs.

The first and foremost referral site has always been Google. People search via Google and Google alone. I don’t care what other search engines there are. I don’t see this trend dying anytime soon. But a quick scan down the list shows me that much traffic has been coming via Myspace and Facebook. You have a lot of ways to get your links out there on social networking sites. Bulletins, profiles, blogs, status updates. You name it. It is a promotional machine if you know where to use it.

So far today; I have done the following in accordance to my scoring system. I am not referring to this website. Mind you, it IS only 3:30am.

• 10 points for 2 blog posts over 200 words
• 10 points for creating a Facebook application
• 20 points for 2 bulletins and 2 notes on Myspace and Facebook.
• 22 points for comments on blogs
• 3 points for adding people from my AIM buddy list to the RSS feed

So as you can see, I am off to a good start for the week. I usually tend to hammer a lot more than 250 points in a week, but I don’t expect everyone to want to do it that way. I spent quite a bit of time getting that silly Facebook application working, but it has already driven traffic to the site.

I do tend to make scoring changes as I go, systems like these should always be fluid. Example, there is one writer that I expect to do about 400 points a week because of how fast he can write and promote. Another writer I only expect about 150 but she has a million other things to do, but her content is exceptional. However, so far this has seemed to work for me and my associates.

Scott Sweeney’s previous article on How to Handle A Reputation Hit caused me to reflect on how we at Relief handle not only a hit to one’s blogging reputation, but how to handle negative feedback from loyal readers.

Most successful bloggers will give you the advice to really listen to your readers when they have comments, feedback, or criticism. And it’s good sound advice, as not listening to feedback/criticism is the first step to losing anyone’s respect, let alone website traffic. But what happens when your readers are just flat out…well…wrong?

I’m not referring to the kind of “wrong” that you feel when you are hurt from negative feedback (can you say denial?) …I’m referring to commentary that runs counter to the very niche that you’ve built for yourself in the blogosphere. One such occurrence happened to us at Relief.

Now, if you are unfamiliar with the purpose of Relief, we are a Christian print journal publishing fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction with a spiritual slant; however, we’re not your typical “safe-for-the-whole-family” Christians. We’re looking for work that isn’t sheltered, fluffy, or preachy. We sell our journal as being “edgy” in that we don’t censor our authors. So, in essence…anything goes. At our website, (our blog specifically) we attempt to build this persona as well as act as a resource for writers striving to write/represent Christianity as it stands in the real world, not the fabricated ideal one that you’ll find stacked in a typical Christian bookstore.

As you can imagine, blogging in such a strange, narrowly-focused, and controversial niche has placed us in a difficult position. Some conservative Christians judge us because we’re too “morally loose” and some nonreligious folk hate us because we’re too preachy. Needless to say we get some hate mail, which is to be expected.

What surprised us though was to find an atheist website that criticized us for not being more biblical, attacking our reputation not just as a Christian literary journal, but as Christians. And following the advice of many, we decided to counter that attack by running a blog series centered around studying scripture, something that our website had yet to really dedicate itself to doing. All in all, the criticism was valid in that by shear omission of the topic, we had left it open for attack. So something had to be done.

We enlisted some bloggers to help with this and quickly posted two blogs on reading the Bible, as this is what we perceived needed to be done in order to “fix” our problem. But to our surprise, we received more negative feedback from that move than anything else we had ever done.

I thought about ignoring the criticism, thinking that it was just impossible to make everyone happy. But when I received an email from a loyal Christian reader titled, “WTF Relief? So Much for Edgy” I knew I had to do something.

What To Do To Win Back Your Loyal Readers (And Gain Some Too)

1. Confront the Criticism Privately If You Feel It Was Wrong

Since ignoring a reader’s feedback is the first step to losing that reader, confront it privately first. Send that person an email explaining your reasoning/rationale. More often than not, a lot of criticism stems from a misunderstanding, and opening the door for communication is the first step in seeing eye to eye.

2. Make Your Readers Aware of the Situation

If the negative feedback comes from more than one person and you still feel it’s out-of-line, write a blog addressing the issues ASAP. A good, successful blog is more than just one person standing on a soapbox writing about whatever pops into his/her head. It’s a community of people who share similar interests and goals of which you are the mediator. If your children aren’t playing nicely, put them in time-out by writing a blog that confronts the issues at hand. Speak to them and with them. They’ll listen.

3. Ask for help

I’ve experienced a strange phenomenon among some of our readers. Sometimes they forget that there’s a person at the other end of the computer screen who’s just as fallible as they are. Asking your readers for advice will not only remind them that occasionally we need help too, but motivate them to be more active members of the community you’ve worked so hard to build.

After posting our reply about our negative feedback, we received not only the highest traffic day ever, but so much positive feedback from readers who had previously been very passive members of our blog.

If you follow all the above advice and you still receive the same negative commentary, then it’s time to either start considering taking the feedback and making some real changes, or…it’s time to get ready and kick some reader ass butt.

First off, I welcome all the new readers that have started following this blog in the past month or so! I am glad you find my ramblings at the least entertaining, and hopefully, thought provoking. Since April, I have increased by almost 100 RSS readers! That is exciting to me. Thank you!

A good majority of the emails I receive on a day to day basis are regarding my experience with promoting using Twitter. Since that is the case, I am going to link to my three part series in this post, and they will be permanently linked on the sidebar.

Part One - Using Twitter to Increase Readers and Make Friends

Part Two - Don’t Take Promotion Personal With Twitter

Part Three - The Twitter Effect

Last week on Twitter, I asked if people would be interested in trading guest blogging posts. I received a number of responses so in addition to increasing my posting I will also be featuring guest posts, the first of which will be tomorrow. If anyone would like to trade posts or just be featured here with a guest post, feel free to contact me or leave a comment here.

Time for the disclaimer. I love Chris Garrett’s blog and writing style and I am a frequent visitor to Darren Rowse’s Problogger.net website. I find them both very informative and well-versed in what it takes to succeed in blogging. I am also active in Chris Garrett’s Authority Blogger forum and follow them both on Twitter religiously. I consider both of them highly influential to me and what I have learned in blogging.

First off, I am not a fan of the title. Obviously, they needed to market it accordingly and if I had written the book, I probably would have named it something similar. In my opinion, It probably should have been called “Problogger - Secrets for Blogging Your Way to Potential Income’ because as any blogger knows, it is much more difficult to earn substantial income than the current title indicates. They do a good job explaining the challenges early on in the text, but I guess it needed a sexier title to grab the attention of a passer by. I also found the price tag ($24.95) a little steep considering its relatively low page count, but as with anything, had I purchased it early or online I would have been able to save a little bit of money.

Upon first glance, the book’s layout out is similar to many beginner technical books. It is obviously written with the novice in mind, and that is how it should be marketed. Isolated tips are located on basically every page, and usually they do not go ‘over the head’ of a non-technical person. Also included are exercises to help drive the information home. Chris Garrett has experience writing technical books and it shows in the quality. The book is broken down into 11 sections, with the first a brief introduction to the authors’ story and history. After which there are 10 specific chapters relating to certain aspects of blogging, ranging from setting up your blog to secrets from other successful blogs. Each chapter breaks things down in to easy to digest segments, and the book flows very well from chapter to chapter.

The authors try to convince you this book is for beginners and experts alike but it is just geared towards beginners, in my opinion. I had very high expectations for the ‘printed’ version of Problogger and I personally feel let down. I spent an afternoon reading this book, and it will probably sit in my bookcase for years to come. I was hoping for juicy secrets and a magic wand but what I got was stale (but accurate none the less) information. I probably built higher expectation than I should have, but that is how much I respect the authors. I compare it to watching Michael Jordan score 32 points in a game. If it was anyone else, 32 would be great! But with MJ, you grew used to those ‘average’ performances and held out for a 55 point outburst. This book was a 32 point game, not a 55 point outburst.

I want to like this book. I really do. It is very well-written but I don’t feel it gives any information that hasn’t been discussed at length on hundreds of niche blogs, including their own. Darren and Chris have always gone out of their way to explain in detail every aspect of blogging on their websites, and it makes the book seem unneeded for any blogger who has already spent time researching how to build a successful blog.

One big positive I took from this book is they prove once again that there is no easy way to having a successful blog. If a printed version of Problogger cannot give me anything new, then I need to stop waiting for the secret to success to arrive at my door and continue to work hard.

Have you read the book? I am interested in hearing opinions on the book. It is quite possible that my own expectation poisoned my perception of what this book is about.

How do you recover from a well-publicized reputation hit?

I have looked to one of my idols, Bear Grylls, and the way he and his team handled his reputation hit in order to showcase some tried and true methods to regaining the trust of your audience.

For those who do not know, Bear Grylls is the host of the television show Man vs Wild. He has an extraordinary list of accomplishments including being the youngest Briton to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest and survive the trip down. He is charismatic, dynamic, and is an excellent speaker. Originally, the premise of the show was that of a survival expert being placed difficult situations with a 5 day window to reach civilization. It made for outstanding drama, and great entertainment. Bear would showcase his exceptional survival skills in the face of what appeared to be grave danger. A camera crew would follow but according to the introduction, they were only instructed to help in life and death situations. It was staged to appear in real time, and in a documentary format.

It also was a little too good to be true. Reports started surfacing about the staging of events and the fact he would receive assistance while filming these episodes. He was branded a fraud, Discovery Channel pulled the show off the air, and he was bashed all over the blogging and talk show realms. His reputation had taken a serious hit, and while it was in my opinion unfair, the damage had been done.

The problem with being labeled dishonest or fraudulent is that almost all other aspects of you reputation are now considered non-valid, at least to those who do not invest the time to know the full story behind the label. Most of what happened to Bear he had no control over. He didn’t edit the show, he just did what was needed to make the show entertaining from his end. There was no dispute that he was putting himself in difficult situations, or that his skills at surviving were exceptional. People were more fixated, however, on the fact that this gorge he just scaled without a rope or climbing equipment was near civilization and not isolated as the shows editing made it appear. The focus on him doing extraordinary things was completely lost.

So rather than running from this whole situation, Bear Grylls and the those associated with the show did some proper damage control. All the previous shows were re-edited to make sure that events that were stage were disclosed. New voice over spots also helped explain to people that these situations are controlled and there are people standing by to assist if need be. Producers behind the show identified that although some events may have been staged, Bear’s exceptional way of selling the situations is what made the show entertaining. After some careful re-branding, the show is now more of a survival ‘how-to’ guide and Bear’s reputation has been restored. The show is more popular than ever.

As a blogger, what can I take from this story?

If you feel your reputation has taken a hit, the first thing that has to happen is you need to identify the problem and correct it. In Man Vs Wild’s case, the problem was the producers didn’t trust that Bear Grylls’ survival skills and visual storytelling would be enough of a selling point for the viewer. They decided the make the show seem more dramatic by creating the whole ‘trapped in the wild, needing to find civilization’ storyline. It backfired on them when it came to light some events were staged. They immediately took steps to correct this. If you are an excellent writer, trust your content and your ability to storytell.
While rebuilding your reputation you need to focus on the positives. While the way they branded the show at the beginning was misleading, the show itself was entertaining. When you have a good product, you can take the occasional hit. After the show was re-branded, more of an emphasis was placed on Bear and the things he does, and this made the show more successful than ever. The producers focused on the positive while handling the negative accordingly.

When I was moonlighting across America as a rock singer, I heard the same thing over and over again. All publicity is good publicity. That is not entirely true. Bad publicity can destroy your reputation. But if you carefully spin the bad publicity, you can use it as a boon to bring traffic or new readers to your blog.

First off, for the past month I had been relying almost exclusively on Twitter for new traffic. I haven’t been promoting on my other websites, forums, or other blogs. I have still been commenting other blogs, but not nearly at the frequency as I was previous to this experiment. The purpose of this was to try to eliminate too many other outside sources of traffic. Since this blog isn’t set up to generate tons of revenue, I had no problems eliminating other sources of traffic to verify some of what I was testing.

Secondly, it should be factored in that I only work on this website 3 days a week. Since my intentions are for this blog to be a personal outlet and not a business, I don’t follow the monetized ‘mold’ of posting every single day. Now that the lame disclaimer has been stated, on to the factual goodness.

For those who didn’t read the first two posts, I will briefly go over my tactics. Twitter is a social networking tool. Oftenit is referred as ‘micro blogging’. Users are able to send messages, or tweets,  to people on their profile, but they are limited to 140 characters. I spent one week adding Twitter ‘friends’ by raiding the larger bloggers profiles and adding them to my own. After the initial push, I have spent most of my time building relationships with those who have felt compelled to check out my website or send me a message on Twitter. I installed Twhirl (a Twitter desktop client) to help facilitate this, and I always post a link to my latest and greatest blog post.

According to my statistics, 5495 hits have been brought to the website from Twitter.com. In my promotional plan, It was noted that I put links to this website and the about page in my Twitter profile. I assume that most of these hits are from people who clicked on the link from within that profile. When I send out links to posts, I use TinyUrl which come back in my reporting as TinyUrl referrals and not Twitter. The average length of time they spend on the site is slightly over one minute. This indicates to me that the majority of these hits are of the investigative variety to see who I am, or what my website it about. I did have over 2000 hits come from StumbleUpon, and I feel some of these may have been directly related to the Twitter promotion as to very few of my posts had been stumbled before I started this promotional push.

There was a decent spike in daily traffic after the initial push, however. I did all of my mass adding of Twitter profiles between May 2nd and May 8th. Check out the graph below, it showcases the daily page requests:

There was a ten day lull in the middle when I did not make any posts (a family situation kept me from working on my website or posting) . I noticed that each time I post, a nice amount of traffic is coming back to the website.  The site uses a plug-in which will broadcast my posts on Twitter. There are almost double the amount of people coming back to the website each post than I did before I started with the promotion. This indicates to me that I was able to attain at least a fair amount of new readers.

As far as RSS readership goes, this went up quite a bit. Before I started the promotional plan I was hovering near 30 RSS subscribers. Now it is over a hundred. The number hasn’t deviated much from the initial push, so that leads me to believe I have gained some loyal readers. I have also noticed a lot more comments, and a handful of repeat commentators.

There was some negative feedback at first, but most people are receptive to new blogs as long as they don’t over do it. I never spam from my Twitter account, and I aside from conversational tweets, I never send out random links to my blog.

In conclusion, I feel that if I continue to use Twitter effectively, I can expect to continue to drive traffic and increase my readers.

I am interested to hear from those who use Twitter. Have you noticed additional traffic to your website after you started using Twitter more actively?

-Katy Perry ‘Simple’

As I was driving in to work the other day, I listened to radio station Kiss 103.5 in Chicago. Usually, I don’t make it a habit to listen to Kiss because it embodies everything I don’t like about the music industry. Kiss is owned by a large company that basically dictates who is successful and who is not on mainstream radio in America. I do like good songs, however, and you do get a nice blend of songs on that station. A new song caught my ear as I was getting out of my car. It is by an artist named Katy Perry and the song is called ‘I Kissed A Girl’. As soon as I got to my computer, I headed over to MySpace and took another listen to the song. It was catchy, but nothing groundbreaking. It will probably be a hit. It has a few controversial lyrics and a terrific beat. Katy is attractive, and an excellent singer but my first impression is she is a cookie cutter pop singer. Watch a bit of the video below, it will help prove a point later in the post.

I Kissed A Girl

I headed over to Wikipedia to a little more investigation. There was very little information about the singer (which has changed in the last few days as the song has started to make it big). One thing that struck me as odd was she released an album when she was 16, back in 2001. Then there was no history until 2007 when she digitally released the single “Ur So Gay” on iTunes.I have been struggling in the music industry for the past 10 years. If Katy Perry was a true artist, there would be a history. No one just starts playing music, stops for 7 years, and then comes out of nowhere with a new look and sound. I just figured her new label buried it. Record labels like to do that from time to time.
I started doing a little web surfing and stumbled upon a handful of YouTube videos. Katy has been working for many years at becoming successful in music. She has starred in other peoples videos (Cupid’s Chokehold by the Gym Class Heroes), and she has been honing her craft for years. You watched the first video, now check out this one. It is called ‘Simple’ - It was on a movie soundtrack released by Java Records in 2005.

In 2004, Katy was listed in Blender magazine as the next big thing. She has been dropped by several labels, and has encountered many a hardship trying to get that big break in the music industry. She has been open in discussing this, especially at shows. In need of a change and, perhaps, better luck, she took a risk and reinvented herself. Ever since unveiling this new, more grownup ‘look’ and sound late last year, it has been full steam ahead for her music career.

I like to incorporate things I have learned in the music industry and apply them to blogging.

If you feel your talents are being overlooked, there is no shame in reinventing yourself. Evaluate what you are trying to accomplish and make changes when needed, even if it means adopting a new persona. As long as you are true to your personal vision, reinventing is a great way to get a fresh start at something you love.

The Simple Dollar.

I used to be horrible with money. Okay, okay. I still am horrible with money. As soon as I earn a dollar, I spend a dollar. As I have gotten older, I have started to see the importance of wise investing and proper use of the money that I earn.  Author Trent Hamm has tremendous insight on how to get your finances on track. His story is similar to many who have amassed a lot of credit card debt and attempted to learn how to budget properly, but he has developed effective habits to erase his debt. He is an excellent writer, and his posts are always helpful and insightful. The layout of the blog is simplistic and not overrun with advertisements, but it could probably use a little spice. You can tell in his writing that Trent really loves to help people. I read this blog every single day.

Dooce.com

I am not off to a good start with not discussing the blogs everyone has already heard of because Dooce.com is massively popular. That is because it is a fantastic, edgy and interesting blog.  Heather Armstrong has been featured on many other websites and television shows, and rightfully so. She has been at this for many, many years. Her website is classified as a ‘mommy blog’, but her blog has been running since long before she became a mother. She offers excellent layout, photography, and day to day posting. One of the parts I love the most is her running journal to her child. She is very detailed, sometimes graphic, but always entertaining and insightful. She has a dry sense of humor and it shows.

Confessions of a Housewife

I discovered this blog early on in my niche blogging experimenting. I was reading a post on another blog that discussed using a point system to help increase traffic.  Eve, the author of Confessions of a Housewife, developed a system that I started using immediately. What I noticed after a few days, however, is Eve’s blog isn’t really a how to make money niche blog. It is actually very well thought out and interesting to read. I think I live vicariously through blogs like this because I am not married and find married life intriguing. Aside from the blog, there are lots of wonderful resources on the website.

The Baseball Collector

Zack Hample is crazy. That is the first thing you will notice about him. His blog covers how he has snagged almost 4000 baseballs in major league stadiums. It is an interesting hobby that I am partial towards because I also collect baseballs. What stands out about this blog isn’t what he does, it is how well he writes about it. Zack is an established author (he has two popular baseball books to his credit) and he uses those skills on a day to day basis with his blog.  This was one of the first blogs I started reading on a regular basis several years ago, and I still read it to this day. The layout is generic because it is hosted by Major League Baseball but it gets the job done. Check out his blog and when you are done, purchase his new book Watching Baseball Smarter. It is an excellent read.

Selina Wragg’s Blog

What can I say? I am a sucker for pastels and great writing. Selina’s blog is basically just a day to day diary blog. It isn’t really a profit niche site, but it is more along the lines of Dooce.com.  I stumbled upon her blog when going through my Twitter promotion. I was adding people of interest and her website stood out,  so I started reading on a daily basis. She puts herself out there a lot more than most bloggers, as her about page is just loaded. But I think that is a very endearing quality of a blogger. While not as detailed, I made sure to have my personal MySpace, Facebook, and my band names on my About page so people can learn more about me if they so choose. The layout of her blog is just fantastic, as I said before, I love pastels, especially in blog themes.

The Kings of AR

I started following this website a few years back and it is flat out consistant. It is an outstanding music industry blog. I know there are many of those out there but I have found few as opinionated and right on the point as Kings of AR. They are music snobs, but for the right reasons. They also break industry news and have a history of bands they feature becoming signed to record labels. Since I have been an active musician for the last 10 years, I can really appreciate the advice on this website. The layout is very easy to follow and unlike many industry blogs, it is not overridden with advertisements.

Richard Roeper

I know this isn’t a blog, but Richard Roeper is my favorite columnist of all time. I have been reading his column for long before he became famous as a move critic. His column is a general opinion column, and it is very well thought out. When I was in high school, they used to sell the Sun Times in the morning for 25 cents to students. I would buy the paper and go straight to his column. He was the sole reason I became interested in writing.  Without discovering his column, I wouldn’t be blogging currently.

Those are just a few of the websites I read on a day to day basis. My RSS reader is overloaded with lots of great blogs, but I always look for new posts by the ones I listed before moving on to others.

What are some of your daily destinations?

As I mentioned before in my promoting with Twitter piece, I enjoy reading and discovering new blogs. I love to read and I never get tired of learning from exceptional writers. I check out anywhere from 10 to 50 new blogs a day and while I am hesitant to call myself an expert, I do consider myself educated enough to give suggestions.

What I am about to say may surprise you but 80 percent of the blogs I discover are trash. There is a good chance your blog is trash, too. If I had discovered my blog a few months back, the current me would have said the exact same thing. The reason is so many bloggers spend too much time hustling, promoting, and scheming their way to establish traffic that they offer nothing in the way of real content.

When I first started this blog, I was very caught up in the blogging for profit niche. I already knew how to create content websites and a fair amount of SEO, so I figured it would be a pretty easy thing to transition towards. I would make sure to follow all the trendy blogs, comment daily, work their ideas by creating pointless ‘pillar’ blogs and lists that were exactly like a hundred other websites. When traffic was slow to come to my website, I decided to rethink my approach and it has done wonders. I have started to focus more on delivering quality information and less fluff.

You should ask yourself one simple question: If you were a visitor your blog, would you stay and read it?

If the answer is no, you should rethink your approach.

The main problem with career blogging is also the reason that so many people are attempting it. It is extremely easy to start a ‘business’ blog in an attempt to profit. Many services cater to the career blogger, and it has over saturated the marketplace. Finding a fresh and new voice in the blogging world is about as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack. It doesn’t mean you cannot be that fresh voice, but the odds are stacked and they are not stacked in your favor.

As a writer, do you feel it is in your best interest to expand the reach of your writing?

What if you are a good writer, but feel that you are wasting your talents in a going nowhere blog?

Have you considered writing a book?

It seems a forgotten way to turn writing in to a career is to author a book. I say forgotten only because my writing experience has been limited to the internet. I bet many blog writers feel the same way. When I was a writing music for a living, I always felt my work was legitimized by producing a physical CD. Would I feel more like a ‘real’ writer if I published a book? I decided a month or so ago that I was going to research that, to see how I would like the challenge. Maybe this is another way to expand my writing and truly make writing a career? Like any good interweb user, I approached Google with a simple query:

“How do I write a book?”

The first listing that came up was actually insightful and beneficial to me. It was written by Scott Berkun and posted to his blog. He has some pretty straight forward advice when it comes to writing a book. After taking a little time to mull over if I did or didn’t want to write a book, I decided it was something I wanted to try. What do I have to lose?

So for the past three weeks I have been working on my first book, and it has nothing to do with AdSense, Blogging, Wordpress or how to generate a six figure income online. I have been using Wordpress on a non-public blog to write the book. Each post I make is a chapter, and it is very easy and comfortable because of the amount of time I spend blogging in general. I can go back, edit, and make changes at will, and it’s kept in order for me. The beauty of the book I am writing is that it’s chronological in a way, so using a blog format works. I am aware that I will have to convert everything into a publisher ready format, but the process appears to flow so far. Without knowledge of book publishing, however, I had to do a little research to find out what my options are. When I was in a band, It was difficult to land a record deal so many bands would self-publish their music on CD and then sell them at shows. I figured the same could be done for an aspiring author, but instead of playing shows, I could sell it online. You may call it a lack of self confidence or a lack of knowledge, but I feel it will be easier to self-publish than attempt to find a publisher, at least at this point.

After looking over about 100 self-publishing websites, I decided that Lulu.com was looking like the winner. They offer all types of publishing solutions, and it appears they have a one that will fit my book style and my budget. They let you create your project in a private or public setup, so you can go right to selling it online if you choose. I have set mine up as private because I am not ready to publish. I intend of finding someone to edit and proof read my book first, similar to how I rely on sound engineers to record and produce my music. Another good thing about this specific company is you can publish as few or as many as you’d like, so I intend on publishing a small amount first, just to see if I like the quality of the product.

When I get close to completion, I will post about it here and more than likely create a website specifically for the book. I am excited about this endeavor because I feel closer to that ultimate goal of being a self employed writer. Blogging is great for earning income, but I definitely feel I have moved some eggs to a different basket.

I am interested to find out how many blog writers have considered publishing books if they have not done so, and if they have, what are some good suggestions they could give an aspiring author such as myself.