Written on September 8th, 2009 at 12:09 am by Darren Rowse
The State of the Darren-Sphere
In this post I’d like to give an update of the different sites that I work on, how they’re going and what I’m working on with them.
3 questions that I get a lot are:
- You seem to do a lot of ’stuff’ – can you give me a quick overview?
- I know you from (insert blog/social network name here) but today discovered you also are at (insert blog/network here) – what else do you do?
- How is your business going – you used to give us income updates – can you give us another update?
As a result today I want to create a post that attempts to summarize all of the activities that I’m actively involved with these days (ie it doesn’t include about 30 blogs that I have previously owned or blogged on which today are dormant).
I’m not going to give an income update as such except to say that revenue from my blogging related activities remains well into the Six Figure bracket (annually) and that each year since I’ve started blogging as an income source has seen it grow in healthy increases.
I hope that what follows is of use to those who’re interested:
My Blogs
These days I own three active blogs. They are visited collectively by around 2.8 million people per month, subscribed to via RSS and email by around 480,000 subscribers and have social media network between them of around 110,000 people. Let me break it down from largest to smallest:
Digital Photography School
DPS has enjoyed continued growth over the last 12 months. While finding advertisers has been a little difficult in this climate (although we did run a very successful campaign with Lenovo earlier in the year) I’ve seen increases in income as a result of more effort in affiliate promotions but also AdSense and Chitika.
I have seen a bit of an increase in expenses though as we’ve hired a number of writers as well as a community manager for the forum area.
Redesigning the site, adding new areas for cameras and post production tips and getting onto Twitter have all helped to grow DPS. The future looks really bright for this community – I’m particularly looking forward to the release of the communities first products (two ebooks) later in the year.
- Monthly Traffic – 1,960,612 Visitors viewing 6,571,151 pages (based upon the last 30 days – Data from Google Analytics)
- Subscribers – 311,813 (made up of 200,000 newsletter subscribers and 111,000 RSS subscribers)
- Forum Members – 60.644
- Twitter Followers – 16,074 followers
- DPS on Facebook – 2,277 fans
ProBlogger
Traffic wise ProBlogger’s growth has been less spectacular than DPS but steady.
The release of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Workbook earlier in the year was an amazing learning experience and a profitable venture.
The Job boards have also continued to grow both in terms of ads being listed and also traffic/subscriber numbers. It’s certainly not my biggest earner but it’s a daily income that has risen and that is quite passive.
The main income streams from ProBlogger have been direct ad sales (we’ve been sold out for a long time although I’m told we have one slot open at the moment) and healthy affiliate promotions (I’m lucky that there are so many quality products related to this blog).
In the coming weeks ProBlogger will expand with the launch of ProBlogger.Community.
- Monthly Traffic - 531,804 unique visitors viewing 866,093 pages
- Subscribers – 123,000 RSS Subscribers
- Newsletter Subscribers – 29,890 (across a number of different lists)
- Twitter Followers – 76,273 followers
- ProBlogger on Facebook – 15,242 fans
- ProBlogger Job Boards – around 2000 RSS subscriber
TwiTip
My newest blog and seeing a steady growth. Written mainly by a group of guest posts TwiTip has done fairly well. I’m about to launch a redesign of the site which will give it a more professional look but also add some great new features.
Income has been a little tougher on this one – mainly due to my lack of time to actually go after advertisers. Having said that – I’ve run a couple of affiliate programs that have done pretty well (still room for improvement though on the ad front).
- Traffic – 256,430 Visitors viewing 326,484 pages
- Subscribers – 21,512 RSS subscribers
Other Interests
I try to be active on a number of social media sites, networks and maintain an interest in a variety of other projects including:
- LinkedIn – 1940 Connections
- LinkedIn Professional Bloggers Network – 1200 members
- Personal Facebook Page – 5000 friends (the limit)
- Personal Blog – 5000 Visitors a Month (I really should post more)
- Publications – ProBlogger The Book and 31 Days to Build a Better Blog
- Co-Founder and Shareholder – b5media blog network
- Co-Founder – Six Figure Blogging (now fairly inactive)
- Speaking/Training/Media – I’ve had a real increase in the number of invitations to speak and teach at a variety of conferences and do media appearances (interviews/write columns etc). Due to me being in Australia I am not able to do many of them but it’s something I’ve been enjoying when I can do them locally (or occasionally overseas).
Looking Forward
In the next few months there are a number of new things that will add to this list (because I have so much spare time):
- ProBlogger.com (a community site for bloggers)
- Two new ebooks for Digital Photography School (I’m working on two which will hopefully be released before the end of the year)
- Possibly another ebook for ProBlogger – working with another blogger on this
- A New Site with ebook – I can’t say too much about this but I’m looking forward to collaborating with another blogger on a new site that will relate to both ProBlogger and TwiTip.
- One more Bigger Secret Collaboration with a couple of other bloggers – Hopefully with an October launch
All in all I’m fairly busy. While there are opportunities arising every day or two that I could do more on if I had the time (or if I decided to hire a staff) I’m attempting to keep things relatively contained (you might not think so from the above list but it’s the tip of the iceberg of what I get asked to do).
All in all it’s a fun business to be in, a profitable way to make a living and it does still give me flexibility to spend time with my family, friends and community groups that I belong to – doing the things that are important to me.
62 Responses to “The State of the Darren-Sphere” - Add Yours
Blaine Bullman
September 8th, 2009 12:57 am
You really are dong a lot of stuff. I do wonder how you manage it all, like managing yourself must be something you have to be strict about.Congrats anyway on all that you’ve done, a lot of bloggers only hope to do this much as well as myself.
Guilherme cherman
September 8th, 2009 1:03 am
It is incredible what a machine you are for creating good content!
Joshua Elliot
September 8th, 2009 1:08 am
Well I think the lesser the better, it helps you to focus more.
Of course its better to start with one first then slowly when you are getting good traffic and earn money, then focus on other niche blogs.
Sohail
September 8th, 2009 1:43 am
woooow so many things i wonder how you manage your tasks. let us know how you can do sooo many things at a time
Jeff H.
September 8th, 2009 1:49 am
Darren,
Excellent post! Looking at your overview, this is where I am shooting to take my blog business within the next year or two. I am still currently stuck in the mud, because my main web site is a static web site. I have been planning for a long time to make the necessary changes, but due to lack of funding and timing constraints, I have not been able to achieve this goal.
As of last week, I decided to heck with it. I am going to implement all the changes myself, since I to have an I.T. background. What was a $1,000 budget, is now a $100. I FINALLY found a template I am happy with, so if all goes well, I should have the new design up by October 1st. So at long last I can start building my blogging empire. You are truly my BLOGGING MENTOR!
The good thing I have going for me is that through Aweber, I have over 20,000 subscribers (these are my combined mailing lists), over 500 twitter followers and a few friends on Facebook. I truly believe once I convert my website into a blog and implement the strategies from 31DBBB (the website version, but I will be buying your e-book version next month) I will have a very popular website!
Thanks again Darren!
Jeff H.
Lisa Morosky
September 8th, 2009 1:50 am
Looks like you have a lot going on, Darren (as always). I’m looking forward to ProBlogger.com and the new projects you’ve alluded to.
Nicholas Cardot
September 8th, 2009 1:55 am
It’s interesting to note how many different ventures you have going at once. I think it’s really part of the key to success to have multiple ventures working together. Great work, Darren.
Soon I’ll be catching up with you.
Dayo Nurudeen
September 8th, 2009 2:22 am
We heard it loud and clear that Darren is running more than one blog or website, that way he is making cool money online.
The number one secret to making money online is to own more than one blog or website and push them all to the top, but listen carefully if you are not able to manage one blog then………………………..whatever.
TSM
September 8th, 2009 2:29 am
Always good to hear about what’s going on with one of my favourite bloggers. I have Problogger the book and my girlfriend bought me the 31 Days book at the beginning of the month and I am trying to work my way through it!
Karlil
September 8th, 2009 2:41 am
With this kind of schedule and success, i’m surprise you’re not blogging about personal development ;p .
Akila
September 8th, 2009 2:42 am
That’s a lot of work indeed:)
Keep up the good work.
Corey Freeman
September 8th, 2009 2:45 am
It’s exciting to see a lot of new developments. Congratulations on your continued success. I’m personally attempting to get more into developing other sources of income than my own writing business, as school takes over the majority of my time.
Thanks for sharing your story/state. :)
mike
September 8th, 2009 2:46 am
You have all great ideas for new blogs and sites.
BigSis
September 8th, 2009 2:46 am
Hi Darren,
Thanks for all of the great content and this info! It’s fascinating and inspiring at the same time! All I can say is that you must be a fabulous time manager, and also extremely disciplined to get all of this done from home. Thanks for being the perfect example of what can happen when people engage their brain with their creativity and their motivation!
Patrenia
September 8th, 2009 2:56 am
I have one question: How do you manage it all????? I am a wife, mother and hopeful beginner blogger. I am having a HARD time managing all of this. I’ve seen others with the same question, so I guess this will be a great post idea for you.
dinu
September 8th, 2009 3:01 am
three blogs, all leaders in their niche !! you are a blogging legend !
Adam Baird
September 8th, 2009 3:20 am
Darren you’re the man. I find it difficult enough to manage one blog.
Dave Doolin
September 8th, 2009 3:27 am
This is good inspiration for me to get a list of all my holdings up to date!
Web Marketing Tips
September 8th, 2009 3:53 am
Well this disclosure certainly give us boost to our motivation. Its really nice to see that you plan ahead and you have everything well placed. ( I understood when I saw your computer desk)
Carl Coddington
September 8th, 2009 4:38 am
True. It is nice that you have successful blogs. But, I am curious what led to the others being dormant? Was it lack of advertising, readers, or passion?
Bruce
September 8th, 2009 4:57 am
Great, Darren…Thanks again for the inspiration.
BTW, are you still doing your physical fitness program?
Matt - Zero 2 Hero
September 8th, 2009 5:45 am
You seem to be doing great. Speaking to over a million people a month if quite amazing. So far i’m in the low thousands still….
Asif
September 8th, 2009 6:47 am
All Your Blogs Are Gems. Amazing Work.
This Really Needs Lots of Time.
We Fly Spitfires
September 8th, 2009 7:38 am
Very interesting :) So cool to see someone being so open!
Gin
September 8th, 2009 8:08 am
I think you’re a great inspiration for others in setting a shining example of success is obtainable in the blogosphere including myself and appreciate you sharing your world with us. Thank you. :)
Vilmis @ Travel Tips
September 8th, 2009 8:43 am
Do you have day off sometimes with such tight schedule ? :)
Dena
September 8th, 2009 8:46 am
It really amazes me what an inspiration that you and people like you have become. I mean, when you think about it – why would anyone want a status update on another person’s life? Aren’t we supposed to be busy enough with our own?
But it is people like you – kind enough or SMART enough to share your knowledge – that helps and inspires others to grow.
Keep up the great work, man. And as always, thank you for sharing!
Cheers!
-Dena
Evolution
Stretch Mark Mama
September 8th, 2009 8:57 am
I enjoy all three blogs–been reading problogger since your first son was born (that’s how women remember dates for things). :)
Anyway, I’m always impressed at the guest posts on twitip–I’m not sure how much editing you have to do over there, but the writing feels consistent even though the voice is of many people.
And kudos to your site designer for dps — it’s visually appealing. As a photography site should be. :)
Darren Rowse
September 8th, 2009 9:15 am
Thanks everyone for your comments.
Sohail and Patrenia – it’s a combination of putting in lots of hours, a little outsourcing (I have help on some admin as well as having writers creating content) and discipline.
Jeff – sounds like you’re on the way – now knuckle down and keep pumping out great content
Nicholas – yes I’ve always tried to diversify my income – however I think it’s still possible to really focus in on one thing and do it really well and still have success.
BigSis – I have my days when I’m good at time management – and other days where I’m not. I guess it’s about working consistently over time :-)
Carl – I let the other blogs mainly because they were on topics I was not really interested in. I went through a phase a few years back where I tried to pump out as much content as possible on topics that I thought would be profitable – the problem was that I didn’t have a real interest in the topics and found it hard to sustain them all as a result. The flow on effect was not getting a regular readership which led to them being unprofitable – so for all of those reasons I let them go.
Bruce – unfortunately I’m not. I need to get back into it though.
Vilmis – I take the weekends off. I do a little work (half an hour) on Saturday morning and work on Sunday nights for an hour or two but the weekends are completely off. I also try to take at least a couple of week long vacations a year.
Jhay
September 8th, 2009 9:15 am
Nice round-up of all things Darren Rowse on the web. Perhaps we’d see other pros do the same thing and report on their status.
Though I have a feeling it would be some sort of ‘brag-fest’ but I know most pros would be decent and humble enough for this to turn out into something healthy and professional, which makes it all the more exciting!
Sime
September 8th, 2009 9:29 am
Absolutely STOKED to be a (small) part of it, D, Thanks. It has been brilliant watching dPS grow on a daily basis! It has had its ups and its downs – mainly ups, and with such a great community – we will continue to grow it and help many more people start to enjoy and love photography like we do.
Sime // dPS Community Manager
Luke Moulton
September 8th, 2009 9:29 am
Thanks for the intimate insights Darren. What would you say is the tipping point in terms of readership, subscribers etc, for a site to start turning a decent $ ?
Baishakhi | Epping Electrical
September 8th, 2009 9:46 am
Wow! The number of things you manage is impressive.. Multiple blogs, alliances with advertisers, ebooks and publications, tie-ups with other bloggers, founding ventures, media.. I think the next thing you should write on is how you manage all of these things together, and as successfully as you do :)
needmoney.com
September 8th, 2009 9:56 am
Nice overview Darren, interesting to read this.
Dan Blank
September 8th, 2009 10:00 am
Darren – great recap; it’s always great to peak behind the curtain to see what the wizard is up to!
-Dan
jodi
September 8th, 2009 10:40 am
congrats and i hope that you will continue to inspire people Values Reviews, Business
clarky
September 8th, 2009 12:06 pm
Darren, you said that you have more than 20 blogs, I don’t know how you did this every single day. I think that you must be a superman. If I am you, I don’t think that I could handle so many sites.
Thanks for telling us about your other sites, I think that since I love your this blog, I will love the others, keep good working :).
Toan Nguyen Minh
September 8th, 2009 12:56 pm
Your blogs are very cool. Congratulations :)
Manshu
September 8th, 2009 1:10 pm
Congratulations Darren.
I noticed that on the DPS blog, you have a great visitors to page-views ratio. Does this mean that the bounce rate is significantly lower on that blog when compared to the others, and people tend to go from one post to the other?
Any tips on lowering bounce rate?
Hwa
September 8th, 2009 2:19 pm
Reading this post, I feel you are really working hard! Wow. I am sure you are having fun as well. Great.
Chris Catania
September 8th, 2009 3:08 pm
I agree with everyone that what you’re doing Darren does sound like a lot, especially when you put it all on paper (or in a blog post). But I’m thinking that you must have a steady and consistent routine that you stick to. And when we do have a plan and a routine we can accomplish more than we think we can, as you’ve displayed in this post. You also must have a great support system (friends, colleagues and mentors) in place. Congrats on the success and I look forward to seeing the new blogs in the fall.
Rita
September 8th, 2009 3:19 pm
Thanks for the summary of your activities. You must be super busy. Do you work 14 hours a day?
I was surprised that you said you didn’t have a staff. Do you just hire people to help you when you need assistance, such as redesigning a Web site?
Rita blogging at The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide
Money-Era
September 8th, 2009 5:50 pm
Well Darren! Another inspiration and time to expand on http://www.money-era.com/2009/06/problogger/
Reza Winandar
September 8th, 2009 10:59 pm
Shit! You must be a very rich guy (or blogger?)!
EchoBlogger
September 8th, 2009 11:16 pm
You are great
Internet Marketing
September 8th, 2009 11:40 pm
You are great. Simply awesome, congrats on your success!
Rajendra
September 9th, 2009 12:00 am
Hi Darren!
I really like this topic , as most of the new bloggers like me will definetly find useful from this.
I am also from one of them who is looking for an good traffic on my blog http://www.clickblogging.blogspot.com.
Its really having an
good stuff to refer and implement these things on my blog.
Thanks Darren once again for such post.
R.W. Jackson
September 9th, 2009 12:27 am
Can’t wait to see what your new secret project is Darren. I’m sure it is something like the next Twitter.
All the best,
R.W.
Typhoon
September 9th, 2009 12:40 am
From the stats it shows your popularity. Don’t you get stressed handling soo much work load??
I would be interested in reading a article on how you manage this huge amount of work.
Regards,
Typhoon a.k.a Sushant
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
Kaspersky key
September 9th, 2009 3:12 am
I am waiting for http://www.problogger.com
Lydia, CluelessCrafter
September 9th, 2009 4:26 am
I too want to hear how you manage this head-spinning schedule.
I understand how your gigs keep expanding. After working on my personal blog, I developed a new site which I am working on now. It’s like each site is a building block to a bigger and better idea.
Annie
September 9th, 2009 6:16 am
Darren, you are surely one busy guy! :-)
I am the same way, I love to have tons of work that keep me busy and going ( well, of course I am complaining of lack of time often, but you can’t beat the thrill :-) .
This post is actually very helpful! I didn’t know half of the stuff you are connected with :-) Very interesting!
Keep up the good work!
fas
September 9th, 2009 7:11 am
The figures for DPS is awesome. You seem to be doing very good, good going.
Paul Hassing
September 9th, 2009 8:33 am
Good on you, Cobber! I appreciate your frank, open, no-nonsense approach. Sounds like you work hard and deserve every cent you make. All power to your 472 arms! Best regards, P. :)
Andi | Web Marketer Depot
September 9th, 2009 8:33 am
Woah, that’s crazy lots of stuff. And I never have thought that the traffic you get for your DPS blog actually 4 times more than ProBlogger. Just amazing.
SeoNext
September 9th, 2009 2:14 pm
You are really great.It was really a great inspiration.Thanks for sharing this post with us.
Stephanie
September 9th, 2009 2:56 pm
Darren, I love the top pictures. I think your glasses are definitely your “trademark.” Very cool and intellectual.
Congrats on your success this past year, by the way. I look forward to hearing more about your “secret” projects…
Technology Slice
September 9th, 2009 10:23 pm
Looks like you have a full workload.
Wesley Green
September 10th, 2009 8:27 am
I think a good companion piece to this post would be a breakdown of a “typical” weekly schedule for you.
Speaking for myself, I think seeing what you do on a regular basis would not only be inspiring but would also show what areas of blogging I may need to focus or spend less time on.
Just an idea :D
Wesley Craig Green
The Geek Entrepreneur
Master B
September 12th, 2009 1:42 pm
Waw… I have to say wao.. Tell me, I always wonder about you guys -the successful blogger- who get on the top : HOW DID YOU START IT? I means, we all know how successful you are, but when you 1st running your online job and started blogging, did you face the same obstacle like ours? Or you just start running smoothly since beginning? And how much money did you invest when you 1st started blogging? Did you start with blog or you made website or join affiliate program? which of which?
Btw, Darren. You are inspiring! Thanks!
——–
Money Making Blogspot
enceintes pc
September 18th, 2009 5:51 pm
Hey Darren Rowse you post here such a fantastic article. I think he’s out to make more money, millions more.. Darren is really doing the great work as per his article said..
Joel Brown
October 3rd, 2009 4:45 pm
Darren, your remark about new opportunities every day if only you had the time to pursue them is true. It seems always the more you have on your plate the more potential things you could do show up. I guess this is not a bad thing though it is when you are not seeing any new opportunities that you begin to worry.
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