I’m regularly asked about the mistakes I made when starting out with blogging and the first two words that usually spring to mind are  ’Domain Names’.

Most of the early mistakes I made (and some of the more recent ones) have revolved around domain names. Let me run through a few:

1. Not Getting My Own Domain Name

The first mistake I made was not to get my own domain name at all.

The year was 2002 and a couple of hours after reading my first blog, I was ready to start my own. After looking at how everyone else was doing it, I decided to use Blogspot (Blogger) as my platform because it promised me that I’d have my own blog up and running in minutes. At the time I’m not sure Blogspot allowed me to use my own domain (you can today) but within a few months of starting that blog I was already regretting not using one of the other hosted blogging services.

I felt trapped on the Blogspot domain and realised how little control I had, especially in terms of design. So began to research switching. I initially switched over to MovableType and later to WordPress and at that point I registered my first ever domain.

Having your own domain name is beneficial in many ways. It shows readers you’re serious about what you’re doing, it helps build your brand and credibility, enables you to have an email address with that same branding and can also help with SEO.

Lastly, having your own domain name gives you more control, which means you’re not going to be switched off for breaking the terms of service of whatever host you’re on.

Switching my blog to a hosted blogging platform and getting my own domain name was a big part in my blog’s growth in the early years. At the time of switching, I was nervous that I’d lose all my readers and any search rankings I achieved but I need not have worried – it only grew my readership!

2. Getting an Aussie Domain

OK – so I’d made my first big decision to switch my blog to my own domain. This helped my blog a lot, however in doing so I inadvertently made another mistake (in fact, two mistakes).

The first one was registering the .au extension for my domain name. Now this may not be a mistake for everyone but for me it was.

I’m an Aussie but at the time of choosing my domain most of my readers were in the US. I didn’t realise it but by choosing an Australian (.au) domain name I was making my blog more findable in search engines to Australians – but not to a global audience.

This was both a blessing and a curse. It meant I got some nice traffic from Google.com.au as there were fewer Aussie sites competing for that traffic however, the overall number of people searching the web in Australia is much smaller than the global number of people searching the web.

If you’re looking to build a localized audience by all means consider a local domain. If you’re looking for a global audience I’ve found .com domains to be much better.

3. Not getting a .com domain

The other mistake was choosing the .org domain. At the time legally entitled to use the .org domain as I was involved with a church and a leader of that community. It seemed appropriate as part of what I was doing with my first blog was related to that church but in time, my goals with the blog changed to become more commercial.

Using the .org.au domain and running a commercial blog wasn’t really a good idea. It probably didn’t comply with the rules but it also wasn’t very good for my branding either.

4. Conflicting Brands

By this point I’d only been blogging for 18 months but I saw a real evolution of my blog. I started blogging about church, spirituality, almost as a personal blogger. As I developed my voice and began to experiment with different topics and with making money from my blogging, I made the mistake of keeping all my blogs on the one domain.

My domain name was livingroom.org.au (it’s still live today if you want to take a look) but on it I hosted a number of blogs that didn’t sit well together as an overarching brand.

I had a church information site, my personal blog, a camera review blog, a camera phone blog, an olympic games blog and more – all sharing the ‘livingroom’ brand.

It was messy, particularly when I began to try to grow my readership and start talking with potential advertisers for my main blog – the camera review blog.

Having said all of that and having made all of those mistakes – the blogs did grow to a point where I was able to make a decent living from blogging. This should hopefully serve as an encouragement to those of you who might have made similar mistakes – you can still have success!

5. Not Getting the .com for ProBlogger When I Could Have

In 2004, I decided I wanted to start a blog about blogging where I’d share tips on blogging and how to make money from blogs (something I’d been doing for almost a year). I’d previously been writing on the topic of blogging in a category on my personal blog but wanted to bring all those posts over onto a domain specifically for bloggers.

I decided upon the name of ProBlogger but someone had already registered the domain ProBlogger.com (they were originally developing a tool for bloggers) – so I got ProBlogger.net.

At the time, I didn’t reach out to the owner of that domain because they looked to be building something and what they were building was quite different to my intentions for ProBlogger so I thought we could co-exist.

In time, the owner of that domain stopped developing their tool and ‘parked’ the domain. At this point I reached out to see if they’d sell it to me. I don’t remember exactly what they asked for but it seemed steep (it was somewhere around $1000 from memory).

I reached out to the owner numerous times after that initially approach but the numbers they asked for got higher and higher (mainly because I was growing demand by having success with my blog and the word ‘ProBlogger’ began to be commonly used to describe people making money with blogs).

It was important for me to get the .com domain, mainly because I wanted to defend the brand. Having ProBlogger.net was ok, but .com was more common and I knew everyday readers were ending up on someone else’s site looking for me (note: ProBlogger.com is coming up for a big overhaul in the coming months).

Eventually, they put the domain up for auction and after a roller coaster of a ride I purchased it (for quite a bit more than they’d originally asked).

The lesson I learned was that if I am serious about a brand, back myself and buy the domain early.

6. Hyphens

The last mistake I made with domains was when I started Digital Photography School in 2006.

The site was started as something of an impulsive experiment so I didn’t put a lot of thought into the domain – but I wish I had.

While having hyphens isn’t a terrible thing in terms of search engines (although lately I’m wondering if that is changing) it is a real mouthful to communicate to people when you’re telling them the domain of your site.

As with most of the above mistakes – this wasn’t a mistake big enough to sink my sites development, dPS is my biggest site today, however it is/was a regret of sorts!

What ‘Mistakes’ have you Made with Domains?

I know I’m not the only one who has made mistakes with domain names – help me feel better about mine by sharing yours below!

It seems so effortless from the outside: Record some audio, shoot a little video, schedule a few emails, throw in a live call. Shaazam! You’ve got an e-Course.

But when you dive in to actually create your own course, you may get:

• frustrated – ‘What do people actually need to know to get started on Pinterest? I thought I knew:,’ or
• overwhelmed – ‘I know so much about eating paleo. I have to include everything, but it’s too much!’ or
• despairing – ‘Everybody knows everything about marketing, why would they listen to me?’

Welcome to teaching! It only looks easy because you’re looking at someone else’s finished product.

But, if you have the desire to share what you know, here are the steps you can take to create your own successful e-Course – without hiding in endless hours of Angry Birds or eating a pint of triple fudge cookie dough ice cream.

1. Dump Your Brain

First dive into the question, ‘What do I MOST want to teach?’ by writing non-stop for 10 minutes. If you lose steam, repeat the question but keep your hand moving!

Stream of consciousness is the key.

Don’t try to restrict your choices too soon. It’s comforting to make decisions – it makes us feel safe – but do it too soon and a lot of juicy bits may get left out. Or you just might find yourself teaching something you aren’t invested in – which is a quick way to exhaustion and burnout.

Take a dance break to get the creative juices flowing, then ask yourself:

• Since nothing is off limits for me to teach, I could include:
• The best learning experiences I’ve had included:
• The worst learning experiences I’ve had included:

Write for 3 to 5 minutes for each question. You are diving deeper. You’ll repeat ideas, get bored: just keep writing. You are investing all of 25 minutes tops. No big deal.

Reward yourself with another dance break. Or coffee. Or a walk. Taking a break from thinking is essential. From my own work and from working with teachers I know that your results will simply be MUCH, much better.

2. Find the Core

Your next job is to find the one core idea of your course.

The biggest reason a course never comes together or doesn’t work is because the teacher tries to cover too much. Put yourself in your students’ shoes – they want a problem solved. Help them learn one thing. And then help them learn the next one thing. Restrain yourself from drowning them with a fire hose of too much material and they will reward you with loyalty and repeat business.

Now read through your brain dump. Look for the frustrations you most want to solve or the outcomes you most want to lead people to. What themes keep showing up? List those.

Now look for the uber-theme – Which idea has the most energy for you or encompasses all your other themes?

Not sure? Pick one theme and brainstorm 3 to 5 takeaways people would learn. Be as concrete as you can. Now ask yourself, ‘What is the core idea behind these takeaways?’

Write your core idea on a post-it note and keep it front and center as you continue to work on creating your course. This is your critical content filter and focus-er. Only content and exercises that fit this idea – and support your takeaways – go into this course.

Everything else is for another course. Keep a notebook or computer file open to jot those other ideas down as a jump-start for next time!

3. Befriend the Critic

This is usually when your negative inner chorus chimes in with helpful comments like, ‘Nobody will ever buy this,’ or ‘Everybody knows this stuff already,’ or simply, ‘This sucks.’

Instead of believing these voices and losing momentum or ignoring them entirely – which drains your energy because they are still yammering in the background – write down what they are saying. Get this repetitive chatter onto paper. Then use it to improve your course.

Here’s how:

Take the list and cross out every word that is pure meanness, that sounds like your 7th grade English teacher, or that you no longer believe – in other words, old news and not your stuff. Use a big black Sharpie.

Look at what’s left. Ask yourself, ‘Is there any insight here that can help me create a course that I love to teach and that helps people?’

For example, if your inner mean chorus insists your design is hideous, get curious. What design tweaks could help this round of your course, tweaks that you have the time and resources to implement?

If your critics shouts, ‘Nobody will buy this,’ make a list of where your just-right students hang out. Ask for guest posts now, comment on related posts (use Google Alerts to find them,) comment on Facebook. Use these insights to take action.

Certain you have nothing original to say? When I wrote my first book proposal, I was 26 and felt like a fraud, so I wrote in a stuffy pretend-therapist voice. Everybody turned the proposal down.

I rewrote it in my authentic voice and two of the world’s biggest publishers wanted it. If your critics are whining about originality, check in: Are you valuing your voice, your stories, and your ideas, or are you trying to be like everybody else?

Here’s the SECRET to using this process: Your inner critics worship perfection. Perfection kills creativity and stops forward motion. ‘Good enough,’ and ‘What serves my students?’ are your mantras here. Use what you can and leave the rest!

4. Steal like A Teacher

I teach a writing retreat every year in Taos, New Mexico, and one idea that gets everybody excited – and makes writing for them so much easier – is learning to see and ‘steal’ other writers’ structures.

The idea is simple – read to find how a piece of writing is organized and then use that structure for your own content. You can do the same thing when you are developing a course – steal structure and pour your content in (No stealing content!) The structure helps you remember what you know because the mind likes to know where to put things.

Look for structures like ’3 videos, 7 emails, 4 live calls’ and dig deeper to understand how the structure supports the material. For example, in TeachNow, there is a class and transcript for each module, and then short audios and videos that build out or supplement a few ideas from the class, for people who want to go deeper.

Go hunt for structures that fit your core idea, as well as your just-right student’s needs and lifestyle.

5. Name the Steps

Effective learning is broken into incremental steps that build on each other. But it can be tricky to name these steps because you are so close to your material.

Use your imagination to go back in time to when you were first learning your subject. Feel into one aha moment – maybe when your first understood how to grip a golf club or how to listen to your partner with an open heart. From this place, describe one thing you want your students to learn.

You don’t have to create the steps in order; you can order the steps afterward. Let beginner’s mind guide you and start wherever you feel the most ‘juice.’

Before you write or record a step, ask: Does this fit with my one core idea?

6. Tangible Takeaways

Learning is elusive – and people are so overwhelmed with information overload already – it’s damn hard to get concepts to ‘stick.’ Think about it: How much do you remember from the last course you took? The book you read or listened to last night?

You can up your course’s ‘sticky’ factor by asking students to name what they have learned – throughout the course, if possible.

• Ask students to take one concrete action today based on what they just learned.
• Prompt people to share one takeaway per module or per week on a private Facebook group.
• Ask students to record a video or audio sharing their top three takeaways from the entire course.
• Ask students to send in one takeaway after a live call and include their website address.
• Compile an email that goes to all your students or that you share on your blog with live links to their sites, as an extra incentive.

Most e-Course designers skip the takeaways because they assume nobody wants ‘more work.’ Make a case for how much benefit they’ll receive from doing so. Challenge them to try it once, just to ‘prove you right or prove you wrong.’

Takeaways also teach YOU what people are learning. Knowing this will help you rejigger your course and your marketing because you will see how people are actually using the material. And it will give you ideas for new courses. It’s precious stuff!

7. Beta

The only way to learn to teach is by teaching. The only way to see if your material works is to test it on real people. This why teaching is so scary – it’s like performing, even when you aren’t offering anything live.

Here’s how to make it easier: talk to other people who have created courses. Ask them:

• How did they deal with their fears?
• How did they weather negative feedback or unhappy students?
• How did they market?

Peer support normalizes so much!

And remind yourself you are NOT your work. This has kept me sane for 21+ teaching and writing years. You are amazing – you, separate from your work. How your work lands or is received is no reflection on your worth as a human.

8. Build in Regular Feedback

I send out an email three times over the 3-month TeachNow course, asking for student feedback about the course. I ask these questions:

• What has been your biggest takeaway in TeachNow so far?
• What has shifted for you because of this learning? How have you applied it?
• What did you think you would learn by now that you haven’t?

I offer a gift if feedback is given by a certain date. By doing so, I gather feedback when it’s fresh for people and encourage a sense of ownership in learning. If your course is delivered all at once, you can ask for feedback several times via autoresponder, and include gentle nudges to use the material if they haven’t already.

9. Keep the Momentum Going

The more often you offer your course, the more input you’ll garner about how to improve it and what other courses to create. But that’s hard to do if you’re not getting the sales – or rave reviews – you want. You get discouraged and think, ‘What’s the point?’

Give yourself a few days off – a real rest, away from marketing and technology – and then assess.

Ask yourself:

• Did you fall in love with content creation and not put equal time & creativity into marketing?
• If so, pour your energy into marketing for the next round.
• Did you try to create a course that filled a need but lost your voice in the process?
• Go back and tweak – just a little – to add your stories, experiences and voice.
• Add that to the sales page, too.
• Did you consider your students’ needs?
• Did you describe clear benefits on your sales page?
• How many people did you get your course in front of?
• Did you promote it in the places your just-right students hang out?
• Did you make clear requests for feedback from current students?
• What tweaks can you make to the course and your sales page to address these requests?
• Did you enlist peer support from other course creators?
• Share your challenges and successes?
• Swap best practice and sales ideas?
• When can you offer the course again?
• What are three fun ways to get the word out?

Creating effective learning courses and marketing them is a giant undertaking. What’s helped me is to devote myself at first to creating great content, then refine the content while putting lots more energy into marketing, and then for the rest of the life of the course, my energy goes into marketing and into any live teaching component.

I so hope these steps help you get into action and share what you love! – not next month or next year or when you feel you know enough – but NOW. Get into action, find your core idea, and beta, Baby, beta.

Shoot me a line and tell me how it goes!

*image credit: Odette Mattha Design, www.odettemattha.com

Jen Louden is the best-selling author of 6 books, including the pioneering best-sellers The Woman’s Comfort Book and The Woman’s Retreat Book. Her retreats are world-famous. She’s the proud mom of a college freshman (How did that happen??), and the creator of the popular TeachNow course. You can sign up for free samples of TeachNow, including a Library of free resources and a live call on April 4th, here http://theteacherspath.com

I’ve been excitedly sitting on this one for a while now and am relieved to finally announce a new ProBlogger event that is coming up for Melbourne Food and Wine Bloggers (and anyone else who wants to travel to Melbourne for an evening).

The event is being held in collaboration with my good friend Shane Delia, an amazing chef and co-owner of restaurants including two of my favourites—Maha Bar and Grill and St Katherine’s, Kew.

Shane and I have talked for some time now about organising an event for bloggers and are today releasing tickets for the first of what we hope will be a series of events for foodies.

We have lined up what we hope will be a fun and informative evening that will feature three delightful speakers, an insightful panel discussion and a delicious three-course meal from the team at Maha (including wines to match each course).

Here are the event details:

• Date: Tuesday 17 July 2012
• Time: 6pm arrival
• Venue: Maha, 21 Bond St, Melbourne
• Inclusions: Event ticket with three-course meal and wine matching (served on communal tables)
• Cost: $120 per person

Our speaker lineup for the event draws on three fantastic people from different areas of the food and wine writing fraternity in Melbourne. We’ve chosen a wine writer, a food writer, and a blogger. Here’s who who’ve lined up:

Dan Sims, The Wine Guide


 A fresh perspective on wine writing

Cool, calm, and collected without pretentious frippery is how Dan likes to keep the world of wine. He’s an award-winning Sommelier and the engine room for many of The Wine Guide’s clients and for their events that happen around Australia and beyond.

Dan’s excitement for good wine is palpable whether in front of a camera, or in front of a room full of bloggers, and his even-handed approach to wine has drawn plenty of praise from the press and trade.

Dan will share his insights on how his no-nonsense approach to writing can be applied to your own blogging.

More about Dan | @dansims | Facebook



“Jetsetting Joyce”, MEL: Hot or Not



Successes and learnings from my food blogging journey

Jetsetting Joyce started blogging in 2007 when she lived in London. Back then, LDN: Hot or Not was a simple Blogger template with hardly any pictures and maybe one or two paragraphs about where she’d eaten, what play she’d seen, what shops she’d visited, and the places she stayed. It was a way of keeping in touch with family and friends, and was more of a travel diary than something meant for a wider audience.

When Joyce returned to Melbourne 2009 she was going to quit blogging … but found that it’d become quite an addictive habit. So MEL: Hot or Not was born and has continued to thrive for over three years with Joyce’s honest and informative reviews about everything Melbourne—restaurants, bars, theatre, festivals, events, shops, and businesses. All posts are written with one decisive criteria in mind: is it hot or not?

Joyce’s blogging addiction has meant she now also writes TOT: Hot or Not, a blog about parenting which started in August 2010 with her first pregnancy, plus a blog filled with cycle chic inspiration as part of her online bike shop CycleStyle. She fits all the blogging around her day job as an intellectual property and IT lawyer. (Yeah, she’s a busy lady!)

Joyce will share her learnings and successes and how she’s applied them to her blogging career.

More about Joyce | @jetsettingjoyce | Facebook



Hilary McNevin, Broadsheet, The Age



The art of writing a review: expressing your opinion, with context and effective, thoughtful communication

Hilary McNevin worked front-of-house, managing restaurants and studying wine in both Australia and the UK for 15 years before shifting careers. She studied Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT and, during her study and since finishing the course at the end of 2007, has freelanced for “Epicure” in The Age as a regular contributor, and fills in for senior reviewer Larissa Dubecki on the “Espresso” column.

Hilary has reviewed for and sub-edited The Age Good Food Guide 2008 and 2009, and continues to review for the guide. She is a reviewer for The Age Cheap Eats, The Age Good Cafe Guide, Good Food Shopping Guide and Good Bar Guide. She is the restaurant reviewer for The Moonee Valley Weekly, a Fairfax publication, and is a contributing food writer for Broadsheet.com.au.

She contributes regularly to Winestate magazine and the James Halliday Wine Companion magazine, and in July she’ll begin writing Melbourne food news for Delicious magazine. Hilary had her first book Guide to Fish: Choosing and Cooking Sustainable Species published by Fairfax in October 2008.

Hilary will share her extensive experience in writing reviews, providing key journalism hints and tips on the fine art of review writing.

More about Hilary | @hilarymcnevin

Tickets are limited: get yours today

This evening is going to be a lot of fun. Not only will you hear from these panelists (and Shane and myself), you’ll have the opportunity to connect with 100 other Melbourne foodies (and might even get the opportunity to meet Mrs ProBlogger who is eying off a ticket too).

Tickets for this event are limited, so register today to reserve a spot yourself and your friends (a maximum of four tickets is available per person).

Please Note: Registration is free via Eventbrite but will reserve your ticket only. Your seat at the venue will only be confirmed once payment is collected. A representative of Maha will make contact with you to confirm your payment details once you have reserved your seat via Eventbrite.

View more event details and a list of attendees at http://probloggerfoodwine.eventbrite.com/.

Last week the mysterious Web Marketing Ninja released a free PDF mind map here on ProBlogger (with accompanying video) that walked readers through his in depth strategies for turning a Blog into a Business.

The feedback from that MindMap and video were great and I had a steady flow of thank you emails over the weekend from readers working through it.

Among the feedback from readers was some people feeling a little overwhelmed – so the Ninja has put together a second shorter video with some practical case study examples of how we’ve implemented some of the strategies in the Mind Map on my own blogs – yep, the Ninja is picking on me today!

See the video here

The 3 case studies are:

1. A/B testing – how we significantly increased the revenue from a product launch through split testing emails (and how we could have done even better had we done more testing).
2. Product Development Made Easy – the back story behind my biggest selling ProBlogger eBook
3. The Art of the Campaign – the story behind my biggest earning month ever

Our hope is that these practical examples will not only bring the Mind Map to life but that they might also give some practical ideas on how you can transition your blog into a business.

See the video here (along with the previous video and the Mind Map).

Also be watching out for a brand new ProBlogger Resource created by the Ninja in the coming days.

This morning I was doing some reports on eBbook sales over the last few years and it struck me how much difference there can be in terms of numbers of sales from one ebook to the next—even ebooks sold on the same blog.

On dPS we have now launched six photography ebooks (and have another about to launch) and the variation in sales numbers is quite amazing.

Of course there are many factors that come into play that could determine an ebook’s success, including:

• marketing
• timing of release
• price
• cover design
• author’s profile
• and many, many other factors

However there’s one factor that I’m coming to see is extremely important (at least in my experience)—topic.

Of course that’s a pretty obvious thing, but not all topics are equal and even those that you think might be most appealing to people are not always going to succeed.

One illustration of this point are two great ebooks that we’ve launched in the last year or so. They were both written by the same author, and released to the same audience, at the same price, with much the same marketing strategy, and even similar sales copy—yet the results were quite different.

The ebooks were:

• Transcending Travel—A Guide to Captivating Travel Photography
• Captivating Color: A Guide to Dramatic Color Photography.

Which one do you think sold more?

I’ll tell you in a moment.

Both ebooks were written by Mitchell Kanashkevich and their quality was fantastic. Both were beautifully designed, very practical, and full of useful information.

The travel one launched first and we were a little unsure whether it was too niche-focused or not. While most people do travel and take trips, it’s something that most people only do occasionally.

On the other hand, color was a topic we identified as something every photographer really, really needed to know about and understand. It impacts every image a photographer takes, and understanding it can make a massive difference to the outcome of a shot.

Comparing the topics in this way we fully expected the color ebook to outsell the travel one, however, as you may have guessed, this was not to be.

Both ebooks performed well and were profitable but the travel photography one saw almost double the sales of the color ebook during its launch.

Now there could be a number of factors at play here, but as we’ve analyzed the results, one of the things we’ve realized is that while we thought that the color ebook should have been more useful to more photographers, it was somehow less tangible than the travel ebook.

While important, the topic of color was perhaps too wide and general in its focus to actually drive as many sales as we’d expected.

On the other hand, the travel ebook was narrower in focus, but it was going to lead those who bought it to see results in a specific area of their life. It would solve a specific problem that they faced—disappointing travel images.

We have since tweaked the marketing on the color ebook and have seen a rise in sales, but the two launches reminded us that not all topics are created equal.

That’s not to say that we won’t do more ebooks on topics like color, but we’re certainly looking for topics that solve specific, felt needs, too.

The other thing that this has taught us is to think more about marketing our ebooks even before they’ve been written. While we don’t want our marketing team to determine the content of a resource or to compromise the integrity of the authorship process, we’ve realized that if the author has been involved in talking about marketing even before they start writing, they’re more likely to produce something that is not only helpful but will also be easier to sell.

If there’s one question that I get asked more than any other at the moment it is about eBooks. In fact there are three main questions that I’m asked on the topic of eBooks more than any other:

1. How do I create content for eBooks?
2. How do I design beautiful eBooks (covers and internal design)?
3. How do I market and launch eBooks to maximise their potential?

Over the last few years selling eBooks has become a larger and larger part of my business (in fact its now the #1 way I earn a living) and these three questions have been the same three big issues that I’ve had to grapple with time and time again.

To be honest I’m still refining my systems even now after years at it but in the early days the process was very very messy and quite hit and miss.

The learning was slow – nobody had written a comprehensive guide to walk me through the process, so I had to really develop my own way forward.

This week Kelly Kingman and Pamela Wilson have released a fantastic guide to walk eBook publishers through a great system of creating, designing and launching eBooks.

It’s called the eBook Evolution.

Having just reviewed it today I can safely say it is what I needed a few years back when I was starting out – it would have paid for itself many times over by now.

Pamela and Kelly bring some great skills and experiences to this eBook. Pamela is a graphic designer with many years of experience and Kelly is a published author and experienced eBook creator. I’ve been so impressed by Kelly’s previous eBooks that we’re actually working together on a photography eBook to be released in the next weeks – she knows what she is doing!

Together they’ve created eBook Evolution which is divided into 3 areas corresponding with those 3 common questions about eBooks:

1. Write it – from choosing your topic through to writing your manuscript
2. Create it – eBook Evolution gives you some great templates to use to help you create a beautiful eBook. You also get a Cover Recipe book to make attractive covers. This section has some great screencasts as well as templates you can use to do your own eBook design.
3. Launch it – some fantastic tips on how to get word about your eBook out there to the right people to help you promote it.

On top of that you get some great bonuses including a Quick Start Guide, a brainstorming guide to help you come up with ideas and some useful interviews.

The eBook Evolution is available for $147. It comes with a 30 day money back guarantee.

If eBooks are on the horizon for you (or even if you’re already publishing them) but you’re unsure how to develop a system to write, create and launch the – this is a guide that you’ll seriously want to consider.

As I said above – if this had been around 2-3 years ago I could see that it would have returned the $147 investment many times over (all I’d have had to do is sell an extra eight $19.99 ebooks over the last few years from what I learned to make the money back).

Learn more about what the eBook Evolution includes and secure your own copy here

Disclaimer: While I am an affiliate for this product I am also a big fan of Kelly, Pamela and the wonderful resource that they’ve created.

Note: This post has been updated after the initial launch special of this product ended.

This guest post is by Paul Cunningham, blogger, internet marketer, and author of How to Become a Successful Freelance Blogger,

I bet that you could easily name at least a dozen blogs that dispense blogging tips to other bloggers. The so-called “blogging blogs” vary in many different ways, but they all tend to give out the same basic advice: start a blog, build your audience, monetize, and maybe one day you’ll reach that six-figure income that defines you as a “problogger”.

But what about the other kind of problogger, the one who gets paid simply to write blog posts? You might think of them as freelance bloggers, or staff writers, or maybe you’ve never actually thought about them at all.

Consider this: while you work hard to build up your own blog, writing post after post and trying to find the traffic and monetization strategies that will work for you, those freelance bloggers are out there getting paid for every blog post they write.

So, is it really that easy for freelance bloggers to make money while most other bloggers make nothing? Let’s take a look inside the life of these other probloggers.

Skills and experience

A freelance blogger isn’t all that different from someone who publishes their own blog. The freelancer is a regular person who knows how to use WordPress to write and edit blog posts, just like any of you reading this that have used WordPress before.

They certainly don’t need to be a WordPress expert, because someone else is responsible for all of the technical stuff that goes on behind the scenes of the blogs they write for. Installing plugins, dealing with comment spam, and performing upgrades are things that don’t eat up the freelancer’s time and energy. They’re free to concentrate on the writing.

The freelancer also either has strong experience in the topic they’re writing about, or uses simple research techniques to write with authority on almost any topic they wish.

This is more common than most people realize. After all, the biggest audience for most blogs is the beginner level, so freelance bloggers only need to be at intermediate level—or be able to fill in their knowledge gaps with research—to be able to write about the topic.

Discipline and time management

Make no mistake: that image you have in your head of a freelance blogger sitting in their pyjamas at home or relaxing at the local coffee shop while they work is true in a lot of cases. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t professionals too.

Freelancer blogging is a business, and has to be treated as one. The clients that you write for depend on quality blog posts being submitted on time. A freelancer can’t just spontaneously take the day off when they’ve got a deadline to meet. If they did, their reputation would take a hit, and reputation is one of the biggest assets a freelance blogger has.

Because most freelancers work from home, there are numerous distractions throughout the day that can easily harm their productivity. Successful freelance bloggers develop excellent time management skills and create routines that have them writing at their most productive times of day.

Money, money, money!

By now you might be wondering just how much money a freelance blogger makes, compared to the typical problogger. Naturally, this depends on a few different factors.

The ability to find and win good paying work is the first challenge. Freelance blogging opportunities are in plentiful supply at the moment (just take a look at the action on the ProBlogger job board as one example), and the trend seems to be towards more work rather than less.

Now that blogging has become mainstream, it plays a big part in the web strategies of a huge variety of media companies. The top blogs in the world tend to be high-volume, multi-author sites using a mix of staff writers and freelance bloggers to turn out the amount of content they need to compete in their niche.

All of this means that freelancers who are able to present a good portfolio of work, and have the discipline and professionalism to do the job, can virtually pick and choose exactly how much work they want to do each week. This puts the earning potential of a freelance blogger almost entirely within their own control.

It’s no surprise, then, to find that freelance bloggers can be anything from hobbyists who do it one or two nights a week for a bit of side income, all the way to full-time freelancers running their own six-figure business writing for multiple clients.

My experience in freelance blogging

I’ve spent the last two years freelance blogging. For me it was a side income — some extra money that I could reinvest into my own blogs as I was building them. It meant that I didn’t need to dip into our family savings to pay for the WordPress themes, plugins, ebooks, and other products that have helped me along the way.

While I was blogging, I met numerous bloggers who spend most of their time doing paid freelance work. A lot of them also run their own blogs for fun, and some make good money from those blogs too, but for most of them the attraction of freelance blogging is that it gives them a steadier income and almost instant return for their effort.

What about you? As you work to build your own profitable blogs, would a freelance blogging income help you get there faster?

Paul Cunningham is a blogger, internet marketer, and the author of How to Become a Successful Freelance Blogger, the ebook that teaches you how to turn your knowledge and passion into a real income stream. Follow Paul on Twitter.