Ask the Readers: Do You Blog to Make Money or to Make Meaning (or Both)?
by Caleb Wojcik
It has been a while since we’ve done an ask the readers post, so we’d love to hear from you on this one.
Does your website exist simply to make money or are you working to create something that matters?
Obviously the two options aren’t mutually exclusive. Also, the definition of “what matters” is up to you.
If you can’t think of your answer, think about it this way: When you first started out blogging or creating your website, what was the main driving force? We’d love to here your answers in the comments below this post.
Last Time on “Ask the Readers”
Our previous ask the readers discussion about what people think of pop-ups was fairly one sided. There were 119 comments and my favorite came from Tara Gentile:
I have a feeling they are useful & effective for sites with less-than-savvy readership. If you’re looking to build an audience that’s surfing a variety of sites, sticking around for a while, and doing their homework – you’re better off without a pop up.
Great point Tara. It isn’t strictly about whether or not the pop-ups work to gain subscribers, it is about what kind of people you are turning away by using an invasive tactic.
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Alright, back to today’s question.
I’d love to know: do you work online to make money or to make meaning?
How are making meaning and making money related?
If you’re doing both, tell us in what proportion and tell us which is the primary driver.
As always, there is no right answer. We just want to hear from you, so don’t be shy. Let’s hear it!
February 9, 2012 — 27 awesome comments
5 Critical Steps to Getting Your Creative Project Funded on Kickstarter
by Caleb Wojcik
Note from Caleb: A trend we’ve been seeing lately is how bloggers have been using Kickstarter to fund major projects. A couple months back we featured the story of how Kristin and Shannon used their blog to reach more than triple their fundraising goal on Kickstarter. Also, our good friend Adam Baker from Man vs. Debt is launching his own Kickstarter campaign soon for a documentary called ‘I’m Fine, Thanks’.
To go along with this rising trend we have a special post today for you from Brian Kwong. He is going to lay out some of the findings from research he has been doing for his very own project for helping other people successfully fund their Kickstarter campaigns.
Take it away Brian!
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It has been a heck of a year for Kickstarter in 2011, a crowd-funding platform based in the US, where creative projects are launched and funded by everyday folks like you and me.
Since the birth of Kickstarter in April 2009, they had reached 10,000 successfully funded projects in July 2011, helped projects raise more than $100 million dollars and had their one millionth backer in October 2011.
These are some mind-blowing numbers in just two and half years, especially in a weak US economy.
So I thought, Kickstarter could be a real opportunity for me to raise funds and start a creative project that I am passionate about, no matter if it’s a non-fiction book or any other awesome project that I could dream up. [Continue reading…]
February 7, 2012 — 16 awesome comments
Huge Month! January 2012 Monthly Report – Think Traffic, Expert Enough and Million Dollar Blog Project
by Corbett Barr
Welcome to another Think Traffic monthly report!
If you’re new here, in these reports we dive into exactly what we’ve done to grow this blog each month. We also share full details about the growth and revenue for our 3-month-old case study blog called Expert Enough.
This was a HUGE month for us. We launched a new course called How to Start a Blog that Matters. We saw record traffic to both Think Traffic and Expert Enough (full details below).
We also saw record month for revenue from Expert Enough.
Oh, and we have an exciting update on the Million Dollar Blog Project below in this post as well.
Are you ready to dive in? I’m pumped to share this with you.
Let’s get started.
Product Launch = BIG Traffic Boost and More
Here’s something I hear over and over again from bloggers who haven’t yet created a product for sale:
[Continue reading…]
February 2, 2012 — 47 awesome comments
6 More Priceless Lessons You Can Learn From My First Year of Blogging
by Caleb Wojcik
As we rolled into 2012, my main blog Pocket Changed turned one year old. (No, there wasn’t a party or even a solitary candle on a cupcake.)
In honor of the first year, I looked back at 14 Lessons I Learned From Blogging, but a few weeks later I’ve realized there are even more lessons that I didn’t cover in that post that shouldn’t go unshared.
This post will add six more key lessons and delve deeper into the what you can learn from the last 13 months I’ve spent blogging.
Let’s jump right in.
1. If you genuinely help others, they will help you.
This lesson was brought up by Jeffrey Trull in the comments of the previous post and it is definitely true. When you are just getting started with your blog it is easy to publish something that you think is sliced bread reincarnate, hop up on your social media soapbox, and pray that people will start to listen.
[Continue reading…]
January 31, 2012 — 26 awesome comments
Kicked, Beaten Down, Back Up Against the Wall, Now You Have Nothing to Lose
by Corbett Barr
You started a website or blog because you thought it would be an easy way to make lots of money.
Or maybe you knew this would take work, but you now realize your approach was all wrong. You thought you had it all figured out from the beginning.
It’s OK, go ahead and admit it.
There’s no shame. Own up to how naive you were.
You’re not alone. We’ve all been there. And, sadly there are plenty of greedy shysters and assholes out there who are happy to prey on you and everyone else who doesn’t know any better.
They’re assholes and someone should call them out on it. I’ll do that later.
For now, this is about YOU. It’s about realizing what you’ve been through and figuring out how to mend your broken wings so you can fly again.
[Continue reading…]
January 26, 2012 — 61 awesome comments
Amazing Case Study: How Sarai Mitnick Attracts 380k Pageviews a Month and Built a Business Around a Sewing Blog
by Caleb Wojcik
A common misconception is that you can only make money blogging when you write about blogging or making money online. We disagree.
We’ve featured bloggers who use blogs that matter to do some incredible things:
- Shannon Whitehead and Kristin Glenn used their blog to raise $64,246 on Kickstarter to start a new clothing line.
- Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus use their blog to simplify people’s lives and share their creative writing.
- Jeff Goins used his blog to land a book deal.
(If you know of any other amazing stories of people that have used blogs to make a living, email us and let us know. We love featuring people that are doing amazing things because of their blogs.)
Today we’re happy to interview Sarai Minick from the sewing pattern company Colette Patterns. Sarai uses her blog as a platform to share her expertise on sewing, give people free patterns, and grow the audience for her sewing pattern store.
In this interview you’ll find out how you can create a valuable product, give away great content to get traffic, and convert that to sales. No tricks, no shortcuts. It just works. [Continue reading…]
January 24, 2012 — 27 awesome comments
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