Catharsis of the Bogue

Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Tag: ebook (Page 1 of 3)

Blog Post Engineering Review!

July 9, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Hey folks, since I first wrote this Post, Dr. Doolin has been frantically working and reworking Blog Post Engineering.  He is launching version 0.7.4 William Today and let me tell you it will be well worth having a copy.  Like I say below, I purchased an earlier copy and Dave was kind enough to send me updates of this release.  It has more depth and several bonuses that will make your blog posts even better.  Click any of the links here or over on the sidebar to learn more.  I really think that this e-book should be in every bloggers toolkit to make some killer, SEO friendly blog posts.  Read on for more!

I deliberately delayed the posting of my Blog Post Engineering review.  I know the “un-launch” has come and gone, but there were so many glowing reviews of this book, I wanted to wait and post later.  So I could get more traffic and SEO without the masses clogging up google.  It is selfish but there you are.

Oh, and all of the links here are probably affiliate links, so take that and do what you will with it, I may make money from anything you click.  And that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

I actually bought and paid for this book.  It does come with updates, of which I have already received one.  This book will really help you write excellent blog posts.

I bought Blog Post Engineering to make my posts better and ultimately gain followers, customers, and Google rank.  My first concern when buying the book was the same whenever I buy anything, am I actually going to use this and make it worth the investment.  The email I go t from Dave about breaking legs and sledge hammers had something else to do with it.  Of course I can’t prove that e-mail ever existed so I may have been dreaming.

I wondered if I could actually use the information in a practical way.  Guess what, yes I could and so can everyone who blogs.  This book and these tips are for anyone who blogs, no experience required.  If you have experience posting on a blog, this book will help you polish and refine your posts.

There is a TON of useful and relevant information that is spelled out in a very straightforward way.  It showed me how to use tags and categories in a more useful way,  to be more productive and get on the SEO radar.

I liked how it read more like a conversation than a textbook, it was easy to follow and retain the information.  It is formatted to look like a book, so it kind of feels like reading a book.  There are plenty of links to articles on Website In A Weekend.  I had already read most of these posts so I could really see the implementation of the concepts described.

This book also goes into some promotion of your posts, so that you can actually get readers there and let the SEO magic start happening.

I would very much recommend Blog Post Engineering, especially if you are new to blogging and are trying to get eyes on your blog, all of the techniques int BPE are proven and tested several times over.  They work.

This ebook is on my desktop so that I can refer to it as often as I need.  I found some stuff I was doing right, some I was doing kind of right, and some I wasn’t doing at all.  In one fairly concise ebook all of this information is at your fingertips.

** New content- This new version has even more value than before.  It is organized in sections that let you build your skills.  It includes new chapters on what to do with old posts and how to use audio and video more effectively.  There are also chapters on using some quality plugins that will increase SEO.  **

Now, to be fair, all of this information is available on Website In A Weekend. Much of this information has been taken down and is only available in this e-manual.  If you go looking for it on there, you will find it but it takes quite a bit of digging. This book brings together all of that great information in one spot, that is instantly useable.  I think this is half of the value of the book.  The other is increasing your SEO significantly.

The best part, besides the 90 day money back guarantee, is lifetime updates to Blog Post Engineering.  When a new version comes out, you get an email.  That in itself is worth more than you will pay for the book.  It just keeps getting better and better.  I do have it on authority from Dave himself that the final version is coming.  Some of the extras available right now will not be included with the final version.  Now is a great time to purchase.  As of the date of this update, 10/27/10, the price is $23.  As of 10/31 the price will be going up to to $47.  Even that is more than worth it.

Go Check out Dave’s site and Blog Post Engineering.  You will be glad you did!

Part of the Blog tour, a book review of Foreign Identity!

July 9, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Hello folks.  Today I am bringing you a review of a new book that has just been released.  For those who have been around a while, you may have heard me talk about a little site called the Creative Copy Challenge.  Well, it was through participation in the weekly challenges that this book, Foreign Identity, was spawned.

I was writing away with my own story (that really should be a book too if I wasn’t so lazy about it) when I started reading the other submissions.  One that caught me up in the story was Foreign Identity by Becca Campbell.  I got caught up in the story and became internet friends with Becca and was more than a little bummed when life got in the way and she didn’t finish the story.

Little did I know then, that she was working hard to make this story a novel.  And it is good.  Becca sent me a review copy of Foreign Identity (for free FTC, I know you are listening) and asked me to read it.  I was excited to really find out what happened to the main characters, Jax and Kel.  But more about that in a minute.

I don’t think that anyone knows (becasue I have never told anyone) that I actually cut and copied the entries from the CCC into a Word file so that I could either read it again or just finish what I missed.  At the last count in Word, Foreign Identity was 36,700 words long.  Not too shabby, but not a novel.  Now it is fleshed out and it is fun to see wha thas been added and what finishes the story.

Now for the review.  The book, I loved it.  The marketing and publishing through The Consortium (Oklahoma City based with some other people you have heard me talk about, Aaron Pogue, Courtney Cantrell, (I love to be able to actually name drop)) is just independent genius.  It gives me hope for my novels if I ever get them finished.

Ok, the book.

Continue reading

February, Fishing and my Alexa Ranking.

May 27, 2014 / / 5 Comments

Good February everyone!  I can’t believe January is over already.  It is moderately cold here in Utah right now but not snowing.  I am not sure if I like that or not.  It seems like winter should either get with it and snow for more than 15 minutes (like it has the past couple of nights) or turn into spring already.  I got the spring yard clean up/landscaping bug this weekend while watching some home improvement shows on HGTV.  I can’t wait for the ground to thaw!

I keep hearing about this Alexa thing that apparently is important to be on the high side, in the top 100,000.  So I decided to look up where my site is.  On Saturday Jan. 30, I was at 12,829,290.  All I could do was laugh.  This morning, February 1, I was almost shocked to see I had DROPPED to 12,850,206.  I dropped nearly 21000 spots in 2 days.  I am not sure what this means but I will keep looking at it.  At least it is better than the other website that I run with my wife Brendasquiltshop.com.  That site doesn’t even have a ranking so 12,850,206 must be ok.  What does it mean?  I need to get out there more and not worry too much until I get some more incoming traffic.

And finally I so want to go fishing.  Not ice fishing which should just be called “freeze your butt off while sitting on the ice” fishing but real fishing.  From the bank, from the boat, standing in the stream I don’t care.  Winter gets long some days and my gear calls to me.

Last fall our family went to Kidney Kamp.  It is sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation and the Great Salt Lake Truck Show and it lets families of people with kidney disease and or kidney transplants a chance to go to camp.  I am glad my 3 year old is in the latter category now.  For 2 years that was the only camp we could do because they had facilities to do dialysis.

I digress yet again.  This camp has a very small pond that they stock with fish and let the kids check out poles to fish with.  Me, I keep a travel fly rod in the car and wanted to practice.  But they only want kids to fish so I recruited my 9 year old and told her it was her first training session.  We didn’t catch anything that day, the fish were more interested in the gummy bears that the kid across the pond was using for bait than a natural looking fly.  Hmm, that is another post idea, Seeking out the flash we want instead of the stuff we need.

The lesson here is I will try to find a way to fish anywhere I can, even if it requires my kids to do it.  I just want to fish.  Anyone want to come with?  My wife will be having our 4th child this July so I know my fishing outings will be limited, but I will still go some.  Not actually going fishing will leave me time to work on my e-book about beginning fly fishing.  I am reworking and updating a website I made in one of my college writing classes to work as a book.  I should take pre-orders to force me to finish by my St. Patrick’s Day deadline.

Anyhow, Life is Great when you are satisfied with it.  If you are reading this, You Are Awesome. Thanks for your support.

Justin

Can MY blog make money too?

May 27, 2014 / / 17 Comments

I have been thinking a lot about money lately. How to monetize my blog so I can stay home and have enough cash to finish my degree. I am still trying to figure out exactly what to do to make this happen. There are so many different opinions about it. Where do we start?

Of course there are affiliate programs and Google AdSense. I have a few of these but I don’t think they do much good right now. I need more traffic to make them a viable source of income. I also have Kontera and Chitika on my site. I have used sponsored tweets as well. As of today, I have earned a grand total of $.85. I should be excited that I have made any money at all online but it is not enough to be successful.

The good news: I don’t care right now. My blog is still in its infancy and just getting started. I had the most visitors to date yesterday and I am very excited. I have topped 1300 visitors and can count on a few visits every day even before I get something posted. Thanks for that. I amnot keeping hard and fast to the three month mark that seems to be when people give up. I started mid December of 2009 but didn’t start pushing it until January. I consider my blog to be a month and a half old right now. I figure by april I should be cruising along quite well. My exposure has been more than I ever expected to this point. My Alexa raking is rising, and while I am not fixated on this number I do want it to go up and not down.

I know some other bloggers who are working on the monetizing thing too. James over at TheInfoPreneur has a ton of great stuff and is now working on compiling some of it for sale.  His experience has got me thinking about my site as well.  James is a wealth of information on how to blog and how to be a better person.  He posts tons of content and his site has skyrocketed since he started it.  He has been a major inspiration for me (no he is NOT paying me to say this.  Yet. 😉 ) and getting my blog going.

Now, I am basically a cheapskate.  I don’t have money to throw around at the latest make money online scheme.  Kidney transplants and dialysis is expensive, even with insurance.  So, being a cheapskate, I am extremely picky with what I buy.  Like with James, is there stuff I would buy from him?  Yes.  Will I actually buy stuff from him?  At this point I honestly don’t know.  If I was making money myself would I? Yes, most definitely.

This brings up another question.  How do I go about monetizing without driving people away.  I know this is the same struggle that many bloggers get to.  I know that it takes selling your own products to make a bunch of cash.  I have seen several places that will give you exclusive resell rights to certain products.  Can I sell other people’s stuff like this and keep the cash?  Sure.  Do I want to?  I am very lukewarm on the idea.  I don’t want to be another one of “those” type blogs.  Many of these give you “300 products you can resell” for like $15.  How do they make any money for these products?  Sure they get the $15 but why are their products so cheap?  Are they outdated? Are they just rehashes from other sites?  Are they plagiarized from other sites?  Too many questions.  I may put some ebooks up for sale in the future and some affiliate programs but not right now.

The next thing I am trying to figure out is what do I have to offer that would be either of use, or entertaining enough to entice fellow cheapskates to part with their money.  My wife and I have a business that we have been working on selling handmade quilts, table runners and some other crafts at Brenda’s Quilt Shop.com.  It has been doing ok in the real world, selling several to friends, neighbors and associates.  We have even sold several things on eBay, but we barely broke even with eBay and PayPal fees and postage.  I am still going to use eBay over the holidays to sell our stuff but I want to sell with the website as well.  On this website I want to focus on selling my writing.

Now, what can I sell of my writing?  I am not an authority on WordPress like Dave Doolin, or on blogging or on content production.  Anything I wrote on the “how to” front would be rehashes from other places.  Is there a market for fiction?  I am going to make an ebook of my Saturday fiction serials when they are finished.  They will be free for a while at least but would anyone want to spend money on them later?  Maybe send them out for free to email subscribers and beg for reviews before selling it.  I have other short stories that I am going to run on Saturday’s as well.  I am looking at revising some of my old stories that I just love so maybe they can stand on their own as an ebook.

I can write ebooks on simple car repair and maintenence, but that is not something I talk about in more than passing on this site.  I can write about kidney failure and taking a 1 year old through 2 years of dialysis and a kidney transplant.  I have written tons of blog posts on that as we were going through it while not calling it an actual blog.  www.carepages.com page: ameliarosematthews.  Would that sell?  Maybe.  I have seen several things about self publishing on Amazon for both Kindle and .pdf ebooks.  That is always in the back of my head.

I just wonder if anyone would buy anything that I can put out like that.  Or is my ego just not big enough yet to say screw it and just do it.  I figure I have until April and the 3 month wannabe blog hurdle crossed before I have to actually decide and just do it.

For now, I will just write and write and hope like hell people come to read!  Don’t forget to check out my Pre-Writing Challenge page that will start on Friday the 19th!  That will be more writing!  I am also going to work on some guest posts for other sites.  All of these things have to be good somewhere right?

Until tomorrow, I have some thinking to do.

Thanks for being here with me.

Justin

« Older posts

© 2024 Catharsis of the Bogue

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑