Written on September 23rd, 2005 at 04:09 am by Darren Rowse
Can Blogging For Dollars Articles Find a New Angle?
Wired News has a post titled Can Bloggers Strike It Rich? today that is getting a bit of attention from bloggers around the web.
To be honest I’m not sure why - the article doesn’t contain anything that I’ve not seen written many times in other articles - in fact the first time I saw it I thought it was an old article because it reminded me so much of something I’d read months ago.
Maybe its time for some of these articles to find some fresh stories and/or a new angle?
How would you write an article on the topic of Blogging for Dollars that had a fresh spin on things? If you feel inspired to do so write one and let me know about it - I’d love to give it some attention by linking up.
Written on September 23rd, 2005 at 01:09 am by Darren Rowse
Six Figure Blogger Interview - Manolo from ShoeBlogs
One of my favorite blogs to show people when they ask to give examples of innovative ways to use blogs to earn an income is Monolo’s Shoeblog. If you haven’t seen it before you really must go have a look - it’s a blog written by ‘the Manolo’ about shoes and celebrities. Odd topic? Yes and no - in fact the more I reflect on ‘the Manolo’ the smarter I realize that they are as its a blog that crosses two popular niches - shoes and celebrity.
The blog is written in the third person by ‘the (anonymous) Manolo’ who has a real cult following. The style of writing is quirky, fun and at times quite bizarre - but I (and many thousands of others) love it!
I’ve been emailing the Manolo off and on for a while now and have been hassling them for an interview - today my wishes came true. I decided to get into the third person spirit and do the interview in that style. The Manolo answers my questions very candidly and even tells us how much the Manolo earns from the shoe blog - you might be surprised just how lucrative shoes can be!
The enternetusers - How did the Manolo get into blogging?
The Manolo - Ah, this it is the good question. The Manolo he had been blogging in the tiny small way for many years prior to the launching of the shoe blog, but it was always most unsatisfying because it was not about the Manolo’s true love, the shoes, and so the Manolo he finally decided to follow his bliss by starting the blog about the shoes and the fashion.
The enternetusers - If you had to describe Manolo’s Shoe Blog in less than 15 words how would you do it?
The Manolo - Shoes, fashion, celebrity, humor and Manolo!
The enternetusers - How long has the Manolo’s Shoe Blog been going? Does Manolo have other blogs or websites?
The Manolo - October 16th, it will be the first anniversary of the Manolo’s Shoe Blog.
Yes, the Manolo he has several other blogs that have been spun off from the Manolo’s humble shoe blog: the Manolo’s Prada Blog, Manolo for the Men, Manolo for the Brides, Media Galore, and the variety of the related single pages about the shoes and the fashion, such as the Gallery of the Horrors. Most can be accessed from the front page of the Manolo’s Shoe Blog.
The enternetusers - Did the Manolo choose to start blogging about the shoes because Manolo loves the shoes or because Manolo saw a good way to make money from a blog through the shoes?
The Manolo - When the Manolo invented the shoe blog last year, it was simply the way for the Manolo to celebrate the beauty and glamour of the feetwears. Within the first month or two, however, the Manolo he began to recognize the commercial potential.
However, the blog of the Manolo it is not about the moneys. It will always first be the blog about the shoes and the fashion and the fun, not the blog about the *selling* of the shoes.
This person, Mr. Snitch, he has discussed the marketing aspect of the blog of the Manolo quite accurately (here and here).
As has the Manolo more briefly.
In the short the Manolo loves the shoes, and the capitalism!
The enternetusers - Does the Manolo blog for a job full time?
The Manolo - As the Manolo has said on many of the occasion, the Manolo he is the flaneur.
The enternetusers - What are the main ways that the Manolo makes income from the Shoe Blog?
The Manolo - In the order of importance, the affiliate sales of the shoes and the fashion, the contextual ads like the google and the chitka, the blogads, then the Amazon, and then the tshirts and the miscellaneous. This, of the course, does not count what the Manolo receives for writing his new column in the Washington Post Express.
The enternetusers - Why does the Manolo write in the third person on Manolo’s blog? How do readers respond to this?
The Manolo - On many of the occasions the Manolo he has been asked about this, all the Manolo can say is that this it is the authentic voice of the Manolo.
The Manolo he is the Manolo, it is not more complex than this. And, of the course, the readers of the Manolo they react most favorably. One need only look at the comments section in his blog to see the response.
The enternetusers - How much does the Manolo make from blogging?
The Manolo - The Manolo he is the six figure blogger.
The enternetusers - What advice would Manolo give to new bloggers wanting to start making an income from blogging?
This it is difficult to do, because the Manolo’s blogging journey it has been so idiosyncratic. What he does it is not like what anyone else does.
Yes, since the Manolo invented the shoe blog, there have been started many of the shoe and handbag blogs, some of them very good. Yet none of them are like the blog of the Manolo, none of them have the particular combination of shoes, fashion, celebrity, and humor that makes the blog of the Manolo one of the more popular places in the blogosphere.
And so the lesson the Manolo he takes away from this for the new bloggers is to be aware that the large part of the mission of the blogging it is to entertain, and so you must write well, in the lively manner.
Do not be afraid to be different, in the fact, being different it is the advantage in the marketplace where there are fifty hundred new blogs on the topic you have chosen. Also, do not be afraid of the odd combinations of the topics, or of the peculiar view of the world, or the different way of approaching your subject as long as these things can be entertaining. Do this, and post faithfully everyday, and be generous with your links and with your readers, and your audience it will find you soon enough.
The enternetusers - Do any of the Manolo’s readers know who Manolo is? What are the advantages and disadvantages of blogging anonymously?
The Manolo - Anonymous? The Manolo he is not anonymous, he is the Manolo.
Yes, the particulars of the Manolo’s existence they have remained hidden from the view of the public, and indeed it pains the Manolo to keep such the artificial distance from his many internet friends, but the readers of the blogs of the Manolo they know the Manolo, the real Manolo, very well.
The enternetusers - What tools does the Manolo use to run the Shoeblog?
The Manolo - The Manolo uses the Wordpress for the Shoeblog, and the Blogger for most of the other blogs, but only because he is too lazy to move the other blogs to the far superior Wordpress application. This it is all he uses.
I’d like to thank the Manolo for the time and effort taken to answer my questions. You’re a truely remarkable and unique individual - thank you for sharing your story with the enternetusers readers!
This post has been very popular around the web - I’d like to welcome new readers to enternetusers - this site is about helping bloggers find ways to make a little (or a lot of) money from their blogs. Feel free to look around my archives (some of my more popular posts are in the top three menus on each page) and/or to subscribe to my weekly newsletter in which I keep you up to date of the latest enternetusers news and give a few tips on blogging. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Written on September 22nd, 2005 at 03:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Another Six Figure Blogger Goes Public
Wow - I just got back some answers to an interview I have conducted with a enternetusers and I’m really excited about publishing them.
Why?
Well while I know of a few bloggers making six figures directly from their blogging - I don’t know many who are willing to go public about it. This person is and luckily for me I get to break the news with this interview.
Who is it?
You’ll find out in about 8 hours - and I have a feeling that a few people will be surprised.
Update: Looks like this has gotten some people interested - they’re guessing who it is in comments below - so lets have some fun with it.
I’ll give a enternetusers T-Shirt to the first person to leave a comment guessing who the interview is with. You get one guess per person. I’ll announce the winner (and the correct answer) when I post the interview at 1am my time tonight.
Update II - Ok - no one got the answer - its Manolo.
Written on September 22nd, 2005 at 08:09 am by Darren Rowse
The Million Dollar Homepage
Want to see an enterprising online idea? The Million dollar Home Page is an attempt by one young business student to pay his university fees by selling advertising on a site - one pixel at a time. A pixel costs $1 and there are 1,000,000 of them up for grabs.
You have to buy them in 100 pixel blocks ($100 a pop) but people are buying them and he reported on his blog yesterday that he’s already paid for his 3 years of college fees completely.
Of course - a lot of those buying pixel are poker pages and affiliate programs by the looks of things - but he’s doing ok out of it and is reporting that each advertisers is getting good click-throughs for their money.
Written on September 22nd, 2005 at 08:09 am by Darren Rowse
Interview With Peter Rojas Of Engadget
There’s a good interview over at PSFK with Engadgets editor, Peter Rojas. It gives a great insight into the inner workings of one of the biggest blogs going around. Here’s a couple of snippets that highlight the type of professionalism that gets a blog to the top of the pile:
‘I personally publish 5200 posts a year but I have my team (Ryan, Barb, Marc) who work shifts. We also have regular contributors for columns and features. To be in the team, you have to get ‘it’. It’s intangible. You need a certain depth and breadth of tech without necessarily being a specialist. We don’t want a Mac person to come in and refuse to look at PCs. We try to be agnostic - we’re enthusiastic about how people can use this stuff and about technology in general, we try not to get focused on specific brands….
We’re trying to grow (Engadget) into three or four areas. We’ve been doing reader events, we’re going to expand into video, and we’d like the podcast to grow and evolve into something better than it is now.’
Great interview Piers - keep up the good work.
Written on September 22nd, 2005 at 08:09 am by Darren Rowse
Guide to leaving Weblog Comments
Lifehacker has a good guide to weblog comments with the following tips:
- Stay on topic.
- Contribute new information to the discussion.
- Don’t comment for the sake of commenting.
- Know when to comment and when to e-mail.
- Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all.
- Make the tone of your message clear.
- Own your comment.
- Be succinct.
- Cite your sources with links or inline quoting.
- Be courteous.
- Don’t post when you’re angry, upset, drunk or emotional.
- Do not feed or tease the trolls.
What would you add or subtract from the list?
Written on September 21st, 2005 at 05:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Blog Networks - A List
Duncan has Blog Networks on the brain and has posted a long List of Blog Networks which shows just how popular the practice of linking blogs together under one banner has become.
He’s got a list of 35 so far but I’m sure there are others!
Written on September 21st, 2005 at 02:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Introducing b5media
The worst kept secret in ProBlogging circles (thanks Jeremy) has officially gone live.
I’d like to introduce you to the project that has done the unthinkable and that has kept Jeremy, Duncan and Myself a little quieter on our blogs for the past few weeks.
Meet b5media
What is it you ask?
It’s a blogging network owned and operated by two Aussies and a Canadian and with bloggers participating from France, the UK, Australia, the US and Philippines. We already have 14 blogs and are close to launching a number of others.
You can get the full scoop on who we are and what makes b5media b5media on our launch post.
Some of you might also be interested in joining us as an author. We’re keen to add some quality bloggers into the mix and to help them earn some income from their blogging - if you’d like to be a part of that you can find the process for applying here.
In the mean time - check out some of our brand new blogs (I’ve put links to each with short descriptions below). Remember that we’re in beta and some of them are further along than others. We’re in the process or ironing out kinks and finalizing templates - Peter from The Blog Studio has just put up a template on our b5media blog (a work in progress) but all the others are a little way off going live with their new looks.
- Cell Phone 9 - a blog about mobile phone technology - written by Jayvee Fernandez from the Philippines who has extensive experience writing for a variety of magazines and sites on technology. He introduces himself here. Jayvee has 2 years of blogging experience and blogs on his personal blog at The Bugged Life
- Flight Nest - a blog exploring the many facets of aviation. Tim Flight (real name) and Mike Elgan are the bloggers at Flight Nest. Time is from Maine in the USA and blogs at a cool blog called GPS Review and Mike is a technology writer/publisher/editor based in California who is involved in some pretty amazing projects both on the topic of aviation and wider technology. Check out some of his work at his site. Both Tim and Mike are hobby pilots - they know what they’re talking about and are set to make this an authoritative blog on a very popular topic.
- Simply Dumb - this is where b5media gets a little quirky and takes a look at… well the dumb side of life. Who better to author this one but our very own Duncan Riley from Western Australia - best known for his work on the Blog Herald. It’s a blog about Weird, wacky, wonderful things from around the web - its on my news aggregator already - I love this stuff.
- The Sports Weblog - Jacob Murphy heads up the Sports Blog which is the name suggests - is about Sport. Jacob lives in Canada and blogs at lyef & thymes (to name must one blog he’s worked on). Jacob has chosen to add personality to the mix, by always favoring one team in each league, and always contrasting things against that team.
- The Movie Weblog - Jacob is also heavily involved in the movie blog (what a life - paid to write about sport and movies - all we need to do now is start a beer blog and he’ll be set!). Alongside Jacob is his co-editor - Erin Harvey. Erin is a self confessed ‘web addict’ and wrote one of the best applications for the job of editor of this and our ‘Play Girlz’ blog. She’s been blogging on a couple of blogs since 2002. The Movie Weblog will have a combination of movie news and reviews - real reviews by real people.
- The Play Girlz Gaming Blog - Erin is involved in this blog also - a blog about Gaming by a couple of female gamers, Erin and Ingrid Diaz. Ingrid is from France and this is her first ever blog! I wouldn’t classify myself as a gamer, but yesterday when I forwarded the URL to a gaming friend, her reaction was real excitement - so it looks like Erin and Ingrid have already done something right! Erin and Ingrid are fun and funny - they came up with the name for the blog themselves - it should hit the spot with gamers - male and female!
- The Microsoft Weblog - a blog written by John Evans from Syntagma. John is from the UK - and this blog is, as you’d expect, covering all news, rumors and and tips on the topic of Windows.
- Windows Vista Weblog - John Evans is also heading this blog up - it and the Microsoft blog make a nice companions of one another - don’t you think? Windows Vista is Microsoft’s next Operating System so this blog should have plenty of interesting news, rumors and tips to post for some time to come.
- Cooking Gadgets - I know a few people who are going to love this one - they’re the type that can’t get enough of those homeware shops, they drool over cheese shavers, talk for hours about apple corers and have draws full of all kinds of wonderful ‘essential’ kitchen tools. Professional blogger, Arieanna Foley from Canada, is heading up this blog. She’s a blogger on more blogs than I can mention here - but makes her blogging home at Blogaholics. I’ll be keeping my partner away from this one - she doesn’t need her kitchen gadget addiction fed.
- She Knows Best - Arieanna Foley is heading up this blog also - one that I suspect I should probably add to my RSS subscription as its a blog about giving guys easy ways to be stylish, in an affordable, low maintenance way. Hairstyles, fashion, self esteem, whatever helps a guy be a better guy - all according the the world’s best source of information on how guys should live their lives…..Women! (who wrote that??) It’s kind of ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ with a twist.
- Literally Blogging - a blog about literature. It’s one of the newest blogs to be added so only has a few posts and is next in line for a new template - but its a blog we’re excited about and wanted to squeeze into our first round of launches. The editors on Literally Blogging are Jacob Murphy and Erin Harvey (our team on the Movie Blog also).
- Unplugged Living - I’m pretty excited about this one - a blog on living off the grid and finding your way to energy self-sufficiency. This will not only be a blog that a has a growing audience over the coming years (I know here in Australia this is a massive topic) but its one that hopefully gives something back to the world we live in. Kevin Humphrey is the editor on this blog - he’s an experienced blogger at Turbo Blogger (and other great blogs) and is a self confessed hippy - sounds perfect for a blog with a green bent.
- The Search Engine Herald - a more established blog that has been running as part of Duncan’s Weblog Empire network. To this point Duncan has been editing the SE Herald but stay tuned for a new editor to take over in the next few days.
- b5media - You’ve discovered this blog already of course - it’ll be written by Dunan, Jeremy and myself and will keep you up to date with all the latest news and announcements pertaining to the b5media network. Add it to your news aggregator and stay tuned over the next few days for a number of additional new blogs which we’re putting the final touches on and should add to the network in the coming week.
Written on September 20th, 2005 at 09:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Food Blogs
I was chatting to a couple of people today about blogging (surprise surprise) and explaining to them that it’s getting to be that there is a blog now on almost every topic you can think of. One of the people I chatted with is a big foodie and asked about whether there are many food blogs out there.
“Are there food blogs out there?” they asked.
“Oh yeah… I’ve seen a few” said I (hoping I was right and making a mental note to check when I get home.
So I’m home - and I’ve checked - and WOW - there sure are some food blogs out there.
Check out Kiplog’s Foodblog links page if you doubt me.
Wow - what a list - it is massive!
The interesting thing is that quite a few of these foodie bloggers are experimenting with advertising and affiliate programs so it’s not only an Active part of the wider blogging community - but it’s also a commercial segment.
Written on September 20th, 2005 at 12:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Top Ten Reasons why enternetusers has Slowed Down
A number of readers have noticed that my posting frequency has slowed here at enternetusers over the past couple of weeks and have asked if everything is ok.
Thanks for your concern - I appreciate it a lot but please don’t be worried. There are a number of reasons for the slowdown - some of them I can talk freely about, others will become apparent in the next day or two.
Tapping into my recent posts on blogging with lists - here’s my Top Ten Reasons why enternetusers has slowed down:
1. Post August reaction- posting frequency HAD to slow down after the frenzy that was August’s 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. In August I posted 204 times here - so far this month I’ve posted 71 (still not too bad in my books at over 3.5 posts per day). I never intended to keep up the pace of Ausust but have perhaps found myself with slightly less to say as a result of saying so much then.
2. Offline Work - as I’ve mentioned I’m in the final stages of a two day per week research position that I’ve been working on for the past 6 months. Deadlines have meant less time for blogging. October 3rd is the next and almost final deadline.
3. Six Figure Blogging - the course on this topic that Andy and I have been working is in its second week and I’ve been putting my consulting efforts into this. So far it’s gone really well - we’ve got an amazing and very talented bunch of bloggers signed up and I’m really enjoying our interactions.
4. New Projects - those of you who subscribe to my newsletter will have just received an email with a sneak peak at a new blog project that will go live in the next 48 hours. It’s take a bit of time to get off the ground. It is not the only new thing I’ve got on the go with negotiations on other online and offline projects under way.
5. Admin - the admin of running a growing business takes me away from my first love of blogging at times. This week has been one of meetings with accountants, book keeping and strategic thinking about companies, trusts, business names and what not. I don’t particularly enjoy this side of things but it’s a neccessary part of what I do.
6. Expanding the Team - I’ve had the realization over the past few months that to continue expanding my blogging business that I’ll have to either clone myself or learn to delegate. As a result I’m very slowly moving towards adding new writers in a paid capacity to some of my blogs. The way forward as to how to structure this is a little tricky and I’m taking my time on it - but am in the final stages of adding a great new blogger into the mix on one of my blogs. Hopefully in time there will be scope to add more as we work out how it might function.
7. Re-visioning enternetusers - while I’m still totally committed to the overall vision of enternetusers.net to ‘help bloggers earn money’ - I’ve had a number of growing concerns about what I do here that I’m still working through how to process. I’m committed to the idea of offering free advice and sharing my knowledge on ‘how to’ blog for money but am wondering how the best way to deliver that information is. A number of factors are at play here including the increasing number of requests that I get for consultation work (normally freebie work) and attempting to make this blog viable on a commercial level (it’s still barely earnings $5 per day which isn’t great considering the hour or two I spend on it each day). I’m yet to find the best delivery method for achieving my goals for enternetusers and have been toying with some different models this past week or two.
8. Disillusionment - I hesitate to mention this here - but I believe in transparent blogging so I’ll give you a glimpse of my thought processes. While 99% of the time enternetusers is a joy to run, there have been a few times recently where I have been a bit disillusioned by it when I see the way in which a small number of readers are using the information that I write. For example this week someone emailed me a copy of an e-book which indirectly uses me and this blog to promote Blog Spam. They don’t anything illegal or use my content - but point readers to my blog to learn principles to help them in their spamming careers. This is the second time I’ve seen this happen. Similarly I’ve seen readers take many of the principles that I talk about and use them in ways that either are pretty unethical or explicitly competing with my own blogs. I want to keep all this in perspective of course - enternetusers continues to be something that I love and the disillusionment is still a very small part - but I’ll admit that it has been growing a little bit lately and perhaps is impacting my posting frequency.
9. Intentional Slow Down - A number of readers have reflected back to me over the past few months that the posting frequency was so high that they just couldn’t keep up. I decided at the start of September to reel back my posting levels as an experiment to see what would happen. The result has been interesting. Traffic remains at a similar level to August (in fact it will be up) but the numbers of comments being left on posts is dramatically up. I don’t have any figures at hand - but last 20 or so posts have been more commented upon posts than I’ve seen in a long while on any of my blogs.
10. Real Life - I am increasingly aware that I need to take time for ‘real life’. Fun, friends, family, rest recreation and relaxation - all these R and F words and more! As a result I’ve started a vegetable garden (and have resisted starting a blog to document it), am walking more and have decided to lighten up on blogging schedule on weekends. I realize that if I want to expand my business that I’ll only ever sustain it if I’m looking after myself.
So there you have it - my top ten reasons for not posting as much. I write them both to keep everyone in the picture of what is happening here at enternetusers - but also because hopefully it shows some of the things that a full time blogger works through over time. It’s not just about sitting around in your Pajamas all day randomly writing stuff!
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