Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of some of the world’s top bloggers? How about having the opportunity to talk to 40 of them and ask them questions like these:
- What’s the best way to make money from your blog?
- How do you market your blog?
- Which five blogs do you regularly read?
- What would you do differently if you could start all over again?
- What’s the most common mistake new bloggers make?
- And many more…
Stephane Grenier has already done that for you in his new compilation: Blog Blazers – 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets. At a retail price of $16.95, it is a real bargain considering the wealth of information that these blogging pros share with you throughout the book.
The featured bloggers are experts in a wide array of fields: small business, entrepreneurship, internet marketing, technology, software development, dieting, personal finance, etc. I was especially glad to see Aaron Wall, Pamela Slim and Ramit Sethi featured in the book, three remarkable people I have followed since the beginning of their blogging journey.
No matter what your area of expertise is, there are plenty of actionable tips that you can take away from each of the 40 bloggers. Obviously, due to the topic of this blog, I paid special attention to bloggers specialized in small business, entrepreneurship and Internet marketing. I particularly liked the tips shared by Anita Campbell (www.smallbiztrends.com).
One common theme that transpires in the book is how little money bloggers spend marketing themselves. Most of them don’t spend money directly, but instead spend time networking, reaching out to other bloggers and writing really good posts.
Also, around 60% consider that they make more money indirectly, using the blog as a platform to get consulting, speaking and other related gigs, while the other 40% make more money directly, through advertising or affiliate sales.
Another valuable takeaway from the book is learning what blogs these pros regularly read. I discovered around ten great blogs that I didn’t know about, which I have now added to my feed reader.
To make the most out of the book, I recommend that you read it with a highlighter handy to mark out all the tips that resonate with you. Think about this: if you get just one good tip per blogger, you will have forty specific, actionable steps that you can follow to improve your blogging.
I would like to congratulate Steph and thank him for his dedication in putting together this useful best practices manual, and finish with one thought that circled my mind after reading the book: would it be possible to create a companion site to the book, where ordinary bloggers could answer some of the same questions, and have their answers featured in their own individual page?
I don’t know how feasible that would be, but I think it would be a particularly effective way to further promote the book, build community, and expand the best practices repository from 40 bloggers to perhaps hundreds or thousands.