How To Avoid Being an Ordinary Blog
Today’s Brief: ‘Ten Blog Tips from Bloggers Like You’
If you’re a member of Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger.com Community, you’ll already be aware of this.
A few weeks ago Darren issued a challenge for bloggers to create and forward a blogging tip they feel has been useful to their development as a blogger.
What followed is this first post.
Check out the short video posts.
You might learn something you can use on your blog today. 
She ran up to me on the crowded Manhattan street corner, took my hand and pressed it to her heart and said…
I’d follow you to the ends of the earth.
Then I woke up.
Yes, Catherine Zeta-Jones was only a passing dream, but it got me thinking…
What does it take to get someone to follow you online?
Then it hit me.
As suddenly as Catherine Zeta-Jones vanished from my REM cycle, I knew the formula for getting people to follow you online and rapidly become an enthusiastic evangelist for your cause!
And it’s as old as the Internet itself…and referred to by some as Attversumption.
Using the BAR Approach To Market Your Book
I’ve been a fan of Jonathan Fields for some time. His book Career Renegade: How To Make a Living Doing What You Love is a must have for those of us wanting to live and work according to our own dream-map as well as by our own rules.
Recently Jonathan launched Tribal Author, a blog/community for those authors who see traditional publishing as a complete waste of time. It’s for authors who want to build a community (tribe) around their ideas…kind of like what I’ve proposed here.
Building a blog around your main idea is the first step in creating your tribe or following. Got a killer idea? Absolutely sure it’s gonna light the world afire? Go for it!
If you’ve got a book simmering on the back burner and perhaps aren’t sure whether to shop it around to publishers or go to Lulu or some other Print-On-Demand outlet, give Tribal Author a look.
Jonathan’s got some free downloads for you, too. An eBook and an awesome mindmap that looks at 8 power bases for Tribal Authors.
Check it out! I think you’ll be glad you did. 
But do it the right way, OK?
For nearly ten years, I’ve been a subscriber to Terri Lonier’s Working Solo Newsletter. Terri’s focus has always been helping Solo Entrepreneurs succeed.
In today’s newsletter, Terri gave us a link to download the audiobook version of Seth Godin’s, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, for free from Audible.com.
Now, I’m going to urge my readers to do the right thing and become a subscriber to Terri’s newsletter first…and download your copy of the Tribes in audiobook format.
Here’s what to do: Continue reading →
What’s holding you back?
I read Dave Navarro’s blog post today about how to become a bigger player in life, business, whatever.
If you don’t know Dave, he writes two blogs, The Launch Coach and Rock Your Day.
Did I mention there’s a FREE WORKBOOK that accompanies Dave’s blog post?
Simply put, Dave suggests the following 7 steps to a bigger, better business, blog, life, whatever:
I can’t do it justice with these limited points, so please go read the post and then download the free workbook.
Like I said, I can’t do it justice with these word-bites. So if you’re looking for an honest kick-in-the-pants jumpstart to a better blog, business, whatever…
READ THE POST! GET THE FREE WORKBOOK!
Peace. Out.
Being Yourself: A Wise Blogging Strategy
We all tend to think that our blog posts have to be something special. In the sense that they should teach your reader something they didn’t know or remind them of something worth recalling, I agree wholeheartedly.
But there’s another kind of post that readers also enjoy. I call it the human content post. It’s the kind of post that just says…
“You know, I may an UberKool Blogger-Dude, but I’m also a human being.”
Human content provides your readers with at least three things.
They are:
Been through a tough situation and want to share it with your readers?
I say, go for it.
“I’m outside and I don’t have my keys.”
For the first time in three years, my son called me to tell me this on Tuesday.
Not bad…13 years old and he’s never lost his keys. Technically, his keys weren’t lost and he told me as much.
“They’re on my nightstand,” he said when I asked him about their whereabouts. However, this knowledge did nothing to get him inside the house.
A lot of bloggers have this problem.
They feel like they’re standing on the other side of the door without their keys. I know I felt this way for quite a while. And it’s not a good feeling.
You feel like you’re spinning your wheels; like every other blogger out there has it figured out…everyone but you.
You could spend a lot of time getting nowhere by…
None of these choices represent what you really want to do. After all, if you’re anything like me, you’d continue blogging even if no one read your blog. It’s in your blood.
What you need is a map.
I love maps. Maps are cool on their own but they do double duty by providing two things for you:
Some people are good with maps. They can study it a while and see the error of their ways before charting a course to their destination.
Some people aren’t so good with maps. They need someone to point out the best way to get to their destination.
It doesn’t matter which kind of person you are, I have some good news for you.
I’m going to give you one.
In this week’s Blog Religion SECRETS Newsletter, I’m going to give you a map – a mindmap – that clearly reveals where you are, where you might have traveled, and where you need to go.
Here’s a sneak peek at what I’m talking about. (I made it small here so you’d get really curious. Is it working? 
)
In the newsletter, I’m not only going to give you the map, but explain why this map is crucial to the development of your Blog-Religion.
The newsletter version will also include an 8 1/2 X 11 PDF of the map suitable for very nice color printing.
Look for the newsletter later this week. Not a subscriber yet? Subscribe now! Just follow the direction in the sidebar and you’re in!
One more thing…I actually created this mindmap on my iPod Touch with the SimpleMind app. If you’ve got an iPhone or an iPod Touch, SimpleMind is a very useful application.
The paid version of the app allowed me to upload it to a server and download it for further editing on my laptop as well as get it in PDF. (The email support I received by Gerrit was worth far more than the price of the app.)
I recommend it.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Little Elvis went to the library and did his homework until I was free to pick him up,
Blog Religions rock. These three posts review the reasons why. Have a great weekend!
3 Reasons Why Blog Religions Succeed in Any Economy Have your seen the headlines today? How about yesterday? What does it matter, they’re all talking about how the global recession is making it tough for everybody. It seems this downturn in the economy is affecting everyone from solo-entrepreneurs to companies as huge as AIG. But if your blog is structured like a religion, you’re on easy street. Learn the secret now…
Evangelists: Why They’re the Driving Force Behind Your Blog’s Success God love ‘em, they’re crazy about you and your blog! They’d walk up to a perfect stranger and tell them to walk, no…RUN..RIGHT NOW…to a WiFi spot and surf over to your blog. Who wouldn’t want blog readers like this? 
Learn how to get some here…
Why Blog Religions Shatter Traffic Myths A common myth about blogging is that you need massive amounts of traffic and RSS readers to realize any significant return on investment. You need more visitors to make more money, right?, right? That’s the conventional wisdom and it’s true in most cases, but not for Blog Religions! 
Wanna know why?
There’s the obligatory showroom, the painfully embarrassing demonstrations…not to mention the maintenance plans.
Then there are the accessories…toilet brushes, cleaning solutions, even knitted toilet covers! Heck, you might even build a whole blog around toilets like the guys over at Downtown Toilet.
OK, I might be kidding a bit. But the point remains that with enough focused blog traffic, you could sell toilets.
In fact, if your blog’s traffic supports your goals, you can pretty much sell anything, right?
Wrong. Here’s why…in my best Yoda-speak: Continue reading →
Today’s Brief: If you’re always searching for your portable thumb USB drive, consider using Dropbox!
How It Works
Has this ever happened to you? You’ve been working on a blog post document in a text editor (or a Word, Excel, Photoshop, etc. project) while on your work computer or at a friend’s house and you want to save it to your portable USB drive to take home.
Problem: You don’t have it with you. Bummer.
Solution: Save it to the Dropbox folder on the computer and when you open your laptop at home, your file is there and automatically updated.
Dropbox installs in minutes and is free. It’s a great way to save files without the need for a thumb drive. It uses cloud computing, kind of like your blog software, to store files on Dropbox server and automatically updates to whichever computers you choose to link to your Dropbox.
I stumbled across Dropbox and man, am I ever glad I did. 2 GB of free storage (paid version has a lot more, but the free account is perfect for transporting files between computers) and if you refer people to Dropbox and they sign up for a free account, you’ll receive an additional 225 MB of storage on your own free account.
