If you’re like me, you get a lot of email newsletters from top bloggers. Many of them are awful pushy, no?
I’m not talking about the bloggers I really like. A few leaders in the blogosphere are honest about what it really takes to earn money writing online, and give you practical tools that help you grow your income.
I mean the other ones. You know the type — they send you an email every freakin’ day (or twice or three times even!), and every single post is basically a sales pitch. Usually, for something expensive.
They send you almost no useful advice through their free newsletter. It’s just “buy my stuff and you’ll find out how to be awesome like me.”
I’m pretty skeptical of most of these “I’m jet-setting around the world while my blog earns on autopilot…let me teach you how!” types.
To be frank, I think many of these people are flat-out liars.
They’re really getting rich because thousands of suckers are paying them to explain how they’re getting rich. Which is only happening for them because you just paid for their ‘how-to-get-rich’ course!
Here are the red-flag messages from mega-bloggers that send me running the other way:
- I’ll show you how I did it, and you can do the same thing and become a huge success. Here’s the thing: Most blogging-success gurus you run across made it big a while back. Many of them came up as blogging was just getting started, and the playing field was a whole lot emptier. Things have changed a lot since then. Back when, one guest blog post on a popular blog might get you 300 new subscribers — but I know few people who’re seeing that now. What worked for them back in ’05 isn’t going to work for you. Their system is out of date.
- You can be just like me. Really, you can’t. Why? Because we are all unique individuals. You will never be this blogger. You can only be the best blogger you are, by exploiting your own uniqueness and your expertise to the maximum. Mimicking their blog topic, their marketing plan, and the products they sell is not going to work. You’ll have to slog through on your own and figure out your audience, what they need from you, and what they would buy. There is no copycat success in blogging.
- With my tips, you will make money in your sleep on autopilot. I think a tiny number of people are actually making this happen. Hit blogs usually arise from a confluence of several important factors — a hot niche topic, celebrity-blogger friends who promote it, a killer product or two, relentless promotion, and finally a smattering of sheer luck. Most of the successful bloggers I know work like dogs. They have multiple sites, they constantly develop and launch new courses or ebooks. Sure, as their site gets more subscribers they can earn more with the same amount of effort. But reports that bloggers are lying about in a hammock full-time while earning bazillions are greatly exaggerated.
- It’s easy to become an online millionaire. If this were really true, we’d all be rich by now, hmm?
- Just affiliate sell my expensive thing, and you’ll be rich. Not necessarily, if your expensive thing isn’t a fit for my readers. But lots of affiliates helping sell your expensive thing definitely makes the star blogger rich. The reality: You have to be careful what products you affiliate sell, or you risk driving subscribers away.
How can you really attract more business with your site? Find out Wednesday, when I hold a Blog and Writer Site Review Webinar with whip-smart blogger Stanford Smith of Pushing Social. We’ll be using Freelance Writers Den members’ own blogs and writer sites to demonstrate simple changes you can make to get more visitors, subscribers, and buyers. You won’t get rich in your sleep on autopilot, but we’ll give you some proven, practical tools for growing your income. This event includes a report with our 20 best tips for a successful website.
Congrats to Shana, whose questions on Friday’s post about how to make her writer site stand out won her a 1-week free pass to the Den and a chance to get her site reviewed in the Webinar.
