I’ve been curious about monthly-subscription course models. I’ve interviewed more than one person who I know is making over $1 million a year with their subscription courseware. I decided I need to learn more about how this works, in case I want to do it myself!
I have some real strengths as a writer — years of staff-writing work honed my discipline and helped  me learn how to meet deadlines and come up with tons of story ideas. But blogging — now that’s fairly new for me.
Yes, I’ve found some success as a paid blogger for others, currently including and Entrepreneur magazine and Forbes along with some small-business clients, too. Many months now, I find half or more of my total income is coming from blogging! So in one sense you’d say I’m a successful blogger.
But what I’d really love is to find a way to make this blog into more of a paying gig. That way I could spend more time helping other writers earn more, which I’ve discovered is an activity I truly love. Have to say, when one of my mentees tells me they’ve gotten a lucrative assignment by following one of my tips, I feel more excited than when I land a fat client myself! If this blog generated income, I could offer more free tips on the blog and spend more time helping more people realize their dreams of supporting themselves through writing.
I’ve already got a partial plan for monetizing my blog with my upcoming Make a Living Writing e-book (we’re proofing it now!), and with more e-books to come. While I’ve found success blogging for others, I know there’s a whole lot I don’t know yet about being successful here on my own blog — how to grow the subscriber list, engage readers, and reach a broader audience.
This week I got a great offer from two bloggers I’ve been reading for a long time and whom I think are among the top niche bloggers today, Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch of Zen Habits and Goodlife Zen, respectively.
The upshot is… I’ve just joined their A-List Blogging Bootcamp, which I can already recommend (and yes, that is my affiliate link). At last, that graphic’s making sense now, right?
They were doing a special deal where it was just $20 a month (cancel anytime!) and we got a lot of freebies for signing up now. I thought at that price, given what I could reap from having a blog that earns, it was such a tiny price that I couldn’t say no. I gather there are 700+ of us in the community right now, so lots of folks to connect with in there as well as great learning.
I haven’t had much time yet to participate and work their courses, but I’ll report back when I’ve gotten a chance to do so. So far, I got to look at a video of Mary’s frank assessment of how her blog initially sucked, and what she did to make it more successful — and I got one really valuable tip out of it I’ll be implementing for my site soon. Watch and see if you can spot what I change!
Have you joined any of the monthly-sub learning communities? If so, what did you think? Was it worth the money? What did you learn? Leave a comment and share your experience.
