Jade Craven

This is a review of the Problogger Book by Darren Rowse and Chris Garret. It is a brilliant resource and introduction into the medium. Rather than rehash what all the other bloggers have said, I'm simply going to give 5 reasons why you should buy the Problogger Book.

It can be easier learning from a  physical book

I've bought a lot of ebooks over the past year and I admit, I struggle reading from a screen. I can't add my notes to the pages, read it on the bus and many books have poor formatting.

I loved being able to read this as a physical book. I didn't skim as much as I normally do and was able to retain more of the information.

You get opinions and insights from two of the worlds top bloggers

It can be hard to contact either Darren or Chris - especially to get advice for a beginner. You can hire Chris as a consultant, but that is a lot more expensive than this book.

You are guaranteed to get quality information based on their combined experience.

You are getting massive value for money.

This is ridiculously priced compared to the other information products out there. Its a very reasonable price and is packed full of useful tips and case studies. I've paid $50 for ebooks that were a quarter of this length.

There are two of the most trustworthy guys in the niche.

I respect both of these guys because they are really ethical. Darren once asked me to review a product for his blog, and then declined to publish the review because the product wasn't good enough for his readership. Chris has just been really helpful when we are both awake at the same time. I trust both of these guys and know that they would have tried so hard to have made this book as helpful as possible.

It shows old media that this industry is relevant and powerful.

This is one of my favourite reasons. It can be hard for people attached to old media to understand blogs and social media. But having a printed book can show these people that the industry is worth focusing on.

More stuff:

Make sure to check out the Problogger Book website. If you sign up for the newsletter you can get a bonus chapter.

Kim Wood is an amazing woman. We met at a local tweetup and bonded over our love of buying information products. She has a lot of fabulous stuff up her sleeve and I encourage you to interact with her on twitter.

You've bought a lot of internet marketing products. Are there any particular ones you'd recommend to new bloggers?

These products are great for new bloggers - excellent value, entertaining and informative:

Make the internet your bitch - Johnny B Truant
Fantastic, easy to follow guide that covers domain registration, hosting, setting up and customising a WordPress blog, mailing lists, autoresponders, selling online and affiliate links.

31 days to build a better blog - Darren Rowse (Problogger)
31 important aspects of blogging and how to put them into practice. Learn from the legendary Problogger.

Marketing for nice people- Sonia Simone & Naomi Dunford
Truckloads of valuable information from Sonia and Naomi - amazing value.

30 Hours a Day - Dave Navarro
Will help you manage your time so you actually get stuff done!

Do you think buying information products is an important part of the learning process for new online businesses?

Absolutely. There is so much excellent, reasonably priced information available - take advantage of it! It's the quickest way to move forward with your online business.

You travelled a fair distance to attend tweetupmellers. Do you recommend others travel hat far to network?

I travel from Traralgon because there's nothing in my part of the world like tweetupmellers! I think connecting with people in the real world is important (and I love doing it), so I'll travel as far as I need to for that to happen. Do I recommend it? Meeting up with people at tweetupmellers is fun and a great way to make connections with interesting people, so I thoroughly recommend it! I think how far you go is a personal decision - just make sure you have some contact with real live people on a regular basis.

Do you have an ideal client in mind for your coaching?

For the last few years, I have been coaching leaders and managers primarily in the health sector. I am about to launch my new business, Unconventionalist Business Management. My ideal clients are alternative lifestylers, unconventional thinkers, idealists and counterculturalists who have successfully got through the start up phase with their business and are dealing with the realities of sustaining a business, such as planning, budgeting, reporting, employing people and managing their performance, delegating, running meetings and dealing with conflict. This can get overwhelming - what I do is help them manage their business without losing their soul. I'm really excited about this - using my skills and knowledge and working with my favorite group of people!

You have a lot of qualifications behind you, including ones at tertiary level. Do you think they are important for those looking at a career in coaching?

I think the most important thing if you want to be a coach is a genuine interest in other people. As a coach, you have to be a great listener, communicator, and be able to help people develop a better way of thinking about their life and/or work. Coaching is not the same as just giving advice. Formal coach training is beneficial, as is a thorough knowledge of your specific coaching niche.

I know I lot of people think that not having university qualifications means you can't ever have an interesting, fulfilling career - not true. The university environment didn't work for me - since finishing school in 1978 I have attempted six university degrees and not completed any of them! I have had an interesting and varied work history, including unpaid work, and eventually ended up as CEO of a not-for-profit organisation - a position I held for 7 years before leaving to start my coaching business. In my last year as CEO I completed an Advanced Diploma of Business Management - my only university level qualification. For years I felt like a fraud because I had this important job and no qualifications - turns out, most people feel like that at some stage anyway, even if they have qualifications. (Just ask them!) In the end, I think practical, real world skills are more important than qualifications.

Why did you start using twitter?

I love the way Twitter lets me connect with people anywhere - it reinforces my belief that the world is full of awesome, interesting, wild and wonderful people. And it's so much fun. I resisted Twitter for a long time - I thought it would be dangerous as I am already an expert procrastinator. I was right. To quote Sonia Simone, "Twitter is a seductive wench." You have been warned. Beware.

Do you have any tips for coaches looking to use twitter?

The usual playground rules apply: Be nice. Share interesting stuff. Be interested in what other people are doing. Talk about the great things other people are doing. Talk a bit about interesting things you are doing. Specifically for coaches: Share useful coaching tips. Ask great coaching questions, like 'How much time do you spend on the things that are most important to you?' (Not that one, though. I just tweeted it.) Generally, let people get to know who you are, what you know and how you can help them.

To stop Twitter taking over your life, set yourself time limits and stick to them. Don't try to read everything. Start out with an 'intro to Twitter' guide - Michael Martine has a great free guide on his blog, Remarkablogger.

Do you plan to release information products?

Yes. I have a few ideas in various stages of planning. They will be 'how to' guides for the business management issues that cause huge headaches for business owners and managers. The Unconventionalist.com site is under development at the moment - planning to have things up and running in September.

Have you checked out How to Make My Blog? Its awesome. Rather than rehash information, Marko reports on his own successes and provides tips on how you can emulate this.

His latest project is the release of his Twitter Marketing ebook. This is one of my favourite twitter products.

You have released a twitter marketing ebook. Do you have any plans for future product releases?

I am not working on any new product currently but yes, if I think that there is a topic I can be helpful in then I will definitely think about creating a product about it. It is a great way for people to learn about a topic in a concise format and also a much better way of monetizing your work compared to banner ads or AdSense ads.

You make a decent amount of money through the thesis affiliate program. What steps did you take to market your thesis articles?

I tried to make the articles as helpful as possible first of all. I wrote the articles with the beginner in mind, as I was just starting my Thesis experience. I just wrote everything I learned and I included all the codes that I used to customize my own blog. People like to see very practical and easy to follow advice like that, and that makes them tweet it, stumble it and in other ways spread the word about it.

You do a lot of personal case studies on your blog. Why do you think they are so successful?

Yeah, I have done 3 until now with Perez Hilton, Gary Vaynerchuk and Stephen King. I think the main reason for the success is the familiarity of these names. They are all big names, they are well known and they all have lots of people who love them. So kind of using the brand they have built to attract the interest to my own blog. Similar to all the big bloggers like Darren Rowse and the interviews you have done with them on your blog.

But of course all 3 of these articles were written so they are easy to read, they all have a short amount of text, formatted with bullet points, with very practical advice and no fluff. That always helps with getting the article to go viral.

What motivated you to create how to make my blog.

I have been a webmaster since late 1990's, and at some point around 2006 I switched my old HTML sites over to WordPress as it was just much easier to update the site and I liked the interaction part of it as well. So in late 2008 I thought I have experience enough in this blogging world to start a blog about it and share my tips and what I have learned. And it also helps me as writing articles about blogging makes me analyse why and how I did things and which things work best, which can be improved and so on.

You have created two free ebooks. What techniques did you use to promote them?

Not much to be honest. I do send some tweets to my network of 20,000+ followers about everything I do. I think that the most important promotional technique you can have is to make a very good product that people find useful enough to share with their personal networks. Make it is easy for them to share it with Tweet This, Stumble Is, Delicious This and so on buttons and allow people that like the product to promote it.

Do you have plans to expand how to make my blog?

Since I started the blog in late October 2008 I have expanded with blog consulting services, and most recently with my first premium product, Twitter Marketing E-book. At the moment I keep producing new content and try to spread the word and increase the readership with some promotion on Twitter and a guest post here and there. But am always on the lookout for new opportunities to expand into... any ideas?

Do you have any tips for bloggers creating an information product?

>Start with building lots of great content for some 4-5 months and increase the readership, Twitter followers and search engine rankings as much as possible. At some point you will have a large enough audience to be able to create a product and have some buyers. Think what worked best on your blog, which topic got the most attention, which topic people see you an authority in, and look into starting light by creating an ebook first. You can even give it away for free to build some links and increase readership. That's what I did with my first e-book. But all in all it is a great experience creating a product and bloggers should aim to do it at some point when they feel their readership is large enough (and I'm not talking about 100,000 subscribers, somewhere around 1000 should be plenty).

Tips From Jade

In this interview, Marko asked for ideas to expand his website. I'm always buzzing with ideas so here are some ways he could monetize his site.

• Do paid blog installs. I know of many people struggling with this. Have different price points for the amount of work involved.
• Offer group consulting. This is a growing trend.
• Create ebooks around other ways to market your blog - you seem to have a lot of succuess with this.
• Create video products on technical issues.

These are just based on what has been successful for a number of my friends. I wish you all the best with your blog, Marko.