We’ve all heard the hype that every business must have a blog. And many online copywriters are thrilled to land a new blogging gig – so thrilled they rarely pause to wonder if writing for their client’s blog is really the best investment of that person’s marketing budget.

Have you ever considered how your time could more effectively benefit your client by not writing for their blog?

Why Would Your Client Pay You to Write Free Information?

Your clients have heard what you have – that every business should have a blog. They’ve heard that blogs generate free advertising. Blogs are effective tools for viral communication. Blogs are loved by search engines for fresh content. Blogs keep customers coming back again and again. Blogs build brand and trust. Much of this is true.

But a blog is free information. And free information is readily available these days.

What’s more, your clients are rarely in the information industry. They’re not in the business of giving free information to their customers. Free information doesn’t make money. Free information doesn’t pay the lease on their brick-and-mortar store. Free information doesn’t feed their employees or put dimes and dollars into their 401k plans. Free information doesn’t pay for health insurance or holidays.

There are other, more effective, time-efficient, cost-reduced ways of achieving everything a blog can provide. And, for most businesses, it does NOT make sense to have a blog.

Good News for Content Writers

Don’t worry. You don’t have to give up on blogging. In fact, you can make even more money as a content writer if you choose NOT to write blog content. Tell your clients:

• You can offer them greater value for money by not writing for their blog.
• They can save money and increase their return on investment by eliminating their blog.
• They can increase their exposure by having you write for OTHER people’s blogs.

By offering guest post services to your clients, they’ll enjoy benefits such as:

• Their name on the lips of their competition
• Content that will be syndicated across MANY blogs
• More page views direct to their sales copy, higher conversions and targeted visitors

There’s more you can offer your clients instead of blogging services. You can write an information product they can sell or give away free that leads to residual income and exponentially increasing their site visitors. You can bring them traffic by leaving well-written comments on the blogs of their competitors. You can spruce up the conversion rate of their existing site content and sales copy.

Your clients can have all this with no ongoing commitment to pay or perform, no continued maintenance, no time or money-sinking additional self-promotion techniques, no risk to their business brand, and for the same (or less) money than they currently pay to maintain their blog.

Sometimes, the most effective way to be the best freelance writer for your client is to tell that person why you shouldn’t be hired for a specific job. If you know that your client would be better served in other ways, say so. Offering honest insights that save your clients time and money makes you memorable – and both you and your client make more money doing less work.

Have you ever suggested alternative ways you can benefit your client’s bottom line? Have you considered if your own blog is cost effective? What other ways can we increase the return on investment our clients make by NOT blogging?

With over ten years experience writing web copy, Rebecca Laffar-Smith now focuses on maximizing the effective online presence of small business with web technology and design solutions. Rebecca hosts a community of writers with the Writer’s Round-About Collaborative Blogging Project and encourages writers to do less for more by creating efficient routines and eliminating unnecessary procedures.

How to Avoid Wasting Your Blog Client’s Money Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

Marc and I realized, though, that this ebook was just one case amongst several where people (often innocently and unwittingly) end up damaging someone else’s life – by trying to help. This is a reminder for all of us that it’s not just buyer beware – it’s writer be careful, too.

Ahh, science fiction, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways… Or as Ray Bradbury so eloquently put it:

Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it’s the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. …Science fiction is central to everything we’ve ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don’t know what they’re talking about.

Science fiction may be about ideas, but it also carries a warning that we should all pay attention to.

A recurring theme in science fiction is that of non-interference. From Star Trek’s Prime Directive to Stargate SG-1’s race of “Ancients”, it’s a tale often told: When one person or society interferes with another, even with the purest of intentions, the results can be devastating.

The internet, including the blogosphere, is a very powerful entity, because it gives voice to millions of people. But we are all aware of how power corrupts. Like Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars, corrupted by what he fought against, bloggers and business hopefuls obliviously walk the same path as the fated Dark Lord of the Sith.

The problem? Self-help manuals and do-it-yourself user guides.

I’m not talking about the manuals that promote get-rich-quick schemes or dodgy products peddled by snake-oil salespersons. Those we can spot a mile away. No, the self-help info-products I’m talking about are in fact more dangerous. They destroy websites, businesses and even lives.

From “How to SEO Your Blog Posts” to “101 Copywriting Tips for the Beginner” to psychology type e-books packaged as “user guides”, we find self-help manuals aplenty out there. Most have one thing in common: the authors don’t have the expertise or – perhaps worse – the qualifications to write on the subject.

Like a Kid with a Gun

Don’t you see the danger, John, inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever witnessed, yet you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun.

~ Dr. Ian Malcolm. Jurassic Park (1993)

In science fiction, there’s often someone warning others of potential danger of interference. The group listens and avoids disaster, or the group doesn’t and chaos ensues.

This happens in real life, too. Take psychology-style self-help books as an example, arguably the single most destructive e-book on the internet today. I have personally witnessed the negative psychological effects these books can have on those who choose to read and believe the words as truth. Continued denial, avoidance and a perpetual cycle of repeated, destructive behaviour.

All because many authors write from their personal experience alone, which does not make them qualified to provide advice or help to others. In fact, they seriously lack in professional qualifications, the kind required to be dispassionate and unbiased – essential skills if you truly want to help a person.

When you don’t know the proper methods for providing advice and help, without knowing what to say and how to say it, you may as well be handing a child a loaded gun. By all means, go ahead and share your experiences with others, but before you decide to package your experience into a guide for others and sell it as an e-book, ask yourself:

Is your interference going to do more harm than good?

Writing on Any Topic

The example above related to psychology, but you can easily substitute psychology with “SEO advice” or “business tips” and the results are the same: a large amount of money required to repair the damage. Many people out there have learned their lessons the hard way, assuming that because it’s for sale, it must be accurate information.

Not so. Today we can find helpful blogs, ebooks and info products about all sorts of subjects, written by all sorts of people who aren’t at all qualified to sell this information in the first place. Worse, a common occurrence is that the information being sold is being embraced by people who seem to lack judgment enough to discern fact from… well, science fiction.

Advice for Those Selling or Seeking Self-Help

Most powerful is he who controls his own power.

~ Star Wars: The Clone Wars

As an author, you have some responsibility for the potential effects your words might have on others. No matter what the topic is, before you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, be sure that you have the qualifications to write about whatever you are about to share. If not, move on to something else.

And if you’re about to buy information that claims to provide you with the self-help you feel you need, do yourself a favor. Check the facts. Is there a legal disclaimer in place? What does it say? Does the author have an About page? Are there any credentials that makes this person an authority? If the author has qualifications, exactly what are they and where do they come from? Is the educational facility a recognized one?

Now, of course, self-help books are not always a total waste of time. They can be inspiring, they can be uplifting, or they can help you reach your goals, from learning how to juggle to shaking off low self-esteem to improving your business. Good, valuable information should never be underestimated.

But a good self-help book knows its own limits. It makes accurate claims that can easily be backed by facts, studies and authorities of the subject. It has an appropriate disclaimer – visible on the website and clearly mentioned in all promotional copy – if the author is not qualified in certain areas. And it should always recommend that readers seek professional help.

It’s advice I strongly agree with.

About the Author: Marc Pieniazek is the Successful Ghostwriter and an SEO consultant who works to get you up in the rankings and up in the credibility department, too. Contact Marc to learn more.

Are You Interfering With Your Readers’ Lives? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

That’s part of the problem with blogging – you write, you post, people read your work for a couple of days, and then it gets buried in the archives. Sure, someone might stumble on the post in a year and leave a comment, reminding you that it exists, but for the most part, if that post isn’t on the Recent Posts list in your sidebar, it’s as good as gone.

All right, to be fair, some posts really should stay gone. As much as I was pleased to reread certain posts, like this one about my daughters, I was just as pleased to know that posts like this one would probably never see the light of day again.

And you thought your first blog posts were bad. Sheesh.

This post was one I wrote when I was feeling particularly tossed around by all the “must do” advice out there. Life was moving too fast and I needed to tell myself – and my readers – that it’s okay to slow down.

I liked reading this one about repeat clients again. And this one about carnies, and this one about a rotten roof. Oh, and this one about a camera. The posts I write that combine personal experience, a story, some expertise and action tips that you can take away are always my favourite.

One thing I noticed as I read back was that I seem to be pretty big on the optimistic view, ever the hopeful that this too shall pass. That inspirational pat on the back shows up from time to time in my work, and it’s posts like this one about losing everything and this one about finding faith in your dreams again that leave me feeling good just for reading them.

There are the posts I wrote that came from the heart, the ones where I tried to reach out and tell readers that it’s okay. It’s okay to take a break from blogging, it’s okay to write with your own voice, and it’s okay to be proud of a tiny readership.

In fact, a friend of mine wrote out that last post by hand in blue and gold pen as a gift to me. I have it hung on my wall. I look at it every day.

And that’s what I want to say today – that we should all look at the past, look back over what we’ve done, even if it’s only for five minutes each day. We should be proud of our successes, of the trials and tribulations we’ve been through and all the distance we’ve come.

Our blog archives are our history, in more ways than just which post went up on that day.

We should laugh over our goof-ups. We should revisit our knowledge, then and now, and see how much we’ve learned. We should explore some of the things that we wrote about in more detail, and bring those ideas back to life so we can talk them over some more. We should enjoy our own work, and we should linger on words we wrote that we felt strongly about at the time.

As I read through older posts, I relived a lot of memories, too. Good times, hard times, fun times, thoughtful times. I could see my business growing and revisit the phases of its journey. That was a pretty neat thing to do, and it left me feeling inspired and content with where I am today, because of all I’ve been through.

I also examined how I wrote then and tried to compare it to how I write now. I found it intriguing to notice what types of posts I used to write and which techniques I used to get messages across to readers. I read some comment sections and looked at what worked for people and what didn’t.

I’ve grown and I’ve changed – perhaps I’d forgotten that I would. That realization reminded me of a conversation I had one day, in which an artist I admire told me he believed fans grow and change right along with their favourite singers and authors.

So let’s do a little something today, shall we? Go back to your blog archives and find something you wrote from long ago. A post that meant something to you, one you really liked, one that you felt in your heart.

Then come tell us about it – leave the link in the comment section. Because words like that shouldn’t be forgotten forever.

Why You Should Travel Back Through Time Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

It only makes sense, right? Visually appealing layouts are a common denominator on sites that pull in serious visitors and are generally considered a ’success’. No avid reader wants to read words on a page that resembles a scattered dump yard.

But here’s something interesting that most people fail to see – having a good web design is a process, and almost all successful bloggers began with a design that wasn’t exactly great. There are individuals that started with designs so bad they’re a little ashamed to admit it.

I happen to be one of them. I started with Blogger and somehow, through the stroke of pure genius, I f**ked up my theme beyond recognition of its original, dull counterpart. Only “I” can manage to do something like this when it comes to technology.

Still, I didn’t care, because I realized something essential from the experience: It’s not the pen you use; it’s how you use it.

Let that saying be a lesson to you or anyone else thinking of starting a site, a blog or even a business. A perfect example of a site that is completely wiping the floor with everyone else in its niche is stevepavlina.com Do a search for “personal development”…

…and feast your eyes on the most boring layout that exists today.

But read the content, and you immediately realize why Steve dominates his field.

There is a good reason why my site went through a drastic design change after 6 months. There’s good reason why I chose to do another complete makeover for 2010. I had traction. I had an audience that actually gives a sh*t. My blog is now a (somewhat) authority site in my niche and therefore I have responsibility towards those who spend time reading it to make it a nice place for them to visit.

I wrote some rock-your-face-off content. THEN I took some time to make everything spiffy, shiny and just plain sexy.

The truth is, if you were to take away my slick site features and replace it with something boring like a generic, puke-inducing default Thesis theme, I’d still whup some booty. I admit that I’d miss out on some ad revenue and affiliate sales but the core of what I offer would stay.

And if you don’t think your blog could survive without your fancy themes and geeky plug-ins, then you might as well take that fancy pen of yours and stick it where you shouldn’t (in a pen holder), because it won’t matter how you use it either way.

While he has a passion for writing and oozes entrepreneurial spirit, FJ is foremost the fitness expert and runs his own Fitness Blog, where he focuses on impeccably accurate advice delivered in a straightforward, no-BS style.

How Do You Use Your Pen? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

The fact that he is still slightly amazed about his fame makes his posts interesting, in that he brings up questions that I think we should all ask ourselves. This post asks a good question indeed. Enjoy.

Perhaps it was inevitable. People – quite a lot of them – had begun to read my blog and decided that I could help them build their blogs in the same way. Nobody wanted to hear that my results were a product of dumb luck and fun. And some hard work, but mostly dumb luck and fun.

I was having a hard time explaining that my blog lives or dies based on who I am, not on the information I provide. I really can’t screw up too badly.

But they wanted those results, those numbers.

Many of the people who approached me for help were writing – or planning on writing – blogs that were high-stakes and information-based. Try telling someone who gives stock market advice to just treat blogging like a game and have a good time.

But what I tell people are four scenes from the last six months that sum up what I’ve learned better than I can spell it out:

Exhibit A: The High Style

The man I was listening to spoke with a strong British accent. It was awesome, but his story was even better.

This was John DuCane, CEO of Dragon Door Publications. John was born in Africa, was a brilliant film critic in England, made a bunch of films, got all kinds of advanced degrees, and then wandered around India for a long time, studying with yogis and getting enlightened.

John is so intelligent that I feel like an enormous toddler around him.

I was in his marketing lecture, nearing the end of RKC instructor kettlebell certification. John writes the majority of the ad copy for Dragon Door, and he was talking to us – the new instructors, the front lines, the new faces of his marketing arm – about how to write so our audience would always understand us.

” And suddenly, I realized that I had to unlearn everything I knew about writing,” John said. “I needed to write at what is basically junior high level, here in the States.”

And this was a man who could totally pull off words like Heidegerrian at the breakfast table.

Exhibit B: The Hopeful Mimic

“But I want to be able to write like you,” said the man who had decided that I could help him. “You’ve just got a voice that people respond to, and it can’t be that hard to tell me how you do it.”

“Well, that’s flattering, man, but I’m not sure what to say about it,” I replied.

“You just seem to enjoy it so much,” he said. “That’s what I want.”

It’s true that I really enjoy writing, but it’s rarely easy. That’s part of the point for me: the challenge. It’s fun, but it’s not like I sit at my keyboard, occasionally throwing my arms into the air and squealing, “Wheeeeeee! I’m writing!”

Of course, it is sort of like that, but that’s Tourette’s, not glee.

I couldn’t find the heart to take someone on as a client who obviously gets no joy out of the writing process to begin with and who wants to learn how to enjoy writing. It would have drained me and disappointed him.

Nobody deserves to get paid for that.

Exhibit C: Too Smart

Mike T. Nelson from Extreme Human Performance is one of the world’s foremost experts on getting people out of pain (and increasing athletic performance, albeit with bizarre looking methods). He has also helped me make some great strides towards easing the symptoms of Tourette’s Syndrome and the pain it can cause.

Most blogs find a niche and zero in on their audience. Mike’s audience is anyone who experiences pain and wants to perform better. You can’t get much more universal, and potentially, profitable.

Mike is pure scientist. However, he isn’t stodgy, and his social skills are better than mine. He’s very passionate about his subject and can talk about it for days.

Unfortunately, his subject is complicated, and most people don’t understand terms like “sensorimotor amnesia” or “neuromatrix” or “proprioception” or “nerve glides.” Even Microsoft Word thinks every one of those words is a spelling error.

So there was the question: how to distill something complex that sounds super-technical and intimidating into a message that could do just about anyone on Earth some good?

It was surprisingly easy. Mike just needed to talk about himself more and not use three words where one word would do. Everyone understands “ouch.” Not everyone understands the need to “avoid moving into startle mode.”

Exhibit D: Too Easy

The writing voice is a lot easier to see than to explain or coach.

One of the first people I agreed to work with was Laura Cococcia from The Journal of Cultural Conversation. I was a bit hesitant and unsure about what I was worth, so I basically said, “Pay me, decide whether it’s worth it, and demand your money back the second it gets lame.”

So we proceeded.

Laura already had a voice. Where her wonderful blog lagged was when she started sounding like other people. All I ever really had to do – other than offer some cosmetic tweaking and aesthetic suggestions – was steer her back to being her.

In other words, I got lucky. I never had to explain the writing voice to her, which I probably couldn’t do anyways.

Conclusions

I leave this part to you, my friend. What stands out in these stories? Does anything look or sound familiar to you? And the bigger question is, do you really need help with your blog? Or do you just need someone to tell you what you already know?

Let’s talk.

About the Author: Josh Hanagarne is the twitchy giant behind World’s Strongest Librarian, a blog about living with Tourette’s Syndrome, kettlebells, book recommendations, buying pants when you’re 6’8”, old-time strongman training, and much more. Please subscribe to Josh’s RSS Updates to stay in touch.

Why You Don’t Need to Mimic Someone Else’s Fame Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

I also asked readers what we should do about this situation. Should bloggers start charging for content? Should we start a revolution? Should we do this, or that, or the other thing?

Then I realized we shouldn’t be asking what we can do. We should be stating what we can do, as a fact.

So here are a few of the things we can do, as bloggers, to address this issue – and many more issues we all face together. We can do these things right now, today.

And we should.

We Can Talk About It

Conversation is powerful. By putting a topic on the table and discussing it while listening to other people’s thoughts and opinions, we’re able to get deeper into the situation.

We might uncover ways of doing things that we didn’t see before. We might find new reasons for upholding the cause. We might reveal obstacles we didn’t think of, and then we can talk about how to overcome them.

Talk is cheap, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable. Talk helps create solutions. Talk is how you resolve issues with your spouse or your friends or your boss. Talking is the reason any of us know anything at all. Our parents, our mentors, our employers talked with us. We listened, asked questions, and learned more every time we did.

That back-and-forth exchange is how we get places. Try sawing through a log by stabbing it with a blade and you won’t get far, no matter how many times you stab it or how hard.

But try sawing back and forth. You’ll get a little deeper every time, and you’ll eventually bring that tree to the ground.

That’s how conversation works. Every time we throw an idea back and forth across the table, we’re getting just a little bit deeper into the problem. Eventually, we’ll bring that problem crashing down.

We need to feel comfortable discussing issues and being wrong, and we need to feel comfortable being persuaded to another point of view. We need to listen to one another and see if those new ideas have merit, or if they open up any other possible courses of action.

If we don’t, we’re just stabbing at that tree. All by ourselves. And that tree’s going to look like a pincushion by the time we’re done.

But it’ll still be standing there, still be in our way.

We Can Empower Ourselves

Some people out there take a “wait and see” approach. They might have a “not my problem” attitude. They might be one of those “just ignore it” people. They all do nothing, and they trust that others will work it out.

I think that’s a mistake.

When we choose to do nothing, we give other people permission to have power over us. Passivity is powerless. We shouldn’t let other people make decisions for us. Our lives are too valuable to be completely at the mercy of someone else’s whim.

Doing nothing means there’s no nudge to start the ball rolling. You can’t build momentum if you don’t start off with just a little bit of power.

If we do nothing about the problem – not even talking about it – we’re part of the problem ourselves. We’re saying that other people with louder voices should decide. And the problem with that is that even though other people might be louder, that doesn’t make them right.

It just makes them loud.

I teach my children that they do have the power to change a situation. That they do have control. They can provoke change. I tell them these things because I believe them with all my heart.

It’s up to us to stop allowing others to make decisions for our industry, our careers, and our lives, both as a group and as individuals. It’s up to us to take back control and to start making change happen.

Of course, that’s if change is what we decide we want after we’ve talked it over. I think it’s what I want. But I want to hear the debate. I want to hear all the sides. Then I want us to gather up all our power and direct it together in one solid course of action.

We Can Wake Up a Bit

It’s not like we have a choice, you know. Eventually, something somewhere is going to give.

Online business and blogging are changing every day. What used to work last year isn’t working so well anymore. “Traditional” income streams are dying. Adsense is over. Banner advertising isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Product launches don’t bring in the money they used to.

As consumers become accustomed to the internet and how it works, they also becoming familiar and acclimatized to what used to be new and exciting. They’re getting bored. They’re tuning it out and turning off.

So we’re going to have to work on evolving along with these changes. It’s time to ask questions, to look to the future and explore new ways of generating income so we can all make a decent living at this.

If what we’re doing now doesn’t work, then what will work next week? And next year? And the year after?

As the early-adopter generation of the internet, of blogging, of online business, we have an opportunity. We have the power to turn it all into what we want it to be, to change it, to see just how far we can take it all.

We just have to wake up and realize it.

What do you think?

Three Ways to Start a Revolution Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

There are lots of other people out there getting seriously up in arms about it, though. They’re saying bloggers who ask for payment are betraying their readers, compromising their ethics, and generally being all-around jerks. It’s as though they believed our very moral compass is broken, and that bloggers simply don’t understand how to be in a secure and loving relationship with their readers. To hear them tell it, bloggers who don’t give it away have turned positively abusive.

They are really quite unfriendly about it. Dear me. Such uncouth behavior. I think perhaps it’s time we discussed what is and is not appropriate in blogger-reader relationships, don’t you? Yes, I rather thought so myself.

How Relationships Work

When you’re a tiny little kid and you don’t have any friends yet, the grown-ups around you explain what is and is not friendly behavior. “Friends share with each other.” “Friends play nicely together.” “Friends don’t set each other’s hair on fire OH GOD GET THE BURN OINTMENT!”

Like that. Most of it is totally harmless, and most of it held true as you became an adult and had more complicated relationships. Other people explained what was and was not acceptable behavior for romantic relationships, work relationships, and familial relationships (though everyone mostly ignored the part where you were supposed to be nice to your parents).

What’s more, if you encountered someone who didn’t behave the way you were told they should behave, you decided right away that this person shouldn’t be your friend (or boy/girlfriend, or colleague) anymore.

This is all fairly standard stuff. A lot of you are reading along here thinking, “And? What’s wrong with that?”

Ah, you poor naïve little soul. Everything is wrong with that.

Confusing Action and Intention

While other people were explaining to us how relationships worked, they also explained why they worked that way. The reason they did this is that your formative years are a big time for the “Why?” question. When they told you friends don’t hit, your first reaction was probably not, “Okay, then I won’t hit.”

Your first reaction was probably, “Why?”

And they told you something that would make you stop doing it. “Because mean people hit. Because no one will want to play with you if you hit them. Because hitting isn’t nice.”

They gave you a reason. Forever, in your mind, those two were linked: the action and the reason.

Now, there are lots of other reasons people hit people. Everyone has seen a good man’s man comedy or drama in which the main characters whale the heck out of each other. And it isn’t because they’re mean or because they don’t want to play baseball with each other. It’s because they love each other, man.

Professional fighters fight because they like it. They really, really like it. They enjoy the feeling of winning and getting beat around and beating the other guy worse. They like the glory and the big shiny belts they get to wear. That’s why they hit.

You swatted the dog last week because he did something bad. Not to be mean to him, but so he would pay attention.

Now, most of the time, your initial response is correct. Hitting is usually an indication that the hitter is trying to be mean to the hittee. It is a pretty logical assumption.

But it’s not the only possible reason. Hitting does not equal meanness. Hitting may indicate meanness, but they are not one and the same.

How the #$!!* Does This Apply to Blogging?

My word, what a foul mouth. My mother always told me that people who cussed were ill-bred and not to socialize with them. She also told me that if I see a man I’m dating talking to another woman, he is clearly cheating on me.

Oh, and she told me that if a blogger starts to charge for their content, he’s a greedy, money-grubbing Scrooge.

No, wait. That wasn’t my mother. That was everyone on the internet. Silly me. I always get them confused.

Somewhere along the way, the conventional wisdom decided that any blogger who deemed his advice worthy of payment was contemptible. It’s not true. In fact, it’s ridiculous to assume such a thing. I’m sure there are bloggers out there charging for their content who ARE shameless money-grubbers, but that is by no means the rule.

It’s a little like this. Let’s say I am dating a man, and he is talking to another woman, just like my Mama warned me. Now, it’s possible that my man is cheating on me with this woman, and I’m sure there are men who would do such a thing.

It is also entirely possible that they’re having a nice platonic friendly chat about the Mars landing. If my man is normally a good guy, why would I assume he has bad intentions?

The same applies for a blogger. If this blogger has always pulled out every trick in the book to get money for things totally not worth the price, then it is safe to assume the worst and that he is probably out to scam you.

But if this blogger has behaved very well and has given you great advice for years and years, why would you assume he has the worst of intentions and has suddenly become like that money-grubber scammer?

No One Made You a Deal

The other part of the argument made in the comments of the Blogging Sweatshop post that gets me is that bloggers are betraying their readers by starting to charge for some of their content.

Let’s talk about that word betrayal for a moment.

Betrayal is the breaking or violation of a presumptive social contract, trust, or confidence, says Wikipedia. That basically means you were trusted to do something – keep a secret, deliver a soldier across the border, fulfill a promise – and then you did not do it.

If someone could kindly point out to me where on the web bloggers promised their readers that all content would always be free, I would be much obliged.

This assumption is rather like the one made of that poor gentleman up there, talking blithely away to some other woman and getting into serious hot water with his girlfriend for doing so.

“How could you betray me like that?” she says, and stomps off. Meanwhile, our guy is looking all bewildered, because he never promised his girlfriend he wouldn’t utter a word to another girl so long as he lived. He had no idea that was part of the deal.

Expecting someone to fulfill a promise that you were never actually given by that person is not betrayal.

It’s delusional.

No one made you a deal. If a blogger wants to change the rules of the game, he or she has every right to do so. It’s certainly courteous to inform readers it’ll happen, and of course if the reader doesn’t want to play by those rules, then that reader doesn’t have to.

Readers are free to accept or deny the terms bloggers offer them.

They cannot tell bloggers what to do, though. They certainly can’t tell bloggers that they’re all betraying, backstabbing bastards for deciding to charge for their content. And they cannot confuse the action of bloggers asking for fair payment in exchange for sound advice with the conclusion that those same bloggers are being complete and utter dicks.

Well, okay, they can. But they look pretty silly when they do.

Have You Been Betrayed by Your Blogger? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

I was having a conversation with Deb Ng of Freelance Writing Gigs on Twitter, and I smirked at her comment.

“We get to retire? No one ever told me that…”

We both know there’s no retirement fund in what we do. We’re bloggers. There’s here and now, and there’s trying to make a decent living that supports us for years to come.

It’s a bit of a joke. We blog our hearts out, pouring creativity, knowledge and advice into each post we write. We work tirelessly to put up good content that people can use to improve their income, and we don’t get paid a penny for it.

Why the hell not?

Blogging is bloody hard work. It’s long-term, it’s tiring, it’s creatively exhausting and it’s completely unpaid. It’s free. It’s done out of the goodness of our heart, our belief that we can help other people earn a better living. And from it, we get nothing.

Take this blog, for example. Set aside the services we offer, strip away the great ebooks, the recommended resources, everything but the content. What do you have?

You have a site that, three times a week, as regular as clockwork, gives readers a 700-word value-packed blog post full of insight and knowledge that’s fully tailored to benefit and improve people’s ability to earn more income and have a successful business.

Did I mention it’s free? Completely, undeniably, 100% no charge.

That’s like being able to attend a workshop given by an expert authority three times a week and learn how to improve your business without paying a penny. You get actionable value, great tips and practical advice, and plenty of good stuff that helps you succeed.

Now, that’s great. We want you to learn, to better your business, to succeed. That’s our goal with each and every post we put up on this site. It’s the reason why we put in effort to write worthy posts that each take an hour or two to create. These aren’t your average 15-minute fire-offs, folks, no matter how fast Taylor and I can type. They’re the wisdom culled of years of experience, study, and labor.

And they’re all free.

No One to Blame But Ourselves

Blogging started as personal online journals. It was free because it was idle; it wasn’t supposed to be the sort of business expertise that many companies would shell out good money for in the form of a consultant.

But business blogs started to grow and then became essential, and all the while no one stopped to think, “Wait a minute. Why are we giving away this valuable knowledge?”

Well, stop to think now: Can you walk into your local garage and ask them to teach you mechanics for nothing? Can you go to a lawyer’s office and become his apprentice without paying a dime? Could you walk into any business in your town and say, “Hey, will you teach me what you know for free? So I can do it myself and not have to pay you to do it for me?”

Of course not.

Yet blogs do just that. And we can’t go back now.

Or can we?

We’d be considered renegades to ask for payment. Selfish, even. Wrong. How dare we? Readers would be offended and insulted, according to some. Some would simply go elsewhere – pay for quality content when the next blog hands it out for nothing?

It’s not just the readers that hold us back. We’d be uncomfortable with the thought of asking readers to pay, too. No one wants to upset their readers. There’s so much hype and push these days about giving first and never asking for anything back. In fact, it’s becoming the rule, the “must do”. Everyone wants to be seen as generous and selfless.

Who said we were supposed to do that? Who started this myth that information and knowledge should be free? Who said it was smart to give a one-hour free seminar, speech or workshop almost every single day? Not authors who sell books in stores. Not experts who sell consultation time. Not businesses who sell services.

We did it. We did this to ourselves. We created our own personal sweatshops. We’ve taught people that our knowledge is worth nothing. How can we expect to charge for it now?

We can’t.

Support Sweatshop Labor

I don’t think bloggers and writers realize the mixed messages they’re giving the world, and I don’t think bloggers realize what they’re doing to themselves. Case in point…

“1$ an article! I would never accept that pay rate! That’s preposterous. That reminds me – I have to go write my free blog post now or my readers will be mad.”

“Sweatshops should be banned. They’re horrible. They take advantage of people, and mistreat them without offering fair wages. I read about them over at this blog – you should go check it out. There’s a new free post that goes up every day.”

“Charge for premium content? For a blog post? Hell, no. I won’t pay if you do that. But I will soak up any free knowledge and education then apply it to my freelancing so I can make more money…”

Yeah. This is wrong, people. Really, really wrong.

People even imply and suggest (or at least the Twitter gang did) that bloggers should be ashamed of asking for money, for any kind of payment for that solid advice and knowledge. Bloggers should be ashamed of asking for money for the posts they write, the ones that take anywhere from 3 to 15 hours of work a week.

Yet, no one feels ashamed reading their favorite blogs every day. They feel no shame learning, benefiting and profiting off someone else’s unpaid labor – without ever having to dig out a penny.

People get upset over sweatshop workers slaving away – but they think nothing of being the sweatshop owner that profits every day from every blog. In fact, many people think that’s okay.

What do you think?

Are Bloggers Creating Their Own Sweatshop? Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

When people out of the blue get in touch with me and offer a guest post, I usually approach the situation with skepticism. It’s like dating – don’t make a move for a home run when we haven’t even gotten to first base yet.

So I replied to FitJerk’s offer with the same skepticism, and then some. “I don’t GET why you want to guest post – my readers aren’t even your target market. You’re into athletics; we’re into business and writing. What’s in this for you?”

In short, I couldn’t figure out his angle, his game, and it bothered me. (Marketers, take note of my very normal reaction to being sold.)

What he came back with was interesting – and worth sharing. Enjoy.

Humans. We love our common sense, don’t we? It’s brought us far as a species. If something causes pain, we tend to avoid it. If something causes pleasure, we do more of it. So when it comes to business, it only makes sense to stick to a niche where you can dominate and completely rock, right?

WRONG!

This is only effective when you want to do one thing, and that’s selling. While selling itself is important to any business, it’s far better to have fans with money than customers who pay once and never come back.

You see, business is about people. I want to show you why it’s a good idea to step outside your niche and spread yourself around.

Being with like-minded individuals and talking about what you do with them and why it’s cool is… well, cool. But let me ask you something: Are all your friends, the people you talk to, and the peers you hang out with all sort of in the same circle as you?

Mine aren’t. I have friends that do a wide variety of things to make a living. Why is it that on the internet, people only want to congregate with their “niche” population? It’s very one-dimensional.

I even heard from a blogger the other day that he would never guest post on a blog unrelated to his own because it wouldn’t get him any traffic and that it was a waste of effort. What a twit. Anyone who follows that advice to a “T” seriously limits online connections and life beyond direct sales.

See, if you’re a writer, a blogger or an online business owner, you need to connect with the community. The online community. And you can’t connect with everyone in the online community if you limit yourself to one select group of people.

How to Step Outside Your Niche for Real Impact

Grab a piece of paper. Write down 3 or 4 other niches that interest you, or things that you’re passionate about but aren’t good enough to monetize. Maybe they’re just your hobbies and you find the subject matter interesting. Whatever.

Just come up with 3 or 4 niches that you actually give a damn about. That’s the important bit. For example, my niche interests are humor, tech, writing (clearly!) & marketing.

Then find 3 or 4 blogs for each of those niches. Stay branded as whoever you are! If you’re Dick the Cupcake Maker, then be that guy. Start leaving comments. Connect with the blog owners and other readers. Email the owners and offer to guest post or to do an interview. Get known. Start offering some value. Don’t worry about feeling out of place.

That’s exactly what I did. And the result is that I’m not only known in the fitness community, but I’m getting involved with the blogging & internet marketing community as well.

Now here’s where it gets really interesting… so pay attention.

When someone in those “extra” niches of mine has a fitness problem and he’s looking for a solution, who is the FIRST person he thinks of? ME! When his friend wants to lose some weight or pack on some muscle, who does this guy recommend? ME!

This is the power of seeding and connecting. When you leave a seed in people’s minds, they’ll remember you when the time comes because you’ve talked to them before. You’ve connected already. They trust you over all others in your dominant niche who scream a desperate plea for attention.

Bleh.

You’re Out of Your Niche – And Still Making The Sale

I’ve made countless sales from meeting people who weren’t actively searching to get in shape. When we connected and met, no one was interested in making the sale. We were hanging out, sharing mutual interests outside our main niche interests.

But later on they’d say, “Hey, you’re a fitness guy right? Wanna help me out?”. Had I not connected with this person previously and already been in front of their eyeballs, I would have never had the sale opportunity.

See how that works? You made a sale without having to sell. You were enjoying your interest. Hanging out. Having fun outside your niche.

One of the best benefits of spreading into other niches is how you’ll come up with out-of-the-box ideas on how to one-up the value you offer to your existing customers in your main niche. This makes you stand out more than your competition.

Look at me. I’ve found ways to incorporate software and technology into my fitness business. I’ve found ways to inject humor into technical fitness articles so readers don’t fall asleep. I’ve become a better writer and started my fitness blog. Now I can communicate my theories, tactics and workout routines with laser-like precision.

And I’m still making sales.

Diversifying into other niches has been invaluable to me, my business and my personal brand. If you want to stand out in this ridiculously competitive world where everyone tries to out-shout each other, you’d better start spreading your seed in other fields.

Go on. Connect with interesting people that might become your customers. Or someone else will.

Why You Shouldn’t Stick to Your Niche Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved

More distractions, parties, and yeah, good food means we’re more prone to neglect our blog writing during the holidays – and that means your blog looks mighty lean come the new year.

So how do you avoid slimming your blog down during the holidays when you have other stuff to do? Here are three ways to keep your blog nice and solid.

(As for managing your own weight, you’ll have to find a different blog. I, for one, intend to eat so much pumpkin pie that my freckles nearly turn to cinnamon and nutmeg.)

Store Up for Winter

During the fall, lots of animals store up food for the lean months ahead. That way, when winter rolls around, they don’t have to spend precious energy foraging in the snow to find food. The other reason they store up food is that they know they can’t find any food out there even if they tried, but I don’t have an analogy for that particular aspect of animal behavior, so let’s focus on saving energy.

You don’t have a lot of energy to spare when the holidays are here. Your relatives are in town, your mother’s stressing you out, you have food to cook and presents to buy and very possibly some sort of holiday-timed disaster to cope with. Your washing machine knows there’s no time like the day between major holiday parties to break down, too. It’s wise. It’s onto your plans.

What with the washing machine’s evil machinations and everything else to take care of, you’re not going to want to blog much.

So do as the squirrels do and store up for the winter. Look at your calendar and figure out the days that you’re going to be busy with holiday-type-things. Then go write a post for each of those days. Right now. Make yourself a big ol’ stockpile, and you’ll never lack fresh fodder.

And should you happen to think of a great holiday post to write about the washing machine fiasco? Then you’ll have a head start on next year.

Maintain a Solid Diet

As you start building that stockpile of posts, the temptation to bang out light, fluffy pieces just to fill in the blanks happens. That’s a good idea when you’re exhausted and you just need to slam up a post really quickly before morning comes. You can get away with it once, but if you feed your blog light little fluff pieces all the time, it’s going to become airy as a helium-filled meringue.

Delicious as that sounds, it’s not what you want people to associate with your blog.

Make sure that your posts are solid fare. If you have to, go through and compare the posts you’ve just written to the posts that have been most popular since you started writing. Are they up to that standard? Are they even close?

If not, re-write them. Feeding your readers this sort of meager stuff means they’re going to seek out their meals elsewhere – and eventually they won’t even bother to show up to your blog to whet their appetite. By the time the holidays end, you could’ve lost them all.

Get Some Exercise

This one’s the same whether you’re trying to keep the pounds off your butt or if you’re trying to keep the readers ON your subscriber list.

Without exercise, your hips are going to widen with all the holiday indulgences. Without exercise, your blog is going to waste away to nothing. Its muscles atrophy and its strength dwindles. It will be so weak that a newborn baby chick could knock it down and call it its bitch.

So what’s exercise, to a blog? Your exercise involves going for a run. Your blog, remarkably enough, needs much the same.

We’re talking about running around to other blogs and leaving a comment. Plan yourself a regular course to run a certain number of times a week. Blogs you enjoy that you know also create strong content – because having an exercise buddy makes it much more likely that you’ll keep working hard, too.

That course you’ll run also means you’ll be drawing readers from strong blogs to your own, at a time when other blogs lacking attention get weaker and weaker.

And way less impressive.

Your turn: What plans do you have for your blog during the upcoming holidays? How will you keep your blog in its weight class?

How to Keep Your Blog From Losing Weight During the Holidays Another rockin' post from the Men With Pens! Copyright 2006 - 2010 30 Sous Zero Inc - All Rights Reserved