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As you may know, Deb Ng recently released her first e-book Beyond Blogging: Using Your Blogging Skills for Bigger and Better Things.
I gave it a read, and wanted to share some of my thoughts for those considering checking it out.
Important to Note: Deb didn’t design this e-book to give you a step-by-step tutorial on how to become a blogger, how to setup your blog, how to write blog content, etc. So if that’s what you’re looking for, you’ll need to look elsewhere for now (or you can always nag Deb to write one along those lines in the future).
Instead, this e-book is about showing what already running a successful blog can do for you, or lead you to. (And by successful, I’m not saying you need to be Darren Rowse – even modest success in blogging can lead to bigger and better things.)
Background and Review:
The e-book follows a pretty logical succession from various types of blogging you may be involved in to the skills you build through blogging to opportunities those skills can lead you to later (from new products to new careers).
If you’re already a very experienced blogger, most of it is nothing new, at least until you get to the future opportunities where you might find some gems you hadn’t considered.
If you’re a new blogger, you’ll get more out of it – most importantly perhaps you’ll see some of the skill sets other bloggers have built before getting too deep into blogging, so you’ll know what to look for. You’ll know what you should be doing to go from a blogging newbie to a real community builder. In other words, Deb gives you criteria you can use to later evaluate your own blogging experience, and continually do so and improve.
The real benefit, or “meat,” comes later in the e-book – the list of future opportunities. Some I know you’ve heard before, but you can always use the reminder that blogging can be leveraged for bigger things.
Other things you probably have never thought of pursuing, so I feel pretty positive you’ll find some new ideas. (I don’t want to share many examples here for fear of “giving away” any of the e-book content.)
And then there are a couple of ideas that personally I don’t think should have been included. Two come to mind, and I will share the one. Deb mentions that blogging can lead you into public relations (and as you probably know, the online PR realm and how social media applies to it is my primary area of expertise). In fact, blogging alone doesn’t at all make someone qualified to get into PR. But the confusion is understandable. In the past, many people mistook media relations for public relations. Today, many people mistake social media and blogger relations for public relations (when in fact they play a very small role in the grand scheme of the profession). Blogging alone, unless you’re so good that frankly you’d be earning enough to not be considering a new career anyway, won’t get people into most PR firms. If you’re a blogger who also has a solid grasp of the fundamentals of PR, you may be an exception. The problem is that a lot of common blogging and blog promotion behavior is actually “bad practice” in the PR world, and can result in far more damage than good if handled inappropriately (with lots of cases in the last year alone to prove it).
In the big picture though, that’s an extremely minor part of Deb’s e-book as a whole, and the great ideas of how you can put your blogging skills to better use far outweigh it (and I’m also known for being very defensive about good online PR versus the majority of online PR).
Get Your Copy Today
Do you ever wonder if you’re just wasting your time blogging? Do you get frustrated because you’re not earning much from your blog, and you don’t want to stick it out without seeing some benefits? Or are you perhaps happy in your blogging success and just wondering what else is out there for you?
If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, I’d suggest giving Deb’s e-book a look. Find out why you’re not wasting time, and what your blogging experience really adds up to, whether or not you’ve made it as a “pro blogger.” In addition to finding out how you can use your new-found skills, you’ll also learn how you can leverage your existing blog to do more for you.
You can order Deb’s 25-page e-book for $9.95 by visiting Deb’s own blog: Freelance Writing Jobs.
Related posts:
- Moving On – Feedback on My Next E-book
- Moving a Blog from One Platform to Another
- Moving on to a New Novel Outline
- Bum Marketing Update – Moving Forward
- Six Figure Blogging – What’s Your Plan?
About the Author: Jennifer Mattern
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TAGS: bloggers, Blogging, blogs, deb ng, social media
Hi Jen,
Thanks for mentioning FWJ – and although I know you don’t agree with the PR thing, i would like to add that I know of several PR agencies that are now employing blogging or social media expert so they can help businesses with their online presence. That’s not to say one can hop from their Blogspot blog to a top PR firm, but yes, PR firms are now reaching into the blogosphere. (I know because two already contacted me to consult.)
Damn you’re quick. I didn’t even have a chance to email you.
And I have absolutely no doubt some are. Most I’ve seen do it though have also made fools of themselves and been called out on it throughout the industry for everything from fake blogs and fake blog comments to absolutely miserable “blogger outreach” programs that demonstrated little more than far too many bloggers are still willing to be “bought” (and I’m talking big firms and major corp. insiders on a lot of these gaffs). The self-proclaimed social media experts that they’re bringing (in blogging and other areas) are becoming the butt of a lot of jokes to say the least (especially in the last couple of weeks), and while the medium is certainly far from dying, they’re starting to get smarter about implementing basic PR good practices in their blogger relations efforts (working with people who can do both).
So while I have no doubt some firms are still behind on that, and that some bloggers will still be able to make the leap, I don’t see it becoming anything close to common. In fact, much of the PR world does consider blogging to be dying (I’m not of that mindframe), with top educators and practitioners moving away from the medium in favor of other social media projects (and taking their clients with them). I think they’re idiots for doing that, but hey… only so much we can do. I’d rather have folks like that out of blogging anyway.