- Anna Williams
If, at any time, now or in the future, you would like to ask me a question, simply post in in the comments area below. If I can, I will answer you. If I can’t, I will try to direct you to someone who can.
While this applies mainly to questions in Internet Marketing, website development, blogging, or related fields, these are not my only fields of interest. So I may be able to help you with other questions as well. (Needless to say, I am not referring to spammy or tactless remarks disguised as questions! 
)
This post was inspired recently by three people:
- Stephan Nielsson, with his page entitled Ask a Question, and a related post
- Normal Joe, with his hilarious recent post where he invites his readers to post affiliate links to their favorite products in the comments section of his blog.
- Jenny, with her recent question on Twitter, which I realized I could not answer in under 140 characters.
If you don’t have a question, that’s okay. You can leave a comment. If someone else asks a question and you have useful information or feedback on it, please leave a comment with that as well.
Remember, I am no guru, and I am more familiar with some fields than with others, but there are plenty of things I have researched, experienced, or otherwise dealt with in the past – as is the case for anyone. So I might be able to help you with some of your questions …
Awesome post Anna! I don’t have a question just yet…or wait…do you outsource much of your content creation? Or do you do it yourself?
.-= Normal Joe´s last blog ..Post an affiliate link to your favorite marketing tool on my site! =-.
Hi Joe!
At this point I outsource a lot of it. All of the posts on this blog are by me (which should be obvious I hope), but if I tried to personally write enough content for all of my sites, and work on everything else at the same time, I would lose my sanity!
For my other sites, I have a girl in the Phillipines who writes most of my articles, for $4.00 per 400-word article. I need to fix up the English and grammar a bit before I publish them, but she is pretty good, and it usually only takes a few minutes for me to edit one of her articles.
My poems on my poetry blogs are also obviously written by me, if they say they are, but there are also plenty of other poets who publish their poetry on those blogs.
Glad to be one to inspire:) I understand that at times 140 characters are not enough:)
My question was that I am looking into self publishers and noticed you used Lulu. I was wondering if you would recommend them above others or if there were better POD services you would recommend?
.-= Jenny´s last blog ..6 Useful Sites For Internet Marketing Terms =-.
Hi Jenny! Thanks for posting your question here, I have a little more space to answer.
Years ago when I was looking for options for self-publishing a book, I considered Cafe Press or Lulu. I actually can not remember the reason I chose Lulu instead – I think there was some difference between the two but it might not even be the case anymore.
I have not tried Cafe Press but at one point I decided that if I wanted to self-publish again, I would try it as well as Lulu.
One thing I liked about Cafe Press is that they have an affiliate program, which Lulu does not (last time I checked). But it seems like now their only affiliate program is through Commission Junction, which is an affiliate network that I have long-since refused to work with … but that’s another story …
With Lulu, I have been pretty happy with the quality of the books produced. Holly bought my poetry book from Lulu and she mentioned she was really happy with the quality of it and the speed of shipment – I think that is why she later published Honest Riches on Lulu as well.
One thing I don’t like about Lulu is that it is the navigation in the account area is not the best, and it sometimes seems that things which could require 2 clicks can take 10 clicks … if you know what I mean. For example, if I want to change the copyrights of a group of photos, I have to navigate to each photo, one at a time, and then navigate through several screens, to change the copyright, and then onto the next photo … would be much easier if I could just “select all” and change them.
But with that said, Cafe Press is pretty hard to navigate too. They have print-on-demand publishing like Lulu, but every time I look for it, I wind up having to search the help files to find it.
A plus about Lulu is that they recently started adding books to Amazon. So, my books are now on Amazon, as is Honest Riches. I did not have to do anything extra to get it there, I got an email from Lulu that my books had been “selected” to be on Amazon. Though I am not sure if everybody got the same email:) Because of Amazon’s fee,
I get a smaller commission if my book is sold through there, but that’s okay, it is still
more exposure.
Also, if someone is a member of Amazon’s affiliate program, this would allow them to sell your books as an affiliate.
In a nutshell, I would suggest you look into both Lulu and Cafe Press and see which one seems to fit your goals the best – or, it might not be a lot of extra work to just create your book in such a way that you can upload it to both of them.
This is the link to the Cafe Press book-publishing page (the Lulu one is easy to find):
http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/products/books
Thank you Anna for mentioning me. I think this is a great method to not only get quality content but also help each others. If more people tried to help each others the world would be so much better.
.-= Stefan´s last blog ..AdSense Generator in French and Chinese =-.
@Stephan – You’re welcome. And, my thoughts exactly!
This is a really good idea.
Okay, my question is from what company do you outsource your content – the girl from the Philippines ? Did you hire her through Odesk? Elance?
.-= Isis@Pinaybackpacker.com´s last blog ..Destination PiliPinas: Conquering Cordillera =-.
Hi Isis, thanks for your question.
I found my writer on the Digital Point Forum.
Actually she was the first writer I tried, I never hired anyone from the other sites before her, and she turned out to be good.
I tried some other writers later, one from Digital Point, one from Rentacoder. One of them was not good at all, the other was fine but had some Indian grammar quirks which was a lot more work to fix. So far I have been happiest with my Filipino writer, who happened to be the first one I tried!
Hi Anna… I don’t know how long you’ve been in Internet Marketing, but from reading your blog and posts around other blogs, you really know your stuff!
What advice would you give a newbie just starting?
What advice would you give a veteran that’s been around a while?
.-= Jake´s last blog ..It’s Friday – I Spend How Much on Golf? =-.
Hi Jake, great question. There could be a lot of answers to that – let’s see …
To someone new, starting out, I wrote this page specifically for that – http://buildingfromnothing.com/howtomakemoneyonline/
I would also say:
Don’t start too many big projects, you won’t have enough time to make any one of them successful. I would guess that 3 major projects would be a good limit, but that depends on lots of things and it’s not a set-in-stone rule. So for example, if you are going to blog, then 3 blogs (well researched ahead of time). This way you aren’t putting all your eggs in one basket but are not taking on too many projects to handle, either. (See http://buildingfromnothing.com/if-you-want-a-project-to-succeed/
)
Also, don’t skimp on research in the beginning before you start on your projects.
Start building a list early, don’t wait for years, it is stupid (I did it). In this time your list could be gradually building up while you work on other things, and even if it is slow, it’s better than waiting.
I ALWAYS tell people to start by getting and reading Holly Mann’s eBook.
Give something valuable in return for the money you want to earn ( http://buildingfromnothing.com/exchange/ )
And don’t spend thousands of dollars on training or coaching when you are getting started!!! (See http://buildingfromnothing.com/building-from-nothing-not-building-from-5000/ )
For someone who has been around for a while, it would depend on the circumstances. If the person is still struggling to earn enough money online I would recommend they look at these posts:
http://buildingfromnothing.com/253/
http://buildingfromnothing.com/a-little-lesson-on-the-value-of-experience/
http://buildingfromnothing.com/if-you-want-a-project-to-succeed/
And other than that, I would say, don’t try to do everything at once. Don’t disperse off of your plans and projects to try new things (unless you are 100% certain you are doing the wrong thing and are going to drop it for something new – which is rare)
Make a solid plan and move forward with it, don’t go off in a new direction with every sales page or email you see, with every new idea, or every new marketing strategy you hear about.
Sure, they might be valid, but if you bounce all over the place you never get anywhere on any of them.
When you see a sales page, a promotion for an eBook or software etc, ask yourself if this will contribute to and help you with your current project or not. If it will, do it.
Focus on good quality websites and content – promotion is important too, but try to avoid spending more time on that than on your own website(s).
Hey Anna – great idea.
In your answer to Jake you recommend starting a list early on. On this site I only see a feedburner subscription for for blog updates. What do you think about autoresponders like aweber and more importantly what type of messages do you send out. I’m also wondering what your thoughts are about email swaps as a way of building your list.
.-= Luca Di Nicola´s last blog ..Ninja Affiliate Plugin for WordPress – $30.00 Off Until Friday August 21st =-.
Very good observation Luca. As you might notice I said “Start building a list early, don’t wait for years, it is stupid (I did it).” That was more of a statement of “don’t make the same stupid mistake I made” as opposed to “follow my excellent example.”
I’ve frankly put off list-building, and just stuck with Feedburner, and realized a couple of weeks ago how stupid that is, but I will be setting up the newsletter subscriptions at the beginning of September. At one point I realized that I actually had a personal aversion to list-building which was spawned in my own overfilled inbox! And associating the idea of list-building with those people who send out spammy, overpromotional, or overdone emails to their lists. But it was irrational, not all list-building is like that. So once I realized that I was being silly I decided that it was time to start list building – just need to do it at the end of the month. I will be using Aweber personally. On email swaps – I don’t know, doesn’t sound so good to me, I would rather just use good content to invite people to want to hear more of what I have to say
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