Owning a large blog like this one, it comes naturally that I receive a lot of book review offers in my email. Of these emails, I gladly accept the ones that are related to my industry and read them in detail and if I like them (or strongly dislike them), I write an honest review on my blog.

Well, Jon Wuebben of Custom Copywriting offered me a testimonial copy of his new book, “Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web.”

Since I myself write content on the web for a living, I immediately accepted his offer and began reading his book. When I finished the book, I was astounded. I am not a huge fan of books because they are not as timeless as say, a blog that you can read and be constantly updated. I have read numerous books that offered advice that was long outdated or the stats were wrong.

To my surprise however, Content Rich is an incredibly good book. The majority of people who are reading this website are internet marketers who either have blogs, websites, or write content and optimize it with advertisements. The book Content Rich is one of the few paper books that I would recommend to EVERY ONE of my readers if you are someone who is interested in learning more of the basics of changing electronic text into real dollars in your pocket.

Jon’s book helps you to write search engine optimized content, landing pages, blogs, articles, emails, newsletters, as well as better ad copy in general. Content Rich is one of the few “marketing related” books that I was completely satisfied with when I finished it.

For those of you who have been reading this blog for a long time, you know that I am not one of those writers who pitches products or services all of the time to see if I can make a quick buck. I have less than 10 sales pitch posts on my blog and it is over a year old. I only recommend a product on my site if I truly enjoy it and would recommend it to you in person rather than to just make a quick buck.

If you are looking at optimizing your copywriting ability to help with your internet marketing related needs, Content Rich is definitely a book that is worth paying for.

PS: Jon is also trying to reach his lifetime goal today of becoming #1 on the Amazon.com bestseller list, which is quite a feat. I personally do not know if a marketing book has the potential demographics to outsell everything else today, but I wish Jon the best of luck. To help reach his goal of hitting the bestseller list, he is offering “$175 worth of freebies when you order.” Now if you are thinking what I am thinking, these are most likely freebies that you will look at and then toss aside. However, the book is worth the money alone and thus I highly recommend the book, freebies or not.

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Content Rich Review

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Hi there! My name is Jen Fluker, Publisher Manager, with MarketLeverage. I would first like to thank Collin for inviting me to write a guest post on his blog. The topic of discussion will be how to make money using MarketLeverage, specifically if you have a blog.

No one said that making money online would be easy. In fact, it can actually be quite hard! The good news is there are some simple ways that I’ll cover to help guide you in the right direction. Most of you have probably thought long and hard about the main focus of your blog. Hopefully it relates to something that you are passionate about or have interest in.

Assuming you have a constant visitor base I would recommend signing up as a publisher with MarketLeverage and some other affiliate networks. There are many reputable companies in our space. Once you are approved to our network, you will have access to hundreds of our ad campaigns. We have campaigns spanning across every vertical, including travel, weight loss, home business opportunities, debt relief, and many more. We rely on publishers like you to generate leads and/or sales for our current advertiser base. As a blogger working with MarketLeverage, you can make money by placing banners on your site or by doing contextual advertising. Once a lead or sale is generated through your unique link, we pay you the appropriate CPA (cost per action) attached to that particular campaign. Specific CPA’s are based on conversion requirements.

I would recommend choosing campaigns that directly relate to the content on your blog. Remember, your readers will be the ones clicking and therefore converting on these ads. You certainly don’t want to inundate your readers with ads that you know they won’t have any interest in. You want to keep them coming back! We offer banner creative in all of the typical sizes and we’ll even make customized banners if we don’t have the size you want. Another perk you get from working with MarketLeverage is that you’ll work closely with a Publisher Manager whose job is to recommend top converting campaigns in specific verticals. These campaigns have the potential to make you the most money. Your publisher manager will be available to help, as much or as little as you like.

Another great example of how to make money through MarketLeverage is being done by Collin himself. Notice the banner advertisement on the far right of this blog. That is our referral banner! For every publisher that signs up through Collin’s blog, we’ll pay him 5% of their generated commissions for a lifetime! The 5% doesn’t come out of the publisher’s pocket, it comes out of ours. Talk about easy money! You can easily place our referral banner on your blog by using your own unique referral link. It’s a great way to earn some extra cash as well as feature one of your favorite business partners.

I invite you to sign up as a publisher with MarketLeverage. There are many ways to make money online, and figuring out which way to go can be overwhelming. Explore all of your options and many different companies to figure out which way is best for you. I can only hope that this has given you a glimpse of the many opportunities available to you. Good Luck and feel free to contact us with any questions you might have!

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MarketLeverage Helps Bloggers Make Money

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This is a link building tip submitted to me by a close friend of mine who does real estate investing in the Go Zone.

The site is called Widgetbox. Widgetbox calls itself the site that helps people express, connect, create, and in form using web widgets that can be easily shared and distributed anywhere on the web. Widgets are free chunks of information that is meant to be ported or embedded into any website/blog.

Well, if you take a look at my widget, you can see that I have created a Widget that features my RSS feed inside it, and allows people to port the widget to their blog or website. Well, I doubt I will get many people putting a widget of my RSS feed on the homepage of their site, but the main reason I have created this widget is because Widgetbox also gives me a dofollow link to the homepage of this site.

It is incredibly easy to use Widgetbox for link building purposes, so I have outlined the steps for you to save you time.

1.) Visit Widgetbox.com and click on “Join” on the top right.
2.) Setup your account and log in.
3.) Go to My Widgetbox and click on “Make a Widget.”
4.) Click on the “feed” option and enter your RSS feed URL.
5.) Create your widget and publish it.

Okay, now you should have an RSS feed widget page live with a dofollow link back to your blog/website. Now a random link without any related content won’t help you a whole lot, so the strategy here is to add a comment to your own page and have it include a paragraph or two of related content about your site. This will add a lot more content to the page and hopefully add some keyword-related content for when Google finds the page.

That about sums it up, you should now have a link to your site with a paragraph or two of related keyword-rich content. Remember, if you need a live example, check out my widget.

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Link Building with Widgetbox

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Do you knowing someone who is a budding entrepreneur?

Do you know someone who’d be great at running their own business - if they could only find the motivation to get started?

Do you know someone who hates their job?

You might want to consider getting them a copy of Breaking Free.

For the next week only, I’ll be offering a special deal: For all paperback copies sold (with shipping in the U.S.) I’ll be signing each book with a personal note of your choosing.

That means your gift will contain a personal note from the author! Whether you just want to wish them happy holidays, or mention a specific reason you thought of them, it will make the book that much more special.

After purchasing the book, just send me an email with the personal note you’d like me to include. Be sure to include your name & shipping address as well so that your note goes on the right book! The note will appear on the inside cover.

The book costs just $24.95 (including shipping) and can be purchased online in just a few minutes.

Be sure to check out the dozens of emails I’ve gotten from people who’ve read the book and loved it by clicking here!

Remember, this offer expires in 1 week (last day is December 13th) and is good for the paperback version of the book shipped within the U.S. only (sorry - the copies which ship internationally go out from a different location so I can’t get my hands on them!).

Anyway, I hope this makes your holiday shopping just a little bit easier!

Click here to take advantage of this offer and get your Christmas gift copy of Breaking Free!

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I just finished listening to Tim Ferriss’s The Four Hour Work Week for the second time on audio book and I have to say it’s outstanding.

If I had to pick one book on entrepreneurship that came out this year, it would probably be this one. You owe it to yourself to check it out.

One thing that Tim is perhaps the best in the world at, is what he likes to call lifestyle design. This is basically the idea that that you can be extremely mobile and just do incredibly fun stuff all the time. It sounds simple, but how many of us actually have brand new, exciting/scary experiences in life on a regular basis? Exactly.

That’s what so great about entrepreneurship: if can give you this lifestyle that most people only dream about or give up 40 years of their life to get.

Anyway, Tim has a new show coming out (it’s a pilot actually) where he attempts to master a new skill that would normally take 5-20 years in just 1 week. This could be a new language, martial arts, dancing, etc.

Check out the trailer for the show here:

The show will be on December 4th (tomorrow) at 11pm ET, 10pm CST, 9pm MT, and 11pm PST. Set an alert to check it out. Tim will be holding a live Q&A on his blog after the show if you have questions.

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The other day when I posted about breaking the 2,000 subscriber mark, Breaking Free reader Caleb, of http://www.thesoldiermillionaire.com/, asked a very good question that I thought deserved some more attention:

Brian,

You say it took you about a year before your blog picked up momentum.

If you were to start a new blog all over again now, from scratch, but knowing what you now know, how long do you think it would take to reach the same number of subscribers/revenue? (No cheating by using your old blog to direct traffic to your new blog.)

I am curious about how much of it is “skill and knowledge” vs. how much is “17-month gestation”.

Here is my response:

Hi Caleb,

That’s a good question. I think it could go a bit faster the 2nd time around. Here are the three things I wish I had known before I got started - most of them dealing with choosing the right blog topic:

1. Pick a topic that has mass appeal - great way to do this is to browse magazines in Barnes & Noble. If there is a magazine dedicated to it, it probably has enough people interested to make a good blog topic. Spend some time in Barnes & Noble’s magazine rack if you are trying to brainstorm ideas.
2. Pick something that you’re passionate about so that it will be easy to continue writing. It should be a topic you’d write about whether anyone was reading it or not (like a journal) because it will feel like this for at least the first 6 months.
3. Pick something that you have the potential to be the best in the world at someday. The #1 blog in a particular niche doesn’t receive 3 times more traffic than the #3 blog. It’s probably more like 100 times the traffic for being #1. Even if you aren’t an expert now, that’s ok. Writing about your journey to learn a topic is great. But you should at least have the potential to be the best some day. If someone else already has a blog out there on a topic that you like, that’s ok. Your niche can be local, or be a different take on the same subject within reason, as long as you have the potential to become the best.

One final bonus tip on how to grow a blog faster: Be opinionated. Take a stance in your posts and say what everyone else was thinking but didn’t have the balls to say. I think I was too afraid of offending anyone when I first started so I took the middle road and played it safe in my posts. This is a good way to have a boring blog that is not worth reading. When you’re opinionated you will piss off some people but you will also win loyal followers. This is far better than being boring which will get you no readers. Plus some of the people you piss off will still continue reading your material anyway.

Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. People admire true honesty and authenticity because it’s rare on the internet.

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The easiest products to sell are those that solve a BURNING desire. What do people lay awake at night thinking and dreaming about? What do they have an intense fear or irrational fantasy about?

The three most popular are probably these:

• Health If you can barely get out of bed, have an intense headache, or worse yet…have several months to live, what amount of money WOULDN’T you be willing to give to make it go away?
• Wealth Everyone has irrational fears and fantasies regarding money. It keeps us up at night.
• Relationships Everyone has a strong desire to be loved.

A lot of first time entrepreneurs make the mistake of creating a product that people don’t DESPERATELY need. They create something that they think is cool, but no one else even knows to look for.

Maybe it’s a book about their life story. Maybe they want to become a fashion consultant. Maybe it’s a dog grooming service.

Nobody lays awake at night thinking “GOSH if only I could find a better dog groomer my life would be better!!”. No, they are thinking about how they can be skinnier, richer, and get the cute guy/gal at work to notice them.

Even if people do spend money occasionally on non-essential products and services, these are the first expenses they cut when money gets tight or the economy goes down.

Of course health, wealth, and relationships aren’t the only ones. People have incredibly strong emotions regarding their children, politics, sports, sex, etc. These strong emotional reactions are what you’re looking for because they cause people to buy (it’s not as much logic as we’d like to think).

Whenever possible, it’s better to check whether people actually want the product BEFORE creating it.

How to know if anyone is looking for what you’re selling:

A quick way to check is with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

In just a few seconds you can find out that 300,000 people each month search for dog grooming services. But this pales into comparison to the 1.4 million searches each month for tutoring. That in turn is outpaced by the number of people searching for help with back pain at well over 2 million.

You’ll have an easier time if you pick a market where people are already desperately searching for a solution to their problem! It’s much harder to create something that no one knows about, and later try to convince them that they need it.

Until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong

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About four months ago I wrote…

Congrats to this blog breaking the 1000 subscriber mark! It’s been a little more than a year since I got started. I think the next 1000 will go ever faster as we build momentum. Thanks to everyone who subscribed and commented!

Well, I’m pleased to report that as of today is has broken the 2000 subscriber mark and the Feedburner icon is currently displaying 2,037 subscribers.

Isn’t that interesting?

The first 1000 subscribers took 13 months.
The second 1000 subscribers took 4 months.
How long will the next 1000 subscribers take?

This is what’s referred to as a positive feedback loop. The more subscribers you have, the easier it is to get new subscribers. Why? Well there are a few factors…

• Social proof. If someone casually stops by the blog and sees there are lots of people participating and reading it, they are more likely to stick around. Maybe those other people know something I don’t?
• Organic search results. Google is fully aware of the number of subscribers to this blog (they own Feedburner). Google ranks sites with more subscribers higher in search results. As a result, the more subscribers you have the more traffic you will get from search engines which in turn brings more subscribers.
• Word of mouth. If 2000 people get every message you send out, then they more people will forward it to their friends, digg it, bookmark it, etc. You get a network effect and more referrals with more subscribers.

One final thing I did to boost subscriber numbers is that I finally broke down and got an Aweber account. They handle the email subscription part of the blog so that when somebody types in their email (instead of subscribing to the RSS feed) they will get updates from the blog.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t think Aweber is a very good service. To get the emails looking right was a huge hassle and I already found several bugs in their system. However, it is the best thing out there and the pros outweighed the cons. The good things about it are that it allows you to create some popup offers for people to subscribe and the email subscribers count toward your Feedburner icon. You can also schedule email delivery better than with Feedburner. Overall, I’m glad I did it despite the hassle.

I’m getting about 25 new subscribers per day with Aweber in place (not counting new RSS subscribers), and at that rate….I’ll be at 3000 subscribers in just 40 days! As I’ve written about in the past, blogging is not an overnight way to generate passive income. But if you can stick through it for a few years by having a topic you are truly interested in writing about…it can finally start to build momentum and turn into a nice passive income business.

I think StartBreakingFree.com is finally getting closer to that tipping point of being a popular blog. As with most passive income businesses, there is a disproportionate amount of work up front for very little reward. The real payoff comes down the road.

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This weekend I read Skinny Bitch (don’t recommend it) and The Dip (highly recommend it).

Both were short, tiny little books with big type. A few years ago I would have looked down on these books because I figured the author was trying sell a whole book with half the material.

I don’t see it that way now because I know it is harder and more valuable to be concise.

In fact, the first time I wrote that last sentence, I wrote it as: “But now I don’t see it that way at all, because I know it is harder and often much more valuable to say something in fewer words.”

Being concise gets your message across more powerfully and memorably. It’s respectful of other people’s time. And it often requires you to write just as much as a long winded version - except you take out all of the crap and leave only your best material behind.

I like (and am much more likely to read) short blog posts and short emails. I believe it was Ben Franklin (?) who once apologized for writing such a long letter - he did not have the time to choose his words carefully and write a short one.

After writing an email today, see what can be taken out and still convey your message. It will make your writing better.

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A few drips of water from the pipe under your sink hardly seems like a big deal, but a month later it may may have caused a whole bunch of damage.

You can’t see your hair and fingernails grow, but each month they require your attention for some trimming.

To you it’s just a home, but due to appreciation it could magically be worth $100,000 more when you wake up five years later.

      Photo by brtsergio

What’s the point? There is great power in things which “just happen” whether you focus on them or not - even if they happen very slowly.

This is true because we have a limited amount of time and mental energy to use each day. It is our most precious resource.

Most people use that time and mental energy in exchange for money. The problem is that they must continue to trade their time and energy every time they want to earn more money. Why don’t more people focus it on building something that will generate passive income - income that happens whether they focus on it or not?

The answer is simple, they don’t do it because the initial results are pitiful! You could spend a TON of time finding/buying/fixing/leasing the right piece of investment real estate or getting a passive income business going, and in the first month be left with a measly $50 in cash flow. It hardly seems to make sense. Meanwhile someone else working a job that month could have brought home $5,000 for the same amount of hours and made you look like a fool!

But they would have missed the power in what you did, and that’s why most people will never be rich. Sure, it’s only $50. But you’ve now created something that will happen passively. It will happen whether you pay attention to it or not. You have created that leaky pipe - except now instead of ruining the floor it is filling up a bath tub (your bank account). You’ll come back some time later and that drip will have been working for you the whole time.

Here’s the best part: your time has been preserved. Since you still have all your time and mental energy at your disposal, you can go off and create another drip. With two drips working for you, you can go off and create a third, etc.

One day you’ll wake up with an army of drips working for you generating all the cash you’ll ever need, and your unfortunate counterpart will still be spending his time and mental energy to get a paycheck that month. Meanwhile, your time and energy will still be preserved to focus on whatever you’d like (more drips, charity, culinary school, curing cancer, writing your auto-biography etc).

You might look like a fool up front, but preserving your most precious resource (time and mental energy) by building passive income streams is the besy way to get rich.

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