I came across the ProBlogger site when I first got into blogging a couple of years ago. I used to read the ProBlogger blog and picked up some great tips from it in the early days. The ProBlogger blog is written by Darren Rowse.
The Problogger book caught my attention when it first came out although I never got around to buying it. I then met Chris Garrett at a Northern UK Bloggers Meetup and thought it was only right at this point to buy the book and see what I could learn.
One Amazon order later and the book arrived.
The book is 211 pages long split into 10 chapters. Each chapter is written by either Darren Rowse or Chris Garrett.
The book is about blogging for money. The reader is introduced to the concept of blogging and taken through the necessary steps to set up your blog and the popular blogging platforms with the emphasis being placed on WordPress as the blogging platform of choice.
The chapter on blog income and earning strategies was very useful and provided me with a great insight into what can be done with your (and my) blog. The book then goes into blog networks and blog promotion and marketing.
The main purpose of the book is how to start a blog and monetize it in order to one day become a six figure blogger. I must admit that the blogger lifestyle does appeal to most but in practice the self discipline needed to write is not for everybody.
I wrote a review of a great book called the War of Art, be sure to check this out if you have not already done so. This book covers the demons, or muses that we have to fight against in order to produce creative work. One statement from the War of Art that I love is the following.
The act of writing is not hard, the act of sitting down to write is what causes us the challenge.
The same can be said about blogging. If you can get over the first hurdle of starting a blog, and the second hurdle of passing the six month stage, as I heard over 90% of all blogs stop after six months, then you are in a good position to make the blog pay.
The book is written by two authors and it is clear from the writing style that the book was split into two, with each author writing their own content. The book is complete, and the chapters flow nicely into each other. All the jargon is explained before it is used and all in all I really like this book.
The typography of the book is good and to the usual Wiley standards. This helps in making the book a pleasure to read. I am still amazed when I read books like The Magic of Thinking Big and see how bad the type is. This makes the book much harder to read in my opinion and maybe this is one area where the second generation of eBook readers will really win.
I feel that I could give this book to a novice blogger and they would get great benefit out of it as well as to a more advanced blogger who would be able to skim a lot of it but still pick up some very good advice.
I learned some things from the book and it gave me some great ideas. That makes it worth the price.
As always, would love to hear any comments about this review, or the book.
Thanks.