Maybe YOU are the next superhero

The new superhero of the 21st century I remember a time when almost exclusively it was the movie & music celebs that got all the major attention. Those were the shining stars (no pun intended) that many looked up to - the ones who seemed to enjoy almost superhero fame status. But with the heavy influence of the internet, this admiration has shifted. When I'm going to events and meet people from all over the world, there seems to be a new superhero type on the horizon - the self-starter, the person who DOES things, also known as the entrepreneur. When someone like Steve Jobs gets treated like an A-list celebrity, you know the era has changed. Politicians have failed our trust by constantly breaking promises, celebrities lost respect through hedonistic obsessions and overblown payments  - it's now the entrepreneur that seems to be the new hero type with endless role model potential. After all - it's them who change things through their businesses, whether it's revolutionizing how we use technology or how we as a race connect with each other. Baaam. We live in super-x-citing times. Becoming an entrepreneur has never been easier - creating a compelling idea, having internet access and working one's soul off is "all you need" to become the next superhero yourself. Let's do it..

--

Don't break your eggs. But do "break"

It many parts of the world, it's Easter time, and that usually means : Eat lots of candy and hang out with the family. More or less. But it means something more - it's also the time to: quieting it down, leveraging your lazyness, chilling it coolio style. Especially if you're an entrepreneur & maker. Yeah yeah, I know. I always talking about doing something everyday, and keeping up with the creative momentum. It's true that constant work is the way to impacting the world and creating awesome stuff. But being on maker mode 24/7 will actually diminish this super-important creation ability - it's the notorious workaholic syndrome. You think you're creative & productive, because you're working your soul off. But you end up being busy all the time, without creating any real, valuable work. So, this weekend, even if you're not into Easter at all, take a 180 degree break. Do something that's COMPLETELY different from your working schedule - something that stimulates wayyyyy different parts of your brain. This refreshment will not only feel like heaven, but also stimulate your creativity. So that you appear rejuvenated on your working day, powered up to create epic shit.

The 3 step formula to a kick-ass creative life

I hate it when people over-complicate things. Life is complex, it's not that simple, it's messy -  so they say. Really ? Honestly, deep inside, I believe that the most powerful principles are those that are based on simple mottos : No pain no gain ( you have to push beyond your comfort zone if you want to "grow" ) Just Do It ( don't think too much - act !) No risk no reward ( results come through moving into the uncertainty ) Those principles feel simplistic, but they are not. Simple "simply" means it's crystal clear and obvious. It doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, to live by these principles is hard as hell. You know you have to push myself. You know you have just to act. You know you have to risk things if you want to see results. But you also know - it takes endless courage to do 'em. But they worth aiming for, because they enrich your & their life (your peeps & audience), and that's the value an entrepreneur/maker brings to the world. So, whenever the confusion of life holds you in a deadlock, when complexity strangles you and you're grasping for air, take a deep breath and remember the basics, the simple lines that a creative life is all about: 1) Get up. 2) Be amazing. 3) Go back to bed.

Smoke VS. Fire

NO ANIMALS WERE BURNED IN THIS CARTOON MAIL. Too many people believe that energy JUST comes from healthy food and stimulants, be it through coffee or Red Bull. In fact, I have even met people that claimed that smoking will help them concentrate and be more productive. Ehhhh. They think that they only get the energy for their work from outside substances. Bull S-H-I-T with a capital SHIT. Good, clean energy like PASSION  feeds itself - the more fire you have for your work, the easier you will become inflammable AGAIN. It's like your personal generator that can be conditioned like a muscle - it consistently refuels itself by applying it, and it doesn't come with any NASTY side effects. No stimulant will ever replace the energy you create for yourself by being passionate. In fact, being on fire is more than just being passionate - being on FIRE means you are completely OBSESSED WITH YOUR WORK. You pour your soul into your products & services, and that energy almost wants to melt them like chocolate cream butter. Your clients...or better - your raving fans will FEEEEL that energy - your work will have an aura that seems to come from another planet. Energy that comes from within YOU and not OUTSIDE substances. Never smoke. But always be on fire.

What made a Japanese girl crash into the wall ?

A 404 error. Let me explain > I recently watched a tiny TED talk that changed the way I look at my website (and maybe changes yours as well). The speaker talked about 404 pages, you know, the error pages you see when you want to access a page on a website that doesn't exist. On most websites, you see a generic error page that goes like this "please go back / return / go back to homepage blah blah". It's annoying to get to 404 pages - so why don't you turn this unpleasant experience into a enjoyable one ? If people accidently hit your 404, will they see a regular "404" page or something unique - something funny or memorable that will turn a mistake (a false page) into something that makes your visitor giggle and bond closer to your brand ? After watching that talk, I changed my 404 page immediately. It now shows a battered Japanese girl (see above) and talks about how accessing this error page caused a disturbance in the space-time continuum and caused the J-girl to hit a brick wall. Yeah, it's nonsense, but isn't that more fun than reading your standard "ooops 404 error page" ? I think so. So what the hell is your takeaway here ? Simply this - little things on your website matter a lot. It's important to have a slick site design and a nicey banner, but THAT'S what people expect from a pro like you. If you really want to woo them, you should worry about the unexpected things - like creating a fun contact page, a heartwarming welcome message or in this case - a unique 404 page that makes your visitor SMILE.

C-C-C-Changes ?...No > C-C-C-Crisis

Do you like the size of this thing ? I made it extra-large for ya. Back to topic: In Chinese, the two signs for crisis mean "danger" and "opportunity" - and I think that's a sweet-a-licious idea. It reminds me of the past: I used to be the righty doom & gloom crisis cry baby (and sometimes I still am). Whenever I faced a crisis in the past, like when I got fired (maaaany years ago) or when I lost all of money, I often FAILED to look at the opportunity - in those cases STARTING ANEW. And even tiny things like my eguide launch in the next two weeks make cringe inside - is a crisis comin' up ? But hey, it's all paaaart of the game. I have learned. Learned that crying over a crisis won't do you any good. It already happened, whether it was your fault or not. You might as well SEE THE OPPORTUNITY in it. And that's when I embraced the C. Whenever you're facing a crisis in your life & biz, think about the Chinese meaning: "danger" and "opportunity". Be like the yellow guy in the cartoon. Focus on the opportunity. Crave Crisis.

Why you need to kill PP if you want to succeed

Passive Paul lives within you, and he's the worst lodger...ever. You know this culprit  -  he makes you postpone your projects, consume more than produce, procrastinate every action you need to TAKE NOW. But you know what ? If you're passive in life, you'll lose out, no matter what you want to accomplish: if you don't pay taxes (in time), you can screw your financial life & biz if you wait for others to pick you, you'll never create a career if you wait for the right idea/moment instead of shipping your work NOW Believe me, I experienced enough problems with all of the above because I was listening to Passive Paul. But once you're stuck in reactive mode, you're only coping with negative consequences (which are caused from NOT acting). And you don't want to spend your life coping with things. And you know what ? When YOU are taking initiative, life has to cope with YOU. And that's a fun and rewarding game to play. Look at your (biz) life right now: what's your passive/active ratio ? Are you reacting more than taking action ? Then kill your inner Passive Paul, too ;)

What's next ??

Two words that every maker & entrepreneur should inhale like mint-flavored air : As you may or may not know, I launched my visual cartoonish branding guide in the last weeks, and it did make thousands of dollars although it didn't break the score I set for myself (maybe too megalomaniac ?) I pretty much "passionately discussed the guide's launch" with my friends, (read: annoyed the shit out of them), because I was sooo excited about the launch of the guide. When I talked to my mom about it, she was elated - for like a nanosecond. She just smiled and added -- "Now what's next ?" Baam. What a smack. I was so obsessed with the guide's launch that I didn't put any attention on the next project. Tunnel view deluxe. Thank the stars that it only lasted a day. Okay, two. Three ? Well, I'm over it now. I'll continue to promote it via visual guest posts on several digital outlets, but more importantly, I'm already working on the NEXT thing. Creating something better and even more awesome - because as a maker, this is what you do. Like the punk in the pic above, you swing your heavy hammer and continue to do the work, while asking yourself this vital question: What's next ?

The Most Important P Word

Nooo, not the dirty P word you thought about... Judging from my normal writing style, you might think that the P word actually meant "Penis" or "Piss", but you've missed by loooong-shot. What I'm actually referring to is the valuable P word, the one every BIZ owner should worry about online: PERCEPTION. which, especially ONLINE, is so fucking important ! Take me for example - my biz has dramatically taken off since the launch of my last product, and it has gotten me lots of clients and work collaborations. I should have known this earlier - in fact, I deserve to get punched in the face for doing it so LATE. But once you ship a flagship product about a topic YOU WANT TO GET known for, you get an expertise aura that doesn't seem to come from this world. It's magical, and it's moolah-able. Why ? Because people almost don't know anything about you and your background online (or they're too lazy to look for it) If you have a site and don't offer any products, they think you're just a free-styling schmohawk that's in for the blogging fun. It's not professional. And it makes you look like Kermit the Frog after a hangover with Miss Piggy. That's why you have to worry about your flagship product ASAP if you want to be a known expert in ya field. If you want to know more about it - I have a written a more detailed post about it. Sniff it out here in the link below:

This door begs to be opened

Some doors should be left alone, and some need to be opened...everyday. A friend of mine, who hasn't seen my work for at least a year, visited me recently and semi-exploded. He slammed me to the ground. Well, verbally. This is what he said: "What the hell, Mars. Your style still looks the same. Where's your progress, man ? Stop fucking around !!!" First, I was pissed. Who-the-fuck-are-you-kind-of-pissed.  But then I was dealing with a go-getter, one that was even bigger than myself, and I pondered. The truth was - I was doing a lot of similar things that I was doing already a year ago, and resulting from that, my style didn't change that much. Without knowing it, I sank into my cushy comfort zone, doing similar work and NOT taking it to the next level. I was unciously afraid of doing something new - thinking that the known was all I need to progress. Ehhhh. Wrroooooong. It remined me of that quote that Jonathan Fields unleashed in last year's World Domination Summit: (I'm paraphrasing here): "If you want to create new work, you'll have not complete knowledge over it" His book, aptly titled "Uncertainty", is all about that principle. I don't know about you, but I'm changing things and incorporate things in my creative biz that I haven't done before. It's scary like a Poltergeist on acid to open the door that leads to uncertainty. But if you want to create outstanding work, you have to open it. Every single time.

Why You Need To Create and Sell A Product Now (And How To Do It)

This guest post is by Brandon Turner of RealEstateInYourTwenties.com.

Last night I made $9.

I know that isn’t a lot of money. I know I’m not taking that dream vacation to Italy or buying that new MacBook Air I lust after. So why mention it?

Because I made $9 last night.

While sleeping.

While completely unconscious.

I woke up and discovered that I was $9 richer than when I went to bed. The feeling not only energized me beyond what words can adequately describe, it also took me one step closer to my ultimate goal—complete financial freedom.

Perhaps this goal is familiar?

Perhaps you share the same goal?

If so, I hope I can shed some light on why now is the best time for you to begin selling products on your blog. The truth is you don’t need to wait until you are a “pro blogger” to begin making money by selling products that you create. You don’t need fifty thousand RSS subscribers to earn online income. You don’t even need the classic “one thousand true fans.”

What you need is an idea and a kick in the pants.

Why start right now?

Like you, I spent the first several months of blogging simply writing.

My blog at RealEstateInYourTwenties.com is aimed at young people looking to replace their “job” and enter the world of real estate investing, so I focus most of my efforts on discussing how a young person can begin earning money through investing. I began writing without a clear picture of how I would someday monetize the blog, but aware that the end goal was to replace my investment income with my online income.

Last month, while writing a post discussing how I analyze deals using a spreadsheet I created in Excel, I thought, “I wish this spreadsheet was around when I started investing! I would have saved so much time and hassle!”

Boom.

I realized at that moment I had a product that could actually help people. I spent the afternoon researching how to go about actually selling a product (more details on that below), polished the blog post and spreadsheet, and by the late afternoon my post was live.

I’d love to say I made thousands of dollars that first day and am now living on a beach in Hawaii. However, that’s simply not the case for most people, and wasn’t the case for me. I think I made around $50 during the first week. Again, it’s not enough to dance around about—but then again, maybe it is. I had actually done it. I made money online. Since the day that post went live, I have been consistently making one or two sales a day.

“Big deal,” you say.

It is a big deal though. It’s a huge deal. It’s the difference between a successful blog and being another tire kicker.

I don’t care how many readers you have. You don’t need a million readers to begin selling your products online. You can, and should, start today. Even if it’s just your mom following along to your witty posts, get something for sale now.

I’m not suggesting you write a 400-page ebook or a $99-a-month membership site. Those things may come later. I’m talking about offering something small or introductory. I’ll explain in more detail later some examples, but for now let me explain why you need to sell something on your blog ASAP.

Motivation

When I woke up this morning and discovered I was $9 richer, something triggered inside of me. I got up excited to start the day and began working on making my blog even better. I was motivated to reach out and connect with more people. I even decided to write this very post for ProBlogger.net because of how motivated I was.

Don’t underestimate the “motivation” factor. Find what motivates you and capitalize on that. Chances are, you are motivated by the very thing I am: making money. (Don’t feel bad about that. It doesn’t have to be your primary motivation, but deep down every human is at least partially motivated by the need to make an income). Making a few dollars per day is not going to move you from a shack to a mansion—but it just might move you from a mediocre blog to a stellar one.

Learn what works

You may feel it’s best to wait until you have a huge following to begin marketing your goods. However, by waiting until that point you are missing out on a huge opportunity—learning what works and what doesn’t. What if I listed my spreadsheet for sale online and did not sell any? What if the feedback was largely negative? I would have learned a great deal about what didn’t work.

Instead, I found that everyone who downloaded my product seemed to love it. Think of this phase as the “research and development” phase of product creation. Additionally, by selling products early in your blog’s existence you will begin to learn what works in relation to your sales funnel. How are you getting from product creation to the beloved “payment received” email from Paypal? How is your conversion rate? What about split-testing? These are all questions that you can begin to answer before you launch a “major” product someday in the future.

Collect names and true fans

Have you purchased anything from a blog online? Probably not a whole lot. The fact is, most people do not actually buy things from bloggers online. While conversion rates differ dramatically, chances are less than 2% of your readers will probably buy whatever it is you are selling. However, those that do buy a product from you early on have probably one or both of these characteristics:

• They like to spend money frivolously online.


• They really like you.

Either way—those are the people you want as friends. Those customers who buy a small product from you will be significantly more likely to buy other products from you in the future. Make sure you separate these people into their own email list (using Aweber, Mail Chimp, or whatever email service you use) and value that list above all others.

Where do you want to be in two years?

Do you wish you had started blogging earlier? I know I do. I look at the growth my blog has shown over the past six months and realize how much larger it would be today if I had started two years ago. However, I can’t change the past—and neither can you.

Instead, change your future. Take a moment and think about where you want to be in two years. Pretty nice, eh? You will never get there if you don’t start down that path now. Don’t look back at your life in two years and say, “I wish I had started selling products earlier!” Do things today that will matter in two years, five years, and twenty years from now. This is the exact same advice I give newbie real estate investors because it’s the biggest regret most professionals have later in their life—“I wish I had started sooner.”

Are you a serious blogger or an amateur?

Finally, by selling a product on your website you are telling the world that you are a professional. You aren’t just posting photos of your grandma’s recent birthday party. You are offering a professional service to the world because you are an expert in whatever field you are in.

In the same way that I wouldn’t trust a consultant who charged $15 bucks an hour, I would also have a harder time trusting a “hobby blogger.” Selling a small product on your site will allow your readers to adjust to the idea that you are operating, at least in a small part, a business.

If you run a blog for two years and suddenly spring a $297 product on them, many will go running for the hills or pass you off as just another self proclaimed guru trying to take advantage of the small folk. Instead, by offering a small product for sale early in your blog development you will help your community adjust slowly to the idea of you making money and view you as an expert they could pay to get information from.

What do I sell?

“But Brandon,” you say “I don’t have anything to sell.”

False! Everyone has something to sell. I believed the same thing. Sure, I could make a video real estate training series, write a big ebook, or create a membership site. Those things, however, take lots of time to develop and I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a whole lot of free time these days.

The solution came when I found something I already had that could help others. For me, it was an Excel spreadsheet that calculated the profitability of a house flip. I realized that one of my most popular posts on my blog had to do with how to analyze whether or not a house flip would be profitable. Additionally, I received emails every day from people asking me “is this a good deal?” in regards to an investment property they found. By putting together both a common question and a popular post, I realized what people wanted.

Take a look at your blog. What do people want? What questions are they asking you? What are your most popular posts?

For example, let’s say you run a newer blog on fashion design. You take a look at your popular posts and realize that your blog post about t-shirt design is a popular subject. You may also have been asked questions about how you come up with ideas for t-shirts. You could spend an hour writing a document titled, One Hundred Killer T-Shirt Design Ideas, turn it into a PDF, and offer it as an emagazine for $7.00.

Or perhaps you run a blog about web design. How difficult would it be to sell a pack of twenty Photoshop images of buttons or icons for $9.00?

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. While obviously I can’t go into detail of every product type there is, there are a few standards:

• An ebook, ereport, or emagazine: Perhaps the most popular type of product, these informational products are nothing more than a word processing document converted to a PDF. I use OpenOffice (a free, open source alternative to Microsoft Word) because it’s both free and has the ability to convert your document to PDF in seconds.


• An MP3: Perhaps you are going to sell a twenty-minute lecture on how to do something. You can record your lesson using software such as Garageband (Mac) or Audacity (PC) to turn your words into an MP3 quickly and easily.


• Consulting or coaching: If you are involved in a niche where you could profit by sharing your knowledge on a one-on-one level with others, consulting might be an excellent option for you. I use “Ether.com” to manage my consulting, which allows the client to call in, enter my Ether extension number, pay for the session, and connect us together while monitoring the time spent on the phone and charging accordingly.

If you have a really young blog (the “my mom is my only reader” type), a good strategy is to find a more popular blog in the same (or very similar) niche and read the comments. Look for questions that are being asked, or common concerns that are being raised.

If you can answer those questions on your own blog and turn them into a sellable low-cost product, you can often even respond to those comments on the other blog with a link back to your own. Just don’t be spammy.

How do I sell?

Selling products online is significantly easier than you’d think. There are many good articles across the web (like this one) that will teach you, step by step, how to do this. I want to just give you a big-pictur” look at how the process looks and show you how easy it really is.

The easiest way to upload a product for resale is using a website known as e-Junkie.com. Yes, the name is a bit off-putting and the web designers for the site haven’t yet caught on to the clean, smooth, minimalistic trends blanketing the Internet. However, what they lack in being pretty they more than make up for in being … awesome.

Once you register for an account, you will simply add your product to their servers, connect your PayPal account to e-Junkie, and place a link on your own website. E-Junkie will handle the entire process for you and provide the product to the customer after they have purchased it. The best part: e-Junkie starts at just $5 per month.

A warning and a kick in the pants

I am not suggesting that you spam all your readers with sales products. You are trying to build a blog into a business, and nothing is going to turn off potential readers faster than gimmicky sales and greed. If you are following the advice you find on Problogger.net and other great sites, you already know that providing value and great content is the best way to grow your blog.

However, it is important to have the option available for readers who earnestly want more and are willing to pay for it. By offering low-cost but premium content for sale on your site, you establish yourself immediately as an expert in your field as well as a professional business aimed at helping others. You also begin building a solid foundation upon which great success can be built for your blog, your financial future, and the lives of your readers.

You don’t need a million readers to start making money through your blog. You have everything you need to begin selling a product by tonight on your blog. The tools are there, the motivation is there, and the idea is probably already formed in your head. So what are you waiting for?

Brandon Turner is an active real estate investor, entrepreneur, and blogger at RealEstateInYourTwenties.com where he teaches others how to “hack” the real estate game. He is also the author of “7 Years to 7 Figure Wealth,” a free e-book.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why You Need To Create and Sell A Product Now (And How To Do It)

Forget Willpower: Here’s What You Can Do to Dominate Bad Blogging Habits

This guest post is by Bea Kylene Jumarang of Writing Off the Rails.

You tell yourself you need to exercise, but you don’t do it. You tell yourself you need to write, but then you go on Twitter. Or, my favorite situation, you tell yourself you need to save more, and then you blow out your cash on that shiny new bag.

It’s a vicious little cycle, and you know you need to end it, but you don’t. Of course, you tell yourself it’s your fault, and add in, “If only I had a little bit more willpower.”

Well guess what? Willpower’s no good.

It’s a limited resource and it’s generally a bad one to draw on when it comes to eliminating bad habits. Barring sudden epiphanies, you’re going to stay stuck in your cycle if all you do is tell yourself that you need more willpower.

What I’m going to show you in this post is a different approach, and how you can use it to remove and replace bad blogging habits.

1. Eliminate temptation

Okay, I realize that sounds trite and sort of stupid. Still, you would be surprised at how many things just need to be removed in order to remedy your bad habits. Like Robert Downey Jr. says in Due Date, “If you’re allergic to waffles, don’t go to a waffle house.”

Now, let’s apply that to you. Say you’re a blogger who’s a little too addicted to being online. You know that it damages your productivity, but you tell yourself you can limit your online time just by having more willpower. If that sounds like you, please do take a reality check. You already know it doesn’t really work that way.

Why? Again, willpower’s no good.

So what do you do? Once you open your laptop or tablet, or wherever it is that you write, get your writing done first. The moment your device boots up, go straight to your word processor. Don’t open a browser. Seriously, don’t even think about it. Just click the word processor icon and start getting words on a page. Remember, you’re not a writer until words are on the page, and you’re not a blogger until you have a blog post published.

Got that? Eliminate temptation. It’s the first step.

2. Now, just show up and do it

So here you are. Your word processor’s open, but you’re just itching to close it and come back later. You’re thinking of all the emails you might have, or how many tweets have piled up in your timeline. You’re in the danger zone.

Solution? Tell yourself out loud, “I will not open my browser. Instead, I will write 1000 words.”

You’d be shocked at how a verbal affirmation can do wonders for your behavior. By speaking the words out loud, your thoughts get redirected to the affirmation you just said. And did you notice the 1000 words bit? That wasn’t random. That amount is a manageable daily goal. It’s not that hard to reach, and it’s a specific, measurable number. Remember, getting specific with your goals is always a good idea.

Now you might say, “But I need willpower to reach the goal!”

I get that, which brings me to the words, “Just show up and do it.”

If you’re a writer, just start writing. Turn off your internal editor and just get words on a page. Just write. Free yourself up to write really badly, because at the end, you’ll have something. Far better to have a poor chapter or a flat blog post to edit, than to have nothing at all.

Each time you’re tempted to stop, whip out the verbal affirmation again. “I will not open my browser. Opening it will make me unproductive. I will finish my writing.”

If you just keep on going, you’ll find that you’ve gone over the 1000 word goal, or you’ll have finished the blog post you needed to write.

Here, I’m giving you the template—you can apply this advice to whatever blogging task it is that you want to get done. That said, it’s a good thing to know what your personal limits are. That way, you can customize your affirmations depending on how many words you can normally write.

It’s now time for the feel-good step in this process.

3. Reward yourself

Let’s say you’ve finished your writing goals, or you’ve done your blog post. Congratulations! Two things can happen at this point.

The first possible outcome is that you might feel so good you’ll want to continue. If that’s what you feel, by all means do it. However, if you’re just starting out on the road to dominating your habits, the better thing to do is to stop and reward yourself.

This is pure conditioning, by the way. Studies show that we do what rewards us, and we actively avoid what punishes us. As much as you may want to claim being above such caveman simplicity, in the end it’s a matter of psychology and common sense.

So, what I want you to do is just stop. Go say a verbal congratulations to yourself, and then reward yourself with something that makes you happy. Now would be the time for you to open your browser, check your email or say hi to Twitter in all its 140-character glory.

To be clear, you can only reward yourself if you did what you set out to do. Don’t go cheating (hint, use the verbal affirmations and stop yourself), because cheating will defeat the entire purpose of rewards in the end.

4. Take it a step further: automate

The three steps above are a rinse-and-repeat process. You just do the whole thing over and over again to replace bad habits with good ones. Of course, ones the habits are in place, you won’t need rewards because the actions will be automatic.

However, you can still tweak this process to get even better results. If that’s what you want, my advice to you is to automate. To make it easy, here are some extremely actionable automation posts, courtesy of finance whiz Ramit Sethi.

How can you apply automation to your blog writing?

The answer is, you can’t. The only things you can automate are the things that get you even more writing time.

Let me give you an example. Social media is a huge distraction when you want to get writing done. Usually, that’s because you’re always on the hunt for things to tweet or link to. Now, I love Twitter, so this applies best to that service. If you want to get more time and not have to manually tweet, you can use a scheduler like HootSuite or Buffer. If you’re more of a Facebook person, HootSuite also has scheduling for that.

Throughout the day, you can list content in these apps, then just schedule the updates for the next day. With that method, you’ll have more time to write and get other errands done. Even so, you’ll still have the added comfort of knowing that you’re sharing great stuff.

These are my tips on dealing with the limitations of willpower. If you have some to share, I’d love to know in the comments!

Bea Kylene Jumarang is a fiction writer and the blogger behind Writing Off the Rails. When she’s not working on her books or her blog, she’s writing on tissues inside a Starbucks café, or socializing with people on Twitter.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Forget Willpower: Here’s What You Can Do to Dominate Bad Blogging Habits

How to Deal with False Third-party Matches on YouTube

This guest post is by Jenny Dean of Floppycats.

Several months ago, I met  Michael Strange through YouTube. I noticed immediately the success of Michael’s YouTube endeavors and asked him if he could please help me out.

He was game, thank goodness, and he walked me through the steps on how to fix my YouTube channel. One of these was to address false third-party matches on the service.

Third-party matching indicates that your video is understood to infringe some third party’s copyright. You can’t monetize videos on which these matches are outstanding, so if you’re trying to make money through YouTube, third-party matches can be a problem.

Finding third-party matches

First and foremost, you might not even know if you have third-party matches. I knew I had some, but I wasn’t aware that videos that were entirely mine were flagged for copyright issues!

To see if you have third party matches on YouTube, just log in to your account and go to your Video Manager. On the left side of the Video Manager you’ll see an entry for Copyright Notices.  Select that, and you’ll see all your movies that have third-party matches.

In the list of movies you’ll see notes like “matched third-party content”. You have to address each one as a separate dispute, so hopefully you don’t have many.

To get started, click the blue hyperlink that states the reason for the copyright notice.

You’ll be taken to a screen that looks something like this:

Here you can see a general information statement about copyright matches, followed by a link that states, “I want to learn more about the dispute process.” When you select that, you’ll see some information about when you can and can’t dispute things.

Disputing the match

If, after you have read all the reasons to dispute or not to dispute the matches, you still feel that you should not have copyright issues, then you will want to dispute the claim. For example, a video that I’d created in my backyard had been flagged as a third-party match, but it was all my own content, so I decided to dispute it—and won.

To dispute a copyright notice, go to the bottom of the dispute information. You’ll see a link that says, “I believe this copyright claim is not valid.”

You will be taken to a screen that asks you to select the reason for your dispute.  Carefully select your reason and click on Continue.

You will then be taken to a screen where you will be asked to confirm that you own all the rights to the content.

Please note: the example that I am using here is not a valid one to dispute—a song plays in the background of my video that is not my content, therefore technically I cannot dispute it. I am using these screenshots to show the steps only.

After you click Continue, you will be taken to the dispute form.

Fill in the form and submit it. Then, you’ll want to walk through the same steps with any other videos that have false third-party matches flagged for them.

The dispute process

YouTube has recently improved the dispute process and will send you an email when a dispute claim has been received.

At that time you should check the status of the relevant movie and add the monetization details if necessary. You may need to manually check your disputes to see if you’re still awaiting an outcome, or some other problem has arisen.

If the dispute is resolved in your favor, it just drops off the copyright match list. You’ll need to go hunting for the movie in your video manager to then monetize it.

Unexpected matches

Like me, you can sometimes have a problem if the TV or radio was playing in the background when you recorded your video, as legally you would then be using that music in your movie without a valid license, and recording industry companies such as Sony could have a legitimate dispute against you.

In those cases, there is nothing you can do if you wish to monetize the movie, other than to remove the movie from YouTube, replace the audio track, and then re-upload the corrected movie.

Have you had third-party matches on YouTube that you’ve disputed? How have they gone? Share your stories in the comments.

Jenny Dean is the Editor over at Business Blog Writers, online SEO content writers.  She also has some of her own blogs, Floppycats, Antioxidant-fruits and Guide to Couponing. Business Blog Writers offers a YouTube enhancement service.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How to Deal with False Third-party Matches on YouTube

5 Big Hosting Mistakes Bloggers Don’t Know They’re Making

This guest post is by the Blog Tyrant.

If you take your blogging seriously you’ll know that you have to wear a lot of different hats. We are content marketers, SEO students, social media savants, and sometimes web designers.

But what a lot of bloggers seem to forget is that our blog hosting setup is an extremely crucial piece in the puzzle. Yet it often gets overlooked because it is scary, boring or just too darn hard.

It is really complicated stuff. I certainly couldn’t cover everything in one post—some people spend their whole careers figuring it out!

What I am going to show you, however, is a few big mistakes that you need to make sure you avoid. If you know any others please leave a comment and let me know. It might really help someone.

1. Setting up on a free host instead of your own

I’ve talked about this a lot on my blog and so have writers here on ProBlogger but it is a mistake that many new bloggers continue to make.

Now don’t get me wrong, services like Tumblr are a really cool way to get your word out there and blog socially but if you want to take it to the next level and go pro, you need to get your own domain name, and install WordPress on your own host.

Here’s why I don’t like freely hosted blogs:

• Lack of control: On a free blog, you don’t have total control over the theme, settings, back end, or hosting environment. You are essentially leasing a space from the owners.


• You don’t own it: The big concern for me is that on a lot of free platforms you don’t own the blog! This is a really big problem if you are trying to go professional or if you ever want to sell the blog down the track.


• Google doesn’t rank them as well: The last big clincher for me is that many SEOs will tell you that Google doesn’t rank these free domains as well in the search results. If you want to step up and compete in a very competitive niche, you’ll need your own domain name and a solid permalink structure.

And it’s important that you switch sooner rather than later if you are planning on doing it. You see, when you change from free to paid hosting, there’s a whole host of other issues to sort out, like a loss of current rankings if your link structure changes.

It’s very important that you weigh up the pros and cons of a migration like this as soon as possible.

2. Not choosing a host with live support

As I mentioned at the start, this stuff is really confusing. And things often go wrong. When they do, it is really important that you have live support staff that can help you out and get the problem fixed fast, without hassle.

Part of the reason I recommended Blue Host in my post on the best host for new WordPress bloggers was because they have live, 24/7 support staff that are incredibly helpful. I am no longer with Blue Host as I outgrew the service, but for the years that I was there, I had countless life-saving, middle-of-the-night, brilliant support sessions from staff who really know their stuff.

A screenshot of the live support wait time at Blue Host recently

I have noticed that it is really common to get stressed and panicked when you don’t understand something fully. And because hosting is so complicated, it is really easy to lose your cool when something goes wrong. It is a massive advantage to know there are people there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in case something goes wrong.

3. Thinking that “unlimited domains” actually means unlimited domains

Something that I learned only recently is that when most hosts say that you get unlimited domains, unlimited hosting, and unlimited databases, they don’t actually mean it.

If you dig deeper into the terms of service you will find that most hosts (not all) have an excessive storage policy which basically says that if you abuse your “unlimited” space, your service will be affected.

Some of the things they might do include:

• Throttling: This is where your site gets slowed down in order to help cope with the strain on the servers. This might happen if you have a bunch of sites that are taking up too much bandwidth for your hosting environment.


• Stopped backups: Most good hosts perform a daily backup of your entire server to re-install if something goes wrong. But if you exceed the allowed file count by too much, you’ll find that those automatic daily backups stop pretty quickly.


• Account suspension: If things get really bad and the host suspects that you are hosting files not related to any website activity, they will suspend your account. This is something that you really don’t want to happen.

My best tip here would be to know exactly what your host’s policies are on file storage, and to then make sure you know exactly what your server needs are.

If your blog is getting a lot of traffic and constantly growing it might be time to move to a more advanced environment like a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a dedicated host.

4. Mixing your experimental stuff with your money sites

If you have a website or blog that is starting to make money that you rely on, it is really important to make sure it is on its own hosting account.

You see, what often happens is that we purchase one hosting package and then start experimenting with new blogs and websites. Eventually the whole situation gets cluttered, crowded, and very unprofessional.

Blogs that are starting to get some good traffic and have good rankings and loyal subscribers need to be protected and looked after. Make sure you keep them on their own host for security and up-time reasons, and leave your experimental sites to a different hosting package and location.

5. Failing to delete old blogs, websites, and files

The last thing I want to talk about is the fact that many bloggers leave abandoned or dead files, blogs, and websites in their host not knowing that they represent a security threat.

Without going in to all the details (I don’t really know all the details!), hackers can use insecure and old files to access your account in some situations. This is especially risky if you have been using WordPress and not keeping your plugins and installations up to date. It’s a threat.

If you’re not going to use a blog any more, just delete it. It’s not the easiest process, but it’s something that is worthwhile learning. So how do you do it?

Well, in some hosting environments you can just go to Addon Domains and then remove the domain that you want to stop using. That often removes the installation and the remaning database.

Other times, you will need to use PHPMyAdmin to locate the old site and delete the corresponding database. This can be a complicated process, so it’s best to ask your own host for advice on how to proceed. As mentioned, some environments and setups are different to others.

Are you making any mistakes?

I’d love to know if you are making any of these mistakes or whether you can think of any others that we can add to the list. Please leave a comment and let me know.

The Blog Tyrant is a 26 year old Australian guy who plays video games at lunch time and sells blogs for $20,000 a pop.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

5 Big Hosting Mistakes Bloggers Don’t Know They’re Making

Finding a Mentor-writer—and What to Do Once You Have

This guest post is by Karol K of imcreator.com

Who is a mentor-writer? This question is probably on your mind right now. Even more importantly, why do you need one?

Let me take this from the top.

Is there a writer or an author you’ve always looked up to? Someone whose writing style is exceptionally interesting? One who can write a sentence in a way that makes you stop and think “darn, that’s good”?

I’m sure you’ll find someone who fits the description if you take a minute to think about it. Maybe it’s an author you’ve been reading forever. Or maybe it’s someone whose work you’ve found just recently. The timespan doesn’t really matter; what matters is that their style of writing is so addictive that you can’t stop reading.

But that’s just the definition of a good writer, so what does upgrading this person’s status to a “mentor” do for you?

What can a mentor do for you?

A couple of things.

First of all, they inspire you to grow as a writer. When you read their work, you simply pay closer attention to all the things they are doing. This is very motivating by itself. You start thinking, “wow, I need to write something just like that.”

Secondly, they show you a way of writing you wouldn’t have stumbled upon otherwise. Every writer who has somehow gained your recognition is likely to possess their own voice and style (the thing that makes them so recognizable). Being aware of this and noticing this style consciously can do a lot for your own style of writing.

You can use their work as a benchmark for your own writing. Whenever you finish an article or post, you can put it against a piece of your mentor’s work. Is your flow equally as good as your mentor’s? If not, there’s room for possible improvement right there.

How to choose your mentor

Now, I’m not going to tell you who you should choose, or why my mentor is better than yours. This is not the point. The point is to have a mentor who’s unique to your own style and the way you see quality writing.

So you’ll have to give it a little thought and select, on your own, just one writer who gives you the most inspiration.

The easiest way of doing this is to simply take a look at your bookshelf. One writer (or two) is likely to dominate it. You can also include the writers you find in the online world. A good place to start in that space are with the blogs you read the most.

My writing mentor is Jeremy Clarkson. Yes, the Top Gear guy. Why him, of all people?

As it turns out, I’ve been reading his books for a long time now. I’ve bought everything he’s ever released. Every single one of his books is extremely entertaining and interesting to me. His style is just exceptional.

At some point when reading one of his books I simply decided that I need to write more like him, and that was it. That was the moment. He became my mentor.

Again, this is only my perspective, you may (and should) have a different opinion. But that’s okay. That’s the whole point of a personal mentor-writer. Other people don’t have to agree with you, or tell you that there are other writers who are better. It’s no one else’s business who you choose.

What to do once you have a mentor

The first rule is to read everything they write. Every writer evolves, mentors included. Evolve along with your mentor. See what’s changing in their style, the topics they cover, the novels they write, etc. Just be up-to-date with what’s going on with them.

The second rule is to read their work consciously. What I mean by that is to read it in a twofold way, so to speak. First, you obviously like to read your mentor’s work, so enjoy it like you always do. But more than that, be aware of the technique and the style they’re using. Notice all the clever sentences, funny references, engaging paragraphs. To put it simply, be aware of what you’re reading.

The final step is to develop and improve your own style after being influenced by your mentor. A specific style is what distinguishes one writer from the other.

For example, every web design blogger can write a post on “How to design a proper about page.” But every one of them will create the post in a completely different way. The point is to find your own way of delivering a message. Your mentor can help you with that because they are likely to already have a distinct and noticeable style.

Finally, grow as a writer. Take all the inspiration and information you’ve gotten from your mentor and put it into your own work.

What not to do

This is basic, but it needs to be said: don’t be a copycat.

You’re supposed to get inspiration, not to copy your mentor’s style entirely. This advice sounds obvious, but you really need to be careful here. It’s quite easy to start copying your mentor subconsciously without even noticing it.

Keep in mind that you probably have a voice within you that’s just as good as your mentor’s. You only need to find it and bring it to the surface. And yes, I really mean it!

Now, there’s one more step. It’s not mandatory by any means, but it’s a nice addition to the whole approach I’m presenting here.

Contacting your mentor

Because why the heck not? You probably have a lot of questions to ask, a lot of things to say, and a lot of things to thank them for. Being able to speak (or email) your mentor directly might just be the motivator you need to get to the next level.

Contacting your mentor might not be easy, and might take some time to get through all the gate keepers and all kinds of other people. But when you finally manage to get in touch, it’s totally worth it.

Do you have your writing-mentor already? How did you find them? Let me know, I’m curious.

Karol K. is a freelance writer, and a blogger. If you want to check out what he’s up to, feel free to hit him up on Twitter (@carlosinho).

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Finding a Mentor-writer—and What to Do Once You Have