My Big Book Announcement: On Your Mark, Get Set, Blog!

Guess what!

I wrote a book.*

For you.

But also for me.

It’s called On Your Mark, Get Set, Blog! – A Road Map to Staking Your Brand Quickly and Efficiently, Whether it’s Your First Blog or Your 101st

You see, I have started a few websites by now.  I am sure that many of you have also done the same thing.  This site is my second main blog, with Unique Gifter being my first.  Along the way, I have also made sites for non-profits, family members, niche sites, and I have some domains that I am just itching to further develop but do not have the time to do.  *I wrote this book in conjunction with the super-awesome Kathleen, of Frugal Portland and For Profit Blogging fame.  Between the two of us, we have started over 20, yes twenty, different sites.

Here’s the thing, we kept running into problems.  For the bloggers out there, I bet you know what I mean.

We Were Doing Everything Inefficiently, and It Sucked

No where could I find a giant checklist.  I wanted one that told me that I needed to get a wordpress.com account before I could get a gravatar account.  (For the uninitiated, a gravatar account is what makes your picture or logo show up next to your name when you comment.)  I wanted one that made sure I set up my permalink structure before I started blogging.  I wanted one that made sure I got a Facebook page, even if I didn’t plan to use it, so that no one else would get it in the meantime.

Plus, I wanted to know what information I was going to need, beforehand.

Instead, I was scrambling to get it.  I found myself trying to get a gravatar account, which meant I had to open another tab and start a wordpress.com account, which meant I needed more and different pieces of information.

Some places need your birth date, others will need Paypal or a credit card.  Yet others will need an address that you are comfortable putting out there in the world (I’m looking at you, mailing list providers.)  Most people don’t have a spare P.O. box to use, you know?

The Book is a Road Map

There is so much more to blogging than simply installing WordPress, typing some content and hitting publish. You can do that in 5 minutes, and lots of “How to Start a Blog” posts will set you up with the basics, but nothing more.

There are social media accounts to secure, email addresses to set up, meta tags to populate, stats tracking codes to populate and more.

A lot of these things are only done right at the very beginning.  Therefore, when you go to set up another site, you have completely forgotten about them.  Just me?  I am pretty sure I am not alone in this!  That’s where the book comes in.  It doesn’t matter if it is your first site, or your 101st site, there are things that need to be done, and the faster that you can do them, the better off you are.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Blog! helps you:

         * Gather the Information You Need
         * Organize Your Accounts
         * Stake Your Brand (so no one else can!)
         * Channel your Motivation Toward Progress (instead of spinning your wheels)
         * Install and Set Up Your Site
         * Be Ready When you Hit Publish

Are You A Blogger (yet)?

We’re offering up a sample chapter (please tell all of your friends), for FREE.  It includes some pretty great stuff, like how to set up an @yourblogname.com email address for example.  For the already-established bloggers, please check it out, we’re sure you’ll get value out of it.

Alternatively, you can skip that step and buy the book.  Email subscribers are getting a coupon code for $5 off, so sign up now:

 

Hook me Up with Cash

We have an affiliate program set up, where you get to keep HALF of the cover price.  Pretty sweet, eh?  There’s suggested post topics, awesome graphics and banners, and cash in it for you.  Head over and sign up as an affiliate.  This is the perfect addition to your “How to Start a Blog” posts!

 

What thing (okay things, let’s be real here), did you miss when you were setting up your site?