The Internet is filled with people who have been happily blogging away, building excellent content, and often impressive traffic to their websites, and thousands of subscribers, but yet they are not making enough money to even quit their day job!
This is the exact situation one of my favorite bloggers found herself in. She had a Donate button on her site and she’d just had a book published by a mainstream publishing house (who also recognized her brilliance), but she didn’t earn enough money to quit her day job and focus on what she loved best. Obviously, this woman was not a Freedomite, or we would have quickly fixed that! But nevertheless, what can you do if you find yourself in a similar position?
Maybe you are already selling products or services from your site, but you are still not making enough money each month to run your Internet business full time. Yet you don’t want to go all salesy-smarmy, and start raving enthusiastically like the latest Internet Marketing Guru says you should. A guru who has likely sold nothing other than make-money-on-the-Internet advice no less… but don’t get me started on that!
Anyhoo… based on my own experience doing commerce online since 1995, selling into 60 different countries worldwide and 7-figure annual sales, I’m going to give you my 5 non-obnoxious, tried-and-tested recommendations for how to monetize, or, make money from your blog:
1. Add affiliate commission links to your blog posts ongoing. Do any of the products or services you blog about have an affiliate (commission referral sales) program? You will likely see from the Comments on your blog posts that people are clicking your links based on your recommendation. That is one way you can earn money from your blog posts – by making your referral links commission links. 
2. Brainstorm ways to turn your existing content into online (digital) courses. You simply re-format a topic, or chunk of content (e.g. gather 5 of your blog posts that are about the same topic), into a different format that either:
(a) appeals to people with different learning styles (e.g. a book –> an audio course or video course), or
(b) makes it EASIER for people to learn and then implement change by giving them added support – or figuring out the missing piece between knowledge and ACTION and providing that. For example, maybe they need a private consult packaged together with your book or report. Or maybe they need a tutorial video paired with that blog post you turn into an eBook. Ohmegosh, I have SO much guidance for you on how to do this in LTYF Fortissimo, but you get the idea. right?
3. Host a Summit or Gathering focused on a specific topic. Another common way for people who already have an audience to provide value to their followers (and get paid for providing it) is to host a “Summit” or specialized Interview Series. Typically, you make the calls (audio replays – not the MP3 files) or videos available for free for 48 hours. Then you charge for the package if people want to have their own set (of the audios and videos). You typically add some bonus content to the paid package.
4. Recommend other people’s amazing programs or courses. An easy way to leverage your platform into some money is by recommending other people’s programs, courses, or products that you feel are awesome – and taking a commission on any purchases of these programs/products. This saves you the time involved in creating your own product or program. You tell your tribe about this amazing product/program (don’t lie – make sure it really IS amazing!) in a blog post, an email to your list, and/or in tasteful ads on the side of your blog.
5. Publish your own book or eBook. If you get a mainstream/traditional publisher for your book (like the blogger above did) this will seriously limit your income from the book. Whatever your reasons for considering this route, I encourage you to do a deeper analysis of self-publishing and run your numbers for both scenarios. Let me briefly do this for you!
The typical beginning author royalty is 12% – not of the cover price – but of whatever the publisher sells the book for. Discount sales, bulk/volume sales, give-aways etc. all result in a lower net for the author.
When I launched my first book (I have 17 now) if I had given it to a mainstream publisher and received 12% royalties, I would have received about $400/month in royalties for the first year. By publishing it myself, I netted $2790/month in profit. Is that enough to quit your day job and focus on doing more of what you love? So that’s the fifth thing: I do encourage you to consider self-publishing for your first or subsequent books. And yes, it’s very easy to write and publish your own book.
NOTE: If you are feeling like any of these methods are “icky” or lack integrity, then first you need to realize that HOW you do it, present it, and position it is what determines whether your offering is sincere and helpful, or icky and smarmy. And secondly, may I suggest you look to see if you have any abundance blocks or saboteurs at work – masquerading as distaste.
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In the Listen To Your Freedom program, we are all about hope and belief in yourself; combined with the tools and roadmap you need to make your online business successful – and create the life of freedom you first envisioned for yourself. Even if you already have a business or a website, if it’s not making you the kind of money you want, it’s because there’s a piece missing, or some crucial elements need to be tweaked. Click Here for all the program details…
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