Where I've been

Ten months ago, I decided to stop updating this blog. I did it so that I could focus all my energies on my main blog, No Meat Athlete, which I sensed was on the brink of something big.

That, it turns out, was a smart decision.

I've worked incredibly hard on NMA since then. I've written and launched two ebooks, expanded the line of logo products, and grown the subscriber base to over 6,500 and the email list to near 10,000. Oh yeah, and the company now employs two other people, Susan and Ben, part-time.

I'm proud of all of this, but mostly I'm proud to know that my blog is no longer a just blog — it's my job and full-time business. It's a business that advances a cause I care about, but also one that pays the bills and allows me to do what I love for a living. And for as long as I can remember (probably ever since I gave up wanting to be a professional indoor soccer player when I was in the second grade), that's been my goal.

Anyway, I'm not writing this to brag. I'm writing it because as I reassurrect Health Blog Helper, the most important thing I want you to realize is that turning your blog into a business — a real, full-time business that earns you real money — is not some pipe dream that everybody wants, but nobody gets.

If you want it enough, you can make it happen.

Two and a half years ago, I didn't have a blog.

In fact, I could count on one hand the number of blog posts I had ever read, and I couldn't have named a single blog out there (well, maybe Perez Hilton).

But I knew I wanted to start a business, and to do something with it that mattered. Blogging seemed like the place to start, since it was free and anyone could do it.

So what did I do? I got a free WordPress blog, I Googled "how to get blog readers," and I started learning.

(I actually remember reading an article that said you needed five "pillar" posts. And that once you got to 500 readers, it'd be self-sustaining. Turns out it took a little more work than that. )

Next, I looked around and found the biggest blog I could that was somewhat related to my topic, and it was Eat Live Run. Jenna had recently become a full-time blogger, so I emailed her and asked her something like, "How do you get your blog to be so popular?"

To her immense credit, Jenna wrote me back. And from her advice, I learned a little more.

Far more important than the advice she gave, though, was the encouragement Jenna gave me.

She told me that I could do it.

That was what I needed to hear. From someone who herself had done the very thing I wanted to, and surely knew what it took.

From that point on I never questioned whether or not I could turn this into a full-time gig. I just trusted that I could, accepted that I would if I kept working at it, and took every step required to get there.

Guess what? You can do it, too.

You have to be willing to learn and adapt, you have to be willing to work hard, and you have to be willing to hit "Publish" when it terrifies you to do so. But you can do it.

Jenna told me that I could do it. This is me telling you that you can do it.

How Health Blog Helper will change

When I started Health Blog Helper about two years ago, blogging was new to me. But even then, I figured other bloggers who might be less comfortable with technical stuff could use some help with the nuts and bolts: things like how to start self-hosting and how to get search engines to notice you. So I started it writing about those things.

That stuff isn't so interesting to me anymore. It's necessary, but it's only the beginning. And really, it's all stuff you could pay someone to set up for you, if you had a hundred bucks to spend on your site.

What's far more exciting to me now is the art of building a business with a blog. The stuff you can learn, but that you've got to do for yourself. Sure, it's a lot harder than just doing what you see everyone around you doing, but it's a lot more rewarding too.

I'm talking about things like:

• How to create content that people care about and (this is important) serves a purpose
• Why you shouldn't think of your blog as entertainment
• How to get away from ad revenue and instead create products that you know will sell, because they solve problems that your readers have
• The simple things you can do that make a gigantic difference in the way people value your opinion and care about what you write
• How to build an email list and create a hugely valuable relationship with the people on it (example: my email list now costs me $150 a month to maintain on Aweber. If it didn't earn me a lot more than that, you'd better believe I wouldn't be paying it)
• How to use social media to make your blog a brand, and find new people interested in your topic every day (in my niche, Facebook, not Twitter, is where it's at)
• Productivity — how to avoid traps like checking email and stats all day, and form a routine that allows you to produce real, valuable work

That, and a whole lot more, is what I want to write about here now. I want to help you go from blog to business too.

So for that reason (and because I really miss writing about this type of thing), Health Blog Helper is back. It's hard to say right now whether it'll be two posts a week, one a week, or even a little less frequent than that. But it's back, and I'm excited about that.

If you want to come along for the ride, enter your email in the form below. You'll get updates whenever I post something new that can help you grow your blog into a real business.

Healthy Living Summit? I'd love to meet the girls who put it on, but I don't want to be the creepy guy there.

Blogworld? Vegas is awesome and there are some fantastic speakers, but it'd be expensive for me to fly all the way out there from Maryland, not to mention the hefty registration fee.

And then there's FitBloggin. Barely a half hour away from me in Baltimore, not too expensive, and with plenty of Y-chromosomes on the speaker list.

I don't have an excuse for this one.  Add my chromosomes to the list.

It's May 20-21, 2011.  I can't wait to meet everyone there, and I hope that includes you. (You can read more about all of the Fitbloggin '11 speakers here.)

What I'll Be Speaking About

My talk will be about search engine optimization, something I've paid attention to since very early in my blogging career, which now results in over 1,500 visitors from search engines to my main blog every single day.

Just as importantly, I'll be sharing my ideas about monetizing your search traffic—going back to the posts that are getting lots of search engine love,  and adding something of value to readers that also earns money for you.  This way, it gets in front of lots of new readers every day, and you increase your blog's income without always having to sell to your everyday readers.  (I was using this tactic when I wrote my first e-book, by the way.)

If you want to start getting results, check out my first post on search engine optimization.

One more tip: Having a theme with clean code and built-in SEO plays a huge part in how much Google likes your content.  The one I use is Headway, which just released the much-anticipated version 2.0 today, with tons of new features.

Even better, you can get Headway 2.0 at 30% off if you use the discount code "woot"!  But it expires tomorrow (that's Friday, October 29). So click here to check out the newest release of Headway before the discount expires.  And just so you know, that's my affiliate link.  (Just think, you too could have one if you get Headway!)

Finally, none of this matters if you're not self-hosted.  Before you invest a cent in a premium theme or a conference or even an ebook, start self-hosting so that you actually own your blog and can do what you need to do to make it successful.

E-books can be an amazing way to share your knowledge and make money to support your blog. They can also be a total time suck that earns you nothing, which is probably the most likely outcome for many people. The key to e-books is making sure you create one that lands you in the first category, not the second. I'm going to share a few tips to help you make that happen.

Successful E-book Writing Tip #1: Make sure there is a market. After a few years of blogging, when I finally figured out what I was doing, I decided to write an e-book about health blogging. I'd been receiving "how to blog" questions consistently for a while and I decided instead of responding in depth to each email I could possibly package all the information to share with people. My intentions were honorable – I wanted to help people learn how to create a great blog. But more importantly, I knew there was a market for the e-book because of all the e-mails with questions I received. I knew that people new to weight loss and healthy living blogging wanted someone to help them get started creating a great blog, and my e-book fulfilled that need.

The first tip for anyone who wants to write an e-book: make sure there are people who want the information you have. If you are writing an e-book you like but no one wants you move back into the time suck category.

Successful E-book Writing Tip #2: Write it and write it well. If you've got an e-book idea and you know people will be interested, the first thing you have to do is write it. Writing an e-book is no different than writing any other long paper, thesis, or book. The only difference is that you have total control over the content.

It's up to you to create the e-book from the ground up and it's important to give yourself enough time to do this well. I originally set my launch date too soon and had to back down twice because during the writing process I realized there was a lot more that I want to write about than I originally considered. My launch date was pushed back a whole month because it took me longer than I thought to write my e-book. In the end that was worth it because the e-book content is important and needs to be the best it possibly can be. Make sure you give yourself enough time to write the e-book well and provide value no matter how long that takes you.

Those are some basic tips for success with writing and selling an e-book. It's a long, hard process to create and sell an e-book but it can be worth it with continued sales each month. Even if you don't have as many sales as you had hoped for you will still learn from the process so that your next product is a success.

No, no, just simmer down.  The reason I've been away is that I've been really busy with No Meat Athlete and with a new blog I started as well.  It's called Thinking Bettor; it's a blog about gambling.  (Put another way: It has absolutely nothing to do with health!)

It's likely that you have no interest in gambling.  So why am I telling you about my new site?

Because Thinking Bettor might still be worth something to you.  If not for its content, then as a demonstration, especially if you're a brand new blogger interested in seeing how I would do things from the beginning.

A Different Approach to Starting a Blog

I get a lot of questions about how to start a brand new blog: how to set up a new site; what plugins to use; how to get those initial readers; how to get noticed by Google.  While I have some opinions about these questions, those opinions have been shaped more by what I've learned than what I actually did with No Meat Athlete.

When I started No Meat Athlete, I did the things I saw all the other healthy living bloggers doing.  And it worked, but it took me six months of daily posts to get 500 subscribers.  That's a lot of work!

Since that time, I've learned (from watching bloggers in other niches) that there are far better ways to go about starting a new site.  Ways to grow your subscriber base more quickly and with fewer posts.  Thinking Bettor gives me the chance to actually put it all to the test.  And eventually, I'll put together a series of posts based on what I learn in the process.

In the meantime, it's likely that I'll be posting less frequently on Health Blog Helper.  I'll write when I'm struck by inspiration, or when I learn something new that's so effective I simply can't wait to share it.  And of course, I'll still offer blog coaching.   But I won't be sticking to any regular posting schedule, so you can't get mad if several weeks pass between posts.  Deal?

Some Other Health Blog Resources

Since posts on Health Blog Helper will be a little less frequent, you should check out some of the other sites about health blogging that have popped up recently:

• Hollaback Health – Rachel Wilkerson has contributed a lot of posts to Health Blog Helper, and Hollaback Health is a site she started that brings together several health bloggers who post regularly about interesting topics in the health blog world and social media.  Okay, so it's not so new.  But it's good!
• Healthy Living Blogs – The most useful part of this site, in my opinion, is the index of health blogs, by both location and alphabetical order.  If you're looking for bloggers to build relationships with for guest posting, linking, or other collaboration, that's is the place to go.
• Fit Bloggers Guide – A brand new site co-founded by Ryan from No More Bacon.  Ryan is great at design and knows way more about technology than most of us ever will; he's an invaluable resource for learning how to deal with the technical issues of blogging.  Tons of useful stuff here, and very well organized.

The one thing I'll say about all these sites is to read as much as you can, but don't just do what everyone else does!  There's so much of the same in the health blog community. Above all else, be different!  Study sites like Copyblogger and Problogger as well, and learn what successful bloggers are doing in other niches.  And then be different from that too!

Experiment. If your readers won't tolerate that, are they really the readers you want?  Who are you blogging for, anyway?

I'm not talking so much about the social media buttons that you see everywhere, but rather the personalized buttons that say "Subscribe to XYZ blog" or "Buy Now!"

Think about it.  Isn't a button like the one below, which I use on No Meat Athlete, far more convincing that a text link with a tiny RSS icon?  For some reason, web users like to click buttons.

Buttons like these may seem superfluous, but copywriters know that an absolute must for getting people to do what you want them to do is to tell them to do it.  It's called a call to action.  It might seem obvious, but many people forget this key step.

Buttons are known to increase conversions, especially when done well.  Here's a good post about call-to-action buttons, including where to put them, what colors to make them, what to put on them.

For a long time I thought buttons like these were only for the pros, those who either knew how to do design themselves or could afford to pay a designer to create them.

Then, thanks to a tip from Rachel Wilkerson, I learned how to make them myself.

How to Make Call-to-Action Buttons for Your Blog

It's a simple thing to do.  All you need is about 20 bucks and a simple graphics editor like Windows Paint (yes, I live in the Stone Age of design).

Here's how you do it.

1. Go to istockphoto and search for "internet buttons."  You'll be met with hundreds of images to choose from, many of which, like the one here, contain lots of buttons.  When you buy the image, you get them all.

2. Find one whose colors and style match your site, get an istockphoto account, and download the image.

3. Open the file in a graphics editor of your choice, then select and copy one of the buttons.  Paste it into a new graphics editor window.

4. Resize the button to fit your needs, then add whatever text you want.  You can use the default fonts that come with your computer, or go to a site like dafont.com to get lots more cool ones.

5. Paste in additional images, like an RSS icon or a logo.

6. Save the new file.  Make sure you don't overwrite the original image with all the buttons; you'll want to use it again and again.

7. Insert the image into your site where you want to use it, and link it to the page you want people to go when they click it.  If you don't know how to do it, here's an easy hack:

Start writing a brand new post in WordPress, then insert your button just as you would any other image from your computer.  Make sure it's the size you want, center it, and in the "Link URL" box, put the link of the page where you want to send people.  Then click "HTML" at the top of the editor window, copy the code, and insert that code into a text widget.  Done!

Put your buttons everywhere, and be creative.  Put them on your About page when you ask readers to subscribe.  Use them on sales pages, of course.  You can even use buttons for categories, pages, and other links.

Easy, huh?

It's not because that's the best way to grow your blog's audience.  It's because posting all the time is the best way to make money when your blog is already popular. Most health blogs are paid based on pageviews, and in the short run, you can get more of those by writing more posts.

But that first part is so important. 

Posting every day is not the best way to grow your blog's readership.

I know from experience.  My blog became way more popular when I made the decision to start posting only two to four times a week.  My rule was this: If you don't have something good to post, don't post at all.

But I realize now that even that rule allowed too much subpar content to make it to the front page of my blog.

Recently, I've been reading and listening to a lot from Jon Morrow, associate editor of Copyblogger and frickin' inspiring dude, and his advice is more strict:

If you don't expect a post to get tons of links and traffic, why bother writing it?

Jon grew a blog from nothing to over a thousand subscribers in a couple of months with this strategy.  His advice has inspired me to reduce the number of posts I write on each of my blogs to one post per week.

One.  Less than one-twentieth the number of posts of a three-times-daily blogger.  Here's why.

1. You get more links.

As Jon Morrow wrote in a recent Copyblogger post, "One well-written, well-thought-out blog post can get you more links and traffic than hundreds of hurried ones."

Even if you have enough truly good ideas to write a post every day or three times a day, I highly doubt you have the time required to produce something awesome with that frequency.  Nothing against you, of course—I don't think anybody can produce great content so quickly.

And that's why so many big blogs rely on help from guest posters.  Speaking of which…

2. You have more time to write guest posts.

Writing a guest post on a popular blog takes the same amount of time as writing one for your own blog, and it reaches hundreds or thousands of readers who don't already know about you.

But most bloggers are so busy trying to fulfill some perceived need for a new post on their blog every day that they wait around for guest post offers rather than going after them.  I suspect that many even view writing a guest post as a favor, not the huge opportunity that it is.

More on guest posting and Jon Morrow's new site at the end of the post.

3. Your great posts have more time on the homepage and you have more time promote them.

Lots of people promote their blog homepages.  But the fact is, individual posts stand a far greater chance of going viral than your blog homepage does.

Next time you write a great post, take a day or two off from posting, and spend whatever time you would have spent writing other posts on promoting your great one instead.  Not your blog, but the post.

Leave comments on similar blogs that politely mention your post, if it's relevant.  Email a blog friend and ask for a link or a retweet.

Chances are, they'll ask the same thing of you one day. Then you'll have a little partnership, and everyone wins.

4. Fewer readers unsubscribe from your blog.

People don't unsubscribe from blogs because there aren't enough posts.  They unsubscribe because there are too many posts.

If I don't get a chance to open my RSS reader for two days because I'm at a race or on a weekend trip or life just gets in the way, I don't want to see that I missed five posts from you.  To think otherwise of your readers is pretty darn egotistical, isn't it?  It's too much to get caught up on, and nobody likes being behind.

Readers unsubscribe because they can't keep up.  A blog that doesn't update all that often doesn't set off any red flags demanding attention in a reader or inbox.  One that updates too much most certainly does, and the result is readers who unsubscribe.

5. You have more time to nurture your business.

Running is a successful blog is about so much more than producing quality posts.

What can you do with the extra time you have as a result of posting less?

How about these: Setup an email newsletter, work on your ebook, pay special attention to a reader by emailing him or her, write thoughtful responses to your comments, read your readers' blogs, read blogs you'd like to guest post on to get a feel for what type of content they like, network on Twitter, tweak your design, brainstorm ways to do something remarkable, study search engine optimization.

Or get out of the house and live a little.  Then you'll have something great to write about.

Jon Morrow's new Guest Blogging program

I mentioned Jon Morrow and how much I've learned from him.  Well, good news.  He has a brand new site called guestblogging.com,  where right now you can access a series of videos about the mechanics of making guest blogging work for you.  (Jon has said he's going to take them down soon, though, so don't wait.)

He's also just launched his Guest Blogging Apprenticeship program, where he'll be teaching bloggers how to land big guest posts and make the most of the opportunity.  I joined yesterday, and I figured maybe you'd like to know about it.  It's not cheap, but Jon has so much good stuff to teach that I'm sure his program will eventually pay for itself.

No affiliate relationship, just a recommendation.  He's only letting 250 people in.  Hope to see you there.

Post less this week, and enjoy all that extra time!

A while back, I did 10 free, half-hour coaching calls with Health Blog Helper readers.  The experience was overwhelmingly positive,  and I've taken their suggestions and feedback to design several coaching packages to meet the needs of bloggers in a variety of situations.  You can see a few testimonials here.

Coaching packages range from a single 30-minute session to a package of 3 one-hour sessions, and all include preliminary and followup emails to make sure that our time on the phone is spent on making your blog better at achieving the results you want, not fooling around with small talk.

My main blog, No Meat Athlete, now gets over 150,000 pageviews per month.  It's a lot, but certainly there are bigger health blogs out there.

What I have is a particular talent for is monetizing: With that level of traffic, No Meat Athlete brings in over $500 per week, without doing anything sleezy or tricky, just providing content that people enjoy.  (Some quick math with the numbers from your ad contract will tell you that this is way more than traditional advertising would make for that level of traffic.)

I want to help you get those kind of results with your blog.  That's all.  No hard sell.  If you're interested in getting personalized feedback and strategies to make your blog better, there's an entire page where you can find out more info about blog coaching.  If that's not you, keep on reading Health Blog Helper and look forward to lots more content in the weeks ahead.

Even if you don't have anything to sell and think selling is evil, you can still learn a lot by studying the techniques of writing to sell. For example, you can look at your About page as a sales page (see No Meat Athlete's), where the "sale" you're trying to make is a subscription. In that case, you should present the benefits of reading your blog and, at the end, ask for the sale with a subscription button. (How to make nice buttons is the topic of a future post.)

It goes beyond just this though. You can use the techniques of writing ad copy to make every single post you publish more effective — that's the whole premise of the blog Copyblogger, which I hope you read.  If I had to point to a single moment when blogging got really easy, I'd say it's when I started studying copywriting.  As soon as I started incorporating it into my everyday writing, traffic took off.

So in this post I'm going to explain my thought process in writing the sales page for the e-book I just released. If you find it helpful to use the actual page as a template for your own, feel free. Keep in mind that, although I'm talking explicitly about a sales page, these ideas can be extremely powerful when used even in your daily posts.

Rule #1: Don't Be Sleazy

Nobody likes a fast-talking used car salesman, and people can sniff that out online a hundred miles away.  The kind of online selling that's cool is about connecting with your readers, building up trust by giving them tons of valuable content, and then, every so often, selling them something they actually want.

If you do all of that, and then all the sudden start talking car-salesmanese on your sales page, you're going to turn people off.  It's just weird.

Don't be weird.

Start With a Strong Headline

Writing an effective headline is crucial. The purpose of the headline is to attract attention, to get the reader to read the first sentence of the post (and it's the job of the first sentence to get the reader to read the second sentence, and so on).

You don't want to try to be witty here.  You're trying to sell something, not make people laugh. If your headline can be both funny and effective, great. But funny comes second.

To get some ideas for good headlines to use either on your sales page or your everyday posts, try the Cosmopolitan headline exercise.

Keep Your Sentences and Paragraphs Short

Internet readers are not known for their attention spans, and nothing scares off a reader faster than big blocks of text.  Write your sales pages (and even your blog posts) in short, simple sentences and paragraphs to draw readers down the page and keep them wanting more.

Connect Emotionally

If you want the reader to pay attention to you, you need to engage them on an emotional level. It's best if you can imagine a single reader as your target, and write directly to that specific person. Suggest that he or she "imagine" how it would feel to use your product, and then paint that scenario with your copy.

And remember: It's not about you.  Make it about them.

It's common practice in copywriting to first present a problem, so the reader feels some small amount of pain and recognizes the need for a solution. Then — BAM — you're there with your product to fix the problem. But some people prefer to take an all-pleasure approach and leave the pain out.  You're free to choose.

List Benefits, Not Features

Bulleted lists show up in a lot of ads because they're effective — readers in a hurry are drawn to them. But many people make a big mistake in their bullet list that costs them a lot of money: They list the features of their product rather than the benefits the reader can expect to gain by using the product.

"Personalized nutrition plan" is a feature; "Learn exactly what to eat for your specific needs" is a benefit.  "Five killer ab exercises" is a feature; "Strengthen your core and look great by summertime" is a benefit.

You get the point.

Scarcity Sells (If It's Genuine)

People procrastinate. There will be plenty who love your offer but don't buy, for the simple reason that they don't sense a need to buy now.

So put a deadline on your offer. Maybe it's a special price they can get by buying before a certain date. Maybe it's a bonus that goes away at some point. Whatever it is, make sure it's genuine. If you say the price is going to go up, it had better go up. Otherwise, nobody will believe you when you say it next time.

Make a Strong Call to Action

For some reason, lots of people do all the above but neglect to seal the deal. You have to ask for the sale.

How?  Tell the reader to buy. Use buttons or links with the words "Buy Now." In the case that it's not an actual sale you're trying to make, but rather to get the reader to visit a new page on your blog, the magical words "click here" are extremely effective.

Include a PS

Why do you put a PS on your sales page? Simple: Everyone reads the PS. So put something here that you want everyone to read. Maybe it's a guarantee, maybe it's a bonus, maybe it's a reminder that the offer expires soon.

If You Have It, Use Social Proof

People like to know that other people like themselves have bought your product. Chances are, you won't have testimonials right away, but as soon as you can get them, include them.

The best testimonials are from people viewed as authorities or from people who will be seen as similar to the reader, and they explain how your product solved a problem they were having.

Eliminate Distractions

It's very important that there are not a lot of links on your sales page that readers might use to leave.

It's not that you're trying to trap them — they can always press the back button or close their browser. But just like a kid who is easily distracted by shiny bells and whistles, so is the average Internet reader who likes to do 14 things at the same time.

You want to remove all the links from your sidebar or the top of your page. Some online copywriters will even tell you to remove your site's banner, but I prefer to leave that so that people who show up from Google have some confidence they're at a real site, not some automated scam that will send a robot to clean out their savings account.

If you're using a free WordPress theme (or heaven forbid, Blogger), you might have trouble doing this.  Being able to edit the layout of individual pages is one of the reasons I use Headway for my blogs (that's my affiliate link).  I know Thesis can do the same thing, and I'm sure there other premium themes that can do this as well.  There might even be some free ones that do it, but those are the exception.

I hope these tips can help you write your sales page, or as I said, pretty much anything else you write online.  Even better, I find that studying copywriting makes me want badly to produce a product to sell.  It's exciting!  So even if you don't have any ideas yet, hopefully that increased desire will help you come up with some good ones.

Fear is mostly to blame.  Sure, maybe the idea isn't perfect yet, or the amount of work seems overwhelming.  But take away fear, and all of the sudden these problems become surmountable.

Dave Navarro has a great post called Weekend Challenge: How to Turn a Beer into a Product.  Reading that post went a long way towards killing the fear for me.  Prior to reading it, I envisioned "My Ebook" as this giant monster with three heads that I might one day find the guts and the determination to slay.  Dave's article made me realize I could have a product in a weekend, not a year.

Producing Your First Ebook

My ebook, Fuel Your Run the Tarahumara Way, took longer than a weekend, and it wasn't as cheap to produce as Dave's product (which might cost three bucks max, and that's if you're drinking the good stuff).

No, it took a few weeks and it cost me 73 dollars.  But that's a hell of a lot less than I had always pictured when I thought about "My Ebook."  And the result, with a nice, shiny cover design and an attractive layout, makes it look like the work of an author, not a blogger in his mom's basement. (I swear I don't live in my mom's basement.)

You can do this.  If you're scared to write an ebook because it might not sell or your readers might hate it or someone might tell you that you suck, you have to do this.  It'll teach you to get over that.

Start small, like Dave suggests.  Or put just a little more time and money into it: You'll be shocked at how easy it is to produce something great when you leverage the resources now available on the internet.  Here's how I made my first ebook for 73 bucks.

How to Get a Great Ebook Design for $73

1. Find the perfect photo.  ($15)

You might be able to find something free, using clipart sites or Flickr's Creative Commons photos.  If you're on anything but the thinnest shoestring budget though, head over to istockphoto.com and just try not to be floored by the hundreds of beautiful images available for the price of lunch.  (Bonus: This is also a great place to find photos for blog posts.  The ones I buy usually cost between one and two dollars.)

2. Pay a designer to assemble your cover. ($50)

I'm a member of this unbelievably valuable internet marketing community called The Third Tribe (affiliate link), and in the forums there I met a woman named Sherice Jacob.  Sherice runs eCoverArtist, where she'll make you an ebook cover for 50 bucks. (The fancy kind that looks like a 3D book, magazine, spiral bound report, etc.)  Sherice was very accommodating of my lack of design know-how; we went through several iterations of me suggesting something stupid, her doing it for me, then me changing my mind, and she was pleasant and helpful throughout the whole process.

If it's a killer cover your after, I'd recommend spending more than 50 dollars on the design.  But if you're looking for a quick way to make your first (or second, or third) product look pretty damn good, especially if you have an idea of what you want it to look like, well, look no further.

3. Get a template for the actual document.  ($8)

Again, this is a place where it'd be easy to skimp and just use a plain white background and some standard fonts.  But when you can get a nice-looking template for five or eight dollars, why wouldn't you?  The templates like the one I got from EbookTemplates.net have a ready-made table of contents, title page, and headers and footers you can modify with your own information.

Until recently, Microsoft Word couldn't publish to PDF very easily, so most ebook templates you'll find are for OpenOffice Writer, which is free and works just like Word.

Other Costs

The above $73 gets you an ebook design.  You'll have to put it your own ideas and your own time, but that's the fun part.  And if your book is a recipe book, like mine, then of course you'll have to spend money to test and develop the recipes.  But since you get to eat the food, I'm not counting that.

I also pay five dollars per month for a service called e-junkie (affiliate link) that I use to sell stuff, mainly because it makes it easy to track and manage affiliate programs. This allows you to pay bloggers a commission when they refer people to your site to buy your ebook.  (And if you're interested in joining the affiliate program for my book, you can learn about it here.)

Do It

I hope you're convinced that creating an ebook, even one that looks pretty good, doesn't have to be expensive.  And that's one less excuse you now have not to write one.  Get over that fear, set a deadline and make it happen.

In my next post, I'll write about the process of writing a sales page to sell your ebook.  And honestly, the techniques of sales pages apply equally well to your About page and even your regular blog posts.  Every time you write, you're making a sale.  You're asking for the reader's attention.

When you write your blog posts, you're competing for attention, just like advertisers who want their ad to be the one that gets noticed and read.  But the techniques of writing sales copy are not obvious at all, so you won't want to miss that one.

Now get to work!

When I was in college, I ran all the recruitment activities for my sorority and I loved it. It's a hectic time — the "parties" during which we met potential new members (PNMs) was a carefully choreographed, incredibly hectic time. In the weeks leading up to recruitment, I led my chapter through hours of workshops to prepare everyone for the process of meeting hundreds of new girls and hoping that every single one of them wanted our house. Sure, it was tiring, but "We rush hard" was our motto.

But I realized this week, getting people to read your blog isn't so different from getting girls to think your sorority house is fabulous. Here are five things sorority girls can teach you about blogging.

1. Know who you want.

One of the best workshops that I created was Finding Your Perfect PNM, in which we described our "perfect" new member. We talked about all the details. From what she looked like to what her dream job was, we knew we couldn't get good girls if we didn't all agree on what we were looking for. In the same way, Finding Your Perfect Reader can help you get more readers. Instead of saying, "I want more readers," you can focus on the specific audience you think will get the most out of your blog and really seek them out.

2. First impressions count.

Totally reinforcing the "shallow" stereotype of sorority girls, let me go ahead and say that we were perfectly aware that appearances mattered during recruitment. It wasn't that everyone had to be a perfect 10, but we definitely put our best faces forward. We paid attention to the details because we knew girls would be more excited to hear what we had to say if we looked polished and pulled-together. In the same way, your blog's design and layout is your chance to make that great first impression. Does it need a manicure and to have its split ends trimmed? Sure, it's about as fun as getting a wax, but you have to put some time and effort into your blog's "outer beauty."

3. Make people feel at home.

On the day we gave PNMs tours of our house, we wanted them to be able to see themselves living with us. This would be the place they'd come home to for two years and we wanted them to feel comfortable. In the same way, you can be welcoming to your readers. Whether it's making yourself easily accessible via e-mail and Twitter, responding to more comments, or simply writing an "About" page that conveys warmth and enthusiasm about the reader (not just about yourself), take the time to really welcome people and let them know you'd love it if they stuck around.

4. Talk up what makes you great.

During my recruitment workshops, we spent a lot of time talking about all the great things our chapter had to offer. Whether it was our cook's amazing grilled cheese sandwiches or our house's intercom system, we had a long list of things we could casually mention that made our house special. In the same way, you can design your blog to highlight what makes it special. And it doesn't have to be that special. Just like most sorority houses had cooks, most health blogs have recipes. But which blogs make them easiest to find on the homepage? By highlighting something as your "thing," you're sending a message that you do it well and that people can consider you an expert in that area.

5.  …but don't be ashamed of who you are.

As much as I wanted girls to love our house, I made sure our members knew that being real is more important than telling PNMs what they wanted to hear. Sure, we could spin everything and made it sound like we were perfect…but most PNMs wanted to join a house where they felt like they could be themselves. In the same way, don't spin everything you do and create an image of yourself that's perfect; your readers want to feel like you are real. When answering a question or tackling a tough topic, don't just say what you think they want to hear. Say what's real.

Contrary to popular belief, sorority girls are interested in more than just frat guys and Greek Week. We care about our houses and want new members who will love our house as much as we do. And as a health blogger, there is more to you than just recipes and race recaps. You love your blog and want people to read it and become a part of it — so rush them hard!