I’ve just published my fourth Kindle book Build a Brand, Create Products & Earn Passive Income.
As usual, I’ve put it on at $0.99 for a few days before offering it for free for five days starting this Sunday, July 20th and ending on Thursday July 24th 2014.
One day, a friend of mine, Deepak Taylor (from LatestFreeStuff.co.uk – the largest freebie site in the UK), asked me if I could give a talk at his meetup group, the London 4-Hour Work Week group.
I was initially hesitant as I’ve never really “loved the limelight”. But then I thought, I’ve got to do this. It’ll force me outside my comfort zone, it’ll be good exposure. It’ll be good for me.
I had about six weeks to prepare. What should I talk about? What are people going to want to hear from me? What can I possibly teach anyone?
I thought, try to give people the most powerful 60 minutes ever. Tell them as much as I could about how to be successful online.
And the talk is the basis of this book.
Blogging
My journey began in the humdrum of 2006, where I found myself entrenched in the monotony of office work, devoid of ambition. It was a WordPress blog that marked my initial foray from the monotonous grind.
Cultivating the habit of blogging was akin to high-stakes games at overseas casinos – arduous at the outset but ultimately rewarding. The incremental uptick in Google traffic was my jackpot, spurring me on. In my book, I lay bare the strategies for blogging that can help you not just garner an audience, but also carve out a distinctive brand, much like the renowned overseas casinos that stand out in the global marketplace.
Email marketing
Anyone who wants to do any sort of business online needs to create an email list … and start doing this yesterday!
I’ll tell you exactly how by explaining what strange-sounding things like “sequential auto-responders” and “lead magnets” are.
You will learn that someone giving you their email address is worth more than someone giving you money and I’ll explain great ways to collect email addresses.
Photo credit: Natasha Fadeeva
‘Intimate’ content
Lastly, I explain what I mean by ‘intimate’ content. This is where the products and passive income come in.
‘Intimate’ content is content that establishes a closer connection between you and the audience. Videos, podcasts and books typically take your followers longer to consume and, in the case of audio and video, the consumer hears your voice and sees you face – building an even closer relationship.
‘Intimate’ content is broken down into three types in the book:
- Books: I explain the best way to conceive, write and promote a book. This starts with creating an e-book for sale at kdp.amazon.com.
- Audio: I explain why podcasting is a great idea and how to do it.
- Video: I explain how shooting video isn’t so difficult, why you should be on YouTube as well as on online learning platforms and how I make $2500+ passive income on Udemy and Skillfeed
I explain why you should be creating ‘intimate’ conent, and how you can do this.
You can do it
The beauty of this blueprint is that, if you set it up right, it feeds itself. You grow a brand by creating a blog with an email list, ask your followers what they’re struggling with and sell them products that solve their pain. The blog, the podcasts, the videos and the e-books feed the email list which grow your audience to buy more of your products.
So, here’s the recap: Build a brand. Your brand is followed by an audience. They tell you what they want. You build it. And they buy it. And you keep going.
Buy Build a Brand, Create Products & Earn Passive Income at the UK Amazon store.
Buy Build a Brand, Create Products & Earn Passive Income at the US Amazon store.
Hi Rob,
Congrats on your 4th kindle release and the speech dude! I’m about to release an eBook myself; you gave me a fab idea for charging a low fee, than going free for a few days. Love the idea 😉
You covered the basics. Intimate content. Gotta create it, to form those business-building bonds beneficial for all involved. List building is critical and of course, so many of us have had a similar beginning.
For me, I was counting numbers on a container in Newark, NJ on the docks as a security guard. Now I’m blogging from paradise, traveling the world as a pro blogger and typing these words from Savusavua, Fiji.
Folks, if you follow Rob’s advice, buy his books and simply stick to the fundamentals you can go anywhere you want in life. The key is in keeping things simple, branding yourself like a pro, creating value and connecting with leaders in your niche.
You simply can’t go wrong if you stick to the basics, to build a digital empire.
Thanks so much Rob.
I found this on Triberr and will give it a tweet through there.
Ryan
Hey Ryan, what a pleasure it is to have you pop by, straight outta Savusavua, Fiji. It’s wonderful to watch your journey.
Your synopsis is even better than mine because you mention connecting with leaders and others and, although I very definitely talk about this in the book, I forgot to mention it here.
You nailed it right there, Ryan, I can’t thank you enough for the support.
Sounds great, just picked up a copy from the UK store.
Joe
Thank you so much, Joe, it’s amazing how many people have bought the book in the first three days. 🙂
Thank you, Rob. I finally got the copy of the US Kindle book, adding in my collections of all your ebooks! You are indeed an inspiration to me. On the PDF you sent me I’m on #37 page and will continue to read in the kindle form. All of these you are doing I’m contemplating wow…you have done a lot of work and I’m not even halfway of what you’ve done. I get scared sometime, specially in podcasting.
I’m still studying the podcasting part. I’m going to start playing when I get my professional microphoine. I’ve seen Pat Flynn’s step-by-step tutorial videos, and so as Cliff Ravenscraft…dang this is not as easy as I thought. But I’m gonna keep trying. Still…on kindle book I’m trying to organize mind, and I’m getting dizzy. I’m trying to organize this on InDesign. I’m not sure about Microsoft Word. Oh well.
Again, thanks for the inspiration. Have a nice weekend.
Angela
Hey Angela, so glad I’m an inspiration for you. Don’t worry, Angela, it only looks like I’ve done a lot because I’ve been blogging since 2006. In reality, I’m incredibly lazy and disorganised.
You can do it. You’d be an excellent podcast host. You’re really good with people. You’ve just got to talk to them.
Don’t use InDesign for Kindle (only for the print version at CreateSpace, but that’s another story). I would do it in Microsoft Word (use Heading 1 for chapter titles and Heading 2 for subheadings). I’ve just made a video for how I do the formatting: http://youtu.be/A_Z8aQeEMmg
We all get dizzy when we’re contemplating something new but these things are comparatively easy once you know how.
Keep at it 🙂
Thank you very much for that link, Rob. Will watch it…
P.S. I must say the Meetup group have done something tremendously positive for me. I’m now onto writing my “Business Proposal” to submit this Monday, all from this meetup group. I someday would like to present myself like the way you are doing there. Takes a lot of courage since I’ve never done public speaking before, face-to-face! But I’m willing…
Angela
Yes, Meetups are great. They really give your business a boost. You should try public speaking, it’s a real buzz. I went through my talk at least 5 times before standing up and delivering it. Scary, but totally worth it. 🙂
Hey Rob
Nice that you got this great opportunity to share your wisdom even further.
Seems like things are on the up and up.
Of course you are not new to the game, and you have worked hard to earn your income and position in the community. Hat off to you.
All the best with the continued success
ashley
Thank you very much, Ashley. Yes, I’ve been around the block for a while but there’s so much I wish I did differently which would have meant more product sales in a shorter amount of time. And that’s why I wrote the book. For to help other people increase their paid digital output!
It’s free now: http://www.amazon.com/Build-Create-Products-Passive-Income-ebook/dp/B00LTWLSE0 – download it while it’s hot (and I wouldn’t mind a review)
I just read it… Thank you Rob, this will help me a lot with this new project in mind about blogging and give me that last push up to start it.
Kind regards!!
Pepe
Thanks for reading it, Pepe. So glad it helped you. Let me know if you need any help with your new project.
Great book so far, I’m about half way through it!
Hey, Noel, thanks! Glad you’re liking it.