As I wrote to my list earlier today, “it never rains but it pours.” And I’m in a downpour!
For those of you who didn’t read about my infamous run-in with a sync and file-sharing program called FolderShare, here’s what happened in a nutshell: this free service went wonky in December and messed with a lot of users’ files and folder architecture — mine included.
Flash forward a few months: I thought I’d rectified most of the damage, and so I’m busily working on this release of the ebook, when it dawns on me: “Hmm. Maybe I better double-check those old files I’d been saving the drafts in pre-December…” The file names are still there but … who knows, right?
(You can see this one coming, can’t you?) They’re gone.
Now, this is not fatal. I have other copies (although in varying degrees of readiness) and copious notes. What was lost can be reconstructed, but it will take another week, at least.
So - the bad news is this: we’re being forced to push back the release of Cheap & Inspired Blawgging to April 8th. I hope that will be the last delay necessary.
The good news is this: I feel guilty. Not so good for me — great for you. So, I’m doing two things to make it up to everyone:
(1) I’m adding a fourth, undisclosed (until launch) bonus. This will be worth at least an additional $50. I’m working on finalizing that but it will take a few more days, at a minimum. So, I can’t tell you what it is now but it will be useful.
(2) I’m going to open up the $49 price to everyone through the weekend. It seemed only fair to those who were waiting for the release on April 1 to purchase, who didn’t want to take the survey, for whatever reason, to at least give them the option of getting the ebook at a lower rate.
And even though this means that I’ll be giving away a lot of bonuses (including thirty minutes of my time for each purchaser, either for a brainstorming session for a new blawg, or a review & case study of an existing blawg) at a much lower price — well, I think it’s the right thing to do. However, I am taking this offer down at 12:01 AM EST on Monday, March 31, 2008, without exception.
Therefore, if you want Cheap & Brilliant Blawgging at a 45% discount off its regular rate (that will be $89 on April 8th), you can pre-purchase it at that $49 price by going to PayPay via this secure link. You can pay with any major credit card or your account, if you already have one set up at PayPal. On April 8th, before I open it up to everyone, you’ll get the instructions to download your copy, and claim your bonuses.
Speaking of: I haven’t told you what the bonuses are yet. Without further adieu, here’s what you get with each purchase:
- Of course, you get a copy of the first ebook ever for lawyer/bloggers, Cheap & Brilliant Blawgging
- A special workbook designed to help you plan and execute your own “cheap and brilliant blawg” — over 40 pages of exercises and worksheets so you can get it right the first time
- A $50 coupon off any $200 Blawg Coach service, including one-on-one coaching
- Your choice of either (A) a 30-minute brainstorming session with me, the Blawg Coach, OR (B) a written review and critique of your own blawg or website, including my suggestions for how to ramp up your own results
- A fourth as-yet-undisclosed bonus worth at least $50
This offer is open to the world. So, if there’s anyone you know of that might enjoy this book or needs some info on blogging, or just wants more clients, please feel free to pass along to them the links I’ve shared with you already, as well as the Table of Contents (Note: PDF file).
I hope that helps, at least. I do apologize for this; and if I can serve as an object lesson to any others out there, then by all means let this motivate you to back up your own work frequently and with redundant systems. (My backup failed, and I had no redundancy at the time, so I’m out of luck with this one, but you can bet I’ll get another backup tool soon.)
Now, onward to the good (or better) stuff!
Jason McCready Asks: Too Basic?
Jason McCready is my kind of guy. He’s already got the WordPress thing down, in a side business he has going, and he knows how to use link-building to get a blog to the coveted #1 slot in Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Result Placement). So he wrote to me and asked:
I have a question about whether your book is targeted to beginners … I’m wondering whether your book will have substantial new information that will help bloggers such as myself who have already created semi-successful blogs.
I already answered Jason directly, but I also asked him if it was OK if I shared his question, and my response, with you all through the blog. He kindly agreed, so here’s my answer.
Who Will Benefit from Cheap & Brilliant Blawgging?
As I told Jason, I estimate that roughly 30-40% of the content in Cheap & Brilliant Blawgging is what I’d call “beginner level.” I address all of the following topics, all of which I consider basic or beginner level:
- How to register a URL and sign up for hosting
- What to look for in a hosting plan
- How to install WordPress and set up your blawg
- How to choose, download, and install a theme
- What plugins are, which ones I recommend, and how to install and activate them
- How to interact with the WordPress user interface (the “dashboard”)
These topics are old hat to Jason, and many others, but they’re pretty mysterious to 80-90% of the lawyers out there judging from the emails and comments I routinely get from other lawyers at CLEs and seminars and otherwise. A lot of you have been sold on this idea that you have to pay $2500 for a basic blog that you could create yourself for the cost of a basic hosting plan (I currently pay about $8/month per blog). And, so, a good bit of the first three chapters of the book, and some of the beginning of the other chapters, do fit into this “beginner” category.
However, the rest of the book covers a slightly different approach to blogging that, I think, is uniquely beneficial to lawyers. While I imagine any service-oriented profession or business could use these concepts and apply them to their own marketing plan, I’m writing this for the legal profession. And while some of it’s basic-level setup “here’s how you monitor comments” stuff, much of it is aimed at explaining how you fit the blawg into your overall marketing plan to make it more holistic (my new favorite word).
I mentioned above in the prior section the Table of Contents; if you haven’t read it already, then I hope this will help you decide, although I realize it doesn’t provide a whole lot of detail. For instance, you can see that I write about “Commenting on Other Blogs” in Chapter 10, but you can’t tell that I actually lay out a specific plan and timeline aimed at using commenting on other blogs to help build your referral-based marketing program. Likewise, it’s apparent that I cover productivity issues in Chapter 11, but perhaps not so readily apparent that I actually give you several specific tools and new approaches that can shave off hours from your blogging time each week.
Do I think advanced users could benefit from it? Yes. Will some of it be, at most, a review for those advanced users? Undoubtedly. However, I do think it can get you thinking about using this medium that’s familiar to you in a brand new way that, eventually, becomes much more intuitive and “user friendly” (not to mention “life friendly“) in the long run. (Advanced bloggers already know how effective blogs are for driving both traffic AND sales — and that’s the business we’re all in: the sale of legal services.)
