Comments on: Is this easy? http://www.webpublishingblog.com/is-this-easy.htm Internet publishing, a multidisciplinary approach. Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:12:55 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.2 By: chris http://www.webpublishingblog.com/is-this-easy.htm#comment-131 chris Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:28:42 +0000 http://www.webpublishingblog.com/is-this-easy.htm#comment-131 I've been doing publishing for quite a few years. Every year I learn more and more. This year, all the pieces finally came together and I could see how to start making money in a passive manner from internet information. The next step is picking the topic and producing the sites/products. This is the hard part. It's not the time so much as the doubt. "What if I do all this and get it wrong?" The other problem is picking the product. I think it was Mark Twain who said "write what you know." However, if what you know isn't a marketable commodity, then you've got a lot of learning to do. I’ve been doing publishing for quite a few years. Every year I learn more and more. This year, all the pieces finally came together and I could see how to start making money in a passive manner from internet information. The next step is picking the topic and producing the sites/products. This is the hard part. It’s not the time so much as the doubt. “What if I do all this and get it wrong?” The other problem is picking the product. I think it was Mark Twain who said “write what you know.” However, if what you know isn’t a marketable commodity, then you’ve got a lot of learning to do.

]]> By: Alan Hylands http://www.webpublishingblog.com/is-this-easy.htm#comment-107 Alan Hylands Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:46:15 +0000 http://www.webpublishingblog.com/is-this-easy.htm#comment-107 I think it seems a lot easier to get started if you've spent the last five to ten years immersing yourself in all the different aspects of the web as you mention. Spending time online, surfing different sites, getting a user's perspective of what works and what doesn't, working as a developer (as I've been doing as well for five years) and then reading forums such as Chris Beasley's Website Publisher, Web Master World, Sitepoint and Digital Point and now blogs such as this all help add in small pieces of the jigsaw that eventually seem to click. I've only launched a few sites of my own publishing wise over the last month as I'd always done sites for other people before but I think that time learning the trade has made this step of actually publishing my own sites so much easier. I'm using open source blog and CMS software, my reseller hosting package is less than £20 per month and domain names are buttons so the barriers to entry as you say are not going to be financial ones. The one main area that sets successful, money making publishers apart from the rest is that they know how to get traffic and monetize it and if they don't know something, they know who to ask or where to look for help. The other thing is they actually get off their backsides (figuratively speaking of course!) and put their sites out there. I used to do some work with a marketing consultant who told everyone he met how he was the real inventor of Ebay and that he had dreamed it up years before the real one started. The difference between him and them was that they did something about their idea and he sat on his hands. Maybe the hardest part, in the begining at least, is motivating yourself to actually start publishing and stop just thinking and talking about it. I think it seems a lot easier to get started if you’ve spent the last five to ten years immersing yourself in all the different aspects of the web as you mention. Spending time online, surfing different sites, getting a user’s perspective of what works and what doesn’t, working as a developer (as I’ve been doing as well for five years) and then reading forums such as Chris Beasley’s Website Publisher, Web Master World, Sitepoint and Digital Point and now blogs such as this all help add in small pieces of the jigsaw that eventually seem to click.

I’ve only launched a few sites of my own publishing wise over the last month as I’d always done sites for other people before but I think that time learning the trade has made this step of actually publishing my own sites so much easier. I’m using open source blog and CMS software, my reseller hosting package is less than £20 per month and domain names are buttons so the barriers to entry as you say are not going to be financial ones.

The one main area that sets successful, money making publishers apart from the rest is that they know how to get traffic and monetize it and if they don’t know something, they know who to ask or where to look for help. The other thing is they actually get off their backsides (figuratively speaking of course!) and put their sites out there. I used to do some work with a marketing consultant who told everyone he met how he was the real inventor of Ebay and that he had dreamed it up years before the real one started. The difference between him and them was that they did something about their idea and he sat on his hands.

Maybe the hardest part, in the begining at least, is motivating yourself to actually start publishing and stop just thinking and talking about it.

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