Review: Crystal Stemberger’s How I Make Money Blogging: The Beginner’s Guide to Building a Money-Making Blog

Review by Melissa Batai

A few years ago, if you said you were a blogger, people looked at you strangely or gave you a patronizing look that seemed to say, “That’s nice, dear, but what do you really do?”  Behind the scenes, you may have felt that you were going it alone, unsure how to grow your blog or make an impact.  

However, in the last few years, blogging has become much more main stream; now if you are new to the blogging world, you don’t have to go it alone and take months to learn the ropes, especially when there are helpful ebooks such as Crystal Stemberger’s  How I Make Money Blogging, The Beginner’s Guide to Building a Money-Making Blog..

Crystal Stemberger began blogging in 2010.  By July, 2011, she had quit her day job to pursue blogging and other online work.  By the end of 2011, she had made nearly $100,000, or 2.5 times more than her annual salary at her former day job.  In January, 2012, her husband also quit his full-time job, and now they work together from home.

Book Features

Helpful Tips and Hints for Setting Up Your Blog

This book takes the beginner through the step-by-step process of creating a blog from the bottom up and includes such details as deciding on a name, choosing to self-host or not and picking a blogging platform.

Growing Your Blog and Making Money

At the heart of Stemberger’s ebook is how to grow your blog and make money.  According to Crystal, you will not make a decent amount of money from your blog until you have grown it enough to have a steady stream of regular traffic.  She explains the various ways you may want to grow your blog including commenting on other blogs and working on your search engine optimization.

Then, she moves on to the true heart of the book, how to make money blogging.  There are many ways to make money online, and she has tried several of them from advertising to staff writing.  Crystal also runs a successful business where she negotiates with advertisers on behalf of other blogging clients, so she is an expert on how to make money blogging through advertising.  Best of all, she shares her strategies for negotiating with advertisers and even offers sample e-mails you can use.

Have a Back-up Plan

Even though Crystal has been wildly successful with her online ventures, she has had her share of misfortunes.  As a blogger, you are sometimes at the whim of Google as Crystal shares.  Her blog’s page rank has bounced around from 2 to 1 to 3 then 4 and now 0.  In addition, shortly after her husband quit his day job, Google made some changes that effectively reduced the Stembergers’ income in half.  Still, they have thrived despite the adversity, and she explains how you can, too.

The Cost

The ebook by itself is available for $17 through July 31^st.  From August 1^st on, it will be available for $27.  However, if you can negotiate successfully with one advertiser based on what you learn from the book, the book will have more than paid for itself.  (And if you don’t like negotiating, Crystal is available for hire to negotiate on your behalf.)

In addition, she has an affiliate program in place that will pay you 50% of the sale price for every book that is purchased through your referral link.

The Verdict

This book is an excellent primer for anyone thinking of beginning or just beginning a blog.  If you buy this book, you will learn in one short read what it took many bloggers months to learn.  You will effectively hit the ground running.

If you are a more seasoned blogger, this probably isn’t the ebook for you as it likely contains information you have already learned.

Click here to visit How I Make Money Blogging.
 

Melissa, a mom to three little ones (ages 7, 3 and 1) blogs at Mom's Plans where she writes about living a fulfilling life on less and focuses on cutting expenses, budgeting, paying down debt, saving money and once a month cooking.