My Habari

So, one of the projects I have wanted to get going since almost immediately after I sold LifeSpy.com was another lifestyles and life tips blog with longer, more in depth articles about living a better life. Today, I want to let you all know about LifeSnips. There will be many lists, structured posts, and detailed insights into modern, happy, healthy living.

The blog now has three posts on, two of which are from possible staff writers for the blog. I e-mailed a dozen candidates early in the week to let them know they were finalists, and told them I would pay them for their submissions. Each one was sent back a notice asking them to send in a post that would display their writing style for LifeSnips. Out of these dozen final candidates, there are only four staff writer positions available, and the competition is fierce.

I have also been able to find the time to get a post up about buying a computer.

I hope you'll all check it out, subscribe, and if you have something interesting you'd like to cover, or see us cover, please let me know through the contact form on that site.

So previously (Project Ideas: What Should I Work On?), I talked about some domains I owned, and my own plans for them. I've been thinking long and hard about doing some new things that I am passionate about and that I can hopefully build into a small online media and publishing company. Today, I wanted to list some other domains that I own and mention a few of the ideas I've had for them.

AltSciFi.com - This used to be a science fiction blog, in the same vein as a previous one I had. I am a huge fan of science fiction, but I've never been able to maintain a blog for the topic, as I'd rather read posts written by others.

BloggingWeight.com - I've put on a fair bit of weight over the last four years. In part, I am sure, due to being stuck to a computer desk, my office only thirty-feet from my bed. I blogged on here about my efforts in loosing weight, as well as various other related things. I've thought constantly about relaunching this blog, as public scrutiny and accountibility made my weight loss easier.

CellSnoop.com - Maybe a cellular phone blog (like there aren't enough of those in the world?)

CheatBase.com - Cheat code repository (again, super saturated, but something I am interested in)

CSSFuel.com - CSS/Design Gallery with blog. Many people don't know this, but at one point in my career, I was responsible for running one of the first design galleries, CSSVault and the site did rather well with my choices.

FeedSEO.com - Maybe something about RSS feeds and the limited search engine optimization issues surrounding them, or a site about SEO, and how to feed it into your site? Not sure, just felt like a good purchase at the time.

HealthNewsFirst.com - Health site, with news from all over North America. With my wife becoming a nurse, these types of topics interest me more and more, especially from a technology standpoint.

PodCastSponsor.com - A service to bring podcasters and businesses together, to try to come up with sponsorship opportunities.

RootBeerHero.com - Yes, I am a Root Beer fanatic. I've already put a few posts on here. This is just one of those "fun" things.

SolarHype.com - I love the idea of solar technology, and wish the awareness regarding solar was higher. I don't feel like there are many good blogs talking about solar technology exclusively. Usually, solar technology is just tacked onto other alternative energy sites.

TabletWatch.com - Tablet Computer blog, maybe Apple Tablet Rumours.

TheBlogJob.com - Blogging related jobs. I've attempted to do this before, using WordPress as a platform, but I gave up on it way too soon. I'd love to be the reason why people are able to get a job doing what I've loved for the last four years.

For those of you that haven't been following me on Twitter (@brandingdavid), or various other places, you might not know that I am working on my first novel, and much to many people's surprise, it is fiction. The book is called Vanish Effect, and I am posting the unedited version as I write it on VanishEffect.com.

I haven't given away the details of the story anywhere yet other than to the person helping edit the first round draft of the book. I hope to create something worthy of being published before the summer of 2010.

I hope you'll all check out Vanish Effect (and keep up to date via its own Twitter account @VanishEffect), and if you know anyone looking at picking up a writer such as myself, I'd really appreciate it. After I finish Vanish Effect, I am considering applying my years of experience into writing a non-fiction book as one of my greatest passions in life is teaching, something that I am struggling with in my fiction writing, as I continually want to explain plainly, rather than surround people in the world I am creating.

And while I've mentioned it on my Appreciation page on VanishEffect.com, I'd also like to add a few words here thanking both Patrick O’Keefe and Phyl Good for their support and hard work. Patrick spent a lot of time talking to me about his experiences publishing a book, and Phyl is my on-the-go editor that has been helping me keep focused, and continue to push out pages. She is also helping make those pages "work" better and pointing out the times where I tell rather than show the various gadgets that I want to have propagate my society.

I have been thinking more and more about what I want to build out over the coming year as the summer quickly rushes towards the fall, I want to start having something to do when the colder weather hits, other than watching television and playing video games. So I figured I'd put my ideas out there, and you can all let me know your thoughts.

I have over twenty different ideas, and already have the domains to follow through on them. Here are just a handful of project ideas that I think have potential and that I'd enjoy doing. I'll write about more of my ideas in a follow up post.

BuyWPThemes.com - Information on Premium Themes. I would create a gallery of the current theme options available in the premium WordPress theme marketplace, while also tracking changes, updates, news, and maybe even include a few interviews with the creators. I know more than a few of them well, and could put up some interesting details on what they have done, and continue to do. I could also use this as my own personal coupon database for Premium Themes, since I am always spending money on them.

The content would primarily come from the creators of the themes, with my own thoughts, ideas and dedicated posts to fill the gaps. I would also look for people willing to guest post, and pay for some contributions, as there are more thoughts regarding premium themes than just the ones that I have.

The potential for profit might not be very high, but that depends on how many premium WordPress theme affiliate companies I sign up for, and then how many themes I sell through it. Also, if premium theme authors found my site to be decent, some may even purchase advertising.

CelebReader.com - I think of this as being a PopURLS for Celebrity sites, focusing in on the niche, and showing off a handful of the most popular sites latest post titles, images from various sources, and video links from a few popular sources. It would mostly be automated and wouldn't need much interaction from me besides setting it up, and constantly expanding and improving it.

With content growth next to nothing, since it will be close to a single page site, with no archive, Celebreader might not do well on search engines and whatnot, but could become highly viral if I pick the right blogs, images and videos to put in one place. I worry though that this niche is highly saturated, and those seeking this information will be savvy enough to use an RSS reader or have all of their own personal favourite sites bookmarked already. Growth might be slow, and as such, potential for profit through ad sales on the page would be low, especially in the short term.

LifeSnips.com - I used to own LifeSpy.com, a site I really enjoyed owning and managing. I am a sucker for lifestyle tips, tricks and answering questions. I've even already had a design done for this site by James McDonald, the designer that did this blog as well as Blogging Pro. I haven't yet had the design coded, but it does look amazing.

Content would come from myself, quoted from other similar blogs, and from a stable of bloggers that I'd hire to keep it flowing fast. This niche is also very saturated, but I enjoy it, and I think that because of my passion, it could do very well.

With the expense of hiring bloggers, I feel that potential profit would be very low, but over the long term, the possibilities with this site look very promising.

OneBigCanada.com - Another PopURLs style site, but focusing solely on Canadian content and news. With sections for each province and territory, OneBigCanada.com would cover the country from coast to coast pointing out the popular blogs, services, and news publications available for each area. It would be part directory/index and part start-page for someone wanting to read all about everything going on in Canada. I might separate each area into its own page, with its own focus. I haven't thought user interface out yet, but I think there is a strong need for Canadians to promote their own country more, and I hope that is what this site would do.

Competition would be fierce, but this is one project where I wouldn't be looking for major growth, more as just a service for myself and those that find there is a need for such a thing.

TenTopBlogs.com - TenTopBlogs is really my own realization that certain sites list FAR too many blogs to be useful. I've focused in on Geek topics thus far, and the site is already built. It needs a design, logo, and branding, as well as some code refinement, and of course it needs all the categories filled out. TenTopBlogs is highly subjective to me, the person running it, but I think that with a proper submission form, I could add blogs that are highly requested, either filling out the TenTopBlogs list for that niche, or pushing out a blog that people don't feel belongs.

Each section shows off the five latest posts from the ten top blogs in any given niche. I will probably stick to tech and geek topics as they are what I am most passionate about, and what I feel resonates the most with the tech savvy audience I hope to attract.

Direct ad sales to products and services, not blogs would be the source of revenue once traffic was high enough to appeal to advertisers. Profit would be low, but as this is another project I am passionate and personally invested in (custom coded by me), I think it has potential.

WebHostReality.com - This was a project I was originally going to do with someone else. It was to be a blog and site focusing in on the reality of hosting with various companies. Giving tips, tricks, ideas, coupons, and more regarding various services. I've re-launched it already to test out the Gravity Forms WordPress extension. I've used dozens of different hosting companies since joining the world wide web.

Content would come from submissions, my own writing, as well as some freelance writers. Potential for profit, if I can bust through the high level of saturation in the market, would be medium to high. The hardest part about running such a site is to not promote solely based on the potential income of the affiliate programs. Some of the biggest payouts are by some of the worst web hosts, and some of the best web hosts, do not have an affiliate program. I'd have to use user feedback to make sure various writings are held in check.

So that's it for this post. Please let me know what you think of them, and while it might seem crazy to you, ideas come easily to me, it is filtering those ideas down to a point where I have only a few projects to work on so I am not overwhelmed that is hard for me. Also, I really enjoy launching new projects, but get frustrated with longer term maintenance of those projects (though I've been getting better about sticking with things over the long term).

Note: I don't plan to build and maintain all of these, they are just ideas that I have domains for. Some have been started, some have not.

Now it is your turn, let me know what you think in the comments below.

Over the last few months, I have been working on some documents that distill various things I have learned over the last few years regarding blogging. In the end, I have come up with three e-books, two of which will be exclusive to Branding David Members, and one that I will be giving to members, but also to those outside of the community.

Building a Basic Blog

Building a Basic Blog - From Nothing to Profitable, is a twenty-one page e-book focusing on giving the broad strokes of what to consider when creating a blog. From hosting and domains to advertising and new sources. This book is aimed at those that are considering adding a blog to their business or marketing plan. If you have an idea, and don't know how to proceed, Building a Basic Blog should help.

Social Media Promotion

Dedicated to promoting content, Social Media Promotion covers the various popular sites that people submit their content to, what type of users interact there, and what kind of traffic you can expect. It also makes sure to point out monetization strategies related to traffic coming from social media sites. This book comes in at nineteen pages and will help those that don't understand Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and other great sites.

Sacred Secrets of Blog Monetization

My favourite of the three e-books, Sacred Secrets of Blog Monetization - The Often Missing Information is a twenty-four page e-book that covers everything I've learned about monetization on the web.

If you want to make money from your blog, this is the e-book to read. It covers information that I have never seen other people push out publicly, as well as my own inspirational stories of selling advertising. I feel like this e-book alone is worth joining Branding David Members.

What is Branding David Members?

I wanted to be able to work with people, consult for them on various things, but my hourly rates were just too high for the type of clients that needed help, and so rather than lower my rates to work furiously for a number of great clients, and still be without a home, I decided to create a forum where I could consult with people in a public manner, and share tips, tricks and information with a close knit group of people.

There is also information that would be quickly diluted by the masses if thousands or tens of thousands of bloggers took advantage of it, and so limiting the community was a way to keep every tip and idea created within the community as powerful and useful as possible.

Branding David Members is a private forum of no more than 50 active participants that costs only $25 per month or $250 per year. For those registering for a year in advance, you also get an hour of my consulting time, where I will help you with your blogs, websites, or online marketing strategies. You will want to register soon though as on July 2nd, 2009, the price will go up, and only those that get in before then will be able to continue at their grandfathered rate.

This also means that by signing up, you'll be one of the few that will have access to these great e-books.

Free E-Book

As I said in the start of this post, one of these three e-books will be made available free from a variety of different blogs, and is free for you to give away to your own readers, and that is my second e-book, Social Media Promotion (right click and select save as...).

While I, personally, consider this the weakest of the three books, I also know that it will be the most useful to newer bloggers that are looking to improve their traffic and monetization strategies.

Notes: For those on Mac's, please install Adobe Acrobat Reader or download the lower-quality version as Preview had issues with the original version compiled. The Social Media Promotion e-book is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Kudos: A big thanks goes to Tom Leroux, Blue Rain Creative, and my friends and family.