Arianna Huffington is out promoting her blog's new book, "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
", so I took a look to see if it is worth it for lifestyle bloggers to read. Up front, I will say some parts of the book are definitely worth reading, but I wouldn't say it's a must buy for the lifestyle blogger. If you are a blogger who focuses on politics or current affairs, then I'd say it's worth buying.
There are also significant pieces of information about HuffPo that are not included in the book that I think readers should be aware of because it goes to how to build a blog of this magnitude. So, let's start with the beneficial parts of the book and then go to what could have been done better...
The beneficial parts
- I admire the fact that HuffPo is co-founded by a woman, the accomplished Arianna Huffington, and the blog is currently the #1 ranked blog in the Technorati 100. The number of female bloggers or blog owners in the Technorati 100 is almost like trying to find cashews in can of mixed nuts.
- It was fascinating to read the history of how HuffPo came to be, and to hear some of the behind the scenes.
- The two chapters that I thought a lifestyle blogger would get the most out of is the chapter on creating your voice, and the chapter on building community. Creating a unique voice is very important because the blogosphere is getting more saturated with blogs, and people's attention span is getting shorter and limited. If you don't stand out or stand for something unique, you will get lost in the crowd.
- In building community, the most beneficial part was the advice on dealing with comments and the commenters. The type of commentary that is left on political blogs is some of the nastiest, most vitriol, and cruel of all blog niches. If there's any place to get advice on how to deal with the meanies, the HuffPo folks can teach a thing or five.
- I thought it was cool that they dedicated a section of the book to the blogs on their blogroll. This is an opportunity for these blogs to get offline exposure to new audiences, and was a positive way for HuffPo to use their influence to show some more blogger love.
What could have been done better
- The word "Complete" in the book title is a bit of an overstatement because as someone who has been pro level blogging for 3 years, I saw some pretty significant incomplete areas. Also, "Complete" got me wondering why the HuffPo editors neglected to mention some very important things about how their blog is able to thrive at its level and details about their business model which I'll get into a bit later.
- Here are some subtitles I think fit the book better:
- "Blogging fundamentals from one of the most influential blogs on the Internet"
- "Blogging as a way to make your voice heard around the world"
- "Blogging to make a difference"
- HuffPo has expanded beyond politics and added lifestyle categories like health, happiness, fashion, animals, and Green, which is very cool, but the majority of the sited HuffPo examples were stories related to the subject of politics. HuffPo wants to be a type of online newspaper, but to me it still feels more like a political blog that happened to add other topics. That's not to say that feeling could change over time.
- The two chapters of the book that needed some serious beefing up was the chapters on how to create your blog and how to make money. In my opinion these chapters were skimmed versus beefed because of things like the lack of inclusion of open source blog platforms, blog design look and feel, building or joining a blog network, and the fact that they listed basically Google Adsense and the Amazon Associates program as the only primary ways to make money. A more "complete" book would have mentioned things like ad networks, affiliate marketing, eBooks, or making and selling products as well as getting book deals, paid writing assignments, consulting work, or even selling your blog.
Some significant pieces of information that should have been emphasized or mentioned
- The two people who founded The Huffington Post are Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, who used to be an Executive Vice President at AOL Time Warner. These two people are celebrities and power players in politics and media. They mention their "Rolodexes" a few times which includes names of the rich, famous, and powerful. From the get go, their blog is going to get loads of exposure and traffic because of their celebrity and influence. So, how about information on how to get mainstream media coverage when you are NOT famous, rich, and a media power player. How can we get a celebrity to guest post on our blog?
- Arianna and Kenneth launched HuffPo in May 2005 with their own money, and it helped that they are both very rich. Most of us have day jobs, making at most in the $100k+ range. In August of 2006, HuffPo announced their first round of funding, $5 million. In Sept 2007, they announced a $5 million second round, and just last week December 2008, HuffPo announces a $25 million third round. So before the printing of the book, HuffPo had $10 million in funding which is not mentioned anywhere in the book that I could find. If it is, please correct me. Why is this important? It's real easy to grow a blog to mammoth proportions when you have loads of money. The everyday blogger does not have nearly that kind of resources. We are one person businesses. We can't afford to hire coders, designers, lawyers, accountants, and execs from CBS. So, how do you grow a blog when you have $100, one Benjamin? Or, how can the everyday blogger get funding to grow our blogs?
- HuffPo has a staff of paid editors and some bloggers, but the bulk of the bloggers, about 1,800 in 2007 who contribute content are not paid.
So, there you have my two cents. if you like, you can read Chapter 1 here. Again, I think the "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
" is worth a read, but if you're a lifestyle blogger who wants to learn more about making money with your blogs, there's better information online or you can read "ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income
" which has way more information about revenue generation.
Have you read "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging"? What did you think?