I agree though. You’re still growing your subscriber base (and learning about the content they want). I just posted a note over on Men with Pens about the value of analytics in web content development. It’s not exactly earth shattering, but I think it definitely plays a role in creating really engaging content that you can eventually invite people to pay for.

I’d definitely like to see some folks talk about the right time to write ebooks and back it up with numbers.

But you raise a good point — when I get a chance, I’ll drop a link to the full series ebook into theose posts, and I’ll try to keep adding links to relevant posts when they get included in an ebook. There are at least three or four 5-part series like that coming up in the next several months — I’m going to try to do one a month (which is plenty of time between ebooks, which are kind of a hassle to put together).

On the audience/money thing, here’s what I think: for a new site like mine, right now is all about building goodwill and demonstrating quality. I’ve gotten about 200 subscribers since “opening shop”, and a fairly steady flow of daily visitors, but probably not enough of an audience to make enough money to make the work of putting together a full ebook — let’s say something I could feel comfortable charging $10 for — worth the time and effort it would take to write. Let’s say 15% of my subscribers and 10% of my visitors bought it (which is a huge over-estimate, I think) — we’re talking maybe $300 or so.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that an ebook would attract more traffic and attention — I’ve gotten over 2,000 hits in a day from StumbleUpon, let’s say I could sell 1% of them a book, that’s another $200, and SU traffic usually lasts for a couple days or so. And maybe other sites would send extra traffic — Rockstar Freelancer has an affiliate program, which means a lot of people are promoting it, which I’m sure multiplies sales and probably increases traffic for the authors, as well.

Still, we’re talking maybe, best-case scenario, $1000 or so, which isn’t chicken feed, but isn’t mad money, either. If I put 40 hours into writing, laying out, and promoting a book, that’s about $25/hr, which is far less than average for pro writers.

There are a lot of variables, here — a good ebook is going to start bringing in new traffic which is going to mean more sales which will bring in more traffic, etc. I think if you’re offering a $10 product and can reasonably expect to sell 500 copies, that’s a pretty attractive proposition. I think it’s a good idea to start from the ground up — how much work is it to create and market, and how much is a reasonable minimum wage for your work — and figure out how many copies you need to sell and then make a plan to sell that many.

It would be nice if some of the big ebook folks would churn some of the numbers publicly. I’m sure that’s a pretty daunting prospect, but it sure would help figure out some of the variables involved.

Sometimes personal posts are hard to comment on. At times, they read like perfect works of art (like yours) and a comment seems out of place. Other times it feels like the timing might be off. And then, there are still other times when good readers fall behind on comments they should be making.

[cue awkward shuffling of feet]

That said, maintaining your voice/topic is a pretty common problem.

Lorelle VanFossen, a blogger I love to read, did a few posts about this topic on Blog Herald. Here’s one I really like:

http://www.blogherald.com/2008/04/29/how-to-get-back-on-the-bloggy-path/

P.S. On the ebook thing… Even if it is a side thing, I’d call it out on those relevant posts. What I ended up doing was clicking on the Rockstar freelancer ad, which is cool and relevant too but what I wanted was your ebook because I liked your writing style and what you had to say. [ok, I think I've beat that horse enough ;)]

You bring up an interesting point regarding blogs turned book. I’ve actually been helping a blogger friend sort through some old posts, mostly finding the “meat” of his blog, to turn into an ebook. I’ll have to bring this up with him once we finish going through the three years worth of posts.

Maybe I’ll add the ebook link to all my posts — I hadn’t thought of that. I guess my thinking was that it’s a “side thing”, rather than the main event. Maybe I should change my thinking…

@Dustin You know I thought I remembered seeing that ebook on your site. Went looking for it and I couldn’t find it! Didn’t think to click that big tab at the top that says EBOOKS… You should add the image of the ebook and the link to all of those posts.

I agree that a pure port of your posts to an ebook is a bit wonky. Authors should beef up the material if they want to package it that way. I bought Garr Reynolds Presentation Zen because I knew it was everything he’d written plus a lot more.

I really like the way your site is developing by the way. Immensely helpful to the writing community.