Nomadic Matt is a great example of this whole earning online game. He started a bit over a year ago and is currently kicking my ass and bringing in $3000 a month as of May 2009. I met up with him in Thailand in September last year and, at that point, he didn’t seem to have much working for him except a very popular travel blog that wasn’t bringing in any money. It’s great to see him kick up his game and where I was the one giving advice in September, I am the one who could use some advice these days as I struggle to earn $1500 per month lately.
I noticed that he had written an ebook and I was curious about it but not willing to shell out $27 to satisfy my curiosity. So when he offered the book to me for free in exchange for a review I was happy to oblige.
I’ll start off by saying that I was skeptical when I heard about Matt’s ebook. Having read his other blog, I knew he pulled it together in a pretty short period of time and I was also not sure how much he was actually making since, last I read in January, he didn’t seem to be earning much. But it is realisitic to jump up to $3000 in a matter of months if you know what you’re doing and if there’s anyone who knows what he is doing and is a student of this stuff, it is Matt. I would be curious to see if he can pull in $3000 in June and beyond or if May was a blip.
The Good Stuff
Matt is good at writing without fluff. He lays the book out well, tells you the sections and what you will learn in each, and delivers straight to the point information. He covers all the bases with information on deciding on the type of blog you want to start, carving out your niche, getting traffic, monotizing your blog and, most importantly and where I think his book excels, SEO. Matt is also very good at using social marketing tools like Twitter and StumbleUpon and writes about it in the ebook.
One of the things that could set his ebook aside is that Matt has promised to give contact details for some of his advertisers. As I didn’t see this extra bit, I can’t really say whether or not it’s worth the price. This would be great for people with already established websites and a link sale could potentially pay for the ebook and more in one hit. However this would probably only work for reasonably established sites.
I really think that Matt knows his stuff. He has come a long way since I met him in September and I think that’s because of a lot of reading, trial and error and just a passion for what he is working on. The advantage is that he has done all of this stuff fairly recently his success is proof that his advice works.
The Not So Good Stuff
Not much, really. There’s nothing in the ebook I don’t agree with. The only problem with the ebook, in my eyes, is that there’s nothing in here that you won’t be able to find for free elsewhere. Because of that, even if he is a web buddy of mine and even if I will get 50% of the sale price, I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it.
I also didn’t feel like there was much in the book that was targeted specifically towards travel bloggers. The advice is more general and can be applied to any type of website which is good but as the ebook is being marketed towards travel bloggers I would have expected the advice to be a bit more geared to them, although in what way I have no idea.
If you’ve got $27 to spare and want a concise introduction to this industry and a good guide on getting up and running then grab it and I am sure you will be happy with the purchase. But if you have the time to spare then you can find ebooks written by some of the biggest players in the game that go into far greater detail for free. John Chow is one good example. Or for less than $16 you can get a 220 page paperback book on the subject from Darren Rouse, one of the most successful guys in the business. Or check out the series I wrote over Location Independent for a guide for total beginners.
If you decide you want to buy the ebook and want to give me 50% cut then use this link to buy it. Otherwise click here to get it from Matt’s site.
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