Write Off Your Expenses as Blog Business!

I'm such a dummy!

I just lost out on $129.00, that I could have been paid. Let me explain.

I rode my motorcycle down to San Diego with a couple of buddies. We went to the Easyriders Bike Show to look at choppers and peruse the vendors. It was intended to be pleasure.

But getting back home, I felt compelled to write about it on my motorcycle blog. I thought the bike show was less than exciting, and the cost of parking and entrance was way too expensive.

Because writing and publishing blogs is part of my business, I could have expensed the whole trip! But the thing is that I didn't bother to collect the receipts, mainly because it didn't dawn on me before hand that I'd be blogging about this trip. Here's what I could've done if I was smart enough to realize it ahead of time:

• Expensed my mileage (I don't have the exact figure, but my accountant said something like $0.40 per mile). I did about 200 miles round trip believe it or not. That's $80.00 I could write off of my corporate income!
  
• Expensed my gasoline. This is not covered in the mileage. Mileage is for wear and tear on the vehicle. I spent something like $15.00 total.
  
• Expensed my parking and entrance fee. That came out to $26.00.
  
• Expensed my meals. I had lunch on the way down to the show. It was something like $8.00 altogether.

That comes out to $129.00! If I had collected the receipts, my business could write me a check to pay for it all.

Note that my business is an incorporated entity, which is why it would've paid me a check. If my business wasn't incorporated, but was something I operated as sole proprietorship, then obviously I wouldn't pay myself. Instead, I would deduct the $129.00 from my gross income, effectively lowering my tax liability.

Either way, it's an opportunity lost. Think of how much opportunity is lost each day simply by not remembering to collect receipts and expensing them. I admit I'm terrible at accounting stuff; I need to do better. But just think about all the opportunities there are to expense things. There's probably a lot of money to be had.

Can You Become a Blogger Entrepreneur?

When I meet new people, I'm often asked about how to go about starting a website, maintaining it, and earning a living from it. The technical details of this are plenty. But I think the answer can summed up in three things: committment, patience, and open-mindedness.

I started publishing websites in March of 1997. It's taken me since then to enjoy the success that I have now. And during that period of time, the Internet landscape has changed many times over. You have to have those three things just to get you through those years. And now that Clear Digital Media is an incorporated business, I'm committed to it, all the way until I'm physically incapable of continuing.

Just about everyone would love to work from home, be their own boss, and not have to have clients to babysit. I certainly do enjoy being in that situation. But it's still a committment nonetheless. I'm now here at my laptop, usually from morning to morning, working 18 to 20 hours a day. Are you willing to commit to that?

Of course I take breaks, but really, not that many. I get out to walk the dogs, and sometimes run errands, though my wife usually runs all the errands. And we do spend the weekends riding around on the motorcycle.

But being a blog publishing entrpreneur, a "bloggerpreneur" if you will, is like starting any other business. You're pretty much going have to eat, breathe, and crap your business all day long, for several years.

I don't plan to work like this for the rest of my life however. I plan to hire people to write the blogs for me. But I need to get into a position where I can afford to pay people. That's the goal! That's when I can spend my time running a business, and wearing fewer hats.

Recap - October 27, 2005

The theme that I seem to be dealing with this morning is the issue of commercial influences in blogging.

It started this morning when I got an e-mail from Constantine von Hoffman, a senior writer for CMO Magazine. CMO is focused at marketing executives, aimed at providing them with news and insight on the world of marketing. Hoffman mentioned both Strange New Products and Junk Food Blog in his article.

I mentioned to him that I would love to get product news releases from his readers, which I presume consist of marketers, manufacturers, and retailers. Since I already spend time perusing news releases and websites looking for new stuff to blog about, it would be great if they just sent me all the new stuff.

Continuing on with this theme, I also spent time writing an article on this very same blog, entitled, "How Does Affiliate Marketing Interfere with Editorial Practice?". This focused on a blogger who apparently is also "in it for the money", even though he/she claims to be just doing it for fun. But I offered the blogger some advice on how he/she could boost their income greatly, and in their response, turned it down, citing the need to maintain editorial practice.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Interfere with Editorial Practice?

Having been blogging for a year now, I still can't understand why embedding affiliate marketing text links within the body of a blog article is taboo. That's the sentiment I ran into when corresponding with a blogger a couple of days ago.

I don't want to name this blogger, because I don't want to put this person on the spot. But this person's blog is focused exclusively on a particular nationwide retailer. The blog articles are almost entirely about the various products sold at this retailer. My assumption is that he/she enjoys this store a lot, and is blogging about products that happen to strike his/her fancy. Finally, this retailer also has an affiliate marketing program.

It made sense to me that he/she ought to link each product using the store's affiliate marketing links. The response I got was..

Thanks for the affiliate info. but if we get paid it's not true editorial. We are just having fun anyway!

What?

The fact is that what makes it "true editorial" is that he/she decides which products and topics to write about. How does this influence change if the blogger replaces the direct links with affiliate marketing links?

It's great that this person is "just having fun anyway!". I could accept that answer considering his/her blog is hosted on Blogspot, a free blog host. But then again, they also have adverising up and down the side columns of their blog. Why would someone put ads on a cost-free blog, and tell me that they're only in it for the fun?

My point with this is that so many bloggers are caught up in a myopic zeal to field some level of respect as a journalist. They want to be respected for their writing talents (which is fine), but they feel that such respect demands being free of commercial influence.

Let me tell you something. Respect doesn't come from what influences you, but what you have to say. That is, people don't follow a particular blog because of its influences, but because of the blogger's insight, creative genius, or simply for the subject matter. If you find the opportunity to monetize your writing by including an affiliate marketing link within the text, how does that change your original intent of writing that article?

It doesn't obviously.

I feel that many bloggers are denying themselves the opportunity to monetize their work for the sake of maintaining pristine "editorial practice". If you're publishing a blog for purposes of earning a living, then it behooves you to find the most effective business model. Unfortunately, you can't achieve that if you're going to give greater weight to "editorial practice".

My advice to the for-profit blog publishers, is to tone down the editorial practice thing. Embrace the marketers and advertisers, and focus on good writing, good analysis, and quirky humor. Don't worry about a presenting a commercial influence. If you're in it for the money, it makes no sense to let editorial practice dictate what you're going to write about. As a reader, I'm more interested in what you have to say about the product, rather than why you were influenced to write about it.

Recap - October 26, 2005

I decided I'm going to post these "daily recaps" to recap what I did today, perhaps to shed some light on what a website/weblog publisher goes through on a daily basis.

This morning, I was supposed to attend the weekly Business Networking International meeting in Temecula. This is my third missed meeting in a row. Not that I don't like it, I do like it. I just don't think it's going to work out for me. I did meet some good business folks, and it looks like I have a couple leads that will result in new business deals. But the committment is too much. You have to attend every week, at 7:00am, or else they kick you out. And they want you to pay $300.00 a year, plus an extra $70 for the first year.

Spent quite a bit of time e-mailing back and forth with David (my business partner on Smoking Dogs and CousinConnections) regarding the AdSense click conversion issue. JenSense brought it up, and it sparked a pretty discussion between David and myself. Ultimately, the discussion went nowhere, because AdSense just doesn't provide us the data we need to act accordingly.

But David did bring up a good point about the quality of content on Girls-Softball versus that on Genealogy and How, and how the better the quality, the lower the CTR. But the better the quality, the higher the CPC, perhaps suggesting better click conversions.

One of the negatives about working with advertising networks like AdSense, Fastclick, et al, is that it lets you forget about click conversions. That's one of the good things about working with affiliate marketing programs, they force you to think about them, which is the ultimate ends for an advertiser.

Lisa spent the better part of the day looking for a Halloween costume. She's also visiting her surgeon to follow-up on her neck surgery.

I spent the late afternoon totalling up my personal income and business expenses for January 2005 to May 9, 2005. That represents the period of time in 2005 when I was still operating Clear Digital Media as a sole proprietor. My accountant needs to know this information in order to figure out what my personal tax liability is going to be. I've been putting it off because I'm trying to keep up with my daily publishing duties.

Also spent time building the page template for the Smoking Dogs Media website. SDM is the business venture that David and I co-own. We've been running it for almost three years now, but never organized it under a business name. We now have the name, but we need a website.

Spent more time blogging on Strange New Products and Junk Food Blog. I'm getting a lot more folks e-mailing me tips for SNP, which makes the work more easier. Thanks again to everyone who've sent them in. Junk Food Blog seems pretty easy to blog as there's an abundance of new snack foods coming out everyday. But, AdSense performance on JFB is low.

I applied to Chitika eMiniMalls, and am still waiting for a reply.

IRS To Go After Sole-Proprietors

Business owners operating as "Sole Proprietors", will become bigger targets by the IRS, perhaps starting already.

This is what I was told by my accountant (CPA), who handles the tax affairs for many local businesses in my area. She said that there is an increase of sole proprietorships being run out of the business-owner's home, and that this has historically provided the greatest abuse of the tax code.

The federal government needs more money, and the Bush Administration will be increasing the number of audits, and this increase will be focused on sole proprietors.

The issue has to do with business owners claiming tax deductions for things they considered to be "business expenses". Many of these owners deduct the cost of using their home for business purposes. They also may have deducted the cost of their electricity, heating, and telephone expenses. While these costs are indeed legitimate, there is also a lot of confusion over what is deductible, and how much.

Moreover, there is also the issue of keeping proper documentation, something which sole proprietors often don't keep.

If you're operating a website publishing business, or blog publishing business, and you're operating as a sole proprietor, then you may want to consider incorporating as a "Class C" (Inc.) and then taking the Subchapter S exemption. These are called "S Corporations". A business attorney will handle the incorporation for you, while a CPA will apply for the Subchapter S exemption.

My CPA said that the IRS will not increase their audits of corporations, simply because incorporated businesses tend to hire CPAs to provide consultation and/or bookkeeping. It's the sole proprietors that tend to make the most mistakes.

If you've been thinking about incorporation, remember that it's going to be more costly, and will require more effort on your part to manage, but will open an array of benefits that you cannot get as a sole proprietor (peace from the IRS being one of them). Check out my piece entitled, "Incorporating Your Website Publishing Business".

Dare to be Different

I guess I'm the "anti-blogger".

That is, it seems like our blog publishing network is the only one that's completely hosted on Blogger. This thought came to me after this blog post from BAJames. It's a harmless post. But in it he says...

Wordpress is a real blogging system - Blogger just publishes static pages either on blogspot or you're server. It's comparable to Typepad (which charges for it's service) in that it has trackbacks and more sophisticated comments than blogger.

"a real blogging system"? And Blogger is not?

Well, that thought got me into wondering what blogging software is used by other blog networks? I visited Blog Network List to get list a of blog networks, and then visited each one to see which software they used. To sum it up, the only network using Blogger, was mine. Clear Digital Media. That is, no other network used Blogger as their "primary" publishing platform.

Some networks don't control what software their member blogs use, but still, Blogger doesn't appear to be the dominant software of choice among blog networks.

But that thought led me to another thought. It seems a lot of bloggers use Macs as their computer of choice. At least, that's what it seems like when reading many of their blogs. Not me. It's Windows all the way Baby!

Also, most bloggers don't use Internet Explorer when browsing the web. It's always Firefox or Safari. I love IE. I haven't found a better browser yet.

Heck, it sometimes seems like all the bloggers have iPods. I have an Archos.

And I don't drink coffee either.

I wonder what the other blog networks think of myself and Clear Digital Media? Honestly, I don't think they think anything of it. I think they all understand that it's not the blogging software, or the type of computer you use. It's the end result. It's who stays in business, and who controls the page views.

In this regards, Clear Digital Media is doing pretty well. And we're not strictly a blog publisher either, we publish other websites too.

I'll point out that I have used WordPress before, as well as Radio UserLand, and I just didn't see any reason to make a switch. The only material differences I saw between those two and Blogger is the ability to store source data on your server, and the ability fragment your archives into categories. Otherwise, we're just talking little ticky-tacky differences.

For the record, Blogger IS a real blogging tool. But hey, I'm not knocking WordPress, I agree it's a pretty good tool. But thus far, Blogger is doing what I need it to do. At least, our readers don't seem to mind.

The Purpose of Loyal Readers

In web publishing, since most advertising is monetized on some kind of performance, either "per click", "per sign-up", "per sale", etc., it becomes evident that your loyal readers don't patronize the ads appearing on your site.

That is, they already know about the ads, and are more interested in your content.

So, what good are visitors if they don't click your ads?

Well, two things. For one, repeat visitors will promote your website, and two, repeat visitors create a sense of community in your website.

The first part, about promoting your website, is the bigger part. Many of these visitors have their own websites, and if they really like your website, they'll link to you. And if they don't have their own website, they'll still link to you on whatever other forums they frequent, as well as through comments on other blogs.

These inbound links are necessary to build up strong rankings in search engines. And that's where the gold is. People who find your website after conducting a search on Google or Yahoo, are the ones most likely to click on ads. This is because they're looking for something specific, and the fact that your website came up on their search, indicates that one or more of the ads on your website will serve their interests.

And don't count out e-mail. Your loyal readers will forward your best material to their closest friends, who may end up forwarding on to their friends. Hence, you want to use your loyal readers to bring in new readers, who are more likely to patronize your advertisers, at least on the first visit or two.

But the other part, about creating a sense of community is important too. If you're publishing a blog, you want your readers to post comments on each blog article you write. Comments are content too, and sometime the comments create more buzz than the article itself. When your loyal readers are posting lots of comments, it gives sense of popularity to your website. It makes it look as if your website is worth exploring. And if your visitors explore lots of pages, they will be exposed to more ads, thus increasing the chances they click on one of them.

So how do you build up a loyal readership? Content. Lot's of it.

If you're publishing a blog, I recommend at least three new postings, each day, per blog. That's the minimum, in order to achieve a high rate of return. You need this kind of frequency in order to generate "buzz". If you manage to post an average of one new blog article, about every two to three days, then your blog is never going to grow.

This blog you're reading here, In Your Web, is largely that way. But then, I don't make a living teaching other people how to blog, or publish websites. But in the websites where I do earn my keep, which are not necessarily limited to blogs, I have fresh new content posted everyday. This is how you generate an audience, and keep it growing.

Music Inspires You to Write

Most times when I'm blogging, working on my websites, or doing other shtuff, I've got my MP3 player going full blast.

I've the Archos Jukebox Multimeda. I don't know off hand how many songs I have on there, but it's close to a thousand, if not more. I've got stuff from all genres and all decades. Deep Purple, CCR, The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers, and newer stuff like Cowboy Junkies, Beth Orton, and Stereophonics, are just some of the names I have on there.

But I also have Country.

Yeah, I like Country, but not the crap you usually hear on the radio. I'm talking stuff like Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, The Mavericks, and Johnny Cash.

Yup, Johnny Cash. God bless Johnny Cash...

"When I was just a baby,
My momma tol' me son,
Always be a good boy,
Don't ever play with guns.

But I shot a man in Reno,
Just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin',
I hang my head and cry."

- Folsom Prison Blues

This is the kind of stuff that inspires me to write. This stuff comes from the soul. Cash had pain in his soul. That aching down deep in his being is what drove him, and music was just the window.

In the 70s, my mom liked to watch Hee Haw! Remember that show? It was a bunch of country and folk singers doing comedy skits and singing songs. Roy Clark was a star on that show.

Roy was a big favorite with my mom. His big hit song was "Yesterday, When I Was Young". Oh Man! When he sang that song, my mom would cry. First you'd hear her sniffling, then you'd look at her and saw her eyes red and welling up with tears. Then you heard her cry, and she would prop her head up with her hand, and just cry. Then she would look to me and tell me how much she loved me. She told me to be a good boy, and stay out trouble, and then she talked about her life and troubled past, and how much she wanted me do to better.

She was clearly speaking from the heart, and expressing herself as deeply as any mother could to her son.

But that's the power of music. It brings out the soul in us, and its the soul that turns a dry piece of work into a powerful expression. A lot of my best writing came after hearing stuff from folks like Johnny Cash, Gregg Allman, Lucinda Williams, Paula Cole, just to name a few.

What music do you listen to when you do your web thing?

Bad First Impression for Instablogs

First impressions mean the whole world.

Instablogs is among the latest blog publishing businesses to emerge recently. It managed to attract widespread attention from the blogosphere, or at least that part of the blogosphere in tune with the blogging biz. In fact, in the days leading up to the launch, it managed get blogged by many of the high-profile business-bloggers.

And then on launch day, October 6th, all the bloggers visited Instablogs' homepage to see what would happen. And what happened? Nothing. Well, it eventually did launch, a tad late. But when it did launch, folks found very little. There were several blogs, forty-seven in all I had heard, and many of which had no content.

Moreover, Instablogs seemed to be rather unconventional, opting to make each of its bloggers anonymous. And if you think about that, that goes against the grain of blogging, being that blogging is a much more "personal" form of journalism.

Nowadays, the folks from around the blogosphere are not feeling shy about expressing their dissatisfaction with Instablogs.

The fact is, Instablogs has a lot of making up to do, and is now in the unfortunate position of having to prove itself.

First impressions mean the whole world. A solid first impression will buy you a lot of free passes, and will brand you with excellence. Even if you were to fall on your face afterwards, folks will remember your first impression, and will be willing to forget about any subsequent mistakes you might make.

But as it is now, bloggers will be magnifying every little quirk about Instablogs.

Perhaps it wasn't Instablogs' fault for creating such great anticipation among the community. Maybe the blogosphere won't make that mistake twice. In any case, if you're going to launch a blog publishing business, better make sure you can live up to the hype.

A Different Kind of Blog Networking

Being an Internet publisher, one often thinks of "networking" as building a trustworthy circle of friends online, with other Internet publishers. But networking the old fashion way, that is, the offline way, can be put to use with blog publishers.

To start out, don't limit your network of friends and contacts to only other Internet professionals. Think outside of the box!

Last week, I met with a guy who works as a Senior Loan Officer for a company called Wholesale Mortgage Source, located close to my neighborhood. He wanted to learn more about the world of Internet entrepreneurship, and I wanted to learn more about the real estate industry, being that I publish a real estate blog.

So we met for lunch, and we started talking the biz. In the end, he agree to write some consumer-focused articles for me, which I can publish on the site, and in return I'll be helping him get into the world of e-commerce, affiliate marketing, and blog publishing.

My old tax preparer gave me call this afternoon. Actually, it was her daughter, who helps out with the business. She wanted to start an e-commerce site selling lingerie online. So, I spent about 30 minutes answering her questions, giving her advice, and giving her some other contacts. I was surprised to hear from her. She knew to call me, because I made it know to them of what I do for a living. At this point, I don't know what I will get from them in return someday, but it's always good to sew the seeds.

In fact, I met a lady about a month ago who sells services from Pre-Paid Legal, Inc. She knows some folks who deal with financial planning. We met for lunch, and she discussed the idea of building an informational site that offers financial planning information to consumers, with links and advertisements for her and her friends' businesses. She wanted me to build and manage the site. Sounds like a great idea to me. If only I had the time!

But therein lies the point about networking. Without these other people, it's hard to establish a new website or blog.

So how do you meet all these people? Contact the local Chamber of Commerce in your area, and ask to make an appointment with their CEO. Even in the largest of cities, you can usually get access to the CEO pretty easily. Then, introduce yourself and your business, and simply explain that you're looking to network with other business owners who might be interested in getting involved with one of your websites. The CEO will no doubt have a few names in mind, and can introduce you to these business owners.

Another thing to is to visit Business Networking International. They chapters in just about every town, large and small. Find a chapter in your area, and contact the chapter President. Ask them to invite you to their next meeting (all meetings are by invitation only). All chapters are hungry for new members, so you won't have a problem getting invited. You won't believe how dynamic these meetings are, filled with business people who want to network, and work with other business owners.

I Told You it Would Happen!

The news in the blogging world yesterday was the Weblogs, Inc., the most prolific blog publisher in the business, was purchased by AOL.

Back on September 28, I published a piece entitled, "Is Gawker Media Ripe for Acquisition", where I theorized that blog publishers are going to become targets for acquisitions and major advertising deals.

Ok, maybe I should have replaced Gawker Media with Weblogs, Inc. in the title. But you get the point.

This just goes to show that blogs are a serious media vehicle. The big media outlets want eyeballs, and blogs have been attracting lots of eyeballs lately. Now that AOL bought Weblogs, Inc., look for other large media companies to cast their eyes on the blogging biz. Other folks are seeing the potential too, as they launch full scale blog publishing operations, like b5media and Instablogs.