pelf-ism is contagious

I am sure we are now well aware of the newest update from PayPerPost — the PPP Direct, which to me, works a little like ReviewMe. But that’s not what I want to dwell into today If you haven’t read enough from all other bloggers promoting PPP Direct, you may want to read it directly from those behind the scene.

Now, I’ve never received an assignment from ReviewMe though I’ve had an account with them for a couple of months. In fact, I had just recently deleted my ReviewMe account, which doesn’t really mean anything except that I now have one less username-and-password combination to remember I mean, what is this blog compared to other “make money” or “technical” blogs in the marketplace? I don’t get impressive uniques or page views or hits in a day, and I know it isn’t exactly a must-read material. And don’t worry, I’m not intending to place the PPP Direct badge on my blog, demanding that you hire me with the “said amount” because well, let me just say that I don’t work *that* way..

I don’t write blog reviews (whether or not they are paid for) because I know I’m not an expert in web-designing and stuff like that, so who am I to review another person’s blog anyway?? I’ve seen bloggers commenting on another person’s blog as if he/she has years of experience and knows exactly what works and what don’t. And I personally think that reviews such as, “… the colour-combination is great, and I especially like the well-arranged sidebars…” or “… the author has very good taste…” or “… simplistic design, easy-to-read font and colours soothing to the eyes…” are too fake to be taken seriously. And I don’t do link-exchanges because I believe that if one’s blog is interesting enough for me to subscribe to its feeds, it says so much more than having a link on my sidebar which reads “I LOVEEE these sites”.

Nonetheless, I’m curious as to how much one is willing to pay for a post on my blog. I’m not going to boast and tell you how I can help your blog ranking by linking to your blog and all those fish.. I’m also not going to stress that I have so-and-so amount of unique visitors and hits per day, because, heck, my readership isn’t something to be shouted at! In any case, I can guarantee that whatever your vote to the following poll is, it will NEVER be used against you. That, I promise

[poll=3]

If you don’t already know it, Lorelle of the “Lorelle on WordPress” fame has recently released her own book, entitled “Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging”.

So, how do I get a copy of the book?

The book is available at Blog Herald but you can also purchase it directly from the publisher, SplashPress, though there is no price difference. According to Lorelle:

This print was a short run only and when supplies run out, the price will be going up, and then distribution to bookstores will be considered. Currently, it’s only available online, which makes it easy and you don’t have to pay the markup bookstores charge. We’re working to keep this as affordable as possible.

I will be posting excerpt chapters from the book on my blog so you can get a feel for what is in there. The first one is Blogging Tips Book: Blog Branding and Identity. I’ll have another one next week.

Blogging Tips costs USD 12.95 each — excluding an additional USD 3 and USD 12 for shipping and handling within the US and everywhere else, respectively. Ouh yeah, if you order before this Friday (June 1st), she will autograph your copy!

And if I don’t have a PayPal account or a credit card?

OK.. If you don’t have a PayPal account or a credit card (I don’t blame you, I don’t have a credit card either), I can help you with it. I’ll pay from my PayPal account on your behalf, and you pay me back in Malaysian Ringgits, how’s that? So according to this currency exchange tool, USD 24.95 is equivalent to RM 84.53.

Seriously…

… if you haven’t heard of Lorelle, it’s high time you get out of your comfortable blogging zone and read and blog-hop more. She is a professional writer (she’s been blogging for almost 15-freaking-years, when you were still wearing napkins) and the author of Lorelle on WordPress, a popular technical blog on WordPress and blogging. She is also the author of Taking Your Camera on the Road, one of the first personal websites on the Internet, featuring over a thousand articles on travel, nature photography, and life on the road, and Lorelle’s Family History, a genealogy blog. Plus, she is also a columnist for the Blog Herald and guest-blogs and writes for many blogs, e-zines, websites, and print publications. She travels extensively, as a web consultant and public speaker, and can often be found in airports, truck stops, outside shops, and prowling your neighborhood looking for an open WiFi connection to send off her next blog post.

Eh, what are you waiting for??!

OK, let’s get this straight. My Bloglines tells me that I have 12 subscribers, but my Feedburner says otherwise. In fact, there was once Feedburner told me that I had, what, 84 readers? I thought that was pretty inaccurate because the number of people who leave me a comment here on my blog rarely amount to 10, hahhah..

I have an explanation for that, I think.. Perhaps some of my readers have not been exposed to feed readers because I’ve never blogged about them? Or perhaps a lot of my readers visit my blog in their office hence it’s not convenient to leave “any trails” in case their bosses spy on them? Or perhaps my readers are all busy people on-the-go who do not have time time to check whether there’s any updated content in my blog (because there are times I that I don’t blog for a day or two)?

So what have I found?

Zookoda is an email marketing application designed specifically for bloggers. It is a a tool that can act as a reminder to your readers in form of a blog email. It enables you to send a daily, weekly or monthly summary of your latest blog posts directly into your readers’ inbox. Yea, for FREE. It isn’t meant to replace RSS feeds and feed readers, but merely providing an alternative to people who are too busy to read blogs via a feed reader. Isn’t this brilliant?

Zookoda? Do I get to see animals?

No, you don’t. But there is a whole list of other things that you can do, for example:

• promote your blog by keeping your blog readers informed in the form of an email newsletter (and yes, you have complete control over all your email marketing;
• build a visitor base either by uploading email addresses into custom mailing lists or by creating dynamic blog subscription forms;
• manage email newsletter subscribers;
• enhance your blog with custom newsletter subscription forms;
• design eye-catching newsletters to match your blog design;
• schedule recurring broadcasts for each day, week or month. You can also promote your blog by sending one-off promotional emails (I’m going to try this function in a while);
• view real-time open, bounce, click and unsubscribe reports (aren’t we all obsessed with our blog stats?!); and
• access mobile users by emailing blog content in text format (ooo la la).

Perhaps I should run a little test to see whether the number of readers who leave a comment increases after using Zookoda *winks*

Addendum: Before you can send an email announcing your newest blog posts, your “sender details” must be verified by Zookoda as part of their anti-spam commitment.