Book Review of HOW TO BLOG FOR PROFIT (WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL)

Are you a blogger? Then you should absolutely, positively, 100% read How to Blog for Profit (Without Selling Your Soul).

My husband is wonderfully supportive of my blogging lifestyle, and he bought me this book for Christmas to encourage my dreams of becoming a full-time writer and blogger. After launching the Tart, I quickly learned that there is SO much to learn about the blogging world. Luckily, there are a lot of articles online to help you navigate the ins and outs of everything blog-related.

But, as sometimes happens with the Internet, the wealth of information can soon become completely overwhelming.

I read How to Blog for Profit after blogging for about six months, and it was the perfect time to start reading this book. Due to the articles I’d found on Pinterest and, well, just jumping blindly into this hobby, I already had the basics of blogging down – but there was definitely room for tweaking. (Note: there is always room for tweaking.) I also had a decent amount of blog content up by this point, so I had a lot to review and work with.

Author Ruth Soukup (founder and owner of the very successful blog Living Well Spending Less) gave me a lot of great ideas for ramping up the Tart. Some of them touch upon what I’d already read online, but most of this book contains fresh, honest, and helpful content, as well as keen insight from someone who’s pretty much done it all, failed miserably, and built herself back up again, to resounding success. Reading this book made me look at my blog with fresh eyes; I could see all its strengths, as well as the areas in which I could improve in order to be more attractive to my readers. I tweaked my blog’s layout within 10 minutes of reading the first few chapters. The more I read, the more I noted down other things that could be tweaked.

How to Blog for Profit addresses all of the major aspects of blogging: how to spruce up your blog; the importance of a good layout; how to use social media platforms to grow your business; the importance of SEO; how head-bangingly frustrating algorithms can be; the art of networking; etc. This is pretty much the first half of the book.

The second half is the Silver Tuna, as the bald-headed Wet Bandit from Home Alone would say – all the ways in which you can profit from your blog: affiliate links, advertising, selling your own products, brand sponsorship, etc. Soukup not only explains the ins and outs of this world, but she presents various “attack strategies” to help you get in the game. I’m still relatively new to blogging, so I’m still trying to figure out what revenue streams are right for me. I currently don’t utilize everything Soukup discusses, but I can definitely see myself going back to How To Blog for Profit in the future and using it as a reference guide.

A feature I found especially valuable is the Action Plans at the end of every chapter. Soukup throws a lot of information your way in How to Blog for Profit. It’s good to read through all the details, but if you find your brain going into overload, the Action Plans highlight the key points of each chapter and help you focus on your next steps to blogging success.

What I loved most about How to Blog for Profit, though, is that along with addressing the hot topics, she continuously reinforces her central theme of the book, which is that GREAT and AUTHENTIC content is going to be what truly keeps readers coming back for more. You can use all the tricks and tips she advises, but if you’re not generating great content, no one is going to read your blog. Soukup also emphasizes that you need to have a love of blogging to keep up the #bloggerlife because, for most people, making a six-figure (or even three-figure) income right out of the gate is not the reality, no matter what Pinterest may tell you.

At many times, reading How to Blog for Profit was like reading some kind of “Chicken Soup for the Blogger Soul”; I empathized and sympathized with so much of what Soukup reveals about her life, and about the blogger life in general. It’s not an easy hobby or profession, despite what many people may think. It’s a lot of work, and Soukup can totally commiserate. Which really helps when you check your stats for the umpteenth time and wonder when that freakin’ pin of your amazeballs-looking cake is going to go viral already.

Some things to note:

—I wouldn’t give How to Blog for Profit to a brand new blogger, or even to someone thinking of starting a blog. It will honestly scare the shit out of them. If I had known how much damn work is involved with blogging, I might have scrapped the Tart altogether before it ever went live. Soukup’s book is definitely best for people who are already blogging and have some basic knowledge of the industry.

—This is not a “get rich quick” guide to blogging. Soukup acknowledges that there are plenty of bloggers who skyrocket to financial success within months, even weeks, of launching their blogs. She also says that plenty of those bloggers – herself included – burn out and die off just as quickly. How to Blog for Profit focuses on building long-term and sustainable success. Soukup’s is a realistic and adoptable approach, though it does require a lot of hard work. And patience. Lots of patience.

—The version of How to Blog for Profit I’m reviewing here is the “Expanded 2^nd Edition,” which was published in 2014. Since that was five years ago, some aspects are, obviously, no longer relevant, or have changed drastically since the book was written. For example, I’m not sure “link parties” for networking are still a thing (does this concept remind anyone else of the infamous “key parties”? LOL), and several of the ad networks and other revenue streams mentioned are ones I’ve never heard of.  Also, Soukup doesn’t put as much emphasis on SEO – which is kind of laughable now because SEO is everything to bloggers.

—That being said, there are many aspects of How to Blog for Profit that are still shockingly accurate. The power of Pinterest, for example. Soukup calls this site out as the marketing king of the blogging world, and that’s still true today – possibly even more so than before. A pin going semi-viral is the not-so-secret dream of every blogger, amateur or veteran. The author also gives examples of various business pitches to use while building your blogging network, all of which are timeless and classic. The players in the game may change, but the ways to professionally approach them will not.

I finished reading How to Blog For Profit (Without Selling Your Soul) feeling invigorated, informed, hopeful, and most importantly, grounded in reality. Soukup keeps things mercifully real. She acknowledges what most bloggers learn early on – that blogging is a never-ending process. You’re never really “done,” and you never really take a day off. She kindly but sternly reminds you that you can’t do everything, and, more to the point, you won’t. AND THAT’S OKAY.

I absolutely recommend this book to anyone who’s been blogging for at least six months, though I do also recommend supplementing Soukup’s information with current online articles from successful bloggers. With How to Blog for Profit’s solid foundation in all things blogging, you’ll be thoroughly prepared to tackle this intricate hobby-turned-business lifestyle…without feeling like you gave up a piece of your happiness in the process.