Jun 30 2009
Review of Nomadic Matt’s Ebook
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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Many thoughts….
1. You make the advertiser list sound pretty shady because I didn’t want to e-mail you the whole list of advertisers. Sort of like, you don’t really believe it exists. I mean I’m not lying but you can understand why I don’t want to email out all the advertisers that I work with. They won’t really appreciate it. But I do give people a few contacts and they all have worked out. just ask steve from asian ramblings, who in his review, talked about how he got names and made 5x the book price in the first week: http://www.asianramblings.com/other/blogging/review-money-travel-blog-ebook/
2. While the SEO part is applicable to any website, the social traffic part is all related to travel blogs and traffic so I think it’s unfair, especially since you say you don’t know what else there would be to include, to say that it’s not applicable to travel blogs. Stumble and Twitter have all brought me advertising deals. That whole section is geared fully toward the travel niche AND only useful if you are in the travel niche.
4. I wouldn’t really be recommending john chow. He got deindexed by Google. Doesn’t even rank for his name! He actually just had to start a while new website and 301 everything to his new .ca site to try to get rankings back. That’s not really someone to follow. And while Darren can tell you how to make a blog, he’s full of shit when it comes to making money online. If you want to figure out social traffic, darren is good. But find me someone who followed him and has made a ton a money. Your right that this information can be found for free but it took me months to wade through the bullshit and with lots of money spent. I cut through all of that. Like you said, I’m straight to the point. If people want to spend months trying this out, more power to them.
There’s over 50 comments and formal reviews on my site about the book and how it has helped people. Check that out too:
http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/make-money-with-your-blog/
I wholeheartedly agree with your review.
I actually did buy his e-book. I found it a nice light read, but definitely very expensive for the compressed amount of content. (A printed version of a book from amazon, or the links you gave, would have gone into much greater depth for example, and they are all cheaper) I got through the whole book in very little time. He definitely knows his SEO, but I didn’t see a huge amount in his book that I haven’t learned in my own research or couldn’t have found for free (and my SEO knowledge is not as good as yours or Matt’s).
Apart from some links (like travelblogexchange) I didn’t find it at SO relevant to travel blogging, and as you said it could have been applied to any website. I think he added that title mostly to interest a “niche” that clearly hasn’t had a similar title, which is fair enough, since he mentions the concept in the book anyway. If he had just marketed it as an SEO book it couldn’t possibly sell with the amount of competition for others writing similar books. It’s a good example of appealing to a particular interest and applying what he talks about, but I still think he could have been more specific. On twitter he is promoting it as his “travel ebook” or something along those lines, and I find that very confusing…
I’d recommend it for complete beginners, not bloggers already in the game a few months. But intermediate bloggers like myself can definitely learn something from it. He talked about not putting all your eggs in one basket and having several sites, which I hadn’t considered up to now, so I started my new site and it’s been going great (although, I’m only really applying what I already knew to this new blog in terms of SEO and site design etc…) I also decided to remove the ugly (and unproductive) adsense I implemented recently on my old site based on his recommendations.
I think if he reduced the price substantially, then I could recommend it to friends. Travel bloggers who aren’t “yet” earning money from their blog (I actually earn nothing from my websites, but thought the SEO advice would come in handy) cannot afford that price; $27 is a lot for budget travellers, so maybe he could market it towards “flashpackers” who can afford it (like me) more directly. Otherwise the price will have to go down!!
@Benny:
While the SEO portion is applicable to all websites, the section about traffic is not- going to travel forums, travel community sites, finding travelers on twitter- is all about the travel niche.
Moreover, it becomes a question of time vs. money. You can find all this information for free, but like you said you learned it over months. Do you want to save yourself a few months of trying to figure out what information is right or just pay 27 dollars to get all the info in a straightforward way right away.
Also, one of the reasons it’s 27 dollars is because I give away advertiser information (an offer you haven’t taken me up on!). So you pay 27 dollars, get a few emails and bam! you just made your money back and then some!
also, for july 4th, I made the book 17.76….so now it’s a bit cheaper! go recommend it !
Can the ebooks advice only be used for static sites or is it specifically geared towards blogs?
I mean, can it also be used for static sites?
Cruel review…
Wow.
Eh tu Kirsty?
Not cruel, veracious is the word … The author asked for a review and now can’t live with an hones opinion. Still thinking of buying the thing though, guess I’m a flashpacker.
Hey Kirsty,
This review got me thinking…
Would you have any tips to share about travel writing? How did you get started? Do you recommend any books on the subject?
I mean, I have seen a bunch of “make money online” or “call these magazines, do the pitch like this and sell your articles” type of information, but I haven’t seen much on travel writing itself, how we can make it more personal on the web, and how we can make more money from it.
How did you get started? Would you mind sharing how you arrived to where you are today? How about a post talking about your journey so far? (Or at least an update, linking back to previous stuff that a new reader may have missed.)
Thanks,
Diogo
@webjourneyman: I can live with the review. I don’t agree with it and my points are to clarify but Kirsty opinion is her own.
As for the advice, it works for both static sites and blogs. In fact I tell people to have both.
I think you’re being a bit harsh Kirsty. I too used to get really annoyed with people flogging ebooks which covers stuff that can be found for free on the Internet. But most beginners struggle to sift the information - information overload is a common complaint. In effect in buying an ebook you are paying for the “one stop shop” - and I think you get with Matt’s book - which I have read yes. And really does it matter how long it took him to write it - if it adds value to the reader its good - if not they can always ask for a refund!
And yes you can jump your income that fast - I personally have just tripled my Adsense inside a month. Not without effort of course, but yes when income starts to come in it snowballs - not just increments - i think that’s the same for many businesses not just the online game.
I’d also agree with Matt’s comments - avoid John Chow like the plague and Darren is very much of the Alist blogger - what works for him wonted work for someone starting out - unless they happen to already have a whole lot of followers already!
Well I have not read Matts ebook, so cannot comment directly but I would be interested to know if it has any unique selling points because I find most ebooks don’t.
The one I wrote contains info available on the web admittedly but I tried to bring something new along with the following ‘week to week for 20 weeks’ idea as oppose to chapters on design, seo etc etc
I also find problogger, johnchow etc a waste of time. You find far more interesting and useful info on forums like webmasterworld where the real experts hang out, not the ones that make money by telling others how to make money!
Finally it does sound like Matt finds it hard to accept criticism and was a little bit defensive in his response.
I read the ebook too, when Matt sent me a copy. If I can, I’d like to offer a slightly different perspective.
First, regarding the information about advertisers, this is huge, in my opinion. I get emails all the time from bloggers who want to monetize their site, but they just aren’t big enough to get solicited via email like Matt or I do. But they still have PR 3 ranking sites. They just don’t know where to start. I literally get 3-4 emails a month about this. If you have a site with lowish traffic, but decent PR ranking, you can get $100/yr EASY for a link. Matt’s giving this information away. As a blogger starting out (i.e. under 6 months) this could be a huge jump in pay over what adsense typically does.
The $27 price reflects this. Darren Rowse’s ebook is $16 and does not have advertiser info. So while Matt’s book is pricey as a standalone, he is offering a pretty good value if you do the math. (And I also didn’t get the advertiser list, understandably because I got my copy free, but Matt and I use many of the same folks– because we share that info– so I know the kind of companies he works with and they’re legit).
That being said, I think the ebook still stands well on it’s own. Kristy, I suspect you over estimate how much people know in the beginning! That’s all. Also, if you want to dig through Chow or Rowse archives, you can, but this was a tidy summary. I mean that’s why I buy books. Because I don’t want to do all that research myself.
Anyhoo, for what it’s worth that’s my take. Kristy, thanks for writing this candid review, I know it’s hard when you know the person, so I hope you won’t take my counter points the wrong way!
’suspect you over estimate how much people know in the beginning’
that is actually a very good point, it is quite difficult to review an ebook like this if you are coming from a position of knowledge.
I think it was a fair review.
I read Matt’s blog often as well as other travel and lifestyle blogs. Matt definitely knows how to network himself, his site and his ebook. It’s funny, I’ve read reviews of his book on other sites and he always pops up in the comments section, claifiying, critising the reviews where he disagrees etc. What’s the point Matt, if you’re inviting people to review your book so you can get more exposer, you’ll have to take the good with the bad. It’s as simple as that. Everytime you follow one of these reviews and critique the reviewer, you sound like cry baby and it does take away from your credibility(at least in my eyes). Take it like a man! You shouldn’t be commenting on people’s reviews of your book each time it’s reviewed (especially if you requested the review in the first place!).
Maybe having seasoned bloggers and webmasters review your book are not the best judges, because you’re telling them something they already know. You should actaully try to pedal it among new bloggers. I know, it’s a catch 22 of sorts, they don’t have the exposer and traffic of more established sites, but they may be more objective.
Twenty seven bucks for a twenty seven page ebook is a rip off know matter what it’s content. I mean be serious, it’s the size of a brochure for Christ’s sake!
Thanks for all the comments and discussion! It’s great to see feedback and even better to see so many people challenging my review with lots of excellent points. Sorry I’ve taken so long to reply but the net and the electricity have been conspiring against me.
@nomadicmatt Thanks for posting your comments and follow-ups. Regarding the ad list, I never intended anything to sound shady and think I edited the review so that it doesn’t actually sound shady at all… I only said I didn’t see it so couldn’t comment. I never did ask for your full list only for whatever you were giving out when people replied with the code (whatever the offer is that Benny hasn’t taken you up on). As I didn’t pay for your ebook, I didn’t fully expect to get it sent to me. However not fully understanding what information you were giving out had an effect on the review because I feel like, as you and others have mentioned, your advertiser contacts are a huge selling point and competitive advantage for you.
Off the top of my head the book could have included things like travel industry stats, case studies, keyword information… stuff like that. I just think an ebook marketed towards travel bloggers should have had more specific info relating to the travel industry. Maybe my point is less about what else it could have had in it and more about it not being marketed as being geared towards travel bloggers.
As for John Chow and Darren Rouse, I haven’t paid much attention to them in ages and didn’t realize they suck. Thanks (to all) for updating me on their crappiness. My point is that, for people willing to search, all of the information is out there for free which you’ve agreed with so it seems silly to argue about the alternatives I’ve listed. I can nix those links and add others but it doesn’t change the point. Of course not everyone is willing to scour the net for the info your book provides and your ebook is a great option for those people.
@Benny I agree with you. I also think that the advice on putting up more than one blog/site is solid. Your new language site looks really good… I’m going to test out one of the tips tomorrow!
@lis If you used to get really annoyed at people flogging ebooks then you know where I’m coming from. I’m still sort of stuck in that phase.
@Christine Excellent points, I totally agree. The ad thing is a huge selling point for already established blogs, just maybe not for people just starting out although it’s certainly something they can stash for use later. I might be overestimating what people know but also I said the book would be good for anyone looking for a concise intro to the industry.
@David I don’t think it’s a bad idea to follow up reviews with comments at all. Blogs are great in my eyes because they create discussions and now, instead of one review by me, we’ve got a whole bunch of opinions which might not have happened had Matt not commented.
Overall I really don’t think it’s a bad review, just not glowing. It’s important for me to keep this site transparent and that means saying what’s on my mind, even if it’s not going to make me friends or bag me commissions on ebooks.
@Diogo I wouldn’t really call myself a travel writer in the typical sense. I travel and I write about it but I’m certainly not that into it and not looking for paid gigs or anything. The site http://www.writtenroad.com or the travel writing forum over at http://www.bootsnall.com are both great places to start. You might be better heading over to Christine’s blog listed above and asking her… she’s doing it!
Wow… that reply is longer than some of my posts!
I love eBooks & the whole concept
“even if some eBooks are a little light in content so making them what one might call a little expensive”
Finding all that free info takes a long time…
Anyone want to write an eBook on goldfish?
@david: I actually get asked by the people to comment on the comments and Kirsty here also asked me to leave a comment. I’m not a cry baby but I think I like to clarify all points.
It’s a 35 page ebook and really, well, if you don’t want to pay for it don’t. Other have and found it to be of value.
@david: After your comment, i went back and looked at the reviews I know about to see what comments I did leave and the only time I left anything was on Indie travel podcast. And with them I was also asked by Craig and Linda to leave a comment and I didn’t comment on the review, I commented to Karen and Stuart about my income (gross vs net) and about the time it takes to run a blog.
so I’m not sure what review you are referring to where I criticize the actual review.
Looks like an interesting read for beginners. Did June’s earnings match up to May’s, Matt? How consistent are your earnings? If you can say “I made $3000/month for x months” then people are going to buy into your success a lot more than from just a single month. Posting evidence for earnings will also add credibility to your book.
@free wifi guru: well, im not sure where kirsty got the idea that i only made 3,000 dollars in may because i made that the previous months too….but now its actually closer to 4500 but i still want to low ball it at 3,000 because i dont want to make this seem out to be a get rich quick scheme and give people false expectations
[…] After reading some of the negative comments in a review of Nomadic Matt’s ebook, I disagree that everyone should ignore John Chow. The John Chow brand is one of the most powerful in the “make money online” niche. Seriously, how many webmasters, regardless of their niche, could get banned from Google and still increase their earnings? […]
This may be naive of me, but isn’t it against google’s policy to sell links? Aren’t you guys getting dinged by google in the search results?? What good does it do to make some money today if google will punish your site tomorrow?
Maybe this is irrelevant to Internet informercial types, but is anyone else bothered by Matt’s almost perfect batting average for grammatical mistakes in his comments and posts? I thought blogging was basically a field for writers. The guy writes a lot, but can’t seem to publish anything that doesn’t have some glaring fuck up in every line. Before I would lay down twenty or thirty bucks for his book (which I wouldn’t do now anyhow after this review), I would want to know if it was professionally proofread.
(Try counting the errors just in this thread.)
Eh, the price isn’t that bad if you can get something out of it. I’ve spent more on bad dinners out before.
@Nomadic Matt: I hadn’t heard of you before this post, but you’re coming off condescending towards a writer whose blog I visit regularly. That’s not a good way to win over new readers. Isn’t there anything positive you could have said about her review, even if it was only a token thank you for the publicity or for taking the time to read your book?
First of all, I think I used too strong words when I said Matt could not live with the review, what I actually mean is that his response can be interpreted as “touchy” and that alway reflects badly on an author, in other words, Kirstys review was not as bad as one might think from reading only his reply. Anyway, I bought the book and I like it, don´t regret 27 dollars spent on the 30 some pages. It´s a concise introduction to how someone can earn a living online making sites/blogs. It´s main value lies in (as has already been pointed out) offering sound advice on how to make, market and moneytize online creations. True that most of these same teachings can be found online for free but not without exposing oneself to information overload for weeks on end. And I did get an email with a coupon code that I shall use to get his insider info on advertisers.
Matt, sorry for more criticism but based on laslafsasdjfl’s comment I do have to say that I found it frustrating that you did NOT have this book proofread for English mistakes. People should be aware (as he asked) that there are several English mistakes in your book.
I’m sure you shared it with others for content, but you really should have proofread it for readability. It took away from the professionalism for me; for blog posts and comments there’s no need to be a “grammar nazi” (I make mistakes all the time too and don’t care if I see the odd little mistake on blogs), but when people are paying to read it, you must have it proofread. Also, I’m not sure if others would agree with me, but in books I prefer a different writing style compared to blogs. In blogs it’s more informal and intimate, but in books it should be less so. (Less uses of apostrophes like don’t, aren’t, less casual expressions etc.) This may be less important for many people, but for me your book read like a series of blog posts rather than a book. Perhaps I read too many old books though; I know the “For Dummies” series and modern self-help books do opt for this style a lot. It’s more common in American books than British/Irish books, so it’s probably a cultural thing.
Despite that I’ll say this to those who may be wondering; like the commenter above me I also don’t regret the 27 dollars because I did get something very useful out of it. I didn’t consider it perfect, and I hope Matt takes note of these comments as constructive criticism for his next publication, but it did give me practical advice that I mentioned above and Matt will tell you that nobody has asked for a refund and with good reason.
Are Blog Comments A Trustworthy Source Of Feedback?
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/1371/are-blog-comments-a-trustworthy-source-of-feedback/
It has just been blogged, seemed pertinent to this discussion, I decided to share it.
@AnonymousGrammarNazi, you have a point about grammar BUT… If any of the commenters above didn’t notice typos or mistakes, you’re also putting these people on the other side of the “non-writers” fence. Not a good tactic if you want to be the more appealing in a conversation, though I don’t think you were AT ALL concerned about that.
(BTW, I’m not a native speaker and I’m terrible with prepositions. There must be something wrong somewhere. Feel free to make your point again.)
@Kirsty, thanks for your reply. I already found some cool resources at the forum you pointed!
@leora To be fair to Matt, he did thank me by email. His original comments were also posted by email and I asked him to post them to the blog. So just so everyone knows, he said thanks for the publicity.
The truth is that 99% of ebooks are using free and available to everyone content. And those ebooks are written just to gather this knowledge. In my opinion there is nothing wrong about getting money from that source - but anyone who want to but an ebook should know that probably if he put some work in research he would gain the same benefits without having pay for new knowledge.
[…] Affiliate Sales - $625 - Affiliate sales saw a little bit more balance between them, but is still dominated by one. I sold four of Matt’s ebooks despite not giving it a glowing, sales pitchy review which was good to see. […]
Is the book geared more toward a complete noob with little knowledge of how to make a blog profitable? I am looking at purchasing it since I know practically nothing. I am in the process of trying to put together a new travel blog as I am planning on a RTW trip in the future. I am not looking to get rich but any additional funds to help the trip or even extend it would be great.
Yep, the book is good for complete beginners and will walk your through from the beginning, just not if great detail if you need a lot of tech support type advice But it will help you see what your thought process should be from the start and it will stop you from making mistakes early on. If you already know a bit about setting up a blog but have no idea how to make money from it or even how to get visitors to it then this ebook will help you out.
Thanks for the quick response. I can set up a blog and I am in the process of building one to move to my own URL whenever I decide on what it will be. The making money and the getting visitors are the main issues I have. I guess I’ll give it a shot in the next week or so when I can find some time to sit and read it. Thanks again.
[…] This got me thinking about the review I left for Nomadic Matt’s ebook last month. I still don’t think it’s a bad review but it wasn’t as glowing as perhaps it should have been. After reading through the other ebook and being impressed by all the new things I was learning about keyword research, link farming and other possibly shady SEO tactics, I thought more about Matt’s book. I feel like I was a bit too hard on it because a lot of what he had written wasn’t new to me. I wasn’t as impressed as someone who would have been getting this knowledge for the first time and I forgot about what it was like back when I was first learning all this stuff. […]
I don’t follow Kirsty or Nomadic Matt. I heard Matt mentioned on the podcast and that he had an eBook. I’ve traveled and blogged/photographed about my travels for many years. Last one was while wandering around Mexico on a motorcycle sampling peyote and mushrooms, persistent deja-vu, matriarchal areas, etc. http://skiphunt.travellerspoint.com/toc/
Only now have I started to look into ways of monetizing my content before I take off on a new journey.
I found Matt’s site, saw his blurb about his eBook and thought $27 seemed awfully high for a short ebook. Then did a search for reviews of his book and found this one. Read it, decided it was likely a fair assessment and have since decided to just do my own research instead.
I have no idea if his book is worth it, but the list of advertisers didn’t seem worth the $27 to me because I know that advertisers aren’t going to pay for links unless I’ve got the traffic. And finding these same leads is likely as easy as searching the most popular travel blogs I suppose.
Thanks for giving a straight forward and honest review. I appreciate it and have bookmarked this site.
Skip Hunt
Austin, Texas
http://www.skiphuntphotography.com