Develop Minds Broadcast #1

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January 3, 2010—I want to start taking the time to publish my progress here in the form of “Develop Minds Broadcast” posts, which will go out on Sundays—but not every Sunday (perhaps every second or third?). I want to do this to give everyone an update as far as the business side of this blog is concerned, as well as some personal updates here and there.

So without further ado, here’s Broadcast #1…

Business Happenings

Improving Your Life in 31 Days

Looking at Develop Minds from a business standpoint, it’s doing very well. December, which just passed, was probably my highest traffic month. I think part of that has to do with the 31 Day series I posted; while it wasn’t entirely 31 posts, it was definitely the most articles I’ve posted in a month so far since I launched this blog.

I’ve learned a few things while posting that series. First, that it takes an incredible amount of dedication and persistence to make as many blog posts as that, while still trying to maintain a decent level of quality. I did good by drafting out most of the article headlines before starting the series, but it was tough.

I really like the idea of linking articles together in a series, but I don’t think I’ll have a series made up of so many posts anymore, and they’ll be much further spread out (maybe even a week apart).

The best part is that the readers that have subscribed as a result of all the heavy posting I did are here to stay—so I learned posting a series, and posting very often is a great way to boost my subscriber count.

Product Line Revamp

Right now, if you visit my products page, you’ll notice three different products there. They are doing a pretty decent job of bringing in sales, but I never went through a formal launch process with either of them—and honestly, I’ve lost motivation in supporting the products listed there. I feel like I put a lot of hard work into them, but my whole heart wasn’t put into the products. I created them before I shifted direction of Develop Minds, and something about them just seem out of place here.

I’m not going to take the products I have there completely offline, but soon, I’ll be taking those products off of this website and anything else that’s related to this blog.

Why?

I’ve been hard at work on a product that I’m making highly relevant to the content on this blog—while providing content that’s not available here already. I’m going through a formal launch process, and so far everything’s working out great.

I’ve got the sales page nearly completed, and I’ve been completing about a chapter per day on the guide that comes with the product. I’m not going to divulge any specifics today, but I will soon (don’t worry, you’ll hear more about this product well before launch). Just know that I’m very excited about this product, and it’ll replace the current product line that’s available here right now.

Very soon I’ll be needing people to test the product out and give me some feedback (and possibly some testimonials if you like it) before the product is launched. I’ll be looking for you soon, but if you want to contact me instead, that’ll make my job a whole lot easier. Just remember, it won’t be a freebie giveaway if you’re selected to test the product out—you will get the full product as a pre-release tester, but you’ll be required to provide feedback in lieu of payment.

So if you’re interested in testing out my new product when it’s ready, once again, contact me and I’ll add you to my list of product testers.

Twitter, Oh Twitter

Last month was probably my most busiest month ever using Twitter, but somehow still don’t feel like it was enough. I’m still getting the hang of it, and plan on making better use of it, but am still struggling with remembering to post tweets throughout the day… and monitor it.

I’ll try harder with Twitter this month, so in the meantime, please follow me if you’re interested in this blog (you probably are if you made it this far in this post).

On a Personal Note…

Children’s Book Coming Soon

Yesterday I finished writing my first children’s book titled, “Cauldron Forest: The Dark Spell”. It’s a personal endeavor between my wife and I (she’s doing all the illustrations) that we are doing for our little girls (we have Emmy who is 2 right now, and Sara who will be born in April). This could obviously leak into the business aspect of things eventually if it gets a good response, but for now, it’s entirely for personal satisfaction.

I personally can’t wait to hold the hard-back, full-color physical copy in my hand—Biffy’s finishing up the illustrations and then we’ll go the self-publishing route once it’s complete. We’re not getting this first book an ISBN, we’re seeing how it turns out first. If we really like how it turns out, we’ll put a lot more time an effort into an actual ISBN published book next time around.

Sara Evelyn

The pregnancy is going great so far. Biffy’s taking it really well, and every doctor appointment has been very positive so far. It’s only about 2 and a half more months until she’s born (maybe less?) and neither of us can wait, we’re very anxious to welcome her into the world.

Well that concludes Broadcast #1, and should give you a pretty good picture of what I’ve been up to. As I mentioned in the post before this one, I have a lot in store for Develop Minds Blog and it’s going to be a busy year!

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