My Monthly Report – December 2009

Woohoo! Time for another monthly report!

Each month, I write a detailed report about where my online income comes from, along with the lessons I learned during the month and where I’m headed in the future. Part of the reason I do this is not only to help me keep track of how my businesses are doing, but also to let you in on exactly what kinds of things I’ve done or have planned to improve my results. I hope you enjoy my report for December of 2009.

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The Smart Passive Income Blog Makeover and eBook!

Well – it’s finally here! The *NEW* Smart Passive Income Blog!

I’m happy to begin the new year with a fresh and clean look to the blog. Less clutter, more room in the main content area, and a touched up logo, along with some new features that I’ll quickly point out for you:

• New Archive: Before, the archive was basically a huge list of every single post I’ve done, and that’s it. Now, it’s more organized and divided into dates, categories and tags, so you can easily navigate through my older but still useful content.
• New Podcasts Section: Here, you’ll get a list of all of the podcasts episodes I’ve recorded. There aren’t any there yet, but I do have a few recorded already. I’d like to get a few more done before I go live on iTunes. I can’t wait!
• New “How-To Videos”: This is an awesome gallery (thanks to the TubePress plugin), that compiles all of the YouTube how-to videos I’ve done. Now, you don’t need to go to YouTube to watch the videos that you need to get stuff done.
• The “Did You Know” Bar: If you look below the navigation menu, there’s a little “Did You Know” section where I’ll just put in a small little fact about me (or whatever) every couple of days. Just thought this might add a little bit of fun to the blog
• Smaller Subscriber Area: If you watched my video that explained what I was going to change in the new redesign, I pointed out how my old subscriber area was taking up way too much space. I think I was taking up a 300×400 pixel chunk of real estate for what I can do in that little bar you see at the top.
• Tabbed Area: On the right hand side, below the Opt-In Box for the eBook (which I’ll talk more about in a sec), I’ve organized the hottest posts (the posts that have had the most views in the last week), the most popular posts (the posts with the most comments), and the top commenters (names and links to those who have commented the most each month). Before, all of this information was crowding the left hand side of my blog, but now, it’s compact and neatly organized.

There are a few other improvements that I made that aren’t as significant as the ones I mentioned above, so I’ll leave you to come across them as you look around.

My New eBook Guide!

As most of you know, I’ve been working on my eBook guide for the last couple of months. I’m proud to say that it’s finished, and it rocks! I’ve actually never spent so much time on any eBook I’ve ever written, so I’m really happy that I can give you this hardcore, quality eBook for free. I’ve already gotten some really nice comments about it already, since it actually went up yesterday. I look forward to hearing what you think too.

Trying to find a name for it gave me a major headache, but thanks to all of you, I was able to come up with something that I think fits perfectly with this blog. It’s called eBooks the $mart Way – A Complete Guide to Publishing, Marketing, and Automating a Killer eBook. You can see a 3D representation of it here.

Thank you all for your eBook title suggestions. I would especially like to thank Ms. Freeman for her idea to use “$mart”, which matches my logo and has become sort of the image of my “brand”, so that works perfectly. I’d also like to thank Dominique Goh, for her suggestion of the word “Killer”, which I really liked. And lastly, I’d like to thank Henri for helping me realize that I had most of the tagline figured out already. The three people that I just mentioned will receive a free copy of the new 4-Hour Work Week. I will email you within the next day or two to get your info.

If you’d like to get your free copy of my ebook guide, and also get exclusive online business and blogging tips in my weekly newsletter (with stuff you can’t find on the blog), please fill out the form in the sidebar at the top of this site or directly below.

Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy! Here’s to an awesome year!

The Worst Decade Ever?

Happy New Year to each and every one of you.

With the recent arrival of our new baby boy, my wife and I decided it would be a neat idea to keep a newspaper from his date of birth, and some magazines about the era in which he was born. As I was looking through a stack of magazines lying around the house, I came across the latest Time. On the cover, it boldly read: The Decade From Hell.

Do I really want my son to know he was born in the decade from hell?

I know…a lot of devastating things have happened in the past 10 years. The media has been really helpful in pointing those things out and bringing back the memories of those terrible events in magazines and articles such as this. My heart and prayers go out to all of those who were affected by these events.

But what about all of the good things that have happened? What about all of the opportunities that have been made available to us within the past 10 years? What about all of the people who have been able to speak their voice and change lives, including their own, in ways that were never possible until now? For those people, the people who’ve taken advantage of those opportunities and have taken action – the past 10 years may have been the best decade ever, not the worst.

So, when my son is old enough to ask about what was going on in the world at this time, this is what I’m going to say:

“Son, the first 10 years of the year 2000 were tough for many people. A lot of terrible things happened, things that people had no control over. But a lot of good things happened too. This was the time when I was able to start my own business, right from the very house I was living in. This was the time when I was able to be heard all around the world, just from writing words on a blog. This was the time when I learned that if you put in the hard work now, good things will happen to you later. That’s how I was able to marry someone as beautiful as your mom, which resulted in the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life. You.”