Make Money with Your Blog or Website

WidgetBucks: http://www.widgetbucks.com — Mpire Corporation, 1725 Westlake Avenue N #203, Seattle WA 98109; 206-706-5588; Fax: 866-828-3876. Email: help@widgetbucks.com. Their WidgetBucks widget allows you to feature content from eBay, Best Buy, InfoSpace, BuddyTV, Target, WalMart, WhateverLife, and Amazon and make money from any referrals.

WidgetBucks

The above is just one of the ways you can make money with your blog or website by featuring various ad formats. For a list of more ways — with contact info — see http://www.bookmarket.com/blogads.htm.

Readability and Book Sales

If your book is part of the Search Inside feature on Amazon.com, you might be able to get some incredible statistics about your book, including its reading level, word count, average words per sentence, % of complex words, and words per dollar (based on the retail price of your book).

If you'd like to read an interesting post comparing books by Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, and a few other authors, go here: http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2007/10/this-may-be-old.html.



Perhaps the most interesting feature of the above post is how books with fewer average words per sentence and a smaller % of complex words sell better. In other words, if you write shorter sentences and use less complex words, you have a greater chance of becoming a bestselling author. Interesting.

Viral Marketing vs. Word of Mouth

Seth Godin, in his normal brilliant fashion, describes in today's blog post how viral marketing is different from word-of-mouth marketing. His distinction is important. The two are different. Viral is better. Want to know how?

Here's a hint: "Viral marketing is a compounding function. A marketer does something and then a consumer tells five or ten people. Then they tell five or ten people. And it repeats. And grows and grows. Like a virus spreading through a population. The marketer doesn't have to actually do anything else."

For more details, read Seth's blog post: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ seths_blog/2007/10/is-viral-market.html.