Early Retirement Extreme book

[Bestwifeever]

Jacob, this is probably the toughest crowd you'll encounter and you can see that many of the posters on this thread have or will buy your book, so I'd say you're doing pretty darned good.

 

[Nords]

And then your readership would comment and poke holes in your concept, which would lead to new posts and an improved concept.

How's that workin' for him on this board?

I quickly read a bit of his blog.... and think he is a nutcase... let's live without heat or AC just because I want to see if I can... or to save money... not the life I am interested in pursuing...
Now, my wife and I get into arguments on how we spend money... I don't care for the cable bill, the symphony tickets, the sciene museums visits that cost $100 etc. etc.... but they are important to HER...

When I lived like that I was getting submarine pay. It also encouraged me to get out of the apartment and spend more time exercising and studying at department-head school.

One man's frugality (or green living) is another man's deprivation. Or in my case, pearls before swine...

He has sponsored ads on the blog plus he solicits donations. I have a small blog in the same field, though with a lot less traffic and that site makes a nice side income on under 20K page views a month. From his Alexa rating he is getting 1,000,000 page views a month in the financial field which is pretty lucrative. So he should be getting a pretty penny form those ads. The pictures on the forums are actually ads, too.

Check out Online Advertising Expenditure Forecast, 2009-2010 | ClickZ. "Online advertising, which includes display, search, video, and other categories, is expected to tally $25.4 billion in spending this year and $26.1 billion in 2010."

Not all web sites can make high rates so not every site in the top 50K is going to get the same rates. A joke web site would probably make 1/20th, if that, per impression as a financial site. It depends on the topic.

Maybe as an additional revenue stream? If he can live so cheap and doesn't need any more money then why write a book at all? Best selling books can make millions for their authors and allow them to reach people other than simply a blogging audience. With a book you can get on TV and radio, maybe even Oprah. Look at how many books the original 4 hour work week guy has sold.

He is a good writer and he has some interesting ideas, but I think he is too smart not to be making a ton of money off his site and now his book.

Plus I do question some of his claims. I have only just skimmed his sites but it seems he he hangs out in Berkeley but lives in an RV and doesn't have a car? Is that right? I don't know where you would park an RV around Berkeley. It is in the SF metro area. To park an RV I would think you'd have to live farther out of town where land is cheaper but then you would not have easy access to mass transit to get to places like the Berkeley marina.

As for the income/spending numbers, I've spent the last few years poring over hundreds of financial statements for startup companies using the same types of claims/logic. Most of them are now failed startup companies. I'm skeptical & cynical of any estimates not supported by tax returns.

And yes, when I "monetize" my writing efforts I'll document the results... from the income summaries and the charitable-contribution acknowledgments.

As for the rest of your comments, I'm going to have to defer to Jacob. He's probably read a lot of that before and has the answers loaded, locked, & cocked.

Early Retirement Extreme: — written by Jacob Lund Fisker, Freelancer Pingback-ing Jacob...

 

[Sarah in SC]

I just placed my order for the book on Amazon (see, REW) and I'll likewise support any other of our forum folks like Nords when their books become available.

 

[REWahoo]

I just placed my order for the book on Amazon (see, REW)...

You'll never amount to anything if you give up on your "maybe I can bag a free book with my flattering comments" strategy so quickly. I'll bet you were out hooping all weekend and scrambled your brain cells again...

 

[Nords]

I'll bet you were out hooping all weekend and scrambled your brain cells again...

If that's what the kids are calling it now, then I'll give her a free book anytime!

 

[Sam]

My question is more mundane: Why is he living on less than 15K/year?

Lots of speculation here <sigh>.
that my annual expense is 6-7k, not 15k (unless by that you meant the two of us together), etc.

Thanks for confirming my number. I remember getting it from your blog a while ago, I think it was $13,xxx.

I raised the question simply because I was doubtful of one of the posters' claim that your blog annual income is in the 50k-100k range, which sounded unusually high for me.

Don't know if you follow the Tioga-George blog. In terms of useful practical information, your site/blog wins hand down. It's a shame yours is only earning 1/5 of his. I guess it pays to SEO as well as talks about "nothing". I guess it also pays to have more pictures (meaningful or not). Just to be clear, I like George's blog too, for reasons that are beyond my understanding.

Anyway I read your blog every now and then and although I learned very little from it, I thought you did a very good job in transmitting the idea to the public. I especially like your recent "Can I retire with 2 million dollars?" article. I couldn't help but laugh reading it and thinking about the number of times that question has been raised on this forum. The answers (serious answers) were even more hilarious.

 

[TooFrugal]

I was doubtful of one of the posters' claim that your blog annual income is in the 50k-100k range, which sounded unusually high for me.

I didn't say it did make that. What I said was....

so if he is monetizing it right he should be making 50 - 100K+ or so a year pretty easy just from blog advertising.

Ok, Jacob you have convinced me you aren't making that much money now, but I still think you very easily could be. I'd put Adsense ads on the site and Amazon affiliate links for all of the recommended books.

Check out the Adsense success stories for inspiration -
https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/AsktheBuilder.html

 

[jacob]

The numbers I hear are typically around $3eCPM (combined number for all the ads on a page) for a site that's well-monetized (mine isn't). That means getting $3 for every 1000 impressions. By that measure, I could make about $500 per month. This would be close to my one-person expense level but nowhere near 50-100k per year. To get there, traffic (not eyeball time) needs to increase by a factor of 10. My guess is that only a handful of personal finance blogs make these numbers. These guys have been blogging consistently with 1-2 posts per day for 5-8 years.

Now, if I keep blogging for another 3-4 years, I might actually get there too, but it's not really a goal of mine to make money. Don't get me wrong, I like money, but it's quite limited what I'm willing to do for it. Isn't this the very definition of financial independence anyway?

 

[TooFrugal]

The numbers I hear are typically around $3eCPM (combined number for all the ads on a page) for a site that's well-monetized (mine isn't). That means getting $3 for every 1000 impressions.

Those CPM numbers are probably true for generic traffic. It is possible to get many multiples of that eCPM with the right topic and right ad placements.

Plus, I think either your sitemeter or Alexa stats are incorrect. The page views you are reporting is low even compared to sites I have that are much lower ranked in Alexa than yours. I have sites ranked higher and lower than your so I estimated your page views based on the traffic I get based on each of my sites Alexa rankings.

But, heh, less competition for me if you keep your ads the way they are now.

My guess is that only a handful of personal finance blogs make these numbers.

You are basically sitting on a gold mine. It's a really cool blog that with a little tweaking could make a ton of money.

 

[jacob]

Google analytics tell the same story. It's simply that the average visit time (especially for the toolbar users) is very high and alexa uses that in their ranking calculation whereas advertisers couldn't care less.

If you think you can do better, you can manage my ads/business side, and I'll give you a 25% cut of any blog income above $500/month. Just let me know ;-) I've actually been looking for such a person for a long time with remarkably little success.

 

[TooFrugal]

It's simply that the average visit time (especially for the toolbar users) is very high and alexa uses that in their ranking calculation

Okay, I get what you are saying now. I guess my sites get ranked more on traffic alone and not so much time on site. But it also means that users are really reading what you have to say, which is a good thing.

I'll send you a private message about the rest of your post.