Sunset Lake Nimham, Carmel, New York

I am creating a product, as we speak.

The secret is out.

I’m putting the finishing touches on my product, a fun-loving eBook explaining how to retire to a life of island hopping through smart blogging.

You have 3 guesses to pick the title, and the first 2 don’t count.

Of course, my new eBook goes by the name “Blogging from Paradise.”

I’ll do the marketing blitz/post/all that other fun stuff soon.

Anyway, I thought about how many bloggers avoid creating their product. I did, for 4 years. I feared that nobody would read my eBook. I thought nobody cared. I feared failing. I believed creating, designing and bringing an eBook to market was a Herculean task, far outside the realm of what I could achieve alone.

I soon realized all of these bullshit limiting beliefs were ghosts. Vapors. Illusions. Lies. So I went ahead, created the eBook, and here we are.

Sitting in Fiji

I’m typing away at my keyboard here in Savusavu, Fiji. No other blogger who shares blogging tips is writing from Savusavu, Fiji….at least as far as I know.

That’s what makes me stand out. That’s what makes me memorable. Look up and down my sidebar. See those pictures? Seeing me traveling all over the world makes you remember me.

“Darn, that Ryan Biddulph lives a pretty neat life.”

I stand out. So I’m memorable. I chose to stand out by being authentic, and by posting my mug all over this blog, traveling the world, and writing in my own, unique, one-of-a-kind voice.

Boating through Inle Lake Myanmar

Creating your own product makes you stand out. Creating your own product makes you special. Creating your own product….well….let’s dive into the reasons.

Establish Your Authority

When you find a successful blogger – through their blog – what do you do next? You likely look around for their eBook, or marketing course or you scour for any product they may have produced.

Sure you’ll spend hours sifting through their blog. You’ll mine nuggets. You’ll be impressed. But you’re likely to want more. You want a soup-to-nuts, helpful eBook, to reference, to read, to digest.

Experts write books, or eBooks, to establish even greater authority. This goes for bloggers, or offline entrepreneurs, or heck, this goes for many folks in a zillion difference niches.

I’ve published a few free eBooks in the past. Now I’m putting out an eBook from an intelligent space.

I’d like to be seen as an authority. It’s good for my freelance writing business, and my blog, ya know? So I’m publishing an eBook.

Experts are known for offering eBooks, or marketing courses, or video seminars, or any number of products, which help to establish their expertise.

Get on the product bandwagon.

Products Help You Master the Art of Relationship Building

Unless you’re brilliantly proficient in content creation and design, or you’re willing to publish a crappy looking eBook, or you’re willing to publish a dazzling eBook, design-wise, that’s full of text-rubbish, you’ll be partnering with 1 or more people to create a product.

Phillip Dews is my design guy. He’s created the brilliant cover of Blogging from Paradise, and without him, I’d be dead in the water design-wise.

Some other folks know design inside-out yet have difficulty writing. Enter the ghostwriter. Yep, I can do that for you.

Whatever your strengths, you’ll have some weaknesses which need to be addressed when you create your first product. Addressing these weaknesses requires tapping into your relationship-building skill set.

Relationship-building pros become stupid successful bloggers, because we as bloggers are playing a relationships game more than anything else.

Partnering forces you to learn give and take, and it also teaches you how to simply interact with other professionals to work toward a common goal.

Add Your Personal Stamp to Your Brand

Take a look at the cover of Blogging from Paradise. PD did the design, but guess who snapped that image of the bay, and the coconut tree, and the mountains, from their driveway in Savusavu, Fiji?

Yep, yours truly.

Seriously, after snapping this jaw-dropping shot from the crib I knew it was the cover.

This is adding my personal stamp, and this lends to my authenticity, and more than anything, this is a shot, and cover, that no one else on earth can re-create. Unless they:

• Visit this crib in Savusavu
• Find the same exact spot in our driveway
• Snap the shot at the perfect time in the afternoon
• Pray for the same weather conditions when snapping the shot

You get the drift. Your product screams YOU, and this unique, special, genuine nature of product creation makes you and your brand stand out from the crowd.

Learn Patience

From beginning to end, your product may take months to launch from the inception of the idea to the actual release date. This is a problem for impatient people, a problem which covers up a blessing.

I admit it; I have moments where I want to rush this product to market but I learned a painful lesson from past attempted launches. Doing it right beats rushing to simply do it.

Having an attractive design, professional presentation, expert endorsements, a thorough, comprehensive, detailed sales page packed with glowing benefits and an overall high energy vibe surrounding your product creates a successful launch.

As you may imagine, creating the stuff you can create on your end and getting all of the moving cogs synched up, and waiting for busy pros to complete their part of the equation, and receiving expert endorsements, and finding an online store to launch the product….well…..this takes a ton of time.

Patience, grasshopper. Creating your product takes a ton of patience, but it’s all worth it because:

• Pro bloggers need to patiently grow their traffic
• Money flows into pro blogger’s coffers after they patiently persisted in using proven strategies
• Patient people detach from outcomes, and detached people create the best work…and these people include bloggers

Launch a product. Learn how to be patient.

Learn How to Silence the Inner Critic

If you ever launched a product, you know damn well that the voices are going to pop up. The “who the hell is going to read/buy my product?”, type stuff, or the “how in the hell am I going to generate enough ideas to fill an eBook?”, type stuff, WILL surface, believe you me.

I had many, many demons to conquer to bring my product to market. I had to listen to, embrace, and silence the inner critic by writing, despite hearing the negative nellies popping up in my mind.

To go from unemployed security guard to successful island-hopping blogger was one thing, and to retire, yet another, and to release my own product was a huge step which brought up a ton of stuff.

As a successful blogger, you’ll learn to address stuff. Yep, the negative, inner critic, which incessantly tells you what you can’t do.

Did I think 5 years ago I’d move from working in Newark New Jersey, on the docks, to working on a cliff-side home in Savusavu, Fiji? Hell no! My inner critic didn’t even allow this reality to seep into my mind at the time.

Yet doing uncomfortable stuff again and again over the past 5 years uncovered my mental trash, which allowed me to face, embrace and release these limiting beliefs, freeing me to succeed.

Hone Your Content Creation Skills

If you’re writing a 30,000 word eBook you’ll get plenty of practice in the content creation department. Ditto for any in-depth video series. Publishing any product requires you to create oodles of content.

Think about it; most bloggers publish 600 to 1,000 word posts. A few more – ahem – publish 2,500 to 3,000 word posts, and other bloggers take it to a new level, posting 5K, or 10K word, or longer posts, much less frequently than once a week.

In any case the amount of content you’ll create through publishing a product will improve your game quickly.

Hazey and Peggy Sue….yeah we have like the best view on earth here in Fiji…but we ain’t impressed.

Some bloggers complain about having to reach 1,000 words. Imagine having to reach 50,000 words? Really? If that sounds impossible, it’s the same reason why so few people on earth become professional bloggers.

I’ve yet to see a pro blogger on my block here in Fiji. I don’t run into many pro bloggers who’ve traveled the world for 39 months and running.

Most bloggers do not push themselves to publish products, and to create massive amounts of content, so their writing skills either regress, or remain the same. Being a pro’s pro requires serious work, and growth, on your part. Publishing a product will offer you the opportunity to put in serious work, and to grow quickly, so you can develop your writing skills and rock out this blogging thing.

It’s Actually Enjoyable as Heck

I hit some snags here and there. At times, I feel stressed. But overall I enjoy the heck out of creating Blogging from Paradise. I enjoy expressing myself. I enjoy inspiring folks to retire. I enjoy inspiring folks to start island hopping through smart blogging.

I enjoy writing. I enjoy creating. I feel good about releasing my eBook, and I dig how the cover looks, and I dig my travel pictures prefacing each chapter.

Some bloggers miss out on the enjoyment aspect of this gig. Yep, even the pros, who make a handsome living, forget to enjoy the ride.

I sure as hell don’t because I know that enjoying my craft helps me to attract many more enjoyable situations.

Seeing the process from beginning to end is one of the more enjoyable things creating a product can do for you. Being there in the early days, hashing out ideas, brainstorming, these are some of the most fulfilling, fun moments you can have as a blogger.

Creating is a wonderful thing. Creating a product that folks can consume on a large scale is even more wonderful.

Why am I living in paradise? I dreamed the idea. I started my world travels. I recall the flight from NYC, JFK, to Denpasar, Bali like it was yesterday. My intent changed as I began to soak up more and more of the world’s hot spots.

I wanted to bring readers along with Kelli and I. I wanted to inspire readers to become pro bloggers. I wanted these pro bloggers – if they so chose – to be able to island hop.

As my intent shifted, and became more pure, I had more fun creating my old blog to reflect my lifestyle. I had more fun dreaming up and launching Blogging from Paradise.

I had even more fun creating my new eBook.

This is the deal. When you fall in love with living your dreams and taking folks along for the ride, and your intent becomes more pure, you’re going to enjoy the heck out of creating products.

You’ll Move Up a Few Circles

It’s one thing to be viewed as an authority by newbie bloggers. It’s quite another thing to be viewed as an authority by other authorities.

When you create a helpful, inspiring product, industry pros will be happy to write you glowing testimonials. Reading glowing endorsements from pros inspires other pros to buy in, to trust you and to shout out your product to their followings.

Moving up a few circles is fun. It feels good. It makes you feel all those lonely months or years spent creating blog posts in the trenches, all those long, sleepless nights, and that all of those struggles were worth it.

Create your own product.

Gain the backing of experts, to move up a few circles, and to live a freeing, happy internet lifestyle.

Moving up a few circles helps you:

• Make more money
• See more success with less straining and striving……until you see greater and greater success by having more and more fun
• Reach an increasing number of people
• Helps you connect with and learn from the best

I’ve received backing from folks who I wouldn’t dare ask for backing from, 5 years ago.

Running a well-read blog was one key, but publishing a former product – and releasing this new one from a super high energy space – helped me connect with industry honchos.

A few hours ago I added an inspiring testimonial from my friend and digital marketing wizard Matthew Capala. That couldn’t have happened a few years back. I was too far down the totem pole, mentally and physically, to receive a testimonial from a serious authority.

Generate More Traffic

If you have a book attached to your name, or a webinar series, or some other helpful product, in most cases you’ll generate a ton more traffic. People are likely to refer you to friends, or other bloggers, or anybody who may be inspired by your work.

It’s the expert thing again.

But it’s also due to the simple fact that an eBook or webinar series offers you another platform through which you can plug your blog.

Explore every chance to market your blog, through every channel possible. That includes posting your blog URL in at least a few spots in your eBooks, or it means shouting out your URL in a few spots within your webinars.

Traffic flows to the expert.

Many product creators are instantly seen as experts.

Another Savusavu sunset from across the bay.

I know for one, that if I visit a blog and see a product, and see the blogger’s name attached, it impresses me.

I’m more likely to retweet the post, or Facebook Share it, or G Plus share the post if I’ve seen that the blogger has created a product.

My sharing means a bunch more traffic for said blogger, or said product creator.

Get a Hefty Commission Compared to Most Affiliate Ventures

I love affiliate marketing. It does rock. Creating your own product does have a few benefits over going the affiliate route. It may take a ton more time on the front end to create a product but the earnings and branding potential are much bigger on the back end.

Think about it; if you’re making 50% per sale on an affiliate product, you’re pretty much making a killing. If you’re making 50% per sale on your product, you’re not only being hosed, you’re entirely blind.

Maybe you entered into a prospering business partnership or 2, and released upfront costs to generously bless your partners with a cut of each sale, but you should be taking home all of the proceeds minus any small percentage you may pay out to a cyber store front owner, who peddles your product.

Again, affiliate marketing rocks. I suggest this income stream for newbie and veteran bloggers alike but once you gain some experience create your own product to maximize your earnings.

In Virtually All Cases You’ll Never Regret it

I can’t remember talking to a blogger who said:

“You know what? Publishing my very own product was the biggest mistake of my blogging career!”

Nope, I haven’t heard this one. I’ve heard many bloggers admit that they made a ton of mistakes, bungling their way through their first product – or 5 – and I’ve heard many bloggers explain how they failed and fell flat on their face, after publishing their first eBook, but nobody I’ve talked to has regretted having a product.

There are no noticeable drawbacks, save the time and energy you must spend to create the product….and hey, if you want to be a pro, and island hop, and retire from your current job…..you gotta put in the time!

Create your own product. Build your brand. Prosper. You won’t regret it.

The eBook

If you want to become a full time blogger you can buy my eBook here: