David Peralty is the Head of Marketing at Splashpress Media. He used to work for Bloggy Network as their Director of Communications. He also blogs at Blog Herald, eXtra For Every Publisher, and DavidCubed.

Photo by Robin Yap

Please tell us something that we still do not know about yourself.

I am a pretty open person, and pretty much anything can be found about me online, from my childhood, all the way to what’s new in my present day life, but one thing I don’t publicize much is that I had an in school suspension in high school for hacking.

Before I ever knew about blogging or publishing online, I was certain that my future was going to be in computer networking and network administration. While in high school, I was challenged by a friend to find out his password at school. Of course I did some research and tried all of the default ones that people use. After a while with no luck, I was able to find a program that would allow me to see the passwords being used. It took advantage of the fact that passwords were stored locally on the machines, and was able to open the encrypted files.

Unfortunately, by using this, I popped up on the radar of our very intelligent network administrator at the time, and she requested I come to the office. They talked to me about what I had done, and that my innocent prank to win a bet could have, in the wrong hands, given administrator access and caused major issues.

I had to serve a one day in school suspension. The funniest part was telling my parents who had a hard time hiding their smiles after I told them the story and handed them the slip which needed to be signed.

As part of my sentence at school, I was then in charge of securing the computers to make sure that no one could do what I did, and even more so, that they were protected from anything else I could think of. It was an interesting challenge, and I owe the network administrator a great deal for not expelling me from the school, and nurturing my interests.

So early on, I was a very resourceful computer user. I was pretty good at finding things on the web that most others could not, and became a useful resource in that respect.

Why do you blog?

The simplest answer is that I love to write. I have always been a fan of creative, fictional writing, and when I moved away from my friends and family to attend College, I found writing online a great way to connect with them. I was able to give status updates, talk about my goals, thank them for their support, and release any frustrations. It was a great form of therapy.

Later, as it became a career, it changed into a great reason to research the things I loved: technology, science fiction, and the blogosphere itself.

Now, I blog to teach. I enjoy sharing what I have learned, and I can’t get enough of helping others.

How did you get into blogging?

I mentioned how I got into personal blogging above, but professional, full time blogging employment is thanks to a few different people.

First, Darren Rowse of Problogger.net gave me a big break by allowing me to write on his laptop related blog when he went on vacation. This got me a fair bit of exposure. Add on to that a small stint in the Fine Fools blogging network created by Paul Scrivens “Scrivs” of 9rules. Then throw in an interview I did with Jacob Gower, who was buying up big name blog properties left and right, and you have a perfect storm for my entrance into full time blogging. I really believe most of it was timing and luck. Jacob, after doing an e-mail interview with me for my personal blog, kept an eye on what I was doing, and found me to be the person he wanted to hire for the blog network he was starting: Bloggy Network.

At first it looked like I was going to be employed part time, but when Darren offered me a part time position as well, Jacob raised his bid to a full time dollar amount, and that’s how it all began.

How much time everyday do you spend blogging?

It varies wildly from day to day, as my duties aren’t always about blogging. Working for a blog network, I spend around ten or so hours a day online doing various things related to blogging. Actually researching and writing content, maybe only four hours a day now.

My day used to be all research and write back when I started, and I was pulling between seven and fourteen hour days.

How do you attract readers? Any tips on getting the word out about your blog and driving users to your site?

Networking and promotion are key. Become friends with people, and promoting your posts gets easier. Also there are sites for every niche that you can use to promote your content. I have seen great success with Stumble Upon and Reddit.

Everyone that wants to be successful should be creating great content, but I shouldn’t even have to mention that.

What blogs do you read? Can you share with us some URLs of your favorites?

I read so many in a day. I have finally cut down my feeds to a respectable amount, somewhere around a hundred sites or so. My favourites are harder to single out, as I really don’t read that many traditional blogs where I feel like they are part of my “must read” list.

I enjoy ReadWrite/Web, Problogger.net, Engadget, and DarrenBarefoot.com.

Can you give us a ballpark figure as to how much you earn from blogging? How do you monetize your blog?

I earn enough to pay the mortgage, but not enough to drive a Mercedes Benz. The figure changes a bit from month to month, but between three and four thousand Canadian dollars a month. I have to pay over thirty percent taxes on that, but with my wife’s income, we do well enough.

As for monetizing blogs, I suggest direct, private ad sales, where bloggers show companies why their site would work well to spread the companies brand or product. Keep your prices reasonable, and there is no reason why you can’t always have someone advertising. Also, ask your friends if they know anyone that is looking to advertise. They might not know anyone today, but if they do come across someone that is looking, you will then be the first person they think of.

Also, try every advertising program. It takes time, patience and testing to get the right ads on the right site. Don’t just dump AdSense on your page, and expect it to make you rich.

And for those of you afraid of advertising, look at Engadget, Gizmodo and John Chow. They have dozens of ads on their sites, and still hundreds of thousands of people come to read their content.

What common mistakes do you see other bloggers are doing?

I think bloggers give up too soon sometimes on sites that could be amazing given more time. By give up, I mean they either stop writing content, stop testing advertising positions, or promoting their blog.

Everyone I have ever talked to has said that the first year is the hardest, and it is more true now than it was when I started. Sure, there are some strange success stories that don’t follow that rule, but more often than not, you won’t make much during your first year of generating hundreds of thousands of words of content.

Keep working on it, keep learning, and stay passionate.

What advice can you give to someone who’s starting a blog?

Other than working at avoiding the common mistake I mentioned above, I would suggest that bloggers take the time to write down a list of everything they can think of to blog about before they even install their blogging software. If you can’t come up with a dozen posts that you think are absolutely amazing, you might have picked the wrong topic.

Planning can mean the difference between a failure and a success, especially in this ultra-competitive blogging world.

Is the blogosphere crowded already?

Yes, there are too many blogs out there, but that doesn’t mean it is crowded. I look at it this way: can I get into X number of people’s mind share?

Everyone only has so much time and attention they can give blogs, and if I am not going to be able to attract a certain number of people to spend their precious time reading my content, then I don’t build the blog.

But, just because a niche is crowded, it doesn’t stop me from trying to compete if I know I can perform. I started a blog about blogging called eXtra For Every Publisher, and it has been a runaway success for me. Everyone said the niche was too crowded, and yet, in the make money online niche, where I am also trying to make inroads, I rose as high as the 40th blog listed in the 45n5.com/top100 list.

I think that shows that with a great deal of time, passion, networking, planning and promotion, anyone can make their mark in the blogosphere, and that it is only too crowded if you can’t attract the amount of attention you want.

Posted on March 1st, 2008 by Dominic Rivera
Filed under: Blog, Interview