Don’t worry, be happy.

By Leo Babauta

If you’re a blogger or writer, now is the time to expand.

Yes, that’s right — in the middle of a tough economy, when everyone is downsizing and cutting back, you should be even more aggressive and look to expand your business.

As a blogger and book author, I’ve been giving this some thought. I’ve noticed major blog owners such as Nick Denton cutting back on his blogs as revenues decrease. I’ve heard other bloggers talk about decreasing revenues, and worry about whether blogging is dying.

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Photo courtesy of powerbooktrance.

By Leo Babauta

One of the reasons I was able to draw so many readers to Zen Habits within the first year was that I treated the promotion of Zen Habits as you would any other product — I branded it.

Of course, there are other reasons as well — I really focused on creating as useful content as possible, for example — but branding is what really helped Zen Habits take off so quickly.

When you think of your blog as you would a brand, you have to create a consistent message and have everything you do — on and off the blog — send the same message. And you have to repeat the message as often as possible to your target audience until it’s stuck in their head.

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Recently I interviewed uber-blogger Steve Pavlina for Zen Habits on the topic of personal development, habits and daily routines …

But I thought the writers and bloggers of Write To Done would be interested in a deeper look at Steve both as a blogger of an A-list personal development blog, and as a writer of a great new book: Personal Development for Smart People.

What follows is a 3-question interview I did with Steve to share with all of you, and I hope you enjoy it. Steve really went into some depth with his answers, and they’re pretty long, but fascinating nonetheless.

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If you’re interested in learning more about my intentions with this blog, Write To Done, head on over to Allena Tapia’s interview with me at freelance.about.com:

Leo Babauta: Master Blogger Targets the Writing World 

Photo courtesy of Refracted Moments

“The path to greatness is along with others.” - Baltasar Gracion, Spanish Priest

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Allena Tapia of freelancewrite.about.com.

My writing business is moving into young adulthood, and instead of wondering where my next project is going to come from, I’m looking for more money, more projects and more clients. The only catch is, I don’t want to work any more hours.

Ahh, there’s the rub.

The “secret” here is not so secret at all. Of the 28 hours I spend behind the desk, only approximately 14 are billable hours. That’s a dismal 50% billable rate. I simply must increase my billable hours to 75% of my total time, which will increase my income by 25%, with no time adjustment on my part. How?

By hiring and training a virtual assistant.

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