What would happen if the thousands of bloggers who read ProBlogger each day decided to work together to improve their blogs?
This is a question that has been on my mind lately – I thought it was time to find out what the answer is.
So far 800 1200+ bloggers have agreed to join me in finding out – will you join us too? We’re offering it as a special introductory price of $1.95 a month for access to the forum (once you’re in at that rate you’re locked in at it and it won’t rise).
UPDATE: the introductory price of $1.95 is over. The monthly price is now $5.95.
I’ve been asked to add a forum area to ProBlogger for almost as long as this site has been live (5 years last week). It’s something I’ve been open to but never quite got around to doing – but lately a number of things have changed my mind including:
1. The success of the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Forum – this temporary forum/community rocked and led to quite a few bloggers going into partnerships and collaborations with other bloggers.
2. More and more reports of bloggers forming alliances or collaborative relationships – bloggers have joined together in networks and groups for years now – but lately I’ve been hearing a lot more stories of bloggers forming alliances and collaborating.
3. The realization that while here on ProBlogger people do collaborate in comments – that a blog is really not the medium for it to go to its potential.
Out of all this – I’ve decided to finally launch ProBlogger.com in collaboration with the team at b5media who are looking after the back end of the site.
So far I’ve invited those on my email list to join and 800 1200+ have signed up. Today I’m launching it to the wider community.
Note: You can get much of the information below in a video at the bottom of this post if you prefer that format.
What is ProBlogger.com
- ProBlogger.com is all about community, collaboration and learning together.
- It is a paid forum ($1.95 USD per month subscription – more on why it’s paid below)
- It is a private and moderated forum – walled from the general public, search engines and spammers
- It’s currently in version 1.0 – a forum but we plan to add features as it grows.
Why is it a Paid Community?
I’m aware that the idea of paying to join a forum is not going to suit everyone and I don’t pretend that it will appeal to all – but there are a number of reasons I’ve taken the decision to put a $1.95 monthly subscription fee on it.
1. I want to staff the forum – there’s nothing wrong with volunteer moderation (and we’ll add this as we go) but I wanted this community to be administrated by a paid and dedicated staff member (Lara Kulpa, who many of you are familiar with) to ensure that the forum is as useful as possible. We’re dedicating 100% of the income of the first 1200 or so members purely to cover this (and then a % of all further membership). My goal is to have Lara full time on this task.
Having a paid community manager is important to me because I know it’ll be run well, well moderated, more useful and that members will be looked after by someone accountable and focused on the task.
2. It’s valuable and I want it to be seen as such – my experience of forums in the past is that they tend to attract a lot of lurkers who join but rarely turn up and contribute. While having a cost on the forum may keep some away I believe it gives those who do join a little more reason to participate. If something costs you’re hopefully more likely to use it and a forum that is actually used is more valuable for everyone.
3. Discourage Spammers – while I fully expect members will successfully promote their blogs in this community – that’s not what it’s really about and I hope that putting a fee on it will keep spammers and self promoters a little more at bay. Feel free to tell us about your blog – but do it appropriately and as a good citizen of the forum. Spammers are not welcome.
The Details on Price and Introductory Offers
The introductory price of ProBlogger.com is $1.95 USD per month. Payment is via PayPal (sorry to those who are not able to use PayPal but at this point it’s the system that is easiest for us to use and is the most widely used option).
This introductory price of $1.95 is a limited time offer. I’m yet to decide on the price that we’ll put it up to but if you join at this rate you’ll only ever be charged this much per month for access to the forum. Those who join later will be charged at the higher rate.
I’m also offering 50% off the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog workbook to anyone who joins the forum in the first month. This is purely an optional thing and not something that I expect everyone will want or need. You’ll be given a discount code once you register and pay for your first month on the inside of the forum for this.
To join simply follow this process:
- head to the registration page of the forum here – add your details and join the forum.
- go to the forum and hit the ‘complete the registration process by clicking here‘ link
- hit the ‘$1.95’ option in the ‘cost’ drop down menu and click ‘order’
- this will take you through a process where you can pay with PayPal and set up the subscription – once you have you can head back to the forum and start posting.
Will You Join Us?
At this point we’ve had 800 1000+ members join as paid up members and we’d love to have you join us. You can unsubscribe at any point if you find that it doesn’t fit your needs and stop future payments. While I know it won’t fit with everyone’s situation I do hope that you check it out and join the community as an active member – this will be as good as we make it so get involved!
Here a video (also on the front page of ProBlogger.com) where I go through a lot of the above information for those who prefer to watch and listen over reading!
UPDATE: the introductory price of $1.95 is over. The monthly price is now $5.95.
