I’m still waiting for you to tell me what you have in mind re: teaming up for a course or something.

I kinda started a bit of it in my most recent post…

Trisha’s last blog post..The Ghostwriter’s Betrayal: Lies of ?Make Money Online?

That’s when I stopped reading Problogger. If someone wants to point to a great article one of his guests wrote, I’ll probably check it out. Otherwise, he’s lost a lot of links from ComHacker.

I’m working on a course similar to what you’re thinking. Maybe we could team up. =)

Trisha’s last blog post..Building a Successful Online Endeavor Out of MyChingo Ep1: Bloopers

I was born fighting injustice. When I was a kid I always stood up to the bully. When I had a law practice I represented the little guy against systemic injustice. It’s just the way I’m made. So why should the blogosphere be any different?

By the way, how do you know about China and are you going to finish your draft posts?

Looks like china wants to block you site, popular picks show “Dark tales from China’s Internet” and “China blocks Technorati”

Tica Macha (Teri)’s last blog post..‘Live Bullet’

kher Cheng Guan’s last blog post..Pak Lah: I Will Not Resign!

A last word on the matter. I would NOT recommend that anybody waste their money on this so-called “course”. I hope that you can read between his tap dance and see there is nothing new he has to offer beyond what you can already find for free in the blogosphere.

So keep your money in your pocket and start reading, and the best place to begin is this blog and my other blogs.

Until they come clean and answer my questions adequately I would never lend my name as an affiliate to promote nonsense like this. I have too much self-respect than to sell myself out (or my readers) for a lousy thirty pieces of silver.

So since we’re on the subject I’ll tell you what gets me angry Darren. I’m going to be brutally honest here and no more pulling punches. It’s time for a reckoning.

I get angry when my intelligence is being insulted with nonsense such as this. I get angry when I can’t get a straight answer to a simple question. I get angry when I see innocent people duped out of their hard earned cash by the hard-sell with nothing more than hot air to back it up. I get angry when I see false and misleading advertising fleecing good people’s pockets. I get angry when you and your groupy probloggers try to ignore me and squeeze me out of the picture. But they have no compunction to raiding and plagiarizing my content. I get angry when I leave comments on your blogs that never show up, and then blame it on Akismet. I get angry when you “bounce” off my ideas but rarely ever give me the credit I’m due. I get angry when you misuse your influence and tell your readers it’s ok to raid other blogger’s content but you never mention anything about the evils of plagiarism.

In fact I have never heard you discuss the subject of ethics to your minions in any meaningful way. No, that would hurt the bottom line wouldn’t it. Then you try to come across as some innocent guy like you are now. But what angers me the most of all is when you try con me with your nice guy routine and assume that I’m stupid enough to fall for your act.

So when I see nonsense like this it only makes you look more phony. You allege yourself to be an ex-Christian Minister but all I see is integrity sorely lacking. I’ve trained for the ministry myself but I can see a huge difference between the way you and I operate, and frankly it makes me ashamed. I see that gold has become your God and you are blinded by its brilliance.

Regarding proof of income I’ve already given your answer on that and an impartial third party could easily resolve that for you. So please spare me the excuses. When you are soliciting money from the public and basing your reputation on an alleged income level then the ONUS is upon YOU to PROVE it. That’s what a person with integrity would do and I shouldn’t have to tell you that. But as you know there are lots of gullible people out there who are only too happy to hand over their money to you. Easy pickings.

Regarding Andy’s “back end”, if you want to defray the spotlight on him then by all means I welcome him to answer my questions. So please pass along the invite to him. I know Andy from way back even possibly before you hooked up with him when he requested a FREE ebook that I created on how to hand-code RSS feeds from scratch. (Yes, I go back that far long before blogs even offered RSS feeds.)

So if he can shed some light on this then I’m all ears. But this information should be made public and not behind closed doors.

Good luck with the book. I’ll be interested to see how much of my content ends up there.

Cheers!

IN terms of your questions - I’m not sure what more to say. I don’t handle the back end of our course, Andy does - feel free to ask him for more details. I produce the content part of SFB (or at least a fair bit of it) and Andy does the financials and administering of the back end.

I’m not sure I want to continue the discussion. I’ve had it with you before and I didn’t feel like we got far, it just seemed to make us both angry.

In terms of my income - I’ve tried to provide as much proof as I know how to show of my income. I’ve done screenshots mainly which of course a couple of people accuse me of photoshopping but short of sending you the login details of my bank account or AdSense account I’m not sure what else to do. All I can suggest is that if you (or anyone else) know anyone who lives in Melbourne feel free to put them in touch with me and I’d be happy to login to AdSense and show them.

In terms of verifying the income of those who’ve done the course - all I can say is that we don’t track that and that most bloggers that I know who make money online don’t like to broadcast how much they make for fear of copycats.

This is a course that gives an insight into how someone (me) makes a six figure income. If people want more information to help them make a decision on whether to do the course or not then I’m happy for them to shoot me an email - darren AT problogger DOT net

I’m not interested in us having another brawl over this in public - if you have any questions that are not rhetorical that you’d like me to answer feel free to shoot me an email or hit me up on IM (skype ID darrenrowse).

Darren’s last blog post..The Opportunity Cost of Not Participating in Web Events

So let’s look at your answers shall we. First off let me clarify this is the first time that I’ve ever asked you any direct questions. And secondly, judging from your response you have danced me a nice jig but I’m still waiting for direct answers.

Remember, I was once a litigator and lucky for you you’re not on the stand right now because a judge would have you drawn and quartered with a response like that.

You claim that you don’t have exact figures or keep track of your participants progress. Hmm, how convenient for you. So without any verification of income we are supposed to just accept your word on that — right? I thought so. For a hard core capitalist that’s certainly no way to run a business. So much for “tracking” the effectiveness of your biz ventures.

Let’s look at it this way. If you are going to promote your course by publicly stating you have hundreds of satisfied customers, and the title of that course claims your students will make “Six Figure Blogging”, then don’t you think the onus is on you to support that statement? (Rhetorical Question). After all these years you would think that at least one of your students is making “6 figures” by now.

Citing privacy issues under the circumstances is a bit lame don’t you think. Otherwise your unsubstantiated public statements are just a bunch of hot air then aren’t they? (Rhetorical question).

Too bad Internet law hasn’t yet caught up with local consumer laws when it comes to advertising. But that’s good news for you isn’t it Darren. Heck, I know if I was making 6 figures from taking your course I would want to shout it from the rooftops. What’s too be shy about?

You say that most people believe “the course paid for itself quickly”. So that means they got back their $325 bucks. So have you considered changing the title of your course to “Three Figure Blogging” perhaps? That would be more appropriate don’t you think. (Rhetorical question).

You also state the most satisfying part of the course was making relationships, so perhaps a more apt title would be “Relationship Blogging”.

Yes? And if your statement “they’ve taught me a lot” is also true then perhaps you should be offering your course for FREE because you are getting as much out of the course as they are.

So all things considered your boast of “Six Figure Blogging” is way over the top don’t you think? (Another rhetorical question).

Oh yeah, one more thing. You claim to report only the income that you make from blogging. You are obviously making money from other online ventures such as this that I suppose we could say are indirectly related to blogging — aren’t you. So I guess it would depend on how liberal you define income made directly from blogging, wouldn’t it. (You guessed it - a rhetorical question).

And lastly, have you ever had your alleged income verified by an independent third party, like for example an accounting firm to keep skeptics like me at bay? No? I thought so.

Darren, the purpose of me asking these questions was to get some real raw data so that I can do the math. But you’ve given me nothing in return except for rhetoric, hearsay and double-talk.

Come on mate, please try a little harder. This is rubbish. Don’t blow this opportunity. I’m still waiting for my answers.

Darren’s last blog post..The Opportunity Cost of Not Participating in Web Events

Seriously, after about 1 week plus of blogging, I really can’t understand why would people want to pay that money to learn blogging….

Asia\’h Epperson’s last blog post..Asia’h Epperson Fools You

2. I don’t have the exact figures at hand for how many did it last time (andy tracks that kind of stuff) but from memory there were 80 or so who did the live course last time

3. We don’t survey or track participants earnings however we received positive feedback from the last course participants. We only had to refund a 1-2 people who didn’t feel the course met their expectations and had a number of others tell us that the course paid for itself quickly. Probably the most satisfying part of the course last time for me was the relationships that came out of it between some participants and between us as teachers and some of the students. I’ve seen a number of them really grow in their blogging and they’ve taught me a lot. Also exciting is that quite a few of last time are participating again in the 2nd version of the course.

4. If I had the earnings of past participants I doubt I’d share it - there are definite privacy issues around sharing the income level of others. We don’t even share who bought the course last time - would you want your purchases and income levels reported when you buy something? We have got some testimonials on the sales page that you’re welcome to follow up - we used their quotes with permission.

5. Again - I don’t have specific figures of what I earned from SFB last time at hand but it’s not hard to do the sums. We had 80 or so participants, the course cost $325 (actually it was less for most of those participants because we had an early bird signup). Andy and I paid affiliates a commission (it was 50% last time) and split the rest.

6. When I report that I earn six figures a year blogging I only report the income that I make from blogging. This isn’t included in that figure but it makes up a relatively small part of my own income from my online activities.

PS: You’re more than welcome to get a ‘kickback’ from promoting the course if you use the affiliate program that we have for it - otherwise it’s a little difficult to track how effective your ‘promo’ of the course has been
Darren’s last blog post..The Opportunity Cost of Not Participating in Web Events