Need ideas on how to monetise daughter's blog - Come on, you're good at this stuff!

How fabulous is this!!!???

She's 11 and doing such a great job with this blog.

I love, love, love the background. Very cute!

I see that she's got some interviews posted. That's cool. What if she did short interviews with the authors she meets?

Take a Flip video camera when you go to booksignings and record while she talks to the authors.

She could really build a name for herself as a junior Perez Hilton. OK maybe that's a bad example. Of course, you don't want her to be known for pissing people off or being obnoxious. But at least he's got it going on as far as lots of traffic and some celebrites are starting to embrace him, invite him to events, etc.

But she could become well-known in the world of children's authors. If she's getting enough traffic to her blog, the authors would be more likely to want to appear on the blog because they'll realize other kids (and their parents) will see it, which would result in more fans and more sales for the authors.

Even if Zoe doesn't see an author in person, you could do some digging behind the scenes to track that author down (usually pretty easy to contact them through their web sites), send them an email introducing Zoe and her blog, and see about doing a short telephone interview with the author. Record it using Audio Acrobat (or whatever) and post it on the blog.

Might seem a little much for some 11-year-old girls to handle an interview, but I'm thinking she's got what it takes.

Just prepare a few simple questions based on what kids her age would like to know about that author and their stories. Nothing earth-shattering.

Good luck to Zoe and keep encouraging her, Dad!

Jill

Another thought --

Get the word out that Zoe will be interviewing a specific author.

Kids can ask their parents for permission to send their questions in. This way, you can make sure parents know what's going on, plus it will help establish credibility. Parents will think it's cool that this is a kid-to-kid thing.

Zoe would choose a question or two, and while she's with that author, she could say, "McKenzie from Blah Blah Town sent in her question. 'Dear Author, When you are writing your characters, do your own kids' personalities become the characters' personalities?'"

The kids would be excited to send their questions in, and it would help her blog readers be more involved.

Might be cool to see if authors would donate a signed book or two for giveaways, too.

Jill

Peter,

Do you want to monetise the blog right now or do you want to make Zoe the "go-to girl" in her niche and leverage her position to make a lot more money later on?

If you can get her to focus on building content and her reputation and not worrying so much about monetisation at the present it might work out better.

To keep her sweet you could act as her "publisher" and pay her a couple of quid per article/interview against future "royalties".

As Jill said, interviews would be good to help her become the kid's book maven. If you want to build up a list, there are so many great children's books in the public domain you can digitalise and give away (with Zoe's review attached, of course).

Her first ebook could be "How To Write A Killer Review That Gobsmacks Your Teacher".

She can give example reviews of famous books (cue Amazon links!) and a few templates that kids can follow. Should be able to sell a few of those at a fiver a pop (less dad's 25%).

Talking of Amazon, she could try and sweet talk them out of a few Kindles - the next generation book for the next generation of readers.

Martin

Peter -

What comes to mind is some community-building. What about a forum with a virtual book club? Could go viral. Community. Authority. Along the lines of Martin's comments - value first, then monetize.

The writing competition is a great idea. If Zoe has met (even briefly) some of these authors, could they be charmed into being a final judge? Huge draw there.