Year 1 Is In The Books!
(Get it? Because this is a site about books...yeah I'll see myself out)
On a more serious note...
I’d like to say thank you to everyone who visited Alexandbooks, I hope people have found this site to be helpful and educational.
People often say that the hardest part of doing something is starting it, well after a year of work, I believe this is true. There have been a few ups and downs starting this site, but the journey has just begun!
Here’s what’s been achieved so far:
48 articles have been written (read them here)
37 books have been recommended (find them here)
5 videos have been created (watch them here)
Here are a few of my favorite articles:
If you want to read the very first article I posted, you can read it here.
Also, a list of the most popular articles can be found here.
On the site there has been a total of:
8,117 Pageviews
5,422 Views
5,167 Unique Visitors
A Few random facts:
The majority of visitors come from the US.
There’s been 28 visitors from Poland (Polska!).
And 0 from North Korea...
A Few Things I Learned From Year One:
Building a Website isn’t easy
It took me several months to build a website and it involved a lot of trial and error. Even after taking the website live, the user interface didn’t flow well, so I ended up redoing the site. I’d say that in the first few months I spent more time learning how to build the site and improving it than time spent on writing articles.
However, it’s been a great learning experience and I’m happy to say I know spend more time focusing on the articles instead of the website. Still, I’m constantly looking for ways to improve the website so if you have any suggestions, you can message me here.
Blogging will not make you rich
Or replace your day job. Or even replace your side job. Since starting this site, I’m made a total of about $5 in revenue.
Profits however, is a different story.
Owning a domain name and operating a website costs around $200 a year. The cost of all of the book bought last year came out to around $350. So in total, profits were -$545.
Last year I read 35 books. If each of those cost $10 on average, that's $350 just for the books!
Nonetheless, the good news is that this website was never created with the goal of becoming rich.
The reason behind starting the blog was because I thought it would be a good challenge to learn how to build a website, and it would be better to spend time reading and writing about books instead of watching TV or playing video games in my free time.
Like All Skills, Reading Is A Habit
People ask me how I make time to read so many books and how I never get bored of reading. The truth is that reading is very much like going to work or the gym. There are times when you don’t want to do it and times when it gets boring.
That is why it is important to turn it into a habit.
When you make something into a habit, it doesn’t require much energy or motivation. You just do it. For example, I do most of my reading in the morning. I eat breakfast and start reading afterwards because before I can write an article about the book, I have to first read it. After a while, reading in the morning became second nature and became effortless.
There are also multiple ways to ‘read’ a book.
Physical books are great for writing and highlighting but are difficult to read while traveling. A kindle or eBook is great for highlighting, but you can’t write in it and I personally don’t like staring at a screen for hours. Audio books are great way to learn while commuting, but you can’t write or highlight any important text. Each one has pros and cons so it’s important to identify which one best fits your style of learning (you can learn more about your reading style here).
Year 1 is complete, now onto Year 2!
Thoughts on Year 2
My goal for year two is to continue creating educational and helpful articles related to books and lessons learned on this journey. I started focusing only on business books, but have since expanded into psychology, writing, self-development, and other genres. I believe it's best to have an open mind so I will continue to explore different genres.
I've read about 100 books in the last three years, and even though I read a lot of books on similar topics, I continue to learn new lessons from each books.
Books are an invaluable source of information because they have been written by experts with years of experience on a specific topic. So instead of getting a PhD in psychology and studying it for twenty years, you can just read a book and learn the key lessons from it in just a few hours. If you want to start reading but don't know which book is interesting or helpful, you can find my list of recommended books by genre here.
And now, chapter two of Alex and Books begins.
Thank you for reading.
Sincerely,
Alex W.
P.S. Scroll down to learn how to support this site & for some Free Gifts!
Ways to support a&B
As mentioned earlier, running a website costs a lot more than I thought. Add in the cost of books, and the expenses of this site total to roughly $550 a year.
If you found this site useful and would like it support it, the best way of doing so would be to give a contribution.
Every dollar will go towards this website and even small donations help.
For people who can't donate, the second best way to support is by signing up for the monthly newsletter. People who sign up will get access to exclusive articles and will be entered for book giveaways.
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