Since the new year is right around the cor­ner, blog­gers and mar­keters alike are post­ing their pre­dic­tions as if a psy­chics con­ven­tion has come to town.

So in keep­ing with that tra­di­tion, I’d like to post a few of my own. But unlike those who post their pre­dic­tions in point form, I won’t make a spe­cific list but rather share with you some of my thoughts.

(Near the end, how­ever, this post will cul­mi­nate in what I believe will be three major trends to watch out for and dive into, if you want to make some seri­ous money in 2008 and beyond.)

First off, let me state that you may or may not agree with me on these. But some­thing is def­i­nitely going on right now that points to these three trends. All the clues are pretty evi­dent, and you’ve prob­a­bly seen some of these yourself.

What I’m talk­ing about is…

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I feel kinda bad.

Julie Isaac, who com­mented on a pre­vi­ous blog post in which I said I was prepar­ing for my upcom­ing Web 2.0 copy­writ­ing work­shop, was upset with me. And for good rea­son, too. Here’s what she said:

This is the first time, since you announced it in May, that I’ve seen you write about your Web 2.0 Copy­writ­ing work­shop. Are you still plan­ning it for the week­end of Novem­ber 10th? I’ve been hold­ing that week­end open since I heard your plans, but finally gave up, fig­ur­ing you must have post­poned it. Just last week, I signed up for some­thing else that week­end. Please tell me I’m not going to miss your workshop!!!

Sorry to dis­s­a­point you, Julie. But yes, the sem­i­nar is indeed that weekend.

The saleslet­ter is not up yet, but if this sem­i­nar inter­ests you, you can cer­tainly go there now and join the noti­fi­ca­tion list. That way, you will be noti­fied as soon as the web page is up so you can register…

Click here for the Web 2.0 Copy­writ­ing workshop.

(You gotta see what Dan O’Day has in store for you… He shared it with me last night on the phone, and it blew me away! You’re going to love this event. Plus, with Google Audio Ads com­ing out, his stuff is very timely.)

… Words out of thin air and assem­bles them into mas­ter­ful sales pages that earn more money than you can even imagine.

Sorry about the title. I just wanted to see if I could get Michel to post that title on his own blog.

It does relate some­what to what I want to talk about, though. And that’s the power of the law of reci­procity.

I was very hon­ored when Michel asked me to be a guest poster on his blog. What do I know about copy­writ­ing, which is his forte? If I knew any­thing about copy­writ­ing, I wouldn’t have had to write Glyphius and MuVar to help me fig­ure out if the words I had put on paper were prof­itable or not.

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As you might have seen on some blogs, peo­ple have “guest” blog­gers replac­ing them while, say, they’re on vaca­tion or a trip.

You’ve prob­a­bly seen this on my friend Brian Clark’s blog or oth­ers, of late. And I really like this, since it keeps the blog going with­out interruptions.

Well, I’m not going on vaca­tion. But I will be incog­nito for a while as my wife and I move into a new home start­ing next week, until the end of the month (and give or take another cou­ple of weeks in August to set­tle in).

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First off, this post is in no way com­pre­hen­sive. There are many dif­fer­ent ways to mon­e­tize your blog.

Of course, there’s sell­ing ad space on your blog, such as through the use of pay-​​per-​​click net­works like Google AdSense — which is the most popular.

But offer­ing will­ing adver­tis­ers to directly spon­sor your blog by buy­ing a post, an ad, or a link is one area that’s becom­ing increas­ingly popular.

Sites like ReviewMe​.com, PayPer​Post​.com, and Text​-Link​-Ads​.com are effec­tive in allow­ing blog­gers to get paid for sell­ing con­tent or links on their blogs. Basi­cally, these net­works bring both blog­gers and adver­tis­ers together.

Granted, this has been the sub­ject of a lot of con­tro­versy lately, par­tic­u­larly about dis­clo­sure. (And yes, all the links above are my affil­i­ate links.)

But what if you want to make money directly? What if you want more con­trol over how you mon­e­tize your blog? What if you want to make money based on sales (like an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion) and not just ad clicks or views?

Well, here are a few cool Word­Press plu­g­ins I found.

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I’m back from Atlanta from attend­ing the Big Seminar.

I got to see my friends and some top mar­keters while there, includ­ing Jim Edwards, Mar­lon Sanders, Mike Woo-​​Ming, Brad Fal­lon, Jeff John­son, Ray Edwards, Eric Gra­ham, and more. (The pic­ture on the left is with Eric Gra­ham, one of my coach­ing stu­dents.)

The high­light of the week­end, aside from the great con­tent and the net­work­ing and shoulder-​​rubbing oppor­tu­ni­ties, was Sat­ur­day night. Dr. Scott Lewis, an Inter­net mar­keter as well, is a hyp­no­tist with a reg­u­lar show in Vegas. He gave a show on Sat­ur­day that was filled with surprises.

(My jaw still hurts from laugh­ing so much!)

Nev­er­the­less, I’m back in the office and now get­ting ready for a ton of events. May is shap­ing up to be quite a busy month, with webi­nars, tele­sem­i­nars, copy cri­tiques, and more.

First on the agenda…

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I love read­ers’ ques­tions. And some­times, the same ques­tions keep com­ing up that I decide on post­ing a blan­ket answer on this blog to cover them.

I do this as a way to cre­ate con­tent for this blog, help my read­ers find the answers they’re look­ing for, and save me time from not hav­ing to answer the same ques­tions over and over again.

Prob­lem is, many peo­ple never find the blog post that answers their ques­tion, par­tic­u­larly if it’s old and sit­ting deep in the archives. And many peo­ple don’t take the time to search for it, because it’s work and it’s sim­ply eas­ier to con­tact my staff for the answer.

I thought about cre­at­ing a fre­quently asked ques­tions (FAQ) page. But I wanted a brain-​​dead easy solu­tion to be able to do this in a snap (much like post­ing to this blog), and offer more to my readers.

But also, I wanted one that would opti­mize my page for the search engines (where spe­cific key­words are included in the titles and ques­tions), and be easy enough for me to sim­ply answer ques­tions as I go along.

Finally, I found one…

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