Scientific Advertising by Claude C. Hopkins is a timeless classic written many years ago but a book whose powerful principles still ring true to this day.

It contains 21 chapters of timeless strategies you don't want to ignore in your advertising and marketing efforts.

In fact, David Ogilvy once said: "Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times."

I highly recommend that your read this book, which is brought to you free, before you spend any money on other copywriting books.

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Since we’re getting ready to fly to Vegas to speak this weekend, I didn’t want to leave without making a quick post. But with no time to write an article myself, I decided to spread some link love.

Anyway, here are five of them…

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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, PayPerPost.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’ve done a couple of things to my blog, mostly “behind the scenes,” that I want to share with you.

My friend James Brausch has recently closed his comments on his blog. The primary and most important reason is to deal with the plethora of comment spam.

If you wanted to comment on any one of James’ posts, you’d now have to do it on your own blog by posting an article and linking back to his. Since his blog supports it, your link will automatically create a trackback on his post, which will be listed in the comments area.

But the wonderful byproduct of this is that it increases backlinks (i.e., link popularity) to his blog.

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Cancer.

I’ve talked a lot about it on this blog of late, being breast cancer awareness month and all, and given my wife’s current battle. But this time, the kind of cancer I’m referring to is different. And it’s shaking up the blogosphere at its foundations.

I’m all for the small guy making it big. But when the competition, a “big guy” (owned by a Fortune 500 company) starts calling you a cancer on his personal blog, you know that something has certainly gone amok.

It’s pretty controversial, too. Large players in the blogosphere have their knickers in a twist about this — and I couldn’t resist talking about it, and sharing my views.

Let’s enter the playground, kiddies. Shall we?

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I was in the process of updating the sidebar links, but was a little confused as to what exactly would people prefer, and what would make them navigate this site more effectively to help them find content they seek. Then I got thinking…

Why not ask you, my dear readers, directly? So I created a poll (see the top of this post) that asks the question, “What links would you like to see on the sidebar?” Please choose your answer.

To view the entire poll, just hover your mouse over the arrows. If your answer is “other,” could you please specify by replying and posting a comment, below? Thanks.