It's Like Making Fun a Job

I've said over and over again that one of the most important elements for being successful is doing something you just love to do. I'd like to stop saying and start showing, and what better way of doing it that using a simple example, as simple as this word: mumobo.

Most of us love listening to music and watching a good flick, and many just can't stop reading a good book.

I've been reading between three to six books a month during the last couple of decades and I'm always looking for ways of absorbing more in less time, like listening to audiobooks in the iPod or getting everything I can as an ebook into the PDA. It's literary crack. Yes, I'm a sick person.

A couple of years ago, when I started writing my first personal blog, I included pictures of the books I was reading and the music I was listening linked to Amazon. I had seen that in other blogs and thought it was nice letting others know about it.

Later I wanted to share a little more and wrote my first reviews on books I had loved, which new musics bands I had discovered and even a few movies that I thought sucked big time. I had a few readers commenting and nice conversations started. That's the beauty of connecting with like-minded pals.

I never thought of it as a job. It was just great writing about a modern Swedish band I'd found, with a rockish '60s sound, and then discovering, thanks to one comment, similar musicians.

The same happened when writing about books I had devoured or movies I could watch over and over again. My readers came with new ideas, recommending a host of works I didn't know about.

Some months ago, after putting my web development business on hold to find time to work on my first book, I started thinking about other projects online, but not any kind of project, funny projects.

That's how the mumobo concept was born, as an extension to my earlier reviews. This would be a site focused just in that: music, movies and books. The African sounding word instantly stroke a chord in me and was the first domain name that took me less than a couple of minutes to figure out. I had one more minor detail to round the idea: how to make money from this?

In those days I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Westergren, one of the masterminds and founder of the fantastic music site Pandora. Tim told me they were doing quite well selling music thru Amazon's and iTunes' affiliate programs. That was it. My site would offer good quality, highly personal, reviews of music, movies and books, plus links to Amazon and iTunes (and a little of good 'ol Adsense).

It's a one man operation and I don't pretend to become a millionaire with this, but it's one of many income sources and every nickel counts. Oh, and don't forget, it's like making fun a job.

Besides, I was already writing my reviews, the only change is that now I can focus on a dedicated website for all of them. Some years from now it will be great revisiting mumobo and remembering what I was reading in 2006, don't you think?

And now, everytime I'm lying in bed listening to Muse's fantastic Black Holes and Revelations, I can tell Yesenia, with not guilt at all, “my dear, I'm working, please wake me up at four.”