I absolutely LOVE what blogger/entrepreneur Ben Yoskovitz has to say about bootstrapping a "media empire".

I've often thought media networks, especially on line, have a great potential to be scaled easily with little or no up-front investment beyond maybe the purchase of a domain name.

First watch Wired editor Chris Anderson discuss the democratizing effect of new media with publisher Will Hearst:

Then this great interview with Mike Hudack of Blip TV on the ability of independent producers to go head to head with the big media moguls using the tools provided on line:

And here are Ben Yoskovitz's suggestions with a couple of my own comments thrown in. Notice none of these suggestions involve much in the way of investment at first.

Ben suggests:

• Build up a popular blog on a specific niche. Whether it's collecting science fiction action figures or writing about Libertarian politics, I should ad that it doesn't hurt to find a topic for which there is already some passion out there, even if it's among a very small group. Marketer Seth Godin calls this finding an Otaku.

• Develop a strong brand. This, of course, has something to do with your niche but also with the personality and style you give your blog, the way you set the tone for the conversation that will occur. There are many ways to write about a passion for medieval armor so be sure to give yours some pizzazz.

• Make lots of friends. On line media is about many things but one of them is certainly community. If you're a bootstrapper consider joining these communities affiliated with BootStrapMe.com or guest posting here by following these instructions.

• Master monetization. This is the hardest part of bootstrapping an on line media property, whether blog, on line magazine or social network. Ben suggests affiliates, sponsorships, text link ads, sponsored reviews. Here are some additional resources.

• Learn more about marketing. In particular, Ben suggests brushing up on e-mail marketing and autoresponder.

• Find opportunities offline. It can sometimes be a real chore to make all the different aspects of your life align so that you can do a bunch of things that are all related and still make a living while building your brand. The thing to remember is to try to tailor what you do to your niche and promote those efforts through your blog at every opportunity.

• Get help. You probably should have done this when you started with this crazy bootstrapping thing in the first place. Seriously though, you'll need others to help you as you expand your efforts which leads us to the next of Ben's points...

• Be a teacher. You'll want to invite others to guest post on your blog as suggested above, but you'll also want to give others guidance. A suggestion: Just because someone has a different approach to something does not make it wrong. Focus on inspiring instead of lecturing.

• Realize it's a business. For more on this read discussions on bootstrapping by both Greg Gianforte and Guy Kawasaki to keep from deceiving yourself about the difference between a hobby, an idea and an actual business model.

• Expand slowly but promote like crazy. Even if some of your efforts and experiments go badly. I've lived by this one and sometimes frankly cringe when looking back at places where maybe I zigged when I should have zagged. Truth be told, however, I generally feel worse about the risks I didn't take and every step in the expansion process teaches great lessons.

Other suggestions? Please share in the comment section or create a response on your own blog, link here, let me know and I'll be sure to return the favor.