Real Words

There are no hard and fast rules about how to blog. Yes, there are guides. There are six-figure bloggers who provide tips and ideas about being a successful blogger. There are general etiquette practices that bloggers tend to follow. But the truth of it is that the most successful bloggers are the ones who find the way of blogging that works for them regardless of what they’ve been told works in general.

And as blogging as grown to such huge proportions, bloggers have found that there are some common beliefs about blogging that they just don’t agree with other bloggers about. In fact, Problogger had a great post recently listing 29 Debates Bloggers Have. This simple x vs. y list shows that there are not only no clear cut rules for blogging but actually totally opposing beliefs about a lot of blogging methods.

One example given in the article is whether you should have descriptive titles or keyword-focused titles for your blog. Either way can work depending on what you’re seeking to do, who your audience is and what type of blogger you are. This isn’t the only title debate either; bloggers even debate whether you should have short titles or lengthy titles.

This is what makes blogging great … it’s very personal, very individual. You can blog in the way that is right for you and find an audience of like-minded people who like your style. You get to be yourself. And really, there’s no debate that that’s the best way to be a good blogger.

I received an email last week letting me know that this blog had been included in a list of the 30 Finest Creative Writing Blogs of 2009 that was published by the Online Colleges and Universities website. (Scroll down past the featured schools list on that page to see the list.) I enjoy their site, which often features terrific writing tips an resources, so it made me happy to see that this blog was included there.

I was also happy to see myself in some great company. Here’s a look at the other 29 blogs that were included on their list (in alphabetical order):

1. · Advanced Fiction Writing Blog
2. · Apostrophe Abuse
3. · Becoming a Fiction Writer
4. · Becoming a Writer – Seriously
5. · Blue Pencil Editing
6. · Cheryl Rainfield
7. · Fiction Writers Review
8. · Future Perfect Publishing
9. · Gareth Powell
10. · Inkygirl
11. · Internet Writing Workshop
12. · Jeremiah Tolbert
13. · John Baker
14. · Men with Pens
15. · Mike’s Writing Workshop
16. · Neil Gaiman
17. · Paperback Writer
18. · Renegade Writer
19. · SF Signal
20. · The Orwell Prize
21. · The Poetry Blog
22. · The Urban Muse
23. · Thursdaybram
24. · Tom Conoboy
25. · Working Girl
26. · Write Anything
27. · Write to Done
28. · Writing for the Web
29. · Writing Words

I make my living as a full-time professional blogger. Because of this, I obviously have tried a lot of different methods of getting blogging jobs. Each method has its own pros and cons. Here’s what those are based on my own experience.

1. Apply for advertised jobs. The most common way to get blogging jobs is to apply for the jobs that are being advertised. You can check out the Problogger Job Board or Deb Ng’s daily blogging leads to find these jobs.

Pros: These companies are definitely looking for bloggers, the work is available, you can find a lot of leads at once.

Cons: Everyone else is applying this way, too, so you are facing stiff competition. Your application can easily get lost in the crowd.

2. Attend classes for people interested in blogging. There are many classes given for people who want to learn more about blogging to help their businesses. Attend these and bring your business cards along to get new jobs.

Pros: These people are certainly interested in having a blog and they don’t really know how to do it on their own.

Cons: Not many - I’ve actually found this to be the best method of getting new jobs as a blogger. The biggest difficulties are probably scheduling your time to fit in these classes and making sure that you’re talkative enough there so that people know what you do. Additionally, you’ll find all different types of businesses represented at these classes so you might not succeed if you’re looking to blog in a certain niche.

3. Attend networking events in your niche. If you do want to blog in a certain niche then attending networking events, trade shows and Meetups around that niche is a great way to meet people who may want you to blog for them.

Pros: You’ll meet people who don’t necessarily already have a blogger and could use your services in a writing niche that interests you.

Cons: These people may or may not want blogging help. It can take time for these connections to lead to real blogging jobs. You have to really promote yourself at these events to get the work.

4. Email or cold call businesses you’d like to blog for. Identify businesses that you want to blog for. These may have existing blogs that you believe you could develop or they may not yet have blogs. Contact them via phone or email with information about your services.

Pros: You’re tapping into jobs where there is a lot less competition. You’ll get to work with businesses that really interest you since you’ve identified them.

Cons: These people aren’t necessarily seeking a blogger so you’ll face a lot of rejection while you’re looking for work. It can take a lot of time and follow-up to make these leads work.

5. Create a great blog of your own and let people know you’d like to blog for them. If you have a terrific blog that you promote around the web then people will eventually seek out your services. Let them know on the blog how to reach you as a blogger-for-hire.

Pros: These people already know your style and want to hire you for the work that you do.

Cons: It takes awhile to build up the kind of reputation that will have people knocking at your door. This requires patience.

How do you get blogging jobs? What are the pros and cons of your method?

I recently started working as a blogger for a company that I really like. The company is Edgi Clothing, a Bay Area tshirt company that has really cool clothing designs and a great philosophy behind their business. I’m writing blog posts about tshirts, fashion, and indie creativity for the blog. And I’m loving it - not only because the work is fun but because this is a client that I can really support.

I’m lucky to be in a position right now where I’m able to work with clients who are doing things that I find interesting. I get to collaborate with cool creative people who are making and promoting interesting products, products I’d want to buy or share with others. I get to be a part of teams that have strong beliefs that I can align myself with. It’s a great place to be in as a writer / professional blogger.

It was not always this way. When I was a new freelancer, or when money has gotten tight, I’ve done writing jobs that weren’t so in line with my passions. I’ve written for companies that didn’t interest me. I’ve done jobs that were more like sales for products that I would not have bought myself. I’ve worked as an independent contractor with businesses that I didn’t care to become more team-like with.

I won’t deny that those jobs sometimes pay the bills but I will insist that it’s a lot better to work with clients that you care about whenever you get the opportunity to do so. Working for companies that you enjoy and believe in leads to many benefits including:

• The work is more interesting to you.
• Your work day flies by because you’re really into it.
• You get to meet and work with people who like the things that you do.
• You spend time researching things that interest you and end up learning more about the stuff that you like to know about.
• Your work ends up being of better quality because your passion shines through.
• You can be a lot more proud of the work that you’re doing.

There is a really terrific post over at Problogger about blogging rules and how a real blogger might want to break them. There are all of these different rules that bloggers know that they’re supposed to follow to write a “good” post. You know the ones - write a catchy headline, do a lot of lists, use bullets, use proper spacing, keep it short and sweet …

There are some really good reasons that a blogger wants to do all of these things. It has to do with the likelihood of having your posts read and shared by other people around the web. However, as Problogger points out, it takes a lot out of the creativity of blogging. That, in turn, takes a lot of the fun out of blogging.

Remember back to the days when blogs were still called weblogs and they read like personal journal entries? The reason that we loved this medium when it first emerged was because it leveled the playing field for all writers and let readers into their inside worlds. You lose that when you start writing just to get links.

So take a tip from Problogger. Throw out the rules now and then. Write lengthy titles. Ramble on instead of making short sweet lists. Share your own thoughts without linking to other people. Use flowery language. Dare to be creative in your blogging!!

One of the things that I’ve thought about doing off and on is hiring a social media person. This would be someone who would have the job of doing the social media promotion for all of my work as well as for all of the posts that I do for my clients. It’s a tempting thing to consider doing but in the end I’ve decided that the cons outweigh the pros so I’m not going to do it.

Benefits of Hiring a Social Media Person

There are a lot of good reasons for me to hire a social media person. Doing so could benefit my own blogs as well as increase the traffic that I’m getting for my clients. The core benefits of having someone else do this instead of myself would be:

• That individual would be sole focused on social media promotion. Social media promotion is only one of the tasks that I perform as a blogger. Things I do as a blogger include defining the content, writing the content, adding images and videos to the posts, scheduling the posts, doing internal and external linking and then promoting the posts through various methods. When time gets tight, it’s hard to focus completely on social media. Hiring someone to do that would guarantee that the time and focus was on that regularly.
• It would mean I wouldn’t have to do social media stuff. The truth is that I don’t like doing a lot of social media promotion. There are things that I like using Facebook and Twitter for. I am starting to get into LinkedIn for various uses. However I don’t particularly enjoy the promotion of my own posts on these sites. Hiring someone to do it would mean I wouldn’t have to.
• I’d get an outside opinion on my social media strategy. Working alone means that I end up doing everything on my own and can get really stuck in my own way of doing things. This isn’t as bad with my clients’ blogs because I get their feedback on the social media strategy that I plan out for them. However it can be bad for my own blogs. It would be nice to have that second person giving me suggestions and feedback on how I approach my blog promotion.

I wanted to share a great link today. oDesk (a terrific resource) has posted a new set of 40 Freelance Writing Blogs to follow. They don’t just list them either - they give a really great breakdown of who each blog author is, why the blog is a great read and what specific pieces to check out on the blog.

I personally haven’t checked out all of these blogs yet but many of them are ones that I’m already following. Out of the ones that I am familiar with from the forty on the list, my top ten favorites are:

1. All Freelance Writing.
2. Bizzia.
3. Freelance Writing Jobs Network.
4. Get Paid to Write Online.
5. Men with Pens.
6. Poe War.
7. The Renegade Writer Blog.
8. Thursday Bram.
9. The Urban Muse.
10. Write to Done.

Which is your favorite freelance writing blog?

I have always loved memoirs. I like personal stories that share insight into the different ways that people live. Memoirs work better for me than biographies or autobiographies because they are more poetic and usually more personal. I don’t care about the facts and stats of someone’s life; I care about their thoughts and passions. Memoirs give me insight into those things. Great memoirs that really resonate with me also give me new insight into myself.

One memoir writer that I just recently discovered is Sue William Silverman. Her first memoir, Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, is the story of her years growing up in a childhood where she experienced sexual abuse. Her second memoir, Love Sick, is about her struggle with sex addiction which resulted from this abuse. I haven’t read her first book yet but recently finished Love Sick and definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the topics of abuse, addiction and relationships.

But what does this have to do with writing? Well, Silverman’s most recent book is all about the art of writing a memoir. The book is called Fearless Confessions and it looks like it’s a great book for people who are interested in learning to write their own memoirs but who aren’t quite sure how to go about it (or who simply need a bit of inspiration for that). I haven’t actually read the book yet but I’m awaiting my copy of it in the mail and will return here with a full review once I’ve read it.

The reason that I wanted to bring it up now, though, is because Silverman is currently in the midst of a blog tour. Fearless Confessions is being reviewed, discussed and given away on different blogs all throughout the month. I love following blog tours and I think that this memoir looks really good so I wanted to share that information with others. The details for that tour are here. If you check it out, do come back and let me know what you think!

I’ve been doing a lot of guest blogging lately on frugal living blogs and green blogs. A lot of bloggers enjoy doing guest blogs because they give you so many benefits as a blogger.

Some of the benefits I’ve gained from guest blogging include:

• Corresponding with great bloggers. My favorite part about the experience is getting the chance to exchange thoughts on topics with the bloggers I write for.
• Feedback. These bloggers give me feedback on what I write for them which is nice since I usually only get that from people who comment on my blogs.
• Writing on fresh topics. My guest blog posts are usually on topics that interest me but that I don’t write about much on my own blogs. It’s nice to get to write on these things.
• Links and traffic. The main reason that most people guest blog is to get incoming links and new readers for their own blogs. It’s certainly a nice benefit of guest blogging.

Please check out some of my recent guest blog posts:

• Five Life Changing Benefits of Frugal Living.
• Where to Find Celebrity Styles for Less.
• How the Recession is Affecting Relationships.
• How to be Green with your Writing.
• 5 Key Sacrifices to Make if you Really want to Save Money.
• Smart Budget Travel Ideas for Summer Holidays.
• Cheap Alternatives to a Hotel.
• Frugal Living tips for Professionals from College Kids.

I write across a huge range of different topics. Drop a line if you’re looking for a guest blogger and maybe we can work something out!

I recently came across an old article with 101 Ways to Monetize your Blog. The truth is that there aren’t 100+ unique methods of monetization in this article because many of the items fall under the same category. (For example, CafePress and PrintInfection options are listed as two separate items when really the method that you’re using is selling merchandise on your blog.) Despite the somewhat misleading name, there are indeed over one hundred specific options here contained within different categories that should give you a good idea of how to start making money off of your blog in ways that you might not already be doing.

One of the suggestions that I’m really interested in here is ShareAPic. This is a site where you can host your own photo galleries and make some money off of them every time that they get viewed. Most bloggers use photos on their blog posts so that’s a simple way to use your blog to promote your photo gallery and make a little bit of extra cash. That’s one of the more interetsing options for monetization that I’ve looked at in awhile and it’s an idea that I’d like to explore more myself.

I’d also like to add a new method of blog monetization that isn’t on this list although the category it falls into is which is making money via Twitter. This would fall under the “begging” category on the original post which includes options like adding a PayPal button or a “buy me a coffee” option on your blog. The idea is the same; add a blog button through a site like TipJoy so that your blog readers can Tweet donations your way.

I try to keep my own blog monetization limited but I do like some of these ideas. What are your favorite ways to make some money off of your blog?