This post on Blogging for Yourself vs. Blogging for Others has been submitted by Deborah Ng who blogs at About Weblogs (for about.com), Simply Thrifty (for b5media) and Work From Home Momma (for Know More Media). I think she’s qualified for talking about blogging for others!
While it started out as an enjoyable hobby, blogging is now a full time means of earning an income. I generate a fairly decent salary from one of my blogs, but it’s not enough to pay the bills. Thankfully, there are individuals and businesses that are happy to pay me to blog for them. Though I enjoy the creative outlet blogging provides, there’s a big difference between blogging for myself and blogging for others.
Blogging for Myself
With my own blogs, I can discuss whatever I want, when I want, without having to worry about nuisances such as deadlines and word counts. My blogs do fall within particular niches, but if I feel like straying off topic, I can certainly do so. There’s a lot more to blogging than posting and forgetting. I have to figure out ways to bring in traffic and revenue. I’m always checking stats and playing around with ads. It takes a few hours each day to maintain my own blogs, and only one is a big income generator. I have to handle my own design issues too, not a big deal unless you’re technically challenged, and I am.
Blogging for Others
Blogging for others is a great way to bring in money, especially if you have a couple of big name corporate clients, and I do. I also blog for a couple of networks and they supplement my income nicely. My clients’ blogs pay me a monthly income which is more than I’d earn if I hosted the blogs on my own. Plus they handle all of the dreaded technical issues and even many of the promotional details. Since a couple of the networks offer revenue bonuses, I do have to help a bit with promotion, but I kind of enjoy that.
The downside of blogging for others is that you may have to adhere to specific guidelines and word counts. There are deadlines too. One network requires its bloggers to post by 10:00 AM, while another requests at least six posts a week. It’s the word counts that get to me. What happens if the topic doesn’t warrant 300 words? So far I haven’t run into a problem, but it’s nice not to have to check the word count every few paragraphs.
It’s All Good
As far as I’m concerned, I’m living the best of both worlds. I have my own income-generating blogs, and others pay me to do something I enjoy. For that I can deal with word counts and deadlines.
Deb Ng has been blogging since 2005. She just gave up the last of her writing clients as she has enough blogging gigs to keep her busy full time. You can a few of Deb’s blogs at:
About Weblogshttp://weblogs.about.com
Simply Thrifty http://simplythrifty.com
WorkfromHomeMomma http://workfromhomemomma.com
Freelance Writing Jobs http://www.writersrow.com/deborahng/freelancewritingjobs.html
