When I first began blogging for other people, I accepted several jobs at once, which as you can imagine kept me very busy. I had my hands in many pots, some of them rather uninteresting. Still, I wanted to learn as much about blogging as I could and being a blogger for hire allowed me to study traffic building techniques while still being paid. Since I was bringing in a steady income, it also allowed me to take some risks with my own blogs and play around with traffic and monetization. It was a good plan and it’s continuing to work out well.
I know many probloggers who don’t believe in working for someone else, but for me it makes sense. My own blogs do well, but don’t make enough for my family and me to live on. The good news is that now I’m at a point where I can pick and choose projects that are most interesting.
Blogging for others has enabled me to:
- Learn about building traffic. – Most of my clients offer profit shares or traffic bonuses in addition to my salary.
- Study a variety of interesting topics – I write blogs having to do with blogging, saving money,and celebrities, just to name a few. Life isn’t boring.
- Make a name for myself – I don’t need to be famous, but I do have a reputation for being a hard worker and team player. People trust my advice and like to read what I have to say.
- Bring in a full time income – Need I say more?
- Make important contacts – I landed a few recent gigs via word of mouth, my clients recommend me to other clients.
I’m not a sellout simply because I choose to blog for someone else. I just found another way to make it work for me.
Without going into too much detail, how have you found the difference in rates between different blogs and different topics eg. for a celebrity site, would you have to post shorter posts but post more often?
For the current moment, I would like to find a blog to work for. I can live without them but as you pointed out, there's a lot that I can learn from blogging for others.
Maybe a few more months of blogging will build myself a higher credibility and hopefully by that time, people will come to me, not me chasing after them.
@Kevin – The Celebrity blog requires shorter more frequent posts, but pays more money than most of my blogs too. I'm finding rates are raised with expectations and most people pay accordingly. I don't take gigs only offering a percentage of a profit because they never prove to be worth my time.