Making money blogging – writing other people’s blogs

There is more than one way to skin a cat.

Apologies to all cat lovers, this is just an expression and in no way am I advocating the skinning of cats. Unless they wake me up with their howling at four-o-clock in the morning.

It occurred to me that most of what I see written about making money blogging tends to look at the “normal” ways of making money blogging. Andy rightly pointed out that there are four basic ways to make money on the internet, but I would like to respectfully suggest another.

Writing other people’s blogs

As you start out on your online money making career you will discover one of the harsh realities of the internet – it’s a big place, and, much like the real world, is populated with people who think it’s OK to rip other people off.

And this includes the blogs offering what I consider to be slave wages to new writers. These sites offer anywhere from $3 per 300 word post down to sums not even worth mentioning. But – these people are not looking for bloggers – they are looking for the cheapest unique content they can lay their hands on. Not the same thing.

What is a blog post worth?

It does of course, depend on a number of factors. Most importantly, as far as I am concerned is - how much time will it take? If the subject requires heavy research, it’s safe to expect to be paid more than if you are just being asked to write a personal opinion.

I shan’t bother going into great detail as to the rights and wrongs of offering extremely low wages to blog writers. If you are interested in a few heated discussions on the subject, take a look at Deborah Ng’s blog Freelance Writing Jobs. There are any number of discussion threads on the subject. I can only give my own personal opinion here. I am looking for a celebrity blogger for one of my blogs, The Luxury Property Blog. And I am not interested in finding some one who will work for peanuts. (anyone interested can contact me through my profile here.)

What I will say is that, although it is tempting to take these low paying jobs when first starting out, they are unlikely to offer anything worth while as far as exposure goes. Many of them tout themselves as being a great platform for gaining exposure as a new writer. But, with the best will in the world it takes anything up to 18 months to get a blog to the point where it has a decent readership. Sure, there are ways to speed this process up, but it’s fair to say – if they can’t afford to pay a decent rate for content, they are unlikely to have the wherewithal to promote their new, “soon to be the biggest thing on the internet.”

So, I know what I consider to be a decent rate for paid blogging – what do you think is a decent rate ?