Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Blog Secrets: Writing Success with Blogs

In next week's issue of Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, we discuss four blog secrets, and show you how to create successful blogs.

From the Editorial:

Let's at four blog secrets which you can use today.

Here's what's most important: a blog must be valuable to your audience. If it is, it will be successful.
 
Blogging has become mainstream. Millions of blogs are created every year, but unfortunately, most are left to die on the vine. Don't let your blog(s) die, please – every writer who's taken up blogging and has had goals and a method, loves blogging.

Any blogs you create can contribute to your writing success, not just this year, but years from now. In fact, the longer your blogs stay online, the more valuable they become.

Blogging is simple and easy, but this can be a weakness, as well as a strength. Since blogs are so easy to create few writers pay attention to what they're doing – they have no plan for a blog, and it shows, because every blog you create must be targeted and relevant to be successful.

Read the rest in Tuesday's issue of the ezine.

Discover the secrets of highly-paid writers: free each week

Want to make great money writing? Discover the secrets of high-selling, highly paid writers, for free. Each week, Angela Booth's Fab Freelance Writing Ezine is delivered in easy-to-print PDF format.

Join the thousands of other writers who are using the information to change their lives. You'll learn how to write, and how to sell. Angela's been writing for 30 years, and shares her knowledge with you.

Blog: take your writing life online

Can a blog help your writing career? Let me count the ways:

* A blog ensures that you write, and this is no small thing. Most writers procrastinate;

* A blog gets you known, and the more people who know you, the more your career builds (yes, it really is who you know, and who knows you);

* A blog gives you opportunities -- the best writing jobs are not advertised;

* A blog gives you credibility. Anyone can call himself a writer. A blog is your showcase;

* A blog is an investment. In 2008, a small blog sold for fifteen million dollars. A blog you create may never sell for anywhere near this sum, however (especially if you create a blog with the aim of selling it one day), a blog is a fantastic investment of your time and energy;

* When you blog, you come to see that there are many different kinds of blogs. Some are created purely as money-makers, and bring in daily income: $50 one day, $400 the next, $200 on another day... all for an investment of a few hours of your time.

Want to know how to blog, and make money?

Visit my new site, Lazy Rich Blogger. Charter memberships are now open. In 2010 and beyond, blogging is a skill which can change your writing life.

Blogging: get benefits from a dead blog

Blogging takes a commitment of time and energy. Both are in short supply: we each have just 24 hours in a single day. So it's natural that sometimes blogging falls by the wayside, and you realize that (SHOCK) you haven't updated a blog in months.

Relax -- blogging should be fun: if it's not fun for you, stop doing it. :-) Don't feel guilty about a dead blog, but do take steps to ensure that you still get value from the blog, even if you're not updating it.

Firstly, ask yourself why you created the blog.

There are many reasons for starting a blog: creating a portfolio blog to get blog jobs, creating a platform and online presence for yourself, making money, for fun, for a project which didn't work out, etc.

Write down your reason.

Now work out how you can use your "dead" blog in the months and years to come.

Here are some ideas.

1. If you created a portfolio blog

There's nothing further you need to do. The blog is a testament to your blogging expertise, so don't feel guilty if you don't have time to update it. Add the blog's URL to your electronic and paper portfolios, and add it as one of your sites on social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook.

2. If you created the blog to build your platform

If your blog's aim was to get you visibility, then link to the blog from other online properties you own. And as in #1 above, link to it from social networking sites.

Add a short post to the blog: "This blog is no longer being updated. Visit my new blog/ site at __________, and contact me at _______"

3. If your blog is a money-maker

If your blog's making money for you, there's little you need to do. Chances are you're still making an income from it, but the income will drop as the site loses presence in the search engines.

I have many "money" blogs, and sometimes I don't update them for months. The money continues to come in from advertising and affiliate revenue.

In your diary, make a note to review the blog once a month. You don't need to add content, but change any affiliate links which haven't made a sale within the month. Swap the old links for a newer product which may make sales for you.

4. If your blog is for a defunct project

Follow the advice in #1 above -- use the blog as part of your portfolio, or sell it.

5. If you no longer need the blog, sell it

If the blog's of no further use to you as a part of your portfolio or for any other reason, sell it -- there are many sites online where you can sell a blog.

Try eBay, in the "Internet Businesses & Websites" listings, and Sitepoint's Marketplace, for example.

Big tip: old blogs like old wines, increase in value over time. Search engines like Google give authority status to older sites, so your apparently worthless blog today may bring in big dollars tomorrow. Let the blog age -- look on it as an online investment, because that's what it is.

Never, ever DELETE a blog. A few months back a writer told me she'd deleted a ten year old site ... she almost cried when I told her that that site would have easily brought her $15,000 to $20,000 on Sitepoint.

Want to know how to make money blogging? Professional blogging is one of the skills you'll discover in Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) training. It's an essential skill for a Web writing career.

Discover the world of Web writing - make a great income writing from home, or from anywhere

Sell Your Writing Online NOW

There's great money in Web writing. Some Web writers are making $20,000 a month by blogging for a stable of sites. Others are writing articles or ebooks.

Join the Web writing gold rush with Angela Booth's comprehensive training: "Sell Your Writing Online Now".

Money Blogging: Get Hired to Blog Today

Want to get hired to blog for others? You can: blogging can provide a great part time or even full time income. Here's how to get started.

1. What Are Your Areas of Expertise?

Before you start promoting your services as a blogger for hire, work out what your areas of expertise are. This is essential: you need some experience in the topics you're hired to cover, no matter how slender that experience may be.

For example, let's say a company which manufacturers fencing is looking for a blogger to blog several times a month. In this case, there's no need to be an expert on fencing: you can interview experts from the company.

However, you do need experience with the company's audience. All this means is that if the company makes garden fencing, you should own a home and a garden, and know a stone fence from a wooden one. This makes you part of the company's target audience, so you'll speak to their concerns, and will do an excellent job of blogging for the company.

Make a list of your areas of expertise: include job experience, lifestyle experience, parenting experience -- and so on.

2. Start a Blog on Your Favorite Topic, It's Your Advertisement for Your Business

Many new bloggers for hire want to skip over creating a "demo" blog. Please don't. You need to show what you can do: you'll attract clients who can pay you well.

Your blog is an advertisement for your blogging business. The time you spend blogging is an investment. It will ensure that you're paid a good rate -- businesses willing to pay you $1 a word and more for blogging must be convinced you're worth it.

3. Contact Potential Clients: Tell Them What Blogging Can Do for Their Business

When you first start blogging, take any blog job you can get. It's all experience.

But here's the most important tip in this article: the best blog jobs are not advertised. You get them by approaching companies, and suggesting that a blog will help their Web site to get great rankings in the search engines.

After you've been blogging for a few months, you'll have the credentials to approach companies, and you will get hired. These unadvertised blog jobs you've hunted down pay much better than advertised jobs, and you'll be amazed at how easy they are to find.

4. Testimonials Bring You Business if You're a New Blogger

Finally, until you become a "name" blogger, remember to ask for testimonials from all your clients. Testimonials establish your credibility, and they're gold to you.

So there you have four tips which will help you to get started as a blogger for hire.

Imagine... $1,000 A Week For Just Ten Hours

You can get paid to blog. The current rate for experienced bloggers is around $1,000 to $1500 a week for from two to five posts a day - VERY nice writing income.

Find out how to blog with the blogging best-seller "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want". It's my complete new ebook package, with free coaching/ consultations as well.

Writing Blog of the Day - please SUBMIT again

If you've submitted your blog (or someone else's) for Writing Blog of Day in the past 24 hours, please send it to me again, if you would. My email messages are filtered, and somehow several messages have vanished into the ether... I know they were there when I checked earlier, but now they've completely gone. I've removed the filter for now, so please just make sure that your message has WRITING BLOG OF THE DAY as the subject line, in caps, and resend it to angela.booth(AT)gmail.com Sorry for the hassle... Many thanks.

Blogs in 2008 - blogging is vital to your writing success

Gotta blog? I hope you said YES. :-)

Blogs are vital to your writing success in 2008 and beyond, for many reasons.

One of the primary reasons is to help you to make a name for yourself.

Yesterday I published the article "Sell your Writing: Get the Writing Gigs You Want" on Writing Hacker, my new site. This article is for writers trapped in freelance writing ghettos. Blog(s) will help you if you're trapped in a ghetto; not only does your blog help you to stand out from the writing crowd, it also helps you to explore new avenues for your writing, AND set higher fees for your writing.

There are many other ways you can use blogs to build your writing career. I explore some of them in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine on Wednesday. This week our feature article is: "Blogging for Beginners – Set up a Blogging Empire" - subscribe now, and you'll receive the issue in your Inbox.

The article will show you the many different types of blogs you could write, and the many different ways you can use blogs to enhance your writing career. The article will help you to look at blogging in a completely new way.

Resources for blogging

* Writing Success with Blogs, by Angela Booth. How to use your blog to start, develop and power your writing career;

* Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want … and make more money than you thought possible with zero financial investment;

* Writing For The Web - discover the secrets of Web writing.

Subscribe to eNews & Updates on my new writing site, Writing Hacker - (right-hand column). Writing Hacker helps you to build your writing skills with great writing tips and how-tos, including video presentations.

 

Technorati Tags: blog your writing, blogging, blogs

The blogging writer: your blog gives you confidence

One of the biggest benefits of blogging for a new writer is that your blog gives you confidence.

This is great news. Many new writers find that sending out their writing - article and book proposals, applications for online writing gigs and so on - takes real courage.

Questions buzz around in your skull: Is your writing publishable? Will you be rejected? Do you have talent?

It's perfect natural to be nervous when you're doing something new, but it's excruciating too.

When you publish on your blog, you can publish anywhere

Blogging is instant publishing. Press the "Publish" button on your blogging application, and hey presto - it's published, ready for one billion surfers to read.

When you get used to hitting the Publish button, editors and other buyers of your writing lose the power to intimidate you.

As many other blogging writers have found, your blog will make you more creative, and more confident. Publishing your writing suddenly seems natural, and you lose your self-consciousness.

Take the first step. Writing Success with Blogs by Angela Booth gets you started blogging.

Got a blog? If you're a blogging writer and your blog helped you to get over your shyness as a writer, please share your story in the Comments to this post.

Technorati Tags: blog your writing

Blogging is instant publishing: get started blogging

This week I received several "how do I get started blogging?" queries, so I put together a series of the most useful beginners' posts on my Blogging For Dollars Blog:

* Making money with blogs for beginners

* Blogging For Money Beginners Roundup

* Fast Blog Traffic Four Ways

* Blogging is Just Instant Publishing

* Freelance Blogging

My blogging ebooks

Blogging For Dollars ebook

Writing Success with Blogs, by Angela Booth

Technorati Tags: blog how-to, blog your writing, blog-entrepreneur, blogger-for-hire, blogging, career blogger, freelance blogger

The newest writing career: pro blogging - become a full-time blogger

I've just posted an article on my Blogging For Dollars blog: "Pro Blogging: How To Turn Blogging Into A Full-time Career".

Here's an excerpt:

Blogging is now mainstream, with businesses of all sizes realizing that they need a blog. However, most businesses don't have the staff who know how blogging works; nor do they want to commit staff time to a project which can be easily out-sourced. This is where you come in - the pro blogger, a professional who blogs under contract for a number of companies.

How To Get Started Blogging For Pay - You Need A Blog

If blogging appeals to you, you'll be happy to know that you can get blogging gigs without much effort. If you already have a blog, it's time to let people know that they can hire you. This is easily done with a "Hire Me" button on your blog.

Read the rest...

Resources

* my ebook: "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want" - discover how you can become a pro blogger. A complete seven-day startup guide is include in the package, and you get a free consultation too.

* Blog post: "Learn how to blog now, it's a good career move".

Technorati Tags: blog how-to, blog-entrepreneur, blogger for hire, freelance blogger, get started blogging

Blogging competition: home business bloggers

Got a home business? If you're blogging about it, I've just posted about a new blog competition at Blogging For Dollars.

Share your insights - the advantages and disadvantages of blogs as a business tool.

Technorati Tags: Business, blogging

Fab Freelance Writing Ezine: Blog Cash

The article in tomorrow's issue the of Fab Freelance Writing ezine is "Blog Cash: How Writers Make Money Blogging".

Here's an excerpt:

It's never been easier to make money writing, and without a doubt, the easiest way of all is by blogging. All you need is a computer, an Internet connection, and the willingness to write.

If you're not acquainted with blogs, blogs have been described as “online journals” but this description, while accurate, doesn't begin to cover what blogging is, because it's really INSTANT Web publishing. This is incredible power - something that Gutenberg couldn't even dream of - so blogging is immensely popular. Technorati, a blog monitoring service, estimates that 175,000 new blogs are created every day.

Not a subscriber? Subscribe now, and receive a free report.

To get up to speed on blogging, read my "Blogging For Dollars" ebook, and discover the blogging route to writing success.

Blogging For Writers: Three Blogging Tips To Boost Your Writing Career

A blog gives you a way to communicate instantly, across the world, with words, audio, images and video... blogging is a writer's nirvana. Did you know that according to Technorati, a leading blog tracking site, over 175,000 new blogs are created every single day?

If you're not yet a part of this amazing 21st century renaissance, you should be. As a writer, you're a communicator, and blogs are the most powerful way to boost your writing career.

Let's look at three blogging tips to boost your writing career.

One: Got A Project? Create A Blog - Get Editors To Contact You

When it comes to their careers, many writers are still in the days of the goose quill. They're traditionalists. They believe that the "right" way to send a query letter to a magazine or a publisher is via snail mail, or perhaps via email, IF the magazine or publishing house says it's OK.

It's not surprising that most professional writers earn less than $5000 a year.

Since your snail mail letter will be instantly buried under a mass of paper on an editor's desk, and spam filters will block your email, consider a blog to attract editors to contact you.

Two: Create A Resume Blog - Get Known

Who are you? You know your own name, and so do a select circle of other writers and editors with whom you've worked. Blogs are dynamic media. Your blog can act as a constantly-updated resume. Combine blogging with activity on various social networks like MySpace, and suddenly thousands of people know you, and what you can do.

Your resume blog is a shortcut to a high-powered writing career.

Three: Create A Network Blog And Become Part Of The In-Group

As a writer, you need a network. The easiest way to build an ever-growing network is to blog about writing. As you blog your writing tips, you'll make friends with other writers and will become part of their network. Suddenly you're part of an "in" group of publishing professionals.

It's hard work writing alone - build your writing network, and watch your career take off.

So there you have it - three blogging tips to boost your writing career. A blog is a powerful tool, and you can create many blogs to promote your career and improve your writer's income. Create a blog today.

"Writing Success with Blogs" by Angela Booth shows you how to to make your writer's blogs work hard for you as amazing 24x7x365 marketing tools.

If you're really into blogging, you'll love Angela's ebook "Blogging For Dollars" - you can turn blogging into a highly lucrative full-time writing career.

Creating a blog is easy: it takes just a minute or two. The rewards? Priceless. Show the world the writer YOU know you are, with your own writer's blog. For weekly writing motivation, inspiration and exciting tips to boost your writing career subscribe to Angela Booth's free Fab Freelance Writing Ezine

Technorati Tags: blog how-to, blog your writing

Ezine: Get Started Pro Blogging – It's A Freelance Writers' Gold Mine

This week's article in Fab Freelance Writing Ezine is "Get Started Pro Blogging – It's A Freelance Writers' Gold Mine".

Here's an excerpt:

Pro blogging (also known as professional blogging, freelance blogging or entrepreneurial blogging) is a freelance writer's gold mine. You get well paid for creating snippets of information each weekday, or several times a week.

For around ten hours of work each week, the top freelance bloggers earn upwards of $1000 a week. In word count terms, it equates to ten blog posts a week at 100 to 200 words – a thousand words.

This compares favorably with good freelance rates, because it’s upwards of a dollar a word. Now, heaven forbid that you think this is a myth – I've been paid much better rates than this. Contracts are usually for three to six months. Since this is steady work, it's very appealing to many freelance writers. Your pro blogging client becomes your "anchor client", the client who pays your bills. Other freelance work you do is gravy.

Read the rest of the article in the ezine, it's out on Wednesday. (Subscriptions are free.) The ezine archives are here.

Can't wait to get started pro blogging? Read my ebook "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want".

Technorati Tags: blog how-to, blog your writing, make money blogging, pro blogger

Blogging in 2007 and beyond

Blogging For Dollars

Although blogging has developed huge significance in 2006, it's still unknown to many writers. Or, if they have heard of blogging, they think in terms of an "online journal" or diary.

Blogging has advanced far beyond online journaling. Many businesses now blog, and Gartner Research predicts that in 2008, 80 per cent of businesses will have blogs.

Therefore, as we zoom into 2007, commercial blogs are THE venues for writers to watch, and to take part in. As I explain on my Blogging For Dollars site:

Blogging is instant publishing. Think about that. You can type 100 or 1000 words, and within a minute or two, those words can be read by anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. This is immensely powerful.

Over 2006, I've seen blogs changing. Many blogs are now more like online magazines than humble journals. Many writers have secured publishing contracts because of their blogs, and this year, writers are also creating blogs as publications, and monetizing them.

I'm a blogging evangelist, and strongly believe in blogs for writers. In 2007, I predict that many more blogs will become online publications - and writers will take notice of this, and look on their blog less as a way to just express their thoughts or get publicity, but also as a business which will grow, and from which they can derive an income.

Technorati Tags: blog your writing, get started blogging, how to blog, make money blogging

Blogging for profit - and fun

I'm thrilled with the bloggers' success stories on my Blogging for Dollars Blog. Blogging can be very profitable if you want to become a full-time blogger. (My Blogging For Dollars ebook shows you how.)

For a writer however, the biggest benefit of a blog is that it develops your writing skills painlessly. Writing is a lonely profession. When you blog, it's a conversation. You'll make friends and allies in the blogging community, and among your readers too. For a writer, blogging is fun.

Which writers' blogging book for you?

I've written two blogging how-to ebooks:

* "Blogging For Dollars: How to become a career blogger -- in your PJs, if you want" is for you if you want to become a career blogger, either as a freelance blogger, or as a blogging entrepreneur. The ebook shows you how to build your instant-publishing blog empire.

* "Writing Success with Blogs" shows writers how to use a blog (or blogs) to build a writing career. A writer's blog is brilliant for getting work, as well as for building your writer's brand. Yes, in the new millennium, writer's need to focus on branding themselves. :-)

Technorati Tags: blog how-to, blog tools, blog-entrepreneur, blogs, career blogger, freelance blogger