The world loves second acts – what’s your?

Today is the day SecondAct.com Managing Editor Donna Wares invited bloggers in the 2012 WordCount Blogathon to share their reinvention stories. Donna encouraged anyone who wanted to write about how they have, are or plan to reinvent some aspect of their life. That could be changing careers, going back to school, moving to a different country, becoming a parent, going to work for a nonprofit or starting a business.

Donna and I will go through all of the stories and select a few to highlight in a post on SecondAct.com in coming days.

Meanwhile, I’m sharing my own career reinvention. It’s a story I’ve told here before, of how blogging helped me step back into a career as a journalist and freelance writer after I took time off to be a stay at home mom.

The original version of this post ran in 2012. An updated version ran in January while I was doing a guest editing stint for BlogHer, the women’s blog network.

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Sometime in June 2010, I pushed the “Publish” button on the 500th post on my blog.

Those 500 blog posts changed my life – by helping me reinvent my career. In two and a half years, I went from stay at home mom to full-time journalist and blogger making a lot more money than I ever did as a staff writer at a major daily newspaper.

It all happened because I blogged.

Since then, I’ve written more than 800 posts on WordCount, my blog for freelance writers, and contributed hundreds of other posts to the publications I now write for on a regular basis.

I don’t point this out to brag. I am proud of what I’ve accomplished, especially at a time of change in the media business when many freelance writers question their ability to continue working in a manner to which they’ve been accustomed.

The main reason I’m sharing is to reassure you that if I can do it, you can too. All it takes is commitment, confidence -– and a blog.

How Blogging Reinvented My Career

Here’s how blogging played into my career reinvention:

In late 2000, I put my work as a technology journalist on hold to have a baby. That made three kids, a husband, dog, assorted lizards and goldfish, a house and yard. It was too much to handle all of that and work without constantly feeling stressed out.

By the time the baby was a toddler, I dabbled with a little part-time work: a semester teaching journalism school here, writing a couple articles there. But no way was I prepared to take the full-time plunge.

That happened a few years later when our oldest went to college and our youngest went to first grade.

It turns out that writing was the easiest part of re-entering the freelance business.

Much harder was figuring out everything else that had changed since I’d been away. I’d quit during the dot-com bust and wasn’t up to speed on online innovations. At coffee one day, a friend casually mentioned LinkedIn and I needed her to explain it to me — me, who’d spent years keeping everyone else informed on the latest and greatest tech news.

To get myself up to speed, I started a blog. I signed up with Blogger but quickly switched to WordPress.com because, honestly, the free version of WordPress had prettier themes, and more of them.

At first, I blogged with no specific subject in mind. Most of my initial posts were marginal, though a few have held up surprisingly well.

The Transformative Power of Blogging

I got the hang of it soon enough, and the next two and a half years blogging literally transformed my writing business. Here’s how:

By teaching myself the mechanics of blogging, I nabbed assignments to write about blogging and social media for publications like Inc.com.

By teaching myself to blog, I made myself more marketable by showing perspective clients that in addition to writing news, features and columns, I was proficient in another writing form, no small matter as more publications add contributor-written blogs.

By using the blog to showcase my resume, bio and clips, I landed one of the biggest freelance gig of my career, a contract to edit a corporate finance website for American Express that launched in spring 2010. I later learned that prior to contacting me, the website’s project managers vetted me by reviewing my work experience on my blog and in my LinkedIn profile.

By showing I understood the medium and could post week in and week out, I was asked to be a paid blogger at SecondAct.com, Entrepreneur Magazine’s website people for over 40. You can read my posts on job hunting and careers on SecondAct twice a week.

By using my blog to track what’s happening in the digital media industry I’ve been invited to speak at journalism conferences and industry groups, including the American Society of Journalist and Authors’ annual writers conference.

By inviting other writers with blogs to join me in a personal challenge to blog every day for a month, I started the WordCount Blogathon, an annual event that’s created a community of writers and bloggers and become one of the highlights of my year.

By holding myself to a regular blogging schedule and strict editorial standards, I qualified to join the BlogHer Publishing Network, which pays me to run ads on my blog.

I realize not everyone reading this is a professional writer -– but you don’t have to be to make a blog part of your career transformation.

Alana Mautone

Think blogging 31 days straight is hard?

As of the first week in May, Alana Mautone has posted 373 days in a row – and is still at it. Her blog is Ramblin’ with AM, and on it she writes about “upstate NY, flood recovery, gardening, wildflowers, the Civil War, FarmVille, sustainable agriculture, chocolate, the universe, and everything in between.”

Mautone was inspired to blog every day by the 2011 WordCount Blogathon, and afterward it was over, just kept going.

I did an email interview with Mautone recently to find out how she keeps blogging, when she writes and how she gets ideas. Here’s what she had to say:

WC: How many days in a row have you blogged?

AM: 373 days as of today.

WC: When you sat down to write on May 1, 2011, did you plan to blog this long? If not, how did you decide to keep going?

AM: I only planned to make it through the 2011 Blogathon. Prior to that I don’t think I ever posted even a week straight.  But the Blogathon energized me so much I joined another blog challenge soon after which required 31 posts in a month, and it just snowballed. I’m not sure when I decided to try to shoot for posting every day for a year. I think it was sometime last September when I realized I only needed to double what I had already done. I’m noting here that I do not write for a living (other than what my corporate job requires in letter writing and emails), so perhaps in a way it is easier for me to blog than for a professional writer who is doing it to make a living. No pressure….

WC: Why keep blogging so often?

AM: In the book, Outliers, The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell, he talks about needing to practice a skill for 10,000. hours to achieve greatness. I hope that, by writing at least 1/2 hour a day, I will grow as a blogger. I will explore that more in my May 16 post.

 WC: Do you write every day or pre-write several days at a time?

AM: I sometimes pre-write on weekends for one or two posts. I also pre-write if I am going on vacation. Otherwise, I usually blog each day. Or, if I am posting on a challenge site early in the morning, I will write the post the night before.

WC: What’s your favorite time of day to write blog posts, and how long does writing one usually take?

AM: I get home from work around 5 p.m. on weekdays, and will try to blog between 6 and 8 p.m. in the evening. Writing one usually takes 30 to 60 minutes, depending on how inspired and how tired I am.

WC: How do you get ideas for all those posts?

AM: My initial posts came from writing about my interests, or doing photo essays. Since Tropical Storm Lee flooded the area I live in in September 2011, I’ve had too much inspiration. As of today, I have 59 posts tagged Binghamton Flood of 2011. I will have one or two more this week, as tomorrow and Tuesday are the eight-month anniversary of the flood.

WC: What advice do you have for other bloggers looking to increase the frequency of their posts?

AM: Get into the habit of writing daily. That’s what the 2011 Blogathon did for me – it formed a habit. Next, write about what your passion is. Follow your inner voice. Believe in yourself.

Photo courtesy Sarah Moon

[Editor's Note: May 14 is the Guest Post Exchange, when bloggers in the 2012 WordCount Blogathon are swapping posts with someone else in the challenge. Today, you can read my post on 10 lessons about writing from authors in the 2012 Portland Literary Arts lecture series on Sarah Moon's  book blog, Clear Eyes, Full Shelves. -- MVR]

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Sarah Moon is a Portland, Ore., writer and communications consultant. She teaches classes on blogging, social media and web writing and design at Pacific Northwest College of Art and works with creative types on web and writing projects. She blogs about books and reading at Clear Eyes, Full Shelves, and co-hosts The Postscript sports and culture podcast. Follow her on Twitter at @SarahSMoon.

I teach classes on blogging and web design at a local college, and when we get to the unit on mobile devices, I have students pull out their internet capable devices to see who uses what. I’ve seen it all: iPhones running various versions of iOS; Android smartphones ranging from old clunkers (like mine) to the latest and greatest; Blackberries, iPads, Nook Colors, Kindle Fires, iPods, you name it. Rarely does someone use a single device — in a class of 10, we’ll often as many as 25 gadgets on the table.

Sarah Moon

It’s important because today, mobile devices are the fastest growing way people are accessing web content, including reading blogs. As bloggers, you need to think about how your posts appear on these devices — otherwise, you could end up driving readers away.

Here’s what you can to do optimize your blog content for mobile devices:

1. Practice smart design. Before you leap into all the options available for mobilizing your blog, you can follow a few basic design steps to make it easier for mobile readers. These basic tips have the added bonus of making your blog more readable overall:

• Increase the body font for your blog to 14 points, or “14px” in web speak. Not only is this friendly to those of us with less than perfect vision, it reads better on a variety of devices than 12px, which was the old norm.
• Increase the line spacing of your content to 1.5 em (tech speak for a line and a half of white space between lines of text), which makes text much easier on cramped screens than single-spacing.
• Minimize drop-down menus. Sometimes they’re unavoidable, but drop-downs can be a nightmare to navigate on small touchscreens.
• Make sure navigation elements in sidebars, post meta area and top-level navigation are well-spaced so it’s easy for touchscreen users to click on the proper links.
• Remove Flash elements. Flash simply does not play nicely with mobile. Beware: many slideshow embeds still utilize Flash.

2. Consider using responsive themes and templates. “Responsive” is the new buzz word in mobile design, with good reason. These blog design themes scale to whatever screen a blog is viewed on. There are a number of them for self-hosted WordPress blogs, many are premium but there are a few freebies as well. These themes are kind of magical, as you can see content reflow as you adjust a browser’s window size; check out the Dear Author blog for nice example. A huge advantage of these themes over traditional “mobile” or “touch” plugins is that they maintain the integrity of sidebar content such as ads or category navigation. Additionally, mobile plugins can make commenting buggy but they play far nicer with responsive themes.

3. Look at mobile plugin options. If you’re happy with your current theme, you still have  options for making your self-hosted WordPress blog mobile-friendly. Many plugins detect the device your visitors are using to access your blog and display a mobile theme. The most popular is WP Touch, which has a number of options and an app-like look (the Pro version supports iPad). You can also install OnSwipe on your WordPress blog, which turns your blog into a slick, tablet-friendly site when accessed from one of those devices.

Keep in mind that it is absolutely critical to test these plugins on a variety of mobile devices to make sure all of your standard features — particularly comments and other forms — work properly when plugins are running.

4. Make use of what’s already available. Many free blogging platforms have mobile options built into their architecture. Unfortunately, those options aren’t also intuitive or obvious. Here’s what to know about mobile options on some of the most popular platforms:

Blogger. Two times out of three when I visit a blog powered by Blogger from my smartphone or tablet, the mobile template has not been activated. To do that, log onto your blog and then click on the “Design” link. Once this option is turned on, Blogger does the rest.

WordPress.com. If you use WordPress.com, you shouldn’t have to do anything — the mobile option is turned on by default. Should you accidentally unselect this option, WordPress.com provides these great instructions for reactivating your mobile theme. You do, however, have to do a bit of work to make your WordPress.com blog iPad-friendly. When logged into your dashboard, simply click Appearance > iPad and then check the box that turns on an iPad theme when someone visits using that device.

Squarespace. Many of my students love the lesser-known Squarespace for both blogging and websites. I’ve completed several projects on this platform recently, including my own blog for book lovers, and all the new Squarespace template options now reflow the journal — Squarespace speak for “blog” — to fit mobile screens. I’m a beta tester for the next version of Squarespace and the platform will be fully responsive in that release.

TypePad. If you blog on TypePad, you’re in a tough spot, because while it’s possible to customize a mobile template, the platform has no ability to auto-detect when readers are using mobile devices to read content. So, even though there are mobile options on that platform, without code-heavy jerry-rigging, there isn’t a method to ensure that mobile visitors will see the mobile version of your Typepad blog. I suggest that Typepad bloggers pay particular attention to my first tip regarding smart blog design.

Ultimately, you’ve got many decisions to make when it comes to making your blog mobile-friendly. Unfortunately, there is no single best solution for ensuring your blog’s compatibility with mobile browsers, especially considering all the platform-dependent variables.

My best advice is to practice smart design, stay up to date with what’s available on your chosen blogging platform and keep a eye on your visitor statistics so you can implement mobile strategies that best match the devices from which readers access your blog.

How have you redesigned your blog to accommodate smartphones or tablet computers? Let us know by leaving a comment.

I had another terrible fight with my editor today. I just can’t believe the things that woman says to me.

Jodi Torpey

She’s so critical. Nothing I write is good enough. She’s never said a nice word about any of my writing. She scoffs at all my brilliant ideas, takes a red pen to some of my best lines, and erases pages of writing that took hours to compose.

Who is she? She’s me.

My internal editor is there while I’m writing, too. She looks over my shoulder constantly and corrects my grammar. Sometimes she deletes my carefully crafted sentences as soon as I write them.

But, even though she’s impossible to please, I couldn’t write without her.

She’s the one who reminds me to just get to the point when my writing starts to ramble. Her nitpicking forces me to cut wordy phrases and to use active verbs. “Passive voice is so passé,” she likes to say.

“That section is too long. This chapter so disorganized,” she complains. “Who could possibly understand this?”

When I struggle to find just the right word she’ll simply say, “You have to be hard on yourself to make it easy for your reader.”

Thanks to my internal critical editor, I spend twice as much time planning what I’m going to write before I start writing it. If it weren’t for her disapproving glare I’d be tempted to take some silly shortcuts.

Here are five ways to calm the internal editor in you:

1. Think before you write. Spend a few quiet minutes thinking about your purpose for writing and what you want to say. If your thinking isn’t clear, your writing won’t be clear either.

2. Picture your reader. Imagine where he or she will be reading your writing. Keep their needs in mind with every word you write.

3. Write with consistency. Understand what works in your writing process and tap into it every time you sit down to write.

4. Start sooner. Just put words to paper. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be.

5. Revise everything. Revising is where real writing happens. Check to make sure your message is clear, the writing concise, and that every word supports your purpose.

My internal editor’s fault-finding is frustrating, but it’s effective. My writing is always better once she’s finished with me.

How do you quiet your inner editor?

[This is post is written by a sponsor of the 2012 WordCount Blogathon. This sponsor is providing products or services to be given away during the June 1 blogathon raffle.]

But why take my word for it?

Look through the blog roll for the 2012 Blogathon and you’ll see dozens of other freelance writers and journalist entrepreneurs who have incorporated blogging into their writing business. Some use blogs as test beds for subjects they’d like to learn more about. For others the subject matter is secondary to the writing practice. Still others use their blogs to showcase their work, or to make money from advertising or affiliate sales.

If you’re a freelancer who still hasn’t taking the plunge, what are you waiting for?

Blogathon writers who blog

Here’s a sample of the writers participating in this year’s event and what they blog about:

Arizona writer and author Jackie Dishner blogs at Bike with Jackie about “inspiration, encouragement, quirky stories, laughs and life-changing adventures.” This is Jackie’s fifth blogathon, and this year she’s graciously agreed to be a “Blogathon Ambassador” on the event’s Google Group to help out newer bloggers. She also wrote this guest post on why it pays to do a blogging challenge.

Barb Freda blogs about food at Babette’s Feast, including a recent post on food trends. When she’s not posting on her own blog, Fred writes about business, consumer technology, food, wine, and travel and works as a recipe developer.

Carrie Schmeck is a business copywriter in Redding, Calif., who blogs at BizziWriter. Carrie uses her blog to talk about her business and the business of being a copywriter. Every Friday she runs examples of bad copywriting, like this one.

Jennie Phipps is a former newspaper reporter and editor turned freelance journalist. She also owns Freelance Success, a members only website and forum for professional writers. In her spare time, Phipps blogs at Detroit on the Cheap, one of the string of frugal-living sites in the Living on the Cheap network. Leah Ingram, a freelancer and author whose Philly on the Cheap blog is also in the Living on the Cheap network, is doing the blogathon for the third time.

Sandra Hume is a Colorado freelance writer and editor and one of close to a dozen Freelance Success members – myself included – participating in this year’s blogathon. Hume’s blog, Little House Travel, is a travel guide for fans of the Little House and their families who want to travel to places that series author Laura Ingalls Wilder called home.

When Cheryl Wright isn’t writing her weekly column in the Trinidad Guardian‘s Womanwise Sunday magazine, she posts on her namesake blog about fashion, writing inspiration, how she spends her time, and just in time for Mother’s Day, her mother’s legacy of creativity.

Debbie Kaplan is a journalist specializing in family travel whose byline has appeared in publications such as Shape, Family Fun, AAA Traveler, and the Los Angeles Times. She uses her Frisco Kids blog to share kid-friendly trips and activities around the Bay Area, such as this one about summer concerts at Stern Grove.

Freelance newspaper reporter Walter L. Johnson II blogs about media and communication industry jobs at Communications Careers Corner, including this recent post on being the right fit for the job.

Elizabeth King Humphrey is a Wilmington, N.C., freelance writer, editor, proofreader and writing coach who blogs at The Write Elizabeth about reading, writing, editing and parenting. In a recent post she shared her 5 favorite books on editing.

Anne Noble, a Michigan freelancer with nearly 30 years of experience in newspapers, magazines and corporate writing, blogs about family and other subjects at Mac’s Musings.

Ronda Levine is a Northern California editorial consultant, writer, editor and graduate teaching assistant. On her blog, Not Quite Ally McBeal, she covers a variety of subjects including relationship issues, inspiration, and her recent engagement – congrats!

Why your blog needs an ‘About’ page and a picture of you

If you’re a freelance writer or use your blog to promote your business, you have to do two things: create an About page and put your picture on it. You’d be surprised how many Blogathon bloggers’ websites I looked at to compile this list who had neither of those.

Another note: There’s no way I could include all the freelancers in this year’s blogathon in this list. If you’re participating, please feel free to add your name, the name of your blog and a link to a recent post that’s a good example of what you typically write about in a comment on this post.

Portland writers, there’s a reason none of you on on this list – I’m saving you to a separate write up after our May 18 IRL gathering – look for it next Saturday.

Maurice Sendak died this week at 83. The children’s book author and illustrator dared to be different: he depicted childhood as it was – fun but scary, at times adventurous and tedious. Fighting with your siblings and making up afterwards. Daydreams and nightmares.

For writers, inspiration comes in many forms. This week, mine came from Sendak, who I grew up reading, and whose books I lovingly shared with my own children.

Here are five of my favorites:

In the Night Kitchen – If you visit my parents’ house, you’ll find this book in a downstairs bedroom where grandkids stay when they visit, one of several dozen children’s books that have been there for years.

Little Bear – Sendak illustrated this book by Else Holmelund Minarik, about the little bear who’s learning to be comfortable in his own skin (or fur) and his very patient mother.

Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months – Like Dr. Seuss, Sendak showed that it’s OK to be silly while teaching something serious, in this case, the months of the year.

No Fighting, No Biting - Another Else Holmelund Minarik book with illustrations by Sendak. I grew up with three sisters – all of us a year apart – and a little brother who came along when I was eight. Though we’re all close now, we fought constantly growing up, which is why I appreciate this little book so much.

Where the Wild Things Are – A classic.

What are your favorites by Sendak?

Photo courtesy Tiger Girl

Dear WordCount is an occasional advice column that answers your questions about freelance writing, blogging and working as a self-employed writer. During May, I’m answering questions posed by people in the 2012 WordCount Blogathon.

Dear WordCount:

I don’t know how guest posts work. I need a basic how-to guide that includes how a guest blogger posts to your blog and vice versa.

– P

Dear P:

This is a timely question since the guest post exchange that’s part of the 2012 Blogathon happens on May 14.

If you’re swapping posts as part of a guest post exchange, here’s how it works: You write a post and send it to your partner in Word or a similar text or blogging file format. Most bloggers would like you to submit a head shot or other digital image of yourself to run with your post, along with a one- or two-line bio. If you know how to use hypertext (links to information that’s found elsewhere online), include a couple – but don’t overdo it. Your partner should follow the same steps for sending a post to you. Then you upload the post to your blog like you would any other post that you write, and schedule a run date or publish it right away.

I run posts from guest posters all the time, so I have guest post guidelines, which you can see on in this post about how to write a guest post for WordCount.

If you don’t already have guest posting guidelines, think of anything that you would want a guest poster to know: do you want them to suggest a headline and a meta description for their post? Do you want them to suggest a few keywords? Do posts on your blog usually run a certain length  (300 to 500 words is good)?

If you’d like to see an example of what a guest post looks like, here’s one that website content writer Sara Lancaster did for my blog recently: Guest post: 4 naughty tips for a better blog

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Dear WordCount:

Hey Michelle, how much will I pay if I get a self-hosted WordPress blog? What are the advantages and disadvantages of a self-hosted blog?

– A

Dear A:

How much you’d pay depends on the host service company you use; I use BlueHost. I pay about $10 a month; I also pay for six domain names – the one that I use and five others that are similar enough that I wouldn’t want someone else to use them. That’s something on the order of $160 to $180 a year for those services.

I also paid a website developer/designer to move my blog from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site, and to design my site. You could do that on your own, but because of how much I work, I had someone do it for me. Those costs can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars, depending on how elaborate you want your website/blog to be.

Here’s some more information on self-hosted WordPress blogs, from a #wclw live chat I did a while back with web designer Ron Doyle: Working with WordPress: themes, hosts, plugins and more.

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Dear WordCount:

I’ve been blogging for years using just my own photos. Where else can I find images?  Today I’m working on a post on different ways to use Mason jars and I’d like to include images from the source articles.  Do I need to contact each blog to ask permission?  Do I include a link in my post to the image on their blog, or pull the image down and re-host it?  Each of those seems questionable as far as copyright goes. How do others do this?

– AR

Adding photos to blog posts is smart, because they make your posts look more professional, because readers like them, and because Google notices them, which helps your posts appear higher in search engine results. But as you suspected, you can’t just grab an image to use in a post without regard for who owns it; if you do and it’s protected by a copyright, you’re infringing on the owner’s intellectual property.

Here are some popular sources for finding images for blog posts:

Creative Commons. My standard fall-back source for photos is Creative Commons. It’s a clearinghouse of content, including images, that the license holders make available for other people to use online with limited or no restrictions. On the Creative Commons site, use a search window to type in keywords that describe the image you’re looking for. The site’s internal search engine will look through images from Google and Flickr and videos on blip.tv. If you see something in the search results that you’d like to use, click through to read what licensing rights the copyright holder is making available. Sometimes all they ask is that you identify them as the photographer when you run the photo (which is exactly what I did for the photo that’s running with this post). Read about more sources for free photos in this comment that a WordCount reader left on a previous post about using images in posts.

istockphoto and stock photo services. Stock images are another way to go. Stock photos or illustrations are existing photos that the owners sell online, often at very low prices. Many bloggers use istockphoto.com, an online stock photo company that sells images for as little as 95 cents. istockphoto lets you buy credits that you can use to purchase images. Other sources of stock photos that bloggers I know use include rgbstock and Stock.xchng.

DIY. As you already know, there’s another option: taking your own photos. You don’t need a fancy digital camera to take pictures. If you’ve got a smartphone, just point and shoot. You can post the photo to Flickr, Facebook or Twitpic, then copy and paste it into a blog post, or use WordPress’ QuickPress feature to put it directly into your blog.

What’s your second act story?

Besides running the Blogathon, I work as a writer, editor and blogger, and am a regular contributor to SecondAct.com, a news website for people over 40.

Donna Wares, SecondAct’s managing editor, is a big fan of the Blogathon, and has offered me an opportunity to promote the event.

Donna is inviting Blogathon bloggers in their 40s and 50s to share your second act stories – or the second acts you aspire to – in posts on your respective blogs on Wednesday, May 16, and she’ll use some of them in a follow-up story on SecondAct.

Your second act story

Your mid-life second act could be starting a business, going back to school, switching careers, leaving a corporate position for a nonprofit organization, or even starting a blog to share your passion.

Posts don’t have to be about a second act you’ve already accomplished. If you’re in the process of figuring out “What’s next?” write about that. Readers are just as interested in understand the journey to reinvention that other people are taking as they are stories about the result.

Donna and I will look through all the posts and choose some highlights to include in a SecondAct story, along with links back to each blogger’s post, which could result in a nice traffic boost.

What this means for you: if you’ve got an idea for a second act or life reinvention post, write about it on May 16 – consider it a bonus theme day. If the subject isn’t relevant to you or your blog, proceed with whatever you’d planned to write that day.

In case you’re not familiar with it, SecondAct is owned by Entrepreneur Media, publisher of Entrepreneur Magazine and Entrepreneur.com.

Here’s the email Donna sent me to share with all of you:

Michelle,

Congratulations on the launch of the 2012 Blogathon. What an impressive, eclectic group of contributors! Many seem to be blogging as part of a career makeover, which is a subject we explore daily at SecondAct.com.

I’d like to invite your contributors to write posts sharing their own midlife reinvention stories on Wednesday, May 16. Tell the world: What is your second act? Or what do you aspire to do as your second act? SecondAct.com will follow up with a roundup featuring those reinvention stories (along with a link to the original posts).

Thanks so much for all you do to help others stop procrastinating and start writing every day.

Best regards,

Donna

Donna Wares, Managing Editor Online

Entrepreneur Media

Visit: http://www.secondact.com/

Tweet: @secondact

Mail: dwares@secondact.com

Like: SecondActMagazine on Facebook

Kelly James-Enger

Do you blog? Are you making money blogging? If not, it’s time to start. You can turn your blog into a money maker or write posts for pay for other blogs — or both!

Let’s take a quick look at how to do each:

How to Blog for Yourself

To create a blog that will also produces income, you’ve got to have a blog that people will want to read, whether your purpose is to entertain, inform, educate or do all three. I suggest that you do plenty of brainstorming before you launch your blog — or try to make money from a current one.

Ask yourself: Who is your target audience? Why will people read your blog, and continue to read it? Why will advertisers pay for ads? In other words, what kind of value will your blog have?

Your blog’s sole purpose need not be to make money. I launched my blog, Dollars and Deadlines, to sell copies of my freelance-related books, to attract potential ghostwriting and collaborating clients, and to build my platform as a freelancing expert. Everything on the blog relates to its tagline, “Helping nonfiction freelancers make more money in less time,” so readers know what to expect.

I only make a little bit, directly on my blog, about $15/month though Google AdSense. Other bloggers, those who draw much more traffic than I do, can make hundreds, even thousands of dollars a month selling ads on their blogs. But my blog has helped me sell hundreds of copies of my books, expanded my platform, and attracted new clients. I’ve also started repurposing material from my blog into e-books. So does my blog make money? You bet.

How to Blog for Clients

The majority of freelancers who blog for bucks, however, are probably writing posts for other blogs or websites. According to my recent survey of fulltime freelancers, 49 percent blog for pay.

Once you have some experience, look for potential blogging gigs. You may already be following blogs you want to write for. To find more markets, use Google.com blogs to search for sites on the subject you write about. Check the blog’s guidelines to see if its publisher accepts posts, and whether (and what) it pays.

Most blogs pay a set amount per post, as little as $10 and up to $250 or more. While these rates may be lower thanother online publications, many freelancers find they can write for the same site over and over, which makes for steady work with little or no time spent pitching.

Check your target blog’s guidelines for submitting work. Many blogs prefer to see a blog post instead of a formal query letter. If you do query, boost your chances of getting an assignment by highlighting your knowledge of the blog’s subject area, and your own experience .

Tens of millions of people blog for fun. Why not blog for bucks too?

I’ve worked as a journalist or freelance reporter and editor my entire career. Here are some of the movies that helped direct me toward that path or inspire me to do what I do:

All the President’s Men (1976)

I didn’t know it at the time, but Woodward and Bernstein helped me become a reporter. The book and movie came out while I was in high school. I didn’t immediately connect the dots between myself and working as a journalist. But it did stoke my growing interest in politics and the small role I could play in helping make the world a better place.

Absense of Malice (1981)

As far as casting goes, Paul Newman and Sandy Field wouldn’t have been my choice for this film, the story of an innocent man targeted by prosecutors out to solve the mystery of a murdered union boss and the unwitting role an reporter plays in the set up. The takeaway from this movie: you can’t take what sources tell you at face value – even if they’re supposed to be the good guys. Take notes, do your own digging and verify, verify, verify. The other lesson of this movie – one that should go without saying but bears repeating anyway – don’t sleep with your sources.

Broadcast News (1987)

In the late 1980s, women in the media business were still attempting to break the glass ceiling standing between them and prime-time on air jobs or upper management. Holly Hunter’s character Jane Craig was our hero. Smart and strong, she kept her vulnerabilities to herself (with crying  jags in the privacy of her office) and refused to sacrifice integrity for her own happiness. Did that send a message that you can’t have it all? Maybe. But it was the right message for the time.

Almost Famous (2000)

Have you ever been so passionate about something you’d risk everything – school, family, lying about who you are – to pursue it? In Almost Famous, William Miller – the alter ego of writer and director Cameron Crowe – does all of that at the tender age of 15 to pursue his dream of being a rock journalist. He gets his chance when Rolling Stone sees some writing he’s done for underground music magazines and asks for pitches. He ends up going on the road with an up-and-coming rock band. Almost Famous is about a lot of things, but the part I like the most is Miller’s persistance. After turning in a lousy first draft of his road tale with the band, the magazine gives him a second chance. The revised manuscript, a first-person account of sex, drugs and rock and roll, is great. But when the magazine to fact checks the piece, band members deny everything. Yeah, that happens, and it’s not fun. Watch the movie to find out how things work out.

State of Play (2009)

In this remake of a British TV miniseries, a team of investigative reporters for a fictional big-city daily work alongside a police detective to solve the murder of a congressman’s mistress. The film moves at a break-neck speed, and isn’t without some plot holes (that no doubt the longer miniseries version did a better job of filling), and has an almost unbelievable number of plot twists. But it succeeds in capturing what it’s like to be on a big story and capture what’s really going down while on deadline. If you’ve ever worked in a newsroom – physical or virtual – you know what I’m talking about. There’s nothing like that particular kind of adrenaline rush. And State of Play managed to capture it. Besides, it’s got Russell Crowe, who even looks good playing a schlumpy journalist.