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?

For the fifth year in a row, I’m joining Michelle in her WordCount Blogathon this May.

Because of the Blogathon, I’ve seen my readership shoot up and my traffic soar. At the time of my very first Blogathon, I was unsure about what I was doing. I had no clue how to bring traffic to the blog. I had no readership. Today, I see more than 5,000 hits per month. The numbers have increased after each Blogathon, so I have no doubt that it helps.

Jackie Dishner

I have gained a greater sense of what I’m trying to accomplish with the blog. I’ve learned the benefits of posting graphics and so much more. Each year, I gain a new technical skill I didn’t know I could do or know I might need to do. I’ve even sold copies of my travel guide because of the visibility gained.

The Blogathon never ceases to be something I look forward to schedule on my calendar. I cannot say no. I would not say no.

If you’re on the fence, here are eight reasons why you, too, should sign up for this blogging challenge:

1. Get readers fast. Participating in the Blogathon that first year (2008) introduced me to the thrill of having automatic readers pounding on my home page for more posts. It was like, “Oh, I’ve got fans!”

2. Cultivate comments. Who doesn’t love a person who agrees with the words you took the time to jot down? I mean, seriously, you wrote that one post, and someone loved it? Woo-hoo! Love when that happens. I also love comments that challenge my thinking, people who have something more to add to the dialogue, including the ones who disagree. You get all of that when you have readers who leave comments; it’s sort of a requirement to participate. But don’t worry. Participants like to share and learn real fast how to pace themselves.

3. Find other people’s posts. Through the comments left on your blog, you get links to what your readers are writing about. Then you get to become their readers. A successful Blogathon has to have that give and take, or it fails its purpose. Blogging isn’t just about you. The whole point is dialogue that leads to relationship building.

4. Increase traffic. When readers comment on your blog, and you visit their blogs and post a comment — with the link to your latest blog post attached —  you become more visible. When you become more visible, people you don’t even know, who aren’t even participating in the Blogathon, find you. Even minimal participation can help increase your traffic. That’s winning!

5.  Build a platform. Increasing blog traffic helps build your platform for a book, for that show you have on Blog Talk Radio, for the e-newsletter you’re developing, for the column you’re planning to pitch. Your platform is all about promotion. It’s marketing without the direct selling, which can be much more effective.

6. Target your market. The Blogathon provides a way to discern who your long-term readers are, the ones who might sign up for your workshops, read your books, take your classes, or buy your articles. You can use this time as if it were your very own focus group to find out who your market is and what they want from you.

7. Sharpen your message. As you become more acquainted with your target market and what it wants, you’ll likely sharpen your message to fit their needs and avoid efforts that won’t pay off.

8. Create new enthusiasm for your blog. You may waste some time – you’re going to wind up reading blogs that won’t pertain to your needs but they’ll interest you, anyway. But ultimately, the Blogathon generates energy and enthusiasm. Suddenly, you have readers, comments, and you’re reading more blogs than ever! It’s fun.

What benefits have you gotten from participating in a blogging challenge? Please respond by leaving a comment.

Jennifer Willis

A number of years ago, when I was working full-time for a communications company and trying to make time to write a novel, Stephen Hawley Martin told me that if I got up an hour early every day to write a page of my story, in a year I’d have a first draft.

A year?

As much as I wanted to write fiction, who wants to spend an entire year working on a first draft — something that will then have to be rewritten a few times, edited, revised? And so I put off writing fiction.

It’s tough to carve time out of a busy, full-time work schedule to sit down and write fiction — it’s even worse when you’re already writing for a living, and the last thing you want to do is spend even more time in front of the computer stringing words together.

I imagine this was part of the impetus pushing Chris Baty and friends to invent National Novel Writing Month in 1999 — an insane effort to write a 50,000-word first draft in 30 days. In the twelve years since, NaNoWriMo has become an international event that takes place every November, challenging new and experienced writers around the world to write an average of 1,667 words each day. If you make it to the end, you have the first draft of a novel, ready to be picked apart for rewriting.

I’ve done NaNoWriMo every year since 2004, and it works for me. I like the competitive spirit, the cooperation and support found on the online forums, and the fact that I’m committed to a new fiction project. One of these manuscripts — my 2008 NaNoWriMo project — has recently been released as an ebook, with two more to follow this summer.

But what if you don’t want to wait until November to start your project? Or what if you can’t necessarily commit to writing every day — or nearly every day — for an entire month?

Don’t Do What I Did

First off, don’t do what I did when I wrote my first novel. Between 1999 and 2001, I wrote snippets here and there, sitting at airport gates waiting for my plane or late at night when I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t have a structure for my writing time, and I hadn’t given myself a hard deadline either. The process went on, and on, and on. Looking back, it seems a miracle that thing ever got finished.

Treat your fiction project like you would any writing assignment. Map out what needs to get done with an estimate of how long each step takes. What’s your target word count? Look at books or short stories in your genre to get a feel for how long your project should be. How many words can you write in an hour? What time can you block off — consistently — for writing, and what dedicated space can you use?

From there, set a challenging but realistic deadline — and find a way to hold yourself accountable. When you don’t have an editor breathing down your neck for your story that was due two days ago, motivation can be on the slim side. Setting up rewards for yourself — like a spa day — for meeting your deadline can be a great incentive, but sometimes you need more of a stick than a carrot. One trick Baty suggests is to make a check out to a friend for all the money you have, and post-date it for the day after your deadline. At the start of your project, give the check to your friend — with instructions to cash it if you miss the mark.

How to Create a Fiction Writing Schedule

For example, if you want to write a 7,500-word science fiction short story, and you write an average of 1,200 words per hour, you’re looking at 6.25 hours for your first draft. Also factor in research time, but don’t let yourself go overboard. One rule of thumb I’ve learned for first drafts of fiction is if you do a Google search and you can’t find what you’re looking for within three-to-five mouse clicks, leave a placeholder for the information and come back to it in the rewrite.

Let’s assume you want to spend 3.75 hours on research, giving us a nice round figure of 10 hours for your short story project. Now grab your calendar and figure out where those 10 hours are going to come from. If you’ve got every Wednesday night free — great! Block out two hours every Wednesday night for five weeks, and there’s your project time.

If you only make vague plans to “Do some writing this weekend” after all the errands are run, or wait to start writing until you “feel inspired,” you know you’re never going to do it, right?

Whatever time you can schedule, make it as consistent as you can, so you’ll get into a rhythm with your writing. And keep this time sacred, just as you wouldn’t let hell or high water keep you from a meeting with an editor from one of your dream markets. It’s way too easy to let life start to slide into your fiction time, but if you treat it like it’s any other work commitment, you’re more likely to get your project done on time.

In the end, regardless of special strategies and neat tips and tricks, it comes down to just making yourself do it. No matter how much you want to write your novel or short story, you’ll still likely find yourself procrastinating and coming up with every excuse in the book not to do it — which reminds me … when your writing time comes around, make sure you turn of the television or radio, close the door, or otherwise eliminate what is likely to distract you from your work. But just as Sting acknowledged that you have to treat songwriting as job and simply make yourself do it, the only way your fiction is going to get done is if you sit yourself down and write.

While I’m shamelessly plugging my work, here’s my latest “Job of the Week” profile for Conde Nast Portfolio.com, on the Miami Heat’s new head coach Erik Spoelstra.