2014 Time to Update Myself

Hi All,

It’s been almost a year since I’ve posted anything to this site.  For good reason too. Nothing to post. But now its time to update myself and start out with a fresh theme. This site is long overdue for some refreshing. I’m going to get creative and fix it. Just don’t hold your breath, it may take some luck, planning and a miracle.

Have a beer on me:

I’ll do it tomorrow.

photo credit: Aurimas Adomavicius via photopin cc

Shane Melaugh Mastery

Source: imimpact.com

Make Money Writing For Bloggers

Want to turn your enthusiasim for blogging into extra cash? If you can write and express your ideas clearly and concisely, why not write for other bloggers as well? They can be private individuals, a network of blogs, or companies who will pay you to write about their products or services.

Don’t worry if you’re new at it. Writing for other blogs will give you the much needed exposure and the chance to sharpen your writing skills. Eventually, readers will also begin to recognize you as an authority on the subject matter you’ve chosen. Not only that but writing for other bloggers helps you develop your personal network or contacts whom you can use for other business purposes in the future.

But of course you will have to devote some time and dedicated to the task if you want to be good at it. And that is why many established bloggers don’t write for others unless they’re paid for it. If you have what it takes, you can begin by searching for job sites in need of blog writers. For a minimal fee, most of these sites will allow you to communicate directly with potential clients.

You can also opt to (ghost) write directly for other people with an existing blog. Payments in this case are usually done per entry but for a fixed number of entries per week or per month.

The advantage of this arrangement is that you eliminate middle persons and thus avoid reducing your earnings. It will also be a chance for you to establish yourself directly as an A-One blogger. Eventually, your clients can refer you to their friends, further widening your client base.

Blogs that have vague, incomplete content or those that are simply badly written are another route you can take. You can simply email the owner and ask if he or she is interested in having someone help him improve his / her blog. You can gauge the quality of the blog by the date of its last posting.

Still, why not write articles on your favorite topic and submit these to websites like 451 Press, About.com, BOTW Media, and Weblogs Inc. as well? These sites are looking for writers for a variety of topics. What’s more, people who view these sites may even use what you’ve written as free reference.

That’s additional free advertising for you as well.

Another option is to look for sites like “Creative Weblogging” where you can apply to manage and write for one of their network blogs. You will, however, need to show that you have some experience so you’ll need to set up a blog if you don’t already have one for them to sample your skills.

Keep it updated for a month or two before you apply. In some cases, they may also add new blogs to their network so you can always contact them if you have one you think they would like.

Similarly, you can write for other companies on your own blog. Websites such as “Pay U 2 Blog” use this kind of system and it works very well if you want to add another income stream to your own blog. This type of job can also help add income to your own site.

But wait, there are just as many scams you should watch out for as there are opportunities to earn from writing for bloggers. Here are some of them:

1. Any online writing job promising to pay you by the hour. The prospective employer either does not know what online writing entails or that you will only get paid one hour’s worth of work for every ten hours of work you put in. The only other alternative is to pay you per word.
2. The most common scam is getting paid only after you have accumulated so much “earnings” for example, after having accumulated US$100 in your “account” with the client. If you’re unlucky, you’ll not be able to reach this “quota” and instead end up not getting paid at all.
3. “Click-on-this-Link” is another scam where an interested blog writer replies to a job posting (but really does not offer a concrete job at all), and then receives an “autoresponder” reply to begin work immediately. It’s actually just a target site stacked with Google Ads where the scammer makes money, not you.
4. Blog competitions, on the other hand, will request would be bloggers to e-mail their sample blogs. The prize? The blogger who gets the most number of readers’ votes gets employed by the site on a regular position. If you do “win” you may just get that position, if at all. If not, you’ve just become an unwilling victim of a blog site owner who now has a databank of free content.
5. Similar to blog competitions are job postings requesting you to submit sample blog article on say topic “X” to supposedly assess your writing skills. Sadly, no one gets the promised contract and the “employer” has at his disposal hundreds of original articles he can easily edit and re-hash to read as his own.
6. Never write for anyone who only has an e-mail address for you to trace them. E-mail and even IP addresses can be obtained and made by the millions leaving you with no other way to trace your would be client.
7. Writing for bloggers has grown and become extremely competitive in recent years. The market nowadays only pays from 2 to 4 cents per word mark. If you come across someone willing to pay you from 10 to 50 cents per word, think it over four or even five times.
8. Never ever pay any attention to “employers’ asking for deposits or your credit card/bank details to get a job. Would you pay someone to hire you?

Finally, as a safety precaution, save your article as .jpg or .gif. Your would-be employer will have to re-format your work usingOCRsoftware, re-type or even manually correct any errors to make use of it. Chances are, they’ll opt not to bother and jump to other “unprotected” articles.

Of course, not all opportunities are bad and the most important tip here is to be patient. Keep on writing. Over time, you will notice the improvement. The number of bloggers needing your services should likewise increase. Simply put, if your clients like what they see and read, others will follow.

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Sharon McCarley is a freelance writer & researcher for the popular “Teach Me How To Make Money” blog. For more creative ideas and ways to make money, whether you’re looking to earn money online or offline, or to get in touch with Sharon, check out http://www.teachmehowtomakemoney.com now.
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