It is amazing how many people think that being self-employed as a freelance writer is a joke. They honestly believe that freelance writing is a career that anybody can excel at in no time at all. In fact, I have had more than one person say to me, “Freelance writing? I have been writing since I was in first grade!†True, these people probably did learn how to write that early in life. But it is amazing to me that they are so ignorant and clueless as to what it takes to be a successful freelance writer.
All in all, there is nothing easy about freelance writing. Although I would never trade in my career for another, it does not mean that I live the good life where work is a walk in the park everyday.
Below is a list of three things that a freelance writer has to handle that a corporate employee would never be able to sympathize with; unless they become self-employed of course.
1. As a freelance writer I am responsible for drumming up my own business. If I do not do this, I will not make any money. As you can see, this is quite different than somebody who works for a company and relies on others to keep the wheels moving.
2. When you are self-employed there is no way of escaping your work. While it does not bother me, some people have a major issue with this. Since I run my entire business alone, I think about work a large majority of the time. In other words, there is no leaving my work at the office. After all, my office is in my house!
3. Not only do I have to sell my services to obtain more work, but I am also responsible for collecting the money that is due to me. Unless you work as a collector or in the accounts receivable department, you really have no idea what this is all about. If I do not do a good job as a collector, once again, I do not get paid. This is far from the way that things work in the corporate world. Try telling an executive that their salary will be paid when the company’s clients decide to send some money. Trust me, it wouldn’t work; not even for a second!
The freelance writing life is a great one. I am the first to admit that I love everything about it. But when people think that being self-employed is a joke, it really irks me. The next time that you catch flack for living the “easy life,†point your critics towards this post. They will see where you are coming from right away!
Running one blog is hard enough for most people. After all, there is a lot to do if you are going to make your blog a success. And as you can imagine, things can get even trickier if you decide to start multiple blogs. If you are thinking about adding more blogs to your workload, you need to make sure that you know what you are doing. After all, this may sound easy, but in some cases you are going to be up against the wall.
First off, you should never move on with another blog until you feel comfortable with your current situation. If you do, you will find out soon enough that you are spreading yourself thin, and all of your blogs are therefore struggling to keep up.
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Generally speaking, there are three tips that I can offer people who are interested in running more than one blog. If you can master these tips, you will be on your way to building a successful blog network.
1. If you are working with multiple blogs you need to have a schedule. Without a schedule you are going to find yourself lost, day in and day out. You will want your schedule to not only outline on when you are going to post, but also on the subjects that you want to touch on. The more organized you are, the less time you will have to spend on each blog. And when you are running a network, saving time is something that you should definitely be interested in.
2. As you probably know, for a blog to be successful you need to add content on a regular basis. I have said before, for me, it is best to add at least one post per day. This is what I am comfortable with, but you may very well have another way of doing things. One post per day may seem easy enough if you only have one blog, but what if you add more? Although you may not want to give up any control, many bloggers hire other people to help them keep up with posting new, original content. You do not necessarily have to do this, but all in all, keeping up with regular posts is a must.
3. The biggest detail that will consume your time when running multiple blogs is the marketing side of things. With one blog, you can spend all of your spare time on marketing and like tasks. But what will you do if you have two blogs or more? Not only will you have to decide which ones are most important to you, but you will also have to follow a marketing plan for each one. Â
Let these three tips guide you to success if you are interested in running and keeping up with multiple blogs.
If you have ever attempted to monetize a blog or website, you probably started off with Google AdSense. After all, this is one of the easiest and most profitable ways to turn visitors into cash. But with that being said, if you rely 100 percent on AdSense you could be playing with fire. This may not be that big of a deal if you are only making a few bucks per month, but for bigger earnings, relying solely on AdSense is the biggest mistake that you could ever make.
Take a close look at this blog post over at Rich Twin Poor Twin; http://www.richtwinpoortwin.com/banned-from-google-adsense-lost-200000.html. These guys were making six figures a month from AdSense alone. This is probably something that you have dreamt about time and time again, right? Unfortunately, the gravy train has pulled away from the station, and these guys are left without any answers as to what happened. When Google banned them from AdSense, it cost them $200,000 from the previous month, as well as the money that they would have made from there on out.
The problem with relying solely on AdSense is that Google can pull the plug on you whenever they see fit. And to make things even worse, there is no way to find out what happened. It is hard to say if these guys were click bombed by a competitor, or if something else led to their dismissal. Even though they received a “ban email†stating invalid clicks, what exactly does that mean?
Although it is a shame that this had to happen, it is a lesson that we can all learn from. There is nothing wrong with using AdSense on your sites, but you better make sure that you diversify in case something like this happens. For instance, these guys have since moved onto other revenue streams such as AdBrite, Yahoo Publisher Network, ValueClick, BidVertiser, Kontera, and Text Link Ads. If they would have done this earlier on, the process of picking up the pieces would have been much easier to deal with.
Diversify your income streams so that you are not the next one to get taken down by Google. If you let AdSense run your life, it can potentially ruin it in the long run.
