Blogging as a Home Business
July 9, 2007 by Mary Emma Allen
We’ve discussed blogging as a way to reach your customers and inform them when you’re operating a home business. This can be a business on the Internet or one in your home where customers come for products and services.
However, blogging in itself has become, for some people, a way to earn a living. Although most don’t earn enough to give up their regular job or another home business, a few have reached that point and can earn a good income from this pursuit.
For Richard McManus, of New Zealand, who operates the Read/WriteWeb blog, this has become a career, with his blog ranking 28th in the world. He gives hints on developing a blog and generating traffic and income.
Des Walsh of Blogging and Business, also posts the news about Richard McManus on his blog. The fact that a blogger has developed a career at this is gratifying to those who are wondering if all the hard work can pay off.
I think that the important thing to remember is that, in most cases, it takes months or years for a blog to start earning enough to make a living from it.
Too many bloggers read stories like Richard’s and expect overnight success. It just doesn’t happen that way.
Good post!
Very interesting post!! Thanks for sharing Mr. McManus’ story. It gives me vision!
Thanks, Laura, for your comments. Yes, bloggers, and any home business owners, need to realize it’s the rare exception that becomes an overnight success. Usually, too, they have been putting in a lot of “behind the scenes” work for this success to happen. Richard McManus did work diligently to cause his success to happen.
Thanks for sharing your comments, Darlene. Yes, Mr. McManus’ story is an interesting and encouraging one. There is success out there for any of us…but it’s not instant, as Laura, points out. We must grasp the vision, then put in the work!
Good post, thanks for the links. Lots of these blogging success stories cover “that guy” or “gal” who worked hard at one blog forever and now makes a living with blogging and has become a huge success. I’d love to be someone like that but I also enjoy multiple projects.
With networks and so many corporate blogs existing now I’d like to see more articles about people who work more than one blog at a time for a living — such as how to make it work and the issues surrounding handling the huge multi tasking you do. I make a living off of blogs but I write for quite a few. And I think that the issues multi vs. single bloggers run into may be different. Course, I’ve never made a living off of just one blog — so maybe I’m wrong and the issues are very similar. Well, now I’m just rambling — thanks for posting.
Thanks, Jennifer, for your comment and insight into the difference between bloggers…those who write mainly for one blog and those who multi blog, as you and I do. It does involve quite a bit of juggling. Sometimes you can look at the same information from various slants (something I learned as a newspaper reporter and freelance writer) and incorporate some aspect of it into your different blogs. When writing only for one blog, you may run the risk of that blog being discontinued or not being so popular at some time. If you’re writing a blog for a corporation, it’s part of your position as an employee. As an employee, and you’re a good blogger, you may find yourself writing multi blogs, just as I wrote multi columns as a newspaper reporter and then as a freelancer.