Apparently there’s this thing called Professional Blogging. I think it’s sort of like spilling your guts for money. Gladiators used to do it, in a sort of literal way. Now there are people like Heather Armstrong who actually support their families by spilling their guts in the virtual arena. Heather is a wife, mother, lapsed Mormon, and irreverent pro blogger. She’s great. I love her post about glass recycling. Absolutely priceless, that.
So, my question is, how does one become a Pro Blogger (since it’s a profession, we’re going to use caps here)? I have found that there are websites that tell you how to do this. ProBlogger is one of them. Writer’s Digest even has done articles on blogging. Apparently it comes down to advertising.
Get someone to pay you to display their ad on your blog, and you get the bucks. Get enough people to pay you, and you can quit your day job. Of course you need to blog well enough that people want to read what you have to say. I think I can do that. I’ve written enough inflammatory letters to the Editor in my time and have been repeatedly asked to vacate the country because of them to give me some street cred. At least I hope so.
So the next step is to get some advertisers. Any ideas?
I think before you can get advertisers (besides those that only pay if your readers click through and make a purchase) you have to have a big enough readership to interest them. One way to do that is to write a book. See? It just snowballs….