Hey, Frugal Farmer friends! I wanted to share with ya’ll a little bit today about the income I make blogging and how I make money writing for blogs as well. Often times, when I tell people that I have a “career” as a blogger, they look at me with that look. You know: the “Yeah, I KNOW that’s a scam” look. As if I were part of a pyramid scheme in which a secret society finds some hidden, illegal route to making the big bucks and alienating family and friends in the process. 🙂 However, making money blogging and writing for blogs is a real and valid source of income for thousands and thousands of people. 

A little background on me:

One of the reasons I absolutely LOVE writing for blogs and running my own blogs is that it allows me to have a career that I love, bring some extra money into our family as we work to pay off debt, and still be at home. I home school our four kids, and being home and teaching them all is of the utmost importance to my husband and me. However, we knew that if we were going to pay off our debt, we needed to bring in some extra income.

Enter: The “Mysterious” World of Online Writing and Blogging

SO, in January of 2013, I started this blog as a way to share our tips about living a frugal lifestyle, about preparation and self-sufficiency, and about getting out of debt. I immediately fell in love with the uplifting, encouraging blogging community. The support we’ve found in the blogging community is unlike anything else I’ve experienced. In the dog-eat-dog real world, competition runs rampant as people work to reach success. I saw this in almost every industry I worked in: sales, retail, production – you name it.

In the blogging world, however, most everyone seemed to want the others to succeed. It was wonderfully refreshing, and it’s part of what has kept me blogging for nearly 3 years now.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the fun: in the summer of 2013, a popular blogger and friend contacted me, asking if I’d like to come and work for him, being a staff writer for his blog. He was looking to add a fresh voice to his blog, and he was willing to pay me $30 per post. I can often crank out a 500-word post in an hour if it doesn’t require too much research, so to me, the thought of making $30 an hour for something I loved to do was very appealing.

You see, when we realized that we needed more income in order to pay down our debts, I started looking locally for job opportunities. Nearly all of these job opportunities had two negatives:

• they required me to leave home, which would’ve hindered the home schooling thing
• they paid between $10-$15 an hour which, after adding in travel (we live in the boonies) would not be a very good income for me

Now, here I was, being offered an opportunity to work for $30 an hour, from home. Another great thing about writing for blogs? I set my own hours. The blog owners give me the due date on the project, but whether I want to complete that project at 2 a.m., 8 a.m., noon or 7 p.m. is up to me. Since I’m an early riser, and my mornings are spent home schooling, I’ve set my freelance working hours for the 4-8 a.m. time frame. When the kids are up and running, I choose to end my work day. The freedom is absolutely amazing, and I still revel at how much I’m making on a hourly basis for these jobs.   Some of the many benefits of working online as a blog writer are:

• You choose your own work schedule
• You choose the clients you work for
• You set your own pay rates
• You can work from anywhere that has wi-fi, whether it be at home or on vacation in the Bahamas
• You save big money on transportation expenses, work clothes and lunches out
• You get to explore your creative side as you choose your writing topics

It’s been a bit over two years since I started to make money writing for blogs, and now my hourly rate is between $30 an hour and $125 an hour, depending on the client and what they’re asking me to do.  I’m usually a pretty private person, but for the sake of encouraging those who are considering an online writing career, I’m going to share some income numbers with you. I’d say that, on average, I put in 5-10 hours a week writing for others currently, as I have chosen to keep my schedule pretty sparse due to the current busyness in the Frugal Farmer household. My income from writing for others?

• In 2013, I made just under $4,000
• In 2014, I made a bit over $8,000
• In 2015, so far I’m on track to double, and potentially triple, that number

So, as you can see, there’s a wealth of money to be made for those with a love and a talent for writing, a desire to own their own business and a dream of making good money from home. Because of our family’s commitment to home schooling, I’ve chosen to keep my work hours to a minimum, however, I have blogging cohorts that have chosen to make their writing careers full-time endeavors that are making 6 digits a year writing for others. Seriously.

What You Need to Do to Learn How to Make Money Writing for Blogs

If you’re interested in making money and having an online career writing or blogging, here’s what I did, and what I suggest you do, to get started.

1. Objectively analyze your writing skills. Do you have a gift for writing? Have others told you you’re a good writer? Do you have a love for writing? If so, you can have a career writing online. Don’t worry too much about perfection at this stage: the more you write, the more you’ll improve as a writer. If you read some of my older posts here, and then read some of the newer ones, you’ll see a vast improvement in my writing skills. Practice makes perfect.

2. Educate yourself on the world of online writing. No matter what your career choice, in order to be among the best in your field, you have to educate yourself.  Here are some ways I recommend educating yourself to prepare for a career in writing online and for blogs.

• Take an online course. By far my favorite and most highly recommended and sought course after is Cat Alford’s Get Paid to Write for Blogs Course. This affordable and thorough course will teach you absolutely everything you need to know to start making money writing for blogs. I haven’t taken the course personally, as it came out after I was well-established in my writing career, but I have several friends who’ve taken the course, many of whom have now quit their full-time jobs and are working solely as freelancers thanks to Cat’s awesome course. Education is key to making money in the online writing world. Don’t waste your time and energy trying to put together your own course by browsing the Internet for info – go with the best and get the best results. Cat’s course will teach you EVERYTHING you need to know about making money by writing, from where to find jobs, to how to network, what to write about, how to handle rejection, what technical skills you’ll need, how to get organized, how to market your skills, how to handle taxes, how to price your work and everything else you could possibly want to know about the online writing world. If you are seriously interested in a career in online freelance writing, don’t skip out on this valuable course.
• Read other blogs. By reading other blogs, you’ll feed your own creative mind. It’s a proven fact that reading breeds writing creativity.
• Commit to working your business. A successful business requires persistence. By committing to work your business until it succeeds, you’ll help push yourself through the slow periods and the rejections as you apply for jobs. P.S. Taking Cat’s course will fast-track you through a lot of the slow periods of building your business and make things happen faster.

3. Treat your business like a business. If you don’t take your business seriously, no one else will either. Don’t just view this opportunity as a way to make a few extra bucks. I personally know of at least a dozen online bloggers/writers who now count writing for blogs as their full-time job. They were able to walk away from their 9-5 and now make at least as much -and often much more – money than they were making previously. If you are committed to doing this, do it well, get the skills you need to have and don’t settle for less than you’re capable of achieving.

Making money online writing for blogs, magazines or other clients is a real and valid business and income opportunity. I speak from experience when I say that a sustainable income really is possible in the blog writing world. If you’re looking to make a change to a career you love, dip your toe into the world of multiple streams of income, or simply bring a bit of extra money in, I highly recommend the world of blog writing. It really has changed my life, and it can change yours too.

*P.S. If you sign up for Cat’s course through the link here, I do receive a small commission – thanks in advance for your support. Know that I only feature links to products and services that I wholeheartedly believe in.