Some posts about blogging that you may have missed:

Trying new things is important.  If you do the same things all the time guess what will happen? You’ll get the same results!  And unless you want to stay just where you are forever that’s not a good thing.

So, I’d been trying to get up the courage to ask someone if I could do a guest post on their blog when I started reading Carson Brackney (because he commented on one of my posts).  He obvious was in the guest posting spirit but we hadn’t had a lot of contact before so I wasn’t sure if I should ask.  I mean, he’s big in my books!

But I bit the bullet, asked, he said yes, and even did a guest post here!

And now my guest post is up at Carson Brackney’s blog!

Go and read it and stop and say hi!  I’d just love to know you were there!

I’ve met a lot of great people online since I started freelance writing and some of them have been very encouraging.  Most of them really.  Most recently, I’ve become familiar with Carson Brackney and his writing.  I immediate fell for his writing style and have been hooked on his blog ever since.

And today, I’m lucky enough to have him as my very first guest poster!

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From the Recliner of Carson Brackney on a late morning in June

Danielle asked me to write a guest post for this blog and I decided doing so was a perfect excuse to take a break from an ongoing project. I moved from my desk to the recliner, flipped on the television and open the laptop.

She thought it might be interesting for me to write about how I got my start in this crazy business. Did I dive in headfirst? How did I prepare myself? What made me think it would work? Would I do anything differently? What inspired me to take the plunge?

I’m starting with the last question. Inspiration.

One of my inspirations is ten feet behind me in the next room. She’s six years old and she’s making a greeting card for a friend in the playroom. A few minutes ago, she yelled out for some spelling help.

Another inspiration walked by me less than ten minutes ago. You can’t get to the laundry room without sneaking through the corner of my basement office. She just moved a load of wash to the dryer after putting the baby down for a nap.

That little sleeper wasn’t around to inspire me to get started, but she’s part of what keeps me going now.

The sun is shining through the sliding doors of the split-level, streaking across my propped up bare feet. I found Channel 199, the MLB Network. The Rays have a 1-0 lead on the Padres. I’m thinking about firing up the grill again tonight.

I just looked at the clock. 11:27 a.m.

Right now, I know there are guys in suits checking their clocks. There are guys in Dockers and snug polo shirts with nametags on lanyards looking at their watches. In thirty-three minutes, they can walk out of their offices or away from their cubicles for a lunch break. Maybe they’ll call home and check on their kids. Maybe they’ll call their wives. They’ll eat and gripe about work. They won’t see Longoria steal second on a one-hop Hundley peg. They’ll go back to work. I’ll answer another spelling question and I’ll give my wife a kiss.

This is the story of my inspiration: Our first child was a few months shy of entering the world and I realized that I didn’t want to be one of those dads–the kind who make it in the nick of time to the preschool Halloween party, out of breath and anxious, hoping they can get back in time for a meeting or presentation. I knew I couldn’t be a “hug you in the morning, kiss you goodnight and hope the stuff in between is going well” kind of father.

I liked the idea of bare feet, an office at home, and being there. If I had known that the MLB Network was going to be part of the deal, I would’ve liked that, too.

I was always a good employee but that came from effort, not instinct. I don’t take orders well. I don’t like answering to anyone.
Money? Yeah. I wanted money. As much as I like Thoreau, I’ve never had a desire to hide out in the wilderness. I like things. I’m not greedy, but I’m not into self-deprivation, either.

So, that’s the tale. The baby was coming and I knew a change was in order. I had at least some idea of what that change needed to look like.

The question, of course, was how to make that vision into a reality.

The Internet seemed like a good place to start.

I started looking at ways to make money online. I did my homework. I read, read, read, and then I’d read more. I learned everything I could. I developed the ability to separate the bullshit “get rich overnight” schemes from reasoned advice. I learned how things worked, why they worked and what things might continue to work.

My first project of note, which I completed during my spare time, involved the creation of a series of Adsense-monetized free Blogspot blogs. Good keyword research, good content and a lot of good luck combined and it worked. I went from making a quarter per day to cashing nice monthly Google checks very quickly.

Those checks were nice, but they weren’t going to replace my income and there was a limit to how much I could scale my little blog network. There was also a reasonable amount of risk involved–sometimes those seemingly perfect projects would crash and burn. That’s fine when you’re a hobbyist. It’s not good if you want your income to buy diapers.

I experimented with affiliate marketing, too. I had some success utilizing article distribution and a pre-sell landing page bearing my affiliate link to generate commissions. Between the affiliate sales and the Adsense, I was generating a nice little side income.

During all of this experimentation and learning, which took place over the course of a few months, I reached a few realizations:

• My greatest strengths were in writing and research.
• I’ve always loved writing.
• Much of the online world was convinced that “content is king”.
• Much of the content online looked like semi-literate little kids wrote it.
• My own experiences confirmed the value of quality written materials with respect to generating online earnings.

I connected the dots.

My first writing job involved creating little informative profiles about various famous golf courses. I was surprised at how easy it felt. I was encouraged by the client’s effusive praise for the work. When I did the math, I discovered that I made pretty damn good money on that gig, even though the per word rate was well below what most people would find acceptable.

I took another gig. And another. I didn’t use the job boards and I didn’t work for third parties. I found a handful of good clients and that led to others through referrals and the connections I made. Eventually, I started reaching out to people I thought I could help.

Originally, I planned on slowly but surely building up a fund equal to about six months’ of my salary. That would take about a year, I thought. Then, I could “go full-time”.

Well, the requests for work were coming in faster than I thought. The only way I could keep up with them would be by quitting my day job. I had to choose between taking a big chance and riding the brakes.

I took the chance. The baby was still a baby and I didn’t want to stall another minute. My wife supported the gamble.

And now I’m watching Adrian Gonzalez roll a ground ball to second with one out in the third, knowing that I’m no more than twenty seconds away from finding and hugging my inspirations.

I’ve made a million mistakes since I started writing for a living. Some are small and specific to me and my circumstances. Others have been big, nasty whoppers. If I were going to start all over again, I would do a number of things very differently.

I think that’s true for everyone, though. I don’t feel bad about those blunders. It’s part of growing.

We’ve had great months when we feel like part of the Rockefeller family and, I’m not ashamed to admit, there were times when macaroni and cheese seemed like a smart choice for a dinner entree. I’ve made clients swoon and I’ve infuriated people so much that they still might give me a well-deserved gut punch if we met on the street.

Along the way, I have figured out a few big things.

I won’t call them secrets for success, because they’re not that secret and because I’m not willing to call myself a success. I’m a work in progress. But I will tell you that these are damned good recommendations if you want to find a way to make a living as a writer. They may not be right for everyone, but they worked for me and I know they’ve worked for others.

Write. Putting your ass in the chair and working consistently is the most important thing you can do. If you’re working, you’re earning or you’re setting yourself up to earn. When working becomes habit, income flows.

Learn. Never stop learning about new things. Keep your eyes on new trends. Read what other people in the business and your clients’ businesses are writing. Knowledge is power and its fuel for creativity.

Grow. I started as a would-be Internet marketer. I became a content writer. I transitioned into doing better-paying copy projects. I started doing more consulting work. As I’ve grown and changed, I’ve maintained the best parts of those experiences and have jettisoned the others.

Believe. Danielle asked me why I was convinced the writing thing would work for me. I don’t really have a good answer for that. I didn’t give it a great deal of thought to it. It made sense to me. It felt right. I believed in it and I believed in my ability to make it work.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get out of this recliner and move back to the desk before I fall victim to a nap. I need to get some work done if I want to sneak off to the swimming pool with the girls for an hour this afternoon. I’m not turning off the game, though.

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Carson Brackney is a freelance writer and consultant. He thinks you should follow him on Twitter and become a regular reader of his freelance writing-oriented blog. He is currently sporting a Mohawk at age 39 because his daughters think it’s funny.

I have three blogs that I manage. This one, one for a client (The Admin Professional), and my niche blog (Time Management Tips) and as I start this niche blog I realize that I am going to have to get a lot more organized with this whole blogging thing if I want to keep up to date on everything. So, I’ve been thinking about doing editorial calendars.

And it makes sense doesn’t it. If you want to make money with something you need to treat it like a business and if you were working a day job you’d have to plan things out so that you could get everything done. The editorial calendar is my first step to treating my writing more like a business. Wait – my second step. The first step was getting Chrometa set up with a permanent license!

I started searching around a little to see if I could get some ideas on how other people do editorial calendars. Do they do them online or do they have paper calendars? I have a hard time deciding which one works best for me. I like the feel of putting pen to paper but I also like to have access to my calendar whenever I want it and having it online is good for that.

As I was looking around I found out that there is a WordPress plugin that will give you an editorial calendar for you blog! And it is pretty cool! It won’t work for The Admin Professional (not WordPress hosted) but it will be great for this blog and for my Time Management Tips blog. So I plugged it in here. Easy to install. And now I need to do some posts to start filling it up. I’ll likely work on the Time Management Tips blog first though.

If you want a preview of it you should check out Chris Garret‘s YouTube tutorial video. Which reminds me that I need to go and subscribe to his feeds because he’s got a lot of great stuff and while I’ve read some in the past I’ve somehow forgotten to add him to my feed reader!

If you don’t feel like reading the post watch the video instead!

Since I’m giving niche blogging another try I decided that I’d better find out all I can about it.  There’s a lot of info out there about niche blogging you know!  Personally, I think it is something that every writer should try at some point because it gives you the opportunity to make residual income that can’t be taken away from you.  With your own niche blog you won’t have to worry about the site changing ownership (like Associated Content) or the site no longer allowing just anyone to post (like eHow).  The site is yours and once you have it going you can earn money on it for a long time.

I have to tell you one thing.  I can’t really say this is my “first” experiment with niche blogging.  I have another niche blog – it’s just not something that I care to share with people.  But, it does bring in anywhere from $50-$200 every month.  And I don’t work on it anymore.  I have a couple hundred posts on it and I use the oldest2newest WP plugin to bring the oldest post to the beginning every couple days.  That way new visitors (and search engines) think that it is being updated.  And I just let it run.  It works for this type of blog, but that is not what I plan on doing for Time Management Tips.

So, in case any of you feel like following me on my niche blogging journey, I thought I would share some of the resources that I have been looking at regarding niche blogging.  Here of some of my most recent reads:

1. DoshDosh – An Introduction to Niche Blogging – there is a reason that this is the first thing that comes up in the search engines when you do a search on “niche blogging”.  It’s because DoshDosh is one of the most well known and the most informative blogs out there when it comes to any sort of blog marketing.  This is a great post for beginner’s – explains exactly what niche blogging is and if you check out the related posts at the bottom of the post you’ll find more excellent posts about niche blogging.  Read them all!
2. Evan Carmichael’s Top 50 Niche Blogs of 2009 – Getting an idea of what other people are doing with their niche blogs can be helpful in showing you what works.  And these niche blogs work!  Take a peek at some of these blogs (especially if there are some that relate to what you are going to blog about).  How do they format their posts?  How long are their posts?  What do they talk about?  How do they engage the reader?  There are a reason these blogs made his list so they are worth spending some time on.
3. ProBlogger‘s How to Develop a Niche Blog Content Plan – Who better to learn from than the king of niche blogging himself, Darren Rowse?  Seriously, this guy started from nothing and has built himself and empire!  And if there is one thing that I have learned from my past experience, it is that having a plan can make all the difference in the world.  A plan will help you move forward in your niche blogging success faster than any e-book you might purchase on the subject or any blog you might read.  The plan is what gives you focus and helps you grow.

These are just my top three recommendations – there is loads more info out there but if you’re just getting started this will give you a good start.

I’ll try to include some more info on niche blogging as I go but meanwhile, why don’t you share some of your resources in the comments?

Or, if your experienced at niche blogging and have written something about it, share a link!