Thursday, March 22, 2012

Interview with a Professional Blogger | KillFive.com

This is a true story as told to JustJobs.com, where you can find helpful career interviews and job search advice to break into the career field you?ve been looking at.? Visit to find an interview in your desired field today.

I have been a blogger for about three years now, specializing in home improvement and green technologies. It?s been a way for me to make my own schedule while writing and learning about things that I think are extremely interesting. I have been writing for my entire life, and this has been a great way for me to actually make a living off of my writing instead of dreaming about it.

I have a lot of motivations for being a good writer. First, I have a very self-critical eye. Whenever I write something, I have a tendency to read over it a few times before I actually submit it, analyzing the heck out of it the entire time. Most of that motivation is based on what I expect from myself as a writer. However, a lot of it is also the fact that my name is going to be attached to that blog piece. I don?t want anything attached to my name that isn?t my best work.

Another motivation I have is my personal desire to learn and grow as I go. Sure, I want to show my best work for marketing and self-esteem purposes? I like the ?feeling? of being a good writer. However, I also genuinely want to learn about the things I?m writing about as I go. This is why I spend so much time writing for home improvement and green technology blogs. It?s great to make a living learning about cool projects and interesting technologies, all while I?m flexing my writing muscles and getting a byline for it.

For anyone looking to get started in blogging for money, there are a few things that I think are very helpful to understand. These fall mostly in the arena of style, but there are some major grammatical points that I think are really important, too. While these are just tips? and many people have gone quite far in blogging with their own path? these tips have worked out great for me.

First, I think bloggers can benefit a lot from finding their own voice. People that hire bloggers read Internet copy for a living, and it can all seem to run together over time. The goal is to make your writing stand out from the rest of the pack by having a unique voice and tone with everything you write. It?s sort of like your signature. I think it?s important that bloggers do this because we?re sort of trained to write a ?specific? way when we?re in school, and that type of writing isn?t really well suited to blogging. Blogging is much more conversational than matter-of-fact, and as such it requires you to break from that mold that we?ve all been pushed into since grade school. The way I help this along is by reading everything I write out loud, asking myself ?does it sound like something I would actually say while talking about this subject with another person?? If not, then I ditch it.

Second, the majority of people that hire bloggers are looking for people that have a grasp of AP style. I recommend brushing up, but there are a lot of bloggers that do very well without having any knowledge of AP. Also, learning basic HTML and the back-end of popular blogging platforms will really make you more marketable. I recommend starting up a personal blog and writing for it once a day. This way, you?ll get to practice your voice while also learning how to easily navigate the user interface of a blogging platform.

Throughout my blogging career, I?ve hit a number of snags. I think it?s important for anyone that wants to get involved with blogging to understand that this isn?t exactly a 9-5 job. You can?t just show up at a temp agency and get a ?job? as a blogger. Bloggers need to be constantly combing employment sites for leads on possible blogging jobs, meaning you?re constantly in job search mode. This can be a little stressful for some people, since it can be tough not knowing how much money you?re going to pull in each week. Even now, the amount I bring in every week can vary a couple hundred dollars, but always evens out by the end of the month.

In the end, the best advice I can give a budding blogger is to stay flexible. Flexibility helps you to roll with the punches, take what comes, and spring back after each storm. Without flexibility, working as a blogger can be a stressful existence.

Source: http://www.killfive.com/interview-professional-blogger/

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