Open Letter to Prospective Bloggers

So you want to be a professional blogger. Nerd!

I jest. Every now and then I get a note from someone asking me about becoming a professional blogger, usually referring to a job posting from one of the big-guy sites.

What I mean by "big-guy" sites is not legit blog or news websites with a few bloggers and/or journalists, but the major blogger networks. You know who they are, or you're about to know, if you're job-hunting. I'd rather not name them.

Here's a letter I recently wrote to a good friend who was interested in blogging as a side job, adapted for the interwebs:

Dear Very Smart Potential Blogging Superstar,

The fact that they say "join our network of 450,000 content creators" and a few other indicators lead me to believe this will pay nothing, or nearly nothing, or be traffic based and still pay nearly nothing. This company is following a high quantity, low quality model, and that model does not include paying the creatives properly.

The reason for this practice is search engine optimization (SEO). As long as they're churning out tons of content on relevant topics, their search engine rankings remain awesome, which means they can sell their ads for more. They don't actually care if the content is any good, they just need a lot of it.

I wouldn't recommend this as a real side job. Just learning to use their CMS (content management system) and format everything just the way they like it will be a bunch of work upfront, especially if you haven't blogged professionally before, and the rewards are likely super low.

That said, if you're interested in writing professionally and want to build your resume, this is a fine place to start -- but consider it more like an internship than an actual lucrative use of time. You'll have less hassle if you just start your OWN blog and develop a following -- and depending how much $ your time is worth to you, it may actually be more cost effective.

Developing your own following is pretty much the only way to get offered one of those fantastic, for-real blogging jobs that everyone wants, unless your parents are famous or you've been on a reality show. So, if that's your goal, you can build your following independently or with a big guy. There are pros and cons to both.

When you do begin blogging, write about everything you want to be writing about two years from now, on separate blogs if the topics are truly varied, because all bloggers are considered specialists and you want to get proven experience (and reader trust) writing about whatever you want to write about.

That's it!

Yours Truly,
The Annie Scott Experience
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