Lighter Than Air

Have you heard of Helium? It’s another site where you can get paid to write – on practically anything. I’ve been a member there now for over a year. I haven’t made much money yet, but that’s probably my own fault. The way Helium works is that you write an article, rate others’ articles and earn when your article is viewed.

The more you write, the more you earn. Everyone I know who has more than 60 or so articles is getting regular checks from them. I only have 19 there, but even with that number there’s money in the pot.

Here are some of my best articles:

Can you really earn money blogging?
I started blogging one year ago and I make more than $100 a week from blogging. I do this by writing paid blog posts and earning from Adsense. T…

Freelance writing
You can get paid to write. I do. My friend Suzanne James does. Here is how I did it. 1. I wrote for free. I wrote on consumer reviews sites and …

How to start a blog
The easiest way to start a blog is to let someone else host it for you. That means you don’t have to mess around with code. Good options for this i…

How and to whom to pitch an idea
You’re a freelance writer and you think you’ve got a killer idea for a magazine or newspaper article. To find the right person to pitch it to, look…

How to prepare and promote your sample clips for freelance writing
Preparing clips for freelance writing is not impossible, even if you have never been published. Here are four strategies you can try: 1. Use you…

Best blogs and paying blogs on the web
Deciding on the best blog site will depend on what a person is looking for. There are many blog sites that have a great and active community, such …

How to increase traffic to your blog
There are several ways that you can increase traffic to your blog. First of all, every time you write a new post you can use a pinging service s…

Making Money With PPP

I found a good way to make money from my blogs. It’s called PayPerPost. It’s been around for a while, but I only got in on the action about a month ago. In that time I’ve made just over $100. Some of it is still to be paid, but at least a quarter of that has already made its way into my Paypal account.

I like the PPP system, because it allows me to choose the opportunities that are the best fit with my blog � and in fact it helps me with inspiration sometimes. Ever have those days when you just couldn’t think of what to write in your blog? Well, with PPP, there’s always something to inspire you. I’m not sure that’s what they planned buy it works for me.

Now that I’ve got ten posts under my belt I’ll be adding other blogs to my account, so I can make even more money with PPP. With what I’ve earned so far, I could treat myself to some new books from Amazon, or go for a nice meal at my favourite restaurant. A shrimp burrito with refried beans sounds just the ticket.

Of course, some people have made thousands with PPP, so I could bide my time and wait for the moola to mount up. Then I could buy a plane ticket to somewhere nice and have a great holiday. I’ve got a few destinations in mind already.

Freelance Writing Projects

Here’s a list of some of the writing and ghostwritingprojects I have been working on:

I’m the new freelance writing editor for Garden and Hearth

Ghostwriting articles on online business

Ghostwriting articles on UK consumer finance

New articles on Inspired Author

Ghostwriting projects on UK finance: ebooks and blog posts

Freelance writing lens on Squidoo

Updated self-publishing site for Lifetips

Published ebook: SEO Tricks

Published tips on Spanish on Lifetips site

Published tips on video chat on Lifetips site

Published tips on fruit on Lifetips site

Article published on social bookmarking

Ghostwriting a parenting article

Article published on the domestikgoddess blog

Produced a new legal services ebook

Updated brochure for Nottingham, Derby and District funeral plans

Moderating part of a new writer’s forum

Writing content for InspiredAuthor.com

Updating my lens on website promotion at Squidoo

Reasons For Blogging

I don’t normally cross-post but this was so much fun that I felt I wanted to. I was

tagged to give five reasons why I blog, so here goes:

1. I started blogging because I heard it was a good way to bring traffic to your site. That worked well, though it took longer than I thought.
2. Then I found WritingUp and fell in love with the community aspect of blogging. At that point I no longer cared about traffic, I was just having fun.
3. I also blog because it’s like an online portfolio, which I have used to show my writing ability to various people.
4. Blogging is a good way of fostering creativity - and of taking a break when I’m mentally exhausted
5. I blog because I get to write in my own voice – which is nice for a change after a day of ghostwriting.

. Whose turn next? How about the domestikgoddess , poeticallychallenged, and inspiredauthor. Over to you!

Big Money For Blogging From PPP

$1,000 a post. That’s a lot of money – and you could make that with one sponsored post from PayPerPost.

I’ve noticed in the last couple of weeks that PayPerPost, which allows you to make money blogging, has had a lot of higher paying opportunities available. Every day when I log on I see opportunities that are worth hundreds of dollars. Of course, for that kind of money your blog usually has to have a certain page rank or be in a certain niche or take video, but it’s still a great opportunity for bloggers who meet the criteria.

So far, I’m a big fan of PayPerPost. I like the opportunities posted. I’ve looked at a few of these sites and PPP has the highest proportion of high paying opportunities of the ones I’ve tried. And it seems they only charge a 35 per cent service fee, unlike ReviewMe which takes half of what bloggers make. (In fact, I bet some of the others charge more, based on what they offer to bloggers.)

I like the new interface, so I can tell right away what’s still available. I like the new opportunity interface, which makes it clear what you have to do and whether your blog meets the criteria. And most of all I like the disclosure policy. That means it’s not a problem for me to tell you that this is a sponsored post. And now there’s a neat badge to go with it as well.

Get Paid To Blog – Twice!

I have written about getting paid to blog several times in the last year – and now here’s another one. You already know that PayPerPost pays bloggers to write blog content – and they have a disclosure policy that means that no one is fooled. Win-win for everyone, I say. Now there’s a new way for everyone to benefit – even the people who are not interested in blog ads.
It’s called Review My Post and it’s simple. All you have to do is sign up with PayPerPost and get your affiliate code, then you can put an image at the end of your post (like the one at the end of this post) so that people can click on it and review your post. You get some buzz for your blog and some affiliate money.

Mentor Or Manager?

Are you a mentor or a manager? Do you prefer helping people to achieve their potential or telling them what to do? This was the question that a friend asked me when I was discussing some of the issues I had with managing other writers.

As a former editor and a freelancer myself, I know what I want from other writers. In a nutshell, it’s the ability to meet the deadline and meet the brief.

Great Freelancing Tips

As you know, I spend a lot of time giving tips to new freelance writers about every aspect of their career. However, this doesn’t mean I know it all, and I still enjoy hearing what other freelancers have to say about the subject. That’s why I was so excited to discover the Freelance Tipster blog.

It hasn’t been going for very long, but there’s some great stuff in there, including a piece on identifying your ideal client and one on the mistakes that new freelancers may make. I added it to my feed reader the moment I saw it, and I plan to go back and read every single post. The blog is easy to read, and you know the writer knows what she’s talking about. My only beef is that I wish I had thought of that name first. Then my freelancing blog might have been called something more exciting than Sharon Hurley Hall’s blog.

Anyway, I plan to check this site out regularly – and if you’re serious about freelancing, maybe you should too.

A Bit Of Light Reading

Every now and then I come across some things on the web that are just too good to keep to myself. Here are a few of them:

• Bill Belew’s post on 66 Successful Bloggers and What they can teach you
• The Why Do You Blog survey – 16 questions that are easy to complete. I can’t wait to see the results.
• The Fab Freelance Writing Ezine has tips on writing for the web which every freelance writer should read.
• A list of lists: favourite WordPress plugins from Lorelle
• A good discussion on Deb Ng’s blog: Do Professional Bloggers Deserve to Be Paid the Same Rates as Professional Writers

Enjoy!