racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

A lot of people are trying to make a good living off of blogging, but sad to say, most are not successful, at least in terms of being able to monetize their blogging activities enough to quit that day job.

Sadly, most think that blogging is easy money. But that is not the case. Blogging is hard work–or at least it involves a big amount of effort in writing, marketing, planning and even socializing. Most people would not get that, and think that the fact that you’ve opened a blog, put in some ad units, and posted a few posts would already make you rich.

But I’ve come to think that the age of monetizing blogging purely for the content may not exactly be the best business model (or at least the one that earns the big bucks). It’s not that publishing as a business, per se, is no longer good. For me, blogging is just what it is: a medium. Blogging is not the ends, but rather it is a means.

That’s why it’s a medium.

There are several ways of earning from blogging, and it will be very fruitful if you get it right. But the big money could be somewhere aside from directly earning from one’s blog. Think of marketing. Think of networking. These days, people are able to generate sales, business leads, consultancy jobs, and other such opportunities because of their blogs.

Think of it this way. You can build up your profile online through your blog. Show people how good you are at what you do, whether it’s a skill, profession, or other business that you do. And the opportunities will come. Be a Joel Spolsky. Be a Jeff Atwood.

An example: a blog network can earn more from blog-related consultancy services, or from selling books, or from selling software than from ad revenues. Besides, writers are expensive. But if you’ve built a good product (software, etc.) or service, then they will pay for themselves, and will give you good money down the road.

Blogging is a medium, and not the end-all be-all of things.

I’ve been running Pinoy Auto Blog for a few months now, but it’s not such an active site yet. I’d like the site to get serious traction soon. If anyone’s interested in contributing to the site, please get in touch with me!

New media is lucrative, but also a very competitive industry. So it pays not to sit on one’s laurels. I like being at the forefront and keeping on my toes. Something I stumbled upon recently is Chris Garrett‘s Authority Blogger course (affiliate link), which I’m hoping could get me fast-tracked to even more success in blogs and blogging.

People start blogging every day. They find their blogs flounder, the traffic does not come, they find it hard to generate business, they attract few comments and fewer subscribers.
Don’t be ignored. Get noticed.

Using the right approach anyone can start a blog today that will create more business, more profit, more opportunities, develop networking contacts, grow customer loyalty and much more.

Become an Authority Blogger and you can go from being unknown to an influencer.

Chris is a fellow contributor at the Blog Herald, and is one of the founders of Performancing, and an overall great guy. He knows his stuff, so I’m looking forward to learning a lot from the course. Authority Blogger basically aims to help professionals in any field use blogging and social media as a means to build up one’s profile. And once your content is a “social media magnet” what happens next is up to you!

Andrew Rosen asked how the weather affects your blogging. I can think of a couple of ways it impacts my blogging.

# On stormy days my DSL sometimes goes down. So I have to resort to connecting via mobile. If that works at all! Also, during _really_ stormy days, the power goes out, too. Sure I have a lot of mobile devices at home, but 3.5 hours of netbook battery life can only get you so far.
# On rainy days, one is tempted to just sleep in. _Poof_ goes productivity.

On the Blog Herald, I recently posted about blogging internships, where I cited the experiences of a high school student interning at a writer/blogger’s home-office. This makes me think–would anyone in the Philippines be interested in such a setup? I know students in various fields (college level, at least) are asked to do on-the-job training. Would schools consider interning with a blogger good for experience-points?

Given that I’m very very busy these days, I might consider such a setup, although I would be very reluctant to welcome a stranger into my home office. Perhaps a virtual setup would be better, given the nature of blogging and other online work.

Personally, I’ve never interned for anyone, as my undegrad degree didn’t require internship. I did get to work with interns, though, both at my government post and my private sector job. My observations varied. Some interns I knew were assigned great work, and they were even hired after they graduated. Some, on the other hand, were assigned the crappy jobs and the good things they did other people took credit for.

Blogging has its share of crappy work, too, but I guess it’s part of the experience. But of course I’m not inclined to burden anyone with tedious, nitty gritty work.

What do you guys think? Will this idea take off?