Blogging it's hard work



I've been blogging now for approx 5 years and over the years I have had experience of people who just don't get it. From "Oh you get free stuff then" to looking at me as if they have no clue what I am talking about. 

I also get asked a lot by people about how to make money from blogging and I find most of the time people want to set up a blog and make money straight away and often don't realise how much time and effort has to go into it. It took me about 6 months of blogging before I started getting review items and and approx a year before I got my first sponsored post. 

It's not a case of just signing up to wordpress or blogspot it takes time. For starters you have to have the right equipment/resources, you need to start writing posts and gaining followers and just writing a post isn't good enough. I spend time taking and editing photos, finding free stock images (such as the one above)  if I need to, writing multiple posts and then scheduling them in advance, as well as getting my posts out there and read by sharing on social media. 

What you may not also realise is that costs too. For starters I pay for the equipment I use, to have my URL, my logo and blog design, and for facebook ads. There are many other costs too which at the moment I don't pay out for but plan on doing so in the future for buisness cards, courses,  E-books, photo editing tools ( I currently use free version of picmonkey which is very limited) social sharing applications and scheduling tools.

Monetising my blog is hard I don't have side board ads like some bloggers do as I found that that kind of thing wasn't working for me. I do sell advertising though in the form of sponsored/guest posts and for social media as well. Making money from my blog also means that I have to do my own invoices which I sometimes do via paypal or I have my own draft one which I edit for individual work that I do. Then I have to wait to be paid some companies pay instantly others have a 30 and even 60 day wait.

Sometimes you have short deadlines too and I have fit my work in around looking after Blake and keeping the household clean ish and organised. The work can be all over the place too as I don't have a fixed income and some weeks/months can be really quiet too. 

It works well for me at the moment though and I love what I do. I've gained some fab opportunities through blogging and I get to also look back some of the memories/ photos I share of Blake as not all of my posts are paid ones. 

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