Let’s say that you’ve started a blog and that you’ve found a fairly strong audience for yourself. Meanwhile, you feel like your office career is going nowhere in particular and that your immediate superior is as close to abusive as he can get without toeing the line. You probably would start thinking that you’d be better off quitting your job and just making money from your blog, right? After all, shouldn’t you be pursuing a path that makes you feel more successful and fulfilled instead of staying on a route that makes getting up in the morning seem impossible? You should blog full time!
Of course you’d think that, and of course you should be doing what makes you happy. But you should also remember that it’s never really that simple. Trying to earn money from blogging can take more work that you thought possible, especially when you consider the following:
Blogging full-time doesn’t necessarily pay well
Of course, we all know that there are many ways to earn money from blogging; but that doesn’t automatically mean that all your expenses can be covered by income from your blog. Heck, even some of the most successful bloggers don’t make their money when they blog full time on their sites alone. You know what gets them paid? They get paid for OTHER work, like freelance writing for various publications, public speaking engagements, and (if they’re lucky enough) book deals.
So what does this mean? It means that there’s no such thing as lucrative opportunities when you blog full time, unless you count writing insane numbers of blog posts for other people’s blogs. If you want to earn money from blogging, you need to understand that it’s only a cog in a bigger machine. You need to think of your blog as a promotional tool for the other things that you do and sell, instead of making it your main source of income. If you don’t keep this in mind, then you’ll likely find yourself in the rather ugly situation of being unable to pay your bills.
Blogging requires significant lifestyle changes
The other thing about quitting your day job in favor of focusing on your blog full time is that it forces you to re-arrange many aspects of your life in a way that you’re not prepared for. It’s not just a matter of not having to deal with Internet fax and even spreadsheets anymore (unless you feel it’s absolutely necessary). It also has something to do with working at least ten times as hard to find newer and better ways to manage your resources.
Remember, you won’t be making as much money as you were before. That means that, unless you already have a roster of potential clients and a lot of savings in your bank account, you really have to go through some insane lengths to build a client base (or hope that your life partner won’t lose his or her regular job). On top of that, you also probably need to cut back on some of your “luxury” expenses so you’d have fewer bills to worry about at the end of each month. In fact, it’s probably not a good idea to blog full time if you have neither clients nor savings and have debt to boot.
Could you quit your job now and blog full time? Sure you could! But are you sure that you can live a comfortable life when you do? That’s the question that’s worth considering. Because if you think that being happy is just a matter of leaving a company you’re working for with no concrete plans, then you’re in for a surprise – and it probably means you can’t blog full time just yet.
