A dilemma faces freelance writers in today's publishing scene. Whether or not to blog exclusively and raise revenue through advertising, blog in someone else's network and contribute to a larger brain trust or use a service like Helium or Associated Content to promote their work. In many ways these sites are built off content management systems in a more sophisticated and professional way that most blogs are and receive their revenue in quite the same way.
But there are distinct advantages. First off these sites can monetize advertising a lot better than you can at home. Secondly they offer hold contests and encourage writers to either network with each other or with publishers they have a business relationship with and can push a writer a lot further than they would have went with their own blog. Any seasoned blogger will tell you that writing is a small part of what is needed to actually monetize their content. At the same time larger writing communities can be very competitive and weaker writers will get lost in the shuffle and could benefit from pushing their own work a lot harder through the blogs.
Another thing about pushing your own blog though; it's easy to either get kicked off of, or fail to gain acceptance in, a good advertising network. Some networks want you to have tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of impressions or page views before they even allow you to sign up. Google Adsense is the easiest one to sign up for and coincidentally the easiest one to get kicked off of. Yahoo! and Microsoft have systems that are either in beta or invitation only; assuming that they are ready for prime time. Communities like Wordpress discourage blogging for profit and aren't allowing ads or pay for post writing, the latter of which tends to dilute the integrity of the blog and leaves amateur bloggers as being perceived as desperate for revenue at best.
If a writer really wants to be a copywriter he can pursue that as a career, but shouldn't digress to thinly veiled attempts at doing so on his own platform when there are a considerable amount of products and services he finds himself selling. It is almost as if there is no real, honest relationship with any one advertiser, so he suffers from an image problem. It is one thing to be a corporate shill, but a cheap trick is something quite different entirely.
If you are looking to make a career in writing do not focus all of your efforts on any one area in particular because they all can cross promote your work. Many times your best promotional efforts are in reading other blogs or visiting other sites and commenting on the work pointing it back to your own site or work elsewhere so that visitors can get a better sense of who you are. One day those visitors can be your visitors. Network, and stop writing so much and focus on quality work instead of trying to force yourself to put out something throughout the day with the same publication.
A reader should be able to visit your site without being bombarded by your attempts to sell them your book or visit your other sites. Give them a reason to actually stay on the page they're on and gain a better appreciation of what you're offering for free. There are many individuals that are good at monetizing blogs offering at best transparent articles that are written cleverly to generate revenue, but you do not want your aspirations as a writer to get lumped in with those money making efforts.
A slow but steady rise in traffic and revenue is a lot better than the crash and burn a lot of writers with really good intentions go through. I've had a shill of a blog. There is no reason to respond to every comment that is left on your blog and do not digress to arguing with people who do not necessarily agree with or understand the perspective of your articles. You should be able to allow people to leave comments in which they vehemently disagree with in the more vitriolic way and be able to walk away and write that next article. What do you think happens at more prestigious blogs than yours where literally hundreds if not thousands of people are leaving comments?
Writing is a two way street, and the fact that it is that much easier for people to reach you means you have to shoulder even more responsibility with how you address your fans and your critics. If you only have the same 10 readers that have all subscribed to your content that's fine, but if that 10 turns to 9 then 8 you have something to worry about, even if other new faces are coming through. Chances are there is a fundamental shift in the voice and tone of your articles that you are not even aware of because you are self consumed.
Freelance writing online is no longer a game; the novelty of blogging is behind us and it is time that we start taking this thing seriously. The amateurs from those with serious potential are being weeded out and a lot of them are going on to write articles elsewhere. The bottom line is that we can't change the world; say your peace and move on from it because there is something else to talk about tomorrow do not continue to revisit that same topic just to watch your readers drift away for no particular reason. Hard lessons to learn as a writer, but necessary in order to grow.
