Too busy to blog!

Apologies to any readers who've been waiting for the next instalment with bated breath. I've been too busy doing odd writing jobs to write my blog. Which is good, because the whole point of this blog was to share tips on finding work as a writer. So here's the promised progress report, warts-and-all.

#1 Estate Agents' property details
This still provides a small but steady stream of work. Each detail takes me about an hour and they pay me $20/£10. I could do them more quickly, but like to do some online research about the area and its history so that my copy stands out from the crowd (hopefully.) Obviously this isn't a great time for the property market, but you could try to persuade estate agents that this is PRECISELY the time they need good, original and different copy.

TIP: find an online property spec, rewrite it in your own unique style, send it to the agent and offer your services.

#2 Adsense revenue-share
I've completed my guides to the 24 regions of France. I'm on 60% share of Adsense revenue from these pages for the next two years. My first month's share was $13 and my second month's, $17, so the initial return has been disappointing. However, even if the revenue stayed at $13 for two years, that's $312/£168, which would just about pay for the time it took to write them. And if, as I hope, the revenue increases exponentially month-on-month, then I'll be too busy lazing by my private pool to write this blog.

TIP: find a site with Adsense ads, and the sort of copy you think you could improve on, rewrite it, send them your copy and ask for a share of Adsense revenue. Your superb original copy costs them nothing up-front and, being superb and original, will generate more traffic to their pages.

#3 Commissioned blogs.
This started small and has been growing steadily. I answered a small ad who needed someone to blog twice weekly on Modern Languages at $8/£4 a blog. After the first month, they asked me to blog in the General and Psychology sections as well. After the second month (they must like my stuff) they asked me to contribute to Classroom Management and Book Reviews. In case this sounds very specialist, I should point out that I knew nothing about psychology until I started blogging on it...

TIP: look out for 'bloggers wanted' ads.