Setting Targets For Becoming A Full-Time Blogger
I was having a chat via email with Dennis about the amazing success I’ve had making money in my first 24 hours with CashCrate. The conversation very quickly got onto the topic of when should one become a full-time blogger.
I’ve been struggling with this problem for the last few months because MyBlogEarnings have been getting into the territory where they no longer fund my ‘gadgets’ but where I could actually live off the income, although my mortgage and car payments might be a bit tough. But, today I’ve finally set my criteria for becoming a full-time blogger.
Becoming a full-time blogger would mean that I would be able to post more during the day i.e. as soon as stories break, which I know is one of the many factors that is holding this site back, as at the moment I tend to post a day after the stories have broken. I would also be able to plan ahead more, and also not rush my posts. When I sit-down to post in the evenings I give myself a maximum of an hour to draft posts, which means that many times the quality suffers. I’d also have more time for networking, attending conferences and building the ‘Everton’ brand.
The thing is my career is going very well at the moment, so even though the blog income is good, it’s still less than I make during the day, although of course the gap is closing every month. The mistake I’ve been making in the past I think, is I’ve been basing my monthly budget based on the income from my day job AND the blog, which made it impossible to set a point at which I will quit my day job because the blog income has been increasing each month i.e. I’ve been moving the bar each month.
So, I’ve just set a threshold for my blog earnings as a percentage of my day job, which if I’ve hit on or after May 2009 will be enough to comfortably pay my bills, so that I can quit my day job and go full-time as a ‘blogger’ as well as starting up a few ventures I’ve been toying with. The reason why I won’t consider quitting before May 2009, is because I owe a lot to my current boss. He fought hard to get me my current job when he heard that I’d been made redundant, and I want to give him at least a year of my time out of loyalty. So, keep your eyes peeled next May as I may be joining the ranks of full-time bloggers!
Have you set your criteria for going full-time? How close are you to hitting your goals or have you already reached them?
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Comment by Everton on 14 August 2007:
I agree, my feedcount could be higher - one thing that would improve if I developed the EB brand more, and posted better quality posts more often that aren’t ‘rushed’
Comment by 3gp on 14 August 2007:
Blogging is full time job and i think you are planning it right. If you have commitments that full fill them first. work on traffic and if you think your traffic is consistent that it would be great.
Still i see you dont have loyal reader base that respond and participate in more constructive way.
Comment by Bush Mackel on 14 August 2007:
Great post Everton! I think I gotta agree with Chris that I don’t know that it’s fair comparing blog income to work income because blog income usually takes less work (in one manner of speaking). In any event, I do think it’s school that you’re lookin’ out for your boss who has looked after you. Loyalty is def a good thing. *nod*
Comment by John Bennett on 13 August 2007:
That would be great. I agree completely that it would be completely different if we were able to post up to date information and had greater time to spend on the posts themselves. The overall quality of the sites would increase tremendously.
Comment by Brown Baron on 13 August 2007:
Sounds interesting. I’ll be here for sure to see what you decide on. Good luck EB!
Comment by Everton on 13 August 2007:
@Chris
Totally agree with what you saying, which is why I’ve set the threshold at the level that pays my ‘bills’ as who knows what I could earn if I went full-time.
Although it might turn out that I earn exactly the same, at least I’l get to have a lie-in each morning and go to the gym more!
Comment by Angie on 13 August 2007:
I’m just trying it for a year, until my daughter enters kindergarten. We shall see. I don’t make that much, but it pays my health insurance, car insurance, etc.
Comment by Chris on 12 August 2007:
When making the descision i would not compare your current blog earnings to your day job for the following reasons.
It is likely that you put more work into your job.
You spend more time at your job than you do blogging
If you transfered the time you put into your job and the effort/work input over to your blog is it realistic to expect a larger return? - I think so.
This would allow you to;
Write posts of a good length (i’m not saying all your posts are short but sometimes we never get your full opinion.)
Write more articles
Write ‘Breaking’ News stories
Attend Events and then blog about them!
Increase article output to 2-3 a day
And of course branching out and developing the Everton brand.
In the end the descision is of course yours! GoodLuck.
Comment by Dennis Bjørn Petersen on 12 August 2007:
I guess it all comes down to what you really want. I know I want to make a living out of blogging, but I’ll wait until I’m earning as much as I do from my job.
If you are used to both incomes I think it’ll be tough to only get half as much, on the other hand you might as well make more if you focus on CI. It would probably take a couple of months, but the content quality would improve and so on.
The good ol’ entrepreneur dilemma: What happens if I quit my day job and become a pro-blogger?
Comment by Zath on 12 August 2007:
It’s probably always going to be a tough decision to make for a blogger, but especially where your day job is going well and you’re not ‘hating going into work everyday’.
At least now you’ve come up with this strategy you’ve got time to further build the site with that in mind and therefore further increase the income before then going full-time.
You’ve done a great job with the site already in your spare time, it will be interesting to see where you take it in the future.