Want to get paid to talk about the things you love (and some that you don’t like quite as much)? Well, Izea (the company that brought you PayPerPost) will be shortly offering a new service called SocialSpark. This brings in a new era of blogging for advertisers and bloggers alike. SocialSpark is both a social networking site and a place to find things to write about. I had a sneak peak at it, and I am impressed by what I have seen so far. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot I can tell you since it hasn’t been released yet!

My Story

I often have been asked why I do this. Now, if you are a regular reader of mine, you may want to skip this section since you know all about my family and I. I have two kids. When I started blogging, we only had Madison (who’s 4 now). I was using my blog to keep in touch with my friends and family in Green Bay, WI. While blogging I became pregnant with my son Will (who’s 9 months now!). I am stay at home mom and am always looking at how to make extra money from home. We live in the Chicagoland area which means my husband commutes to work long distances and daycare is outrageous! Trust me, I have tried almost everything out there to make some extra money so I didn’t have to go work fast food or retail (no offense to anybody working in those positions. I have done it in the past and it sucks!). My husband is never home at the same time every night which makes things even more difficult to get a regular job of any kind!

Show Me The Money!

Onto the part that you really want to know about! Is there money really to be made doing this? YES! I don’t tell people what I make blogging, since it really isn’t anybody’s business. However, since you want to know, I can honestly tell you a pulled in around $7,000 last year from blogging. Now, I was able to do this on my own time be it midnight or noon. If I don’t feel like writing about a topic, I don’t. As many of you know, I do freelance work also, and I can easily work this around my freelance work and my kids. I don’t have to wait for my husband to get home from work either! For my family, this has been heaven sent.

What have we spent my earnings on? This year I was able to take the money I earned and enroll Madison in preschool. We used the money towards the vacation Bill and I took to Arizona. It is helping to remodel our basement, and we used it a lot last summer on house repairs. What do you need extra money for?

This sounds good. How do I sign up?

Currently, SocialSpark is still in Alpha testing. However, if you click the link, it’ll take you to a site that you can sign up for an email when SocialSpark goes live. Then you can be one of the first to try out this new platform and make some extra cash doing so!

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Once people find out that you do blogging and sometimes even get paid for it, they all seem interested in finding out how you do what you do. The hard part for me is taking almost two years of knowledge and condensing it down to a five minute synopsis and still have them understand what I am talking about. I try to hit the major points and let them make their own decisions from there.

One of the first things I tell them is that they should get their own domain. If they just want to try it out, yes, a free platform is okay. However, if you are truly serious about blogging, you really need to be on your own domain. If you want to make any money blogging, it is almost a requirement that you are on your own domain. Most advertisers do not free platformed blogs. Having your own domain shows that your serious. Would you trust an expert whose domain ended with blogspot.com? Most people would not.

After you have your domain, you have to host that domain somewhere. There are so many sites out there to choose from it can actually make your mind spin. There are sites out there like Web Hosting Bluebook that really can help you make your decision. They have everything from a hosting glossary to reviews on each of the services, so you understand what each one is offering.  You have decide what company works best for you.  I personally use Bluehost and love them (which is listed on their list!).

Once you have your hosting, you also have to decide which blogging platform you want to use.  There are several platforms to choose from:  everything from Typepad to WordPress.  I personally use WordPress, and I love that too.  Once you figure out how to use it, it really is easy.  There are thousands (yes, I said thousands) of plugins that can do almost everything you want them to do (now, if you could get one to clean my house I’d be in seventh heaven – lol).

Once you have done all the above, you really need to figure out what you are going to blog about (though you may have figured this out before you bought your domain).  You can have a niche blog or just a general one.  Niche blogs mean that you only talk about one topic whereas a general blog pretty much covers everything under the sun.  This post is on my general blog.  However, I have 3 niche blogs also.

I guess my last piece of advice I can give to you is that you need to have fun with it.  If you dread blogging each day, it will show in your writing.  If you feel like you are burning out, take a step back.  I love all the people I have met blogging, and this is something I will never regret doing.

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My Google slap has made me realize that there are many more important things in my life than Google PageRank.  Seriously, there is.  Yes, 4 to a 0 hurt.  However, I have made a list of all the other things I am grateful for:

• My family.  I have a husband and kids who really don’t care that my blog is a PR0 now.  They care that I am their mom and their wife.  They care that I take part in the day to day things in their life.  They care that I tuck them into bed at night.  They may drive me nuts at times, but I don’t know where I would be without them.
• My extended family.  Both Bill and I have huge extended families.  It is a good feeling to know that if we need help or a hand that there are so many people there to help us.
• Advertisers who still have contacted me to do work.  Thank you for understanding that the PR isn’t everything.
• That I am half done Christmas shopping.  I hate Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving, so I am always happy when I am half done.
• My online friends.  I have a community of people who care about me that I have never met (some I have now thanks to Blogworld and Postiecon!).  I never realized people who you’ve never met could care so much (for example, when I was pregnant with Will, I took a 3 day break from forum checking and blogging and Julie was worried I had Will already!).  I also have online friends that I have met and some I haven’t that I have also worried about like that too.
• My health.  I have not had any major problems.  My kids are in good health too.
• That we have enough money to get through the winter and Christmas.  I know there are a lot of people who worry about this.  We are okay this year, and it is a good feeling.

I know I will be adding onto this list, but this is a good start for what I am thankful for!

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Colleen always has the scoop on everything and once again, she is where you need to be reading. She has a great scoop on Argus aka SocialSpark (at least that is how interpreted this). This should be great. All of the people (myself included) who have been whining about PR should stop now. Advertisers should be able to look at our metrics, and be able to sponsor you, sponsor posts, etc. As a blogger, you will be able to make comments, send messages, and make friends right from there. I always talk about loving one stop shops and this it. This is one thing you need to sign up for, since it will change everything. Be back later. We get to see it now.

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If you enjoy gaming (like me), I have the site for you. You definitely need to check out Winter Wolves. They have both mac games and pc games, so there is a little something there for everyone. You can even download mac games and the pc games right to your computer.   You don’t have to wait and go to the store.  I thought I would try about a few games there myself. One that I really like is TV Station Manager. Here’s what it looks like:

This is one of my favorite kind of games. I am not sure what this genre is called, but you take charge of a job and do it for money (or whatever the prize is). I just love this type of game. It is pretty easy to play. The tutorial walks you through exactly what you need to do. This is definitely an adult game. One of the categories that you can choose for shows is erotic. As an adult, I am okay with that. However, I would not want to have to explain that to a kid. The game played pretty smooth. Your job is to schedule shows and advertisements. You need to make money for the station. I know that it sounds pretty easy, but you have to make decisions that effect everything. For example, you cannot put that erotic show that I was talking about before at 7:00 pm. You also have to be careful to follow the advertisers rules and make sure that you play the commercials enough times a day. You also cannot run out of money. If you have no money for a week, then you lose and go bankrupt.

If this game is this good, I am looking forward to trying a few more. I am looking at around playing twelve more games tonight.  Each has a demo, so I can decide what I like before I buy.

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