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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Have you visited the Izea Forum yet? If not, you definitely need to go visit the boards. Why? Well, first of all, they just completely redid them. They have a brand new look. It is a tad different looking than the old boards, but it only takes a little while to figure our your way around there. Another reason to check them out is because of the community. Izea posters are an awesome community to be a part of. These are some of the kindest most caring people I have ever met. Some of us have met in real life, but the majority of us have never seen each other ever. However, if you are having a problem with an opportunity you took, problems with your blog, or even problems at home, there is someone who is willing to give you a hand. For free. I know, it is hard to believe, but it is true. When I was pregnant with Will, there was even a thread guessing when he was going to be born! (I forgot who won that one — Amy, maybe?). All I know is that I have met some of my very best online friends on there. Another cool feature on the new boards is that you can report people if you have a problem with them. Instead of a discussion turning into a flame war, you can get a moderator to put a stop to it and reign everyone in. Speaking of moderators, I am one there, so that alone should make you check it out. LOL. In all seriousness, the Izea forums is your one stop shop for both information and community. Go check it out!

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.