A Facebook friend Gino Wine sent me this message on May 30 at 10:45am;
Hi friend, how was ur weekend? hope fine. well am a friend on urs from bloggers lab and i admire your blogging skills. i just want to ask if you think one can take blogging as full time? For how long now have u been blogging bro? when you started blogging, say the first one year, were you blogging and working with other firms or companies? My Dad is putting pressure on me to leave blogging and that blogging can not really give a man the kind of money to solve things. Am planning on doing my top up program with a school in the UK to get my BSC b4 i will start looking for a good work. bcos now i have HND Equivalent in software engineering which is not too recognize in Nigeria. what will u advice friend? thanks and have a nice day.
Before we go ahead with my reply to the message, I’ll like to say that it took me some time to finally put a title to this post. However, I hope it connects with you as well as it did to my friend. Although the questions were directed to me and I gave my response based on personal experience, this post is not anything about me, neither is it an avenue for me to toot horns. Towards the end of my message to Gino, I asked him if I could share his question along with my reply here on blogerian.com, knowing that there could be someone out there with similar questions and in need of little help to make a decision. He agreed it’s a good idea. Here is my reply to the above message.
My weekend was cool man and I hope yours was too. I understand what the situation is like. Let me take your question one after the other:
Can one take blogging as a full time job?
If blogging seem like something you would love to do for a living, YES you can become a full time blogger.
How long have I been blogging?
I created my first blog in October 2008, blogged for about 4months (it’s actually 3months), then went for a long break. I resumed blogging late 2009 but got more serious after I got a custom domain in May 2010. So it’s like one year of dedicated blogging so far.
When I started blogging was I blogging and working with other company?
I never really took a serious job after my NYSC. I tried submitting an application to a few job openings, went for about three job interviews most of which are not related to my field of qualification (petroleum engineering). I was working partly with a local building construction site. The job was more like helping a friend out since I had previous construction experience. So it wasn’t really a job per se. I took it as just a means to be involved in something while I work on other personal stuffs. I purposely decided to stop looking for a job when I fully resumed blogging and also quit my part time (not)job.
Can Blogging give a man enough money to solve his problems?
I had similar issues with my family members. My case was even worse as I was blogging from a phone. When I talk about what I want to achieve from blogging, everyone looked at me like I’m the most unserious dude in town. Now they are just so dumbfounded. So can you make serious money blogging? I guess you can. Though I’m not yet making serious money from blogging but where I am now is where I dreamt to be less than a year ago, which means that dreams can come true (though it took a little longer than expected). Considering where I hope to be another year from now, I can confidently say that you can make good money blogging. For last month May 2011, I’ve earned €478.13 ($690.89 @ 1.445) from Google Adsense (see screenshot below), $30 from infolinks and roughly $120 from other services I offered (I don’t promote these services on my blogs yet as I don’t want to be over tasked) from one blog. That’s little money though but considering how I started, it’s really encouraging and I’m not in a hurry to get rich. (You’ll notice that I don’t have any income avenue yet on this blog.)
What will I advice you my friend?
What really matters is what you want in life. For me I don’t want a job. Although initially I thought I needed a job to raise start up income to pursue my dream of entrepreneurship but it turned out I could do without it. I wouldn’t ask anyone to follow similar part because I know how difficult it was for me to toss away my degree and live without a job. If you want to get a job and combine it with blogging business, fine and well. You can do both. One of my blogging friend Jide Ogunsanya of Ogbongeblog.com is working with Globacom (a telecommunication company) and still maintains his blog and online networks. He is doing pretty fine. Whatever you decide to do, please don’t let it be influenced by your friends or relative. I had the pressure to go against my goal but I didn’t. If you choose to not get a job so you can concentrate on building your own stuff, yes you can. You can use your blog and/or a job to raise money for your B.Sc in UK, it’s only a matter of which one you choose and how dedicated you are to your dream/goal. However, if you don’t want to get just any job for the sake of getting a job, I’d say don’t…..
This is as far as I can go with the conversation we had. This post does not only apply to blogging alone but also extends to other career decisions. As long as blogging goes, there are good numbers of bloggers making a good living on the internet. Onibalusi Bamidele of Youngprepro.com is a 17year old blogger making several thousand dollars monthly, and he is less than 2years old in the business. I don’t think there is a better example to use here.
I’ve met a lot of bloggers who say they don’t care about making money from blogging. They are ok with their job and only think of blogging as something they do for leisure, yet most of them keep complaining about how much low traffic they get and the few cents they make from adsense. If you don’t care about making money why bother? I don’t know about you but while I love to write and help people with what I have learnt, I also want to grow my blogs and make a full time living off it. On that note, I’m willing to give my best in form of contents and make my blog more useful (you should too).
So Can you make a full time living Blogging? Even if everyone around thinks it’s a waste of time or it’s something for the lazy people? I’d say blogging is not a lazy man’s business and YES you can make a full time living blogging.
As always, I’ll love to read your comments, criticism, disagreements and all on comment below.
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Very nice article.. I think we should do whatever we want. because passionless work gives nothing. If you have passion for anything you can make thousands of $.
Very true Atish. Life is a lot easier making a living out of what we love doing. Thank for swinging by.
This is an educational post Ikenna, I was also in a smiliar situation with friends and families being very doubtful about making money from blogging, even though I’m still very much making a part time income I am working towards making a fulltime income from blogging too. Thanks for the post and keep up the great work.
Yeah! People often have doubts with stuffs they are not familiar with. They just don’t see what you see. I’m glad you’re taking your stand bro and it’s surely gonna pay off. I hope you get to the full time blogging soon. Thanks for dropping by Fabrizio..
I have never had friends and nor family choose my line of career for me.But one thing i loved is being the BOSS.being able to work extra aside from my main source.
My zeal for online income started when i was curious about how the internet can be a source of income for me aside from wasting away on the internet (facebooking,reading sport news etc.)
I stumbled upon successful stories and charged myself into being in the League..
Though i am still New,i have taken two checks from Google and its bn a Pleasant Legitimate experience (an advice for time wasters on the internet).
I have benefitted enormously from the internet aside from money making…u just continue to network and u see the many open doors.
http://sliyng.com/2010/05/succeeding-through-social-networking.html
That’s correct Sliyng. There are far more benefits on the internet other than making money. So many life changing opportunies.. If only some facebook/social media and internet addicts will leverage their obsession into something worthwhile, it would be more fun, you know. Glad you turned your time spent on the internet into something as productive as blogging.
Everyone deserve to make his/er career choose like you pointed out. Thanks for the interesting comment man.
How is blogging done to promote website? I need as much suggestions as possible. The more the better. I haven’t had the chance to sit and really go over the process.Looking for some answers where I can start blogging immediately. Thanks
Hi team building game,
From your question, it seems you already have a website and want to promote it with a blog. If that’s the case, you need a blog to promote the image of your web business and to connect with potential customers. There is really no rigid way of doing this. Start by reading articles online on how to promote a website with a blog. Your creativity and personality matters more than anything else.
I need to work more on my blogging then. Hmm. Interesting.
My respect to all Nigerians. Wow! You guys are making it Big online genuinely too. Praise God.
Wow, this a very inspirational post (speaking as the owner of a 2 month old blog) – I think it is amazing that within 1 year of blogging, you earned that amount of money from your blog alone.
I will have to check out your post about monetizing your blog, too.
Hi Susan,
I’m glad you’re inspired. You can actually do the same, even more if you keep feeding your baby blog. Feel free to play around my blog for other posts.
Thanks for your comment..
I really enjoy this post, it so inspiring for me. I’m a new one into internet i don’t know where to start from. I email a lot of guys for training but i discovered that they are in lagos while i’m at uyo. I’m using my phone to navigate the net in hope that i will stumble on good information like this…so happy. I wish i had somebody i could attach myself to who will help me learn fast. It is not money that gives me the joy. It purely passion. I love u ikenna esp for ur posts
Hello Uduak,
It’s really nice to have you on my blog. I’m glad your were inspired from my post. That was what I hoped for when I was writing it.
From some of your questions, it’s obvious you are totally new to internet business which is ok. we all started from somewhere and had to learn along the way (so can you).
To start with, I don’t stay in Uyo and don’t know of anyone I can recommend from there. However I don’t think you must meet someone in person before you can learn from him (although it would be easier with the eye contacts). Most people I’ve known that make a living online did so by reading and learning without meeting their coach one on one. And like me, not every body had a coach/mentor. I read from different sources, apply what I learn, discard what doesn’t work and stick to what works for me. So Unless you have your personal reasons, not finding someone to meet one on one is not a barrier. I always believe in starting from what is within your reach, as time is a luxury we don’t have.
If you’d like to discuss further, feel free to find me on facebook with the username iodinaka or call me 2348037630832.
By the way, thanks for your kind words..
Pls ikenna inbox, are u in uyo akwa ibom? If not who would u recommend i meet to help. I don’t know how to contact u again. I don’t know how to subscribe to your news letter. Help pls
Another thing i want to is this. I actually stumle on your blug when i was browsing. How i connect to ur blogg again 2 what is your email address and phone no so dat if i’m lost on net i can contact u 3 i don’t understand dat ur follow me on @…..twitter since i’m not on twitter
Iam also a part time blogger but if I earn like you, I will shift to full time 🙂
You can get to the point of earning more than that as long as you Keep working at it.
I wish you the best in achieving that goal. -:)
To say I’m impressed is an understatement and i got some success nuggets for my use.