I did something scary today. Something that may ultimately lead to rejection – likely in the form of silence. As some of you may know, my home blog is a staunchly conservative political site. I go on television to opine about the evils of such and such a policy. I am not warm and fuzzy in my views.

Today I applied for a job with a Kennedy. Yes, those Kennedys.

Am I selling out? No. The Kennedy in question isn’t political. He doesn’t show up on the floor of the House to spew policy ideas to the powers that be. He has other projects, and doesn’t resign himself to just being part of the clan. Sure, he’s probably a Democrat, but Democrats are people, too! I likely wouldn’t ever get into a car near a lake with him, for good reason. Then again, he probably wouldn’t be asking me what I think about immigration amnesty, either.

This is a straightforward writing gig, for which I feel I am uniquely qualified. And if the employer were Joe Shmo, I wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation in applying. However, since it’s one of them, I freaked out. I spent hours deliberating over whether or not I should even try. I convinced myself it was a lost cause. Then it took me two hours to write the damn cover email! All because of a stupid surname.

I’ve worked with famous and iconic people before. I regularly get emails or texts from people that many are envious of my knowing. That’s not the part that scared me. I was scared by ideological differences that don’t even have anything to do with the job at hand!

So I sucked it up and hit send. Even if I don’t get the gig, at least I can look at myself in the mirror without shame for being a coward.

Geek Girl on the Street (http://geekgirlonthestreet.com) is a new web publication focusing on geeky adventure and storytelling. Launched in January 2010, we are thriving and growing, attracting +1,000 weekly visitors (we anticipate hitting our goal of 50,000 monthly visitors by December 2010). We are in search of writers who are interested in submitting geeky rants/opinions, vlog posts, interviews, product/event reviews, fan-fiction, original artwork and photography for publication. We also secure interviews/press passes to some of the country’s geekiest events for our writers – including SD Comic Con, C2E2, MacWorld, GDC, BlogHer, Maker Faire, APE and others… GGotS is a great indie publication to showcase your writing on!

Sounds pretty hip, and like it would have an easy, laid-back tone. Just my kind of thing.

But… Then it came to the compensation.

Here’s the OMG: We PAY FOR SUBMISSIONS.

(Granted it’s not a ton o’ $$ – but, in this economy something is better than nothing!)

Um, actually, no. What this ad says to me is that GGotS is going to vastly underpay any writer that is hired, and make that writer feel lucky for getting anything at all.

Now, in their defense, they haven’t actually mentioned a price, so it might be in line with other blogging gigs ($25-50 per post, depending on how much research and social media pimping is required). But it sounds more like the kind of place you should be grateful you’re hired at. Almost like an internship with a prestigious magazine.

If you are new to the blogging-as-business scene, perhaps this gig might suit you, if only to pad your collection of clips. But for me, and for other professional bloggers, it looks like too much effort for too little pay.

Ali Hale has turned blogging for clients (businesses, individuals, corporations) into a career, and her Staff Blogging Course helped me get started to do the same. I love blogging, and I wanted to make money doing what I loved.

With The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing, Ali continues the lessons learned in Staff Blogging Course and builds on them. It takes and average writer and turns him or her into a great writer. An effective writer.

An effective writer gets the message across simply and efficiently. An effective writer can write an excellent message to blog readers without spending forever hemming and hawing over every semicolon. An effective writer writes what readers want to read.

For $29, The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing will give you:

An 82-page ebook with fifteen chapters, which include the following:

• Why Good Writing Matters
• Coming Up With Ideas
• Writing At Different Stages
• Writing a Series of Posts
• Using Images
• Polishing Your Posts

PLUS: Templates for fast, effective blogging, AND, $10 off the Staff Blogging Course – did I mention I made money with it? So that means the Staff Blogging Course will only cost you $9. That’s right – nine bucks for a course that I made over $1000 with last year.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be curled up reading The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing this weekend.

Click here to view more details about The Bloggers Guide to Effective Writing by Ali Hale.

SEO Marketing is the simplest way to drive relevant traffic to your website. If you write about baking cookies, you want people searching for cookie recipes to find you. You aren’t so interested in having automobile afficionadoes stopping by. And once those cookie bakers show up, you want Google AdSense or another content based ad program (like Chitika) to have the appropriate ads running that you know they’ll want to click on. Baking supplies. Gourmet recipes. Cookie delivery services for Easter or Christmas.

So how does it work?

Concentrated content. If you want to attrack those cookie bakers, you need to have a proliferation of the right keywords. Cookie recipes. Easy cookie recipes. Bake cookies. These are great keywords to attract the right kind of people. And the concentration within your website or blog should be a minimum of 3%. The more those keywords are mentioned, the more they will be scanned and recognized by Google and other search engines as relevant. When someone searches for those words, Google will know to put your site near the top of the listings. And if you have AdSense embedded in your site, relevant ads will appear for your readers.

I’ll be the first to admit that there isn’t as much money out there as there used to be. But that’s because there are more people on the web today than there were even five years ago. There’s a level of saturation in most niches that there wasn’t a few years ago. But that doesn’t mean that SEO isn’t important or a good way to generate page views and revenue.

There was a time not so long ago that savvy website owners could use SEO marketing and AdSense as a main source of income. Huge blogs and sites still can, but for the rest of us, it’s really just a great trickle of additional revenue. I don’t depend on it to pay the rent, but I sure didn’t scoff at the Google check I received last Thursday.

If your website caters to a niche – celebrity gossip, cooking, pet care – then you can include SEO marketing without sacrificing the quality of your content.

This website is about freelance writing, self-publishing and making money by writing for the web. Notice that most of the Google ads that appear are relevant to my topic. And you, my readers, are clicking on those ads. Which means I’m doing something right.

Try it on your site and drop me a comment after a couple of months to let me know how it’s going.

For some reason though, she wasn’t in my Google Reader. Odd, considering I have about 120 writing and marketing blogs in there.

Anyhow, I’ve finally added Aliventures to my daily reading list. I’m liking it – she’s smart, makes sure to take time for herself, works to live and not the other way around, and seems to be a benevolent soul.

She’s got this great post up about motivation when times are good. How we can keep expanding without cramming our plates full for the sake of it:

If you’ve got an okay-but-static business, how about:

• Writing a book or ebook
• Producing a new product, or improving an existing one
• Getting featured in the press – or appearing on television
• Tithing 10% of your work time: donate your skills to a charity for free (for me, this means maintaining some websites and doing some writing for church groups)

Grab a bit of paper and brainstorm some ideas for your business or project. How can you take it forwards?

Add Ali to your daily reader via her RSS feed.

I also strongly recommend that writers who love to blog download Ali’s Staff Blogging Course. Make a living doing what you’re already addicted to!

Sounded good to me!

Seriously? Giving accessory and blowjob advice? And getting paid three large evey month for it? Sweet!

No, I didn’t get it. There’s was tons of great competition for it.

Elle online apparently had another job opening recently. This more recent gig was for a homeless blogger to write about life on the street. It would be one post a day (approximately an hour of writing time) and for this she would be paid…

$150 a month

From Read, Write, Web:

For a huge media brand that traffics in the culture of the wealthy and beautiful to win “compassion points” so cheaply seems ethically questionable. Ad sales for any pages Karp’s writing appears on would likely be very profitable. She’s put in front of the New York media circus as a poor unfortunate, in exchange for a famous magazine buying her breakfast each morning. Depending on her local laws, that rate of pay may not even be legal. The AP reports that Karp is being paid $150 per month and Karp links to the story without refutation of that key detail.

Brianna Karp could make more money working for a content mill than she will working for Elle. Admittedly, it’s a great launch pad, but as someone who was also homeless when I began my freelance writing business, even I know she’s being ripped off.

When I first began last year, I was charging about $12 for a blog post. I now charge no less than $20. A content mill will pay about $6. Elle is paying about $7, but the work is limited to one a day.

I have sent Brianna a copy of Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course. It’s a valuable resource for how to look for blogging gigs, and what to charge for them. Ms. Karp is being underpaid, and she’s letting it happen. I hope she learns to charge what she’s worth.

Five years ago when I started mine, I had no idea that one day people would be paying me to blog. WTF? Seriously? Wow. It began with a few ads and paid posts. Hmmm… then people were contacting me to come write for them at their blogs. Some were even offering to pay me!

And I’m not the only one.

There are numerous ways to expand your client base and increase the size of your portfolio. Common tactics used to do this include utilizing your contacts, taking part in relevant discussion forums, being active in freelance marketplaces and even watching industry specific job boards.

One idea that is implemented by some people but certainly not by everyone, is blogging. Sharing your abilities with the world in the hope that the right person finds what you have to offer. Through my experience though, quite a few people fail to have any success when trying to use this strategy.

Today I want to share my own story, and how I made over $20,000 in 4 months when my only source of clients were through blogging.

Now in this article Glenn discusses how his blogging was a matter of marketing, and that’s how he drew clients. It’s a brilliant way of showing off your abilities both as a writer and as an expert in your field.  I get gigs writing about politics (especially in areas of terror and religion) because that’s my thing. If your area of expertise is pet care or life coaching, that’s where you’ll drum up business.

In addition, if you’re a good blogger, you will be asked to write blogs. Companies love adding them, but no one has the patience or ability to actually write the posts. Enter the freelance blogger. A 500 word blog post can earn you upwards of $20 (Actually, it could earn you $1 if that’s what you’re willing to take. Another time we’ll discuss the quality differences between an escort and a crack whore, but not today). Get a few gigs writing 3 or 4 posts each per week, and you have a nice little income. It’s a sweet deal, if you’re doing something you love.

I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to break into freelance writing or blogging for a living tries Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course. Do a read-through of the 8 modules, then go back and put the lessons into practice. I did, and have since scored TWO THREE blogging jobs in the last two weeks. Cost of the course: $19. Income of jobs I’ve scored: $125/wk. $180/wk.

I love buying groceries at 10am on a Wednesday, when it’s just me and the little old ladies with their social security money. No more rush hour dinner planning for me.

I love not having to go downtown regularly. I still go, but not every day. I get to stay in my Midtown apartment and avoid the sweat and stink and urine-y taste that pervades Downtown Toronto.

I love Office Depot. Yes, also at 10am on a Wednesday, when it’s quiet. I love ogling the notepads and pretty gel pens, the agendas and binders… I was the kid who thought buying school supplies was the ONLY reason to go to school. I got off on it. I don’t actually buy much of what I ogle because I don’t really need it, but I still love gawking at it all.

I love Topless Wednesday™ and No Pants Friday™, the celebratory casual days of the home worker. Denim Friday? Pfft. How about flipflops and shorts? Every day is Margaritaville if you work from home. (ask me how I do all this shopping on Topless Wednesday™ – go ahead, you know you wanna)

I love making money doing what pleases me. Five years ago I started my political blog. Now I get paid to blog for others. You can too. I get paid to sit at my laptop and play with words all day. I get paid to think up new and exciting ways to say things that are neither new nor exciting, but sound that way when I’m done with them.

I love new media. I love my podcast, and I have lots of time to experiment with and improve it.

I love that I’ve come to terms with running my own business. Freelancing has a scary period in the beginning where you’re terrified that you’ll starve to death. But that scary period can be your downfall if you don’t get a grip. You have to let yourself be free to try new things.

I love that my “office” comes equipped with a Chihuahua and two cats. They never gossip at the water cooler. They never criticize. They do, however, stink.

I love being able to look at a project and say “this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen” and then pass on it. I couldn’t do that in corporate, or I’d get fired. Now I have control over the work I do.

Sure, being a freelancer has its downsides, like budgeting and marketing. But at the end of the day, it beats being someone’s bitch, wearing heels, and getting jammed like a sardine into a stinking subway car.

I strongly suggest that anyone who wants to break into freelance writing or blogging for a living tries Ali Hale’s Staff Blogging Course. Do a read-through of the 8 modules, then go back and put the lessons into practice. I did, and have since scored TWO blogging jobs in the last two weeks. Cost of the course: $19. Income of jobs I’ve scored: $125/wk.

Now the ProBlogger himself, Darren Rowse, is offering 5 Tips to Help You Get a Blogging Job. It’s a video, and it won’t take long to watch. Anything Darren says is worth your time, trust me. He’s not called ProBlogger for nothing.

I recently took part in Darren’s 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge. I admit, I didn’t use every trick each day. But I did improve my traffic by implementing many of the small changes he recommended. And now he has taken the course and turned it into a workbook. Click here to view more details about the workbook. I’ve ordered one, just as a reference. I know there’s tons of stuff I missed during the challenge that I’m going to want to try in the future.

And every one of those products needs copy writing. Whether it’s a new doctor offering the miracle cure, or a pharmaceutical solution to years of yo-yo dieting, they all need someone to write their copy.

You don’t necessarily have to have a degree in nutrition to grab a slice of the $6 Billion fat-free pie. You just have to be able to take available research and turn it into compelling sales copy.

If you do happen to have some medical bona fides, you are an excellent candidate to ghostwrite celebrity diet books. What? You thought they wrote their own? Most of ‘em can’t read, let alone write a million-seller.

Fact is, like everything else, health and nutrition is an industry. Keep it in mind, along with other industries that don’t always spring to mind:

• Cleaning services
• Undertaking/cemetery
• Taxi companies

If you have personal experience in the weight loss area – perhaps you lost a great deal of weight yourself – you could even start your own weight loss website. There’s plenty of ad revenue to be shared in the diet arena. Set up a website, get some articles up there, put up Google and AdBrite ads, use SEO tactics, and you’ll have a nice steady stream of money trickling in. Yes, trickling. Don’t believe the hype that you can make hundreds of dollars a day via PPC ads. But a trickle is good.

Add to that some free reports that lead to pay reports, and you have a nice little home business going. Help others beat the bulge (hey, it’s bikini season), and make a nice tidy profit. It’s a win-win.

If you need help setting up a diet website, check this out.