<$Monday, July 7, 2008$>
I signed up for Social Spark!
 It's no secret that I sometimes use this blog to pull in some extra income, mainly via paid posts. The idea of accepting compensation to blog about something is a bit controversial for some; mainly, I think, for those who confuse personal blogging with professional journalism. But being that this is a personal blog, and a blog about personal finance (among other, related things), which includes finding extra streams of income, I think paid blogging fits right in. I only do it part time, because I only have a limited amount of time to devote to it, and also because I can get a little burned out on blogging as a whole if I do too much of it at someone else's pace. But the money is good. As an established, if not wildly (or even just kinda) popular, blogger, I pull in an average of $30/hour. Considering I only devote about an hour a week to it, for me that's also an extra $30/week. That may look like chump change, but you'd be amazed at how much progress I've made paying down my credit cards already just by applying these little weekly paid blogging "debt snowflakes" to my balance. Of course, those who devote more time to it make significantly more. I started out doing it through PayPerPost, where last year I made over a thousand dollars--a teensy fraction of what some of the full-time Posties pulled in. So it's only natural that I signed up for SocialSpark, the newest venture from Izea, Inc., the people behind PayPerPost. SocialSpark is Izea's attempt to once again revolutionize the paid blogging market by turning it into a social network, thereby gaining even more exposure both for bloggers and the products they advertise.   What I like most about this new network is that, unlike PPP, I don't have to keep refreshing the opportunities page all day long in the hopes of grabbing a good one before it's snapped up by my competition. With SocialSpark, I just reserve a slot, and they e-mail me to let me know when they're ready for me to write my post--after which I have twelve hours to get it written and posted. And if I see an opportunity I like that doesn't have any openings, with SocialSpark I can contact the advertiser and request that they open a new slot just for me. This is my first post for SocialSpark, so it remains to be seen if it will work out as well for me as its predecessor did; but I have high hopes for it, and high expectations for how it will change the paid blogging biz.  Labels: disclosure, extra income, PPP |
