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Tag: blog posts

  • 7 Clever Ways to Turn Your Old Blog Posts Into Cash

    7 Clever Ways to Turn Your Old Blog Posts Into Cash

    Ever started a blog, written a few dozen entries on a topic you care about, seen the comments trickle in, and then…gotten bored and quit?

    The three encouraging comments that seemed wonderful when you started the blog don’t seem quite so wonderful now that you’ve been consistently blogging for a year with not much result. Has all that precious time been wasted?

    Not if you can find gold nuggets in your archives.

    Whether you’re a blogger who has quit or a blogger who continues (even begrudgingly), your blog archives can be a very good source of material for both active and passive income that can build over time.

    Here are some ideas for digging revenue-generating material out of your blog archives.  

    1. Ebooks

    Let’s get this one out of the way first, because it’s the go-to method of revenue generation for writers and bloggers. And it’s not a bad one.

    Creating ebooks is a fantastic way to convert your existing work into cash.

    The only problem with this approach — especially if your blog hasn’t quite found a big audience yet — is that the cash can be sparse initially, and selling ebooks isn’t quite as profitable as most writers hope. But ebooks can be a fantastic source of passive income.

    2. Apps

    You’d be surprised how many opportunities exist to write for apps, or to partner with app creators who need content for their creations.

    I know many writers who produced content for several apps a few years ago. This model has changed somewhat and you’re more likely to get work if you email app developers directly and offer your services. , 

    Think of all the apps you use — a fitness tracker, say, or Google’s marketing skills app, Primer. Someone had to write all those tips about sleeping well and measuring your metrics, right? That someone could be you.

    3. Articles and guest posts

    I love writing about the art and craft of writing, and especially the business of freelancing. Freelancing is a lifestyle that gives me flexibility, location independence, and financial freedom. Along with contributing to several writing-focused publications, I also run a website for writers, The International Freelancer.

    You know what I do when I’m running out of ideas? I look through my blog posts for articles and guest posts to pitch.

    But I don’t just copy any old blog post and send it to editors. I look through each post and take out one key point, then pitch a story around that point only. I’m repurposing existing content, yet still providing new value.

    4. Personal essays

    Come on, ’fess up. You know you’ve ranted and raved on your blog. You may have published that awesome rant and let it gather dust, or you may have deleted it later out of embarrassment.

    Either way, dig it up and see if you can rewrite your rant in the form of an opinion piece or an essay.

    5. Online courses

    Two years ago, I created a personal challenge on my blog to send 30 queries to major national and international publications within 30 days.

    As I pitched and heard from O, the Oprah magazine, Wired, MIT Tech Review, and The New York Times magazine, and landed a blogging gig with Psychology Today, my readers eagerly followed my progress.

    My success with my queries spurred them to try their own challenges, but questions kept popping into my inbox: How did you organize your ideas? How did you find editors’ names? When is the ideal time to follow up?

    A few months later, I floated the idea of an e-course called 30 Days, 30 Queries that would show writers how to pitch and get assignments from national magazines by sending 30 queries in 30 days.

    Within days, I had four-dozen signups. In just over a year, my course has generated $30,000 in revenue and I’ve since launched more courses and created a six-figure online business.

    If your blog is educational, e-courses are almost a natural progression. Your readers will happily pay for access to your expertise.  

    6. Webinars and video trainings

    If you have an online business, webinars and video trainings (either free or paid) are the new frontier to explore. The sooner you get involved, the better!

    If you’d like to see one in action, here’s one of mine.

    If you struggle to choose an idea, pick a bunch of posts about the same subject and use them to get started.

    7. Advertising or promotional material

    If you’re a business-minded freelance writer, you know how much work and content can go into promotions, either for individual products or your business itself.

    Content is the engine on which online marketing runs. As a writer — with a blog full of content — it’s a fantastic idea to take old posts and tweak them to create new promotional material.

    Is there anything I’ve missed? How do you repurpose your old blog posts for cash? I’d love to know your thoughts in the comments!

    This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

    This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

    Photo via Pashun Astapenko Oksana/ Shutterstock 
  • How to Create a Successful Blog: Batch Produce Your Posts

    How to Create a Successful Blog: Batch Produce Your Posts

    What does your blog post writing process look like?

    For a lot of bloggers — whether they’re blogging on their own blog or as a freelancer — writing blog posts involves:

    • Struggling for an idea, under deadline pressure.
    • Leaping in without a plan.
    • Putting off writing a post altogether because it seems like such a huge task.                             
    • Getting distracted while editing, adding links or finding images

    One great way to make writing easier and more enjoyable is to batch produce your posts.

    Think of batch production in terms of cookies.

    If you’re going to make a dozen cookies, you don’t do it like this:

    1. Check the recipe.
    2. Prepare ingredients for one cookie.
    3. Mix ingredients.
    4. Bake the cookie.
    5. Wash up your equipment.
    6. Repeat 11 more times.

    That would be, clearly, a massive waste of time. Instead, you do it like this:

    1. Check the recipe.
    2. Prepare ingredients for 12 cookies.
    3. Mix ingredients for 12 cookies.
    4. Bake 12 cookies.
    5. Wash up all the equipment.

    With blog posts, it’s similar.

    You could get an idea for one post, plan one post, write one post…or, instead, batch similar tasks together so you’re producing lots of ideas and plans at once.

    Yes, it takes a lot longer to complete 12 blog posts than it takes to bake 12 cookies.

    You don’t necessarily have to create a “batch” at every stage of the process (in particular, you may only want to draft one or two posts at a time). Even if you can batch together just some of your writing tasks, you’ll find it makes your blogging life a whole lot easier.

    Here’s how to do it.

    1. Brainstorm lots of ideas

    You don’t have to do this on paper, but I find it helps to get away from the screen. Sit down with a notebook and jot down all the ideas that come to you.

    You might want to create a mindmap, use specific prompts, or whatever else works for you. I find  some of my best ideas come when I’m away from my usual work environment — so you may want to try leaving your desk and heading to a local coffee shop. (If you want to go beyond the coffee shop, check out some of these suggestions for new places to write.)

    Allow 20 minutes for coming up with ideas.

    Don’t worry about whether they’re any good or not…just write everything down.

    Sometimes, a so-so idea can lead you to a brilliant one.

    2. Create several blog post plans

    Choose four or so of your best ideas and write a plan for each one. I’d suggest spending 5-10 minutes per plan.

    In the plan, jot down:

    • The message or core idea of the post (you might want to try coming up with a title at this stage).
    • The key points or steps the post will cover.
    • Any thoughts about resources you might link to, experts you might quote, etc.
    • A “call to action” for the end of the post.

    The great thing about creating plans ahead of time like this is that when you come to write, a lot of the work has already been done for you.

    This makes drafting a post feel much less overwhelming.

    3. Draft one (or more!) blog posts

    Once you’ve got several plans in place, grab one and flesh it out into a full post.

    This is the biggest single step of the process…but it should go smoothly if you have a solid idea and a clear plan in place before you start to write.

    If you tend to get distracted while you write, try:

    • Switching off your internet connection. If you need to look up a fact or figure… don’t. Just pop a note in the document and come back to it when you edit.
    • Writing in timed bursts. You might try Pomodoros (25 minutes writing, five minutes break) or  set a timer for however long you think it should take you to finish the draft. While the timer is ticking away, you’re writing.
    • Listening to music through noise-cancelling headphones. I find this hugely helpful in blocking out distracting noises (especially when I’m working in a coffee shop or library and other people are moving around and chatting).
    • Find an app that helps you to stay focused. It could be a timer, a distraction-blocker, a time tracker like RescueTime, or something that plays sound/music that helps you concentrate.

    4. Edit several blog posts

    If time permits, write three or four blog posts before you edit.

    The “editing” mindset is quite different from the “writing” one, and you may find that once you get into the swing of editing, it becomes easier to spot your overused words and clunky phrasings.

    The other big advantage to editing several posts at once is that it makes it easy to create connections and links between them…or to avoid inadvertently making them too similar.

    5. Find (and edit) images for your posts

    Do you ever spend more time than you’d like to admit trying to find the perfect image for your post?

    By seeking images for several posts at once, you’ll likely find it’s a quicker process. Maybe something that comes up isn’t quite right for the post that you had in mind … but it’ll be perfect for a different one on your list.

    If you create branded images for your blog, it’s generally quicker to make several at once: that way, you don’t have to repeatedly open up your image-editing software and set up the right colors and so on.

    One great benefit of batching your blog post writing tasks like this is that you’ll be able to make better use of the ups and downs of creative energy.

    When you’re feeling keen to explore ideas and come up with high-level plans, you can work on those stages of the production process.

    When you’re feeling focused and creative, you can write — without thinking about everything else.

    When you’re in a more critical, analytic mode, you can do lots of edits at once.

    When you’re having a bit of a slump, you can do some of the more mundane bits of blog post production — like finding and editing images.

    You’ll also be able to take advantage of bits of time when you’re not at your computer: ideas can easily be jotted down in a notebook, as can plans…and if you print out your drafts in advance, you can edit anywhere too.

    If you’ve not tried batch production before, set aside some time to give it a go during the next week. I’d suggest:

    • Spend one 20 minute session generating ideas for your blog (or your client’s blog).
    • Spend another 30 minute session outlining at least four posts, draw from those ideas.

    Investing less than an hour in this way will make it so much easier to get your next four posts written.

    Have you tried batch producing blog posts? We’d love to hear about your experiences in the comments.