Earning Money

I completely disappeared for quite a few days without giving my readers any idea of where I was going and when I would return. Because of that, I saw a slight drop in my stats and that’s something that as a web earner, you never want to do. So, this post is going to be one of those posts where I give you advice on what not to do after I already have made the mistake. And it is based off of something that I really did realize from taking the unexpected break.

There is nothing wrong with taking a short break every once in a while to focus on yourself, to rejuvinate, to recover, to whatever you want to call it. The one thing, though, is the length of time. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take month long breaks like John Cow did. But, what they did that I did not do was tell my readers that I was disappearing. That is the fault in it and that is what I have to learn to fix. There are times when I get so overwhelmed with school, my guitar, and friends, that I forget to post. But, the thing that I need to remember and other bloggers need to remember is that this IS a business. Your blog is a business even if it is a passion.

I spent some time today as I was planning this blog post to try and determine what sorts of things I think I should do if I ever want to take another break, whether it is long or short. One of the first things that I realized I needed to do is set aside about three or four blog posts to have set up just in case I can’t get time to sit down and type. One weekend, I just need to sit down, type a few posts, save them as drafts and when the time comes that I can’t post or I just want to take a break, put them on auto-post and voila, I am done.

Another thing that I can do is take the time out to e-mail some of my friends and invite them to write a guest blog post. I am sure that if I offered a few links to them in the post as well as an intro, they’d be more than willing to write a guest post or two. I know that if I were to get an e-mail asking for a guest blog post, I’d write one for the individual. The point is, you are hoping to find another few posts that you can time stamp and by doing this, you are ensuring that your blog is updated when you are ‘disappearing.’ But, like I wrote once before, don’t rely entirely on guest blog posts. People are there to read your content, not others.

One final thing that you really ought to do when you are going to disappear is have all of your private advertisers prepped for your disappearance. For instance, if you are going away for a month and during that month, someone’s ad needs to be added because they have been added to a ‘list’ of pre-paid advertisers, they will be incredibly upset if their ad is not added the SECOND the day starts. So, one thing that you may want to do is let people know that you are going to be disappearing. You can either give your current advertiser a nice little deal that gives them until when you get back or you just tell the private advertiser that they will only have to pay for half the month. My advice, though, would be to get someone you know to update your advertisers for you (if you trust them) when the time comes.

Disappearing can sometimes be an unavoidable thing. We intend on getting something done and then - for whatever reason - we just disappear. To prevent against your blog deteriorating, just ensure that you do a few things to prepare for the disappearing act. Write a few posts for time stamp, get some guest blog posts, and also get your advertisers prepped for the period of time that you will be away. We’re entitled to have some time to ourselves; however, as long as we are writing and trying to make money from this, we need to ensure that we keep things consistent. So, I just wanted to apologize for disappearing and I’m back.

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