Making Money from Sponsored Blog Posts as a Writer

Sponsored blog posts have been a contentious issue for many bloggers, but on the positive side, hold the possibility of extra revenue from well-written content.

The route of sponsored blog posts can be both ethically and legally challenging due to advertising disclaimers, cookie awareness and privacy policies required.  Not to mention the guidelines you need to follow to keep Google happy.

So let's get started.

Selling Your Books and Other Products as a Writer

An essential part of your author platform is your book product page.  People need a quick and easy way to access these links so they can order your books.

Making money through your writing doesn't just stop at producing your own books, there are many other options you can use to make extra income on top of the income you're already receiving from the sales of your books.  Find some of those options below.

Selling Easily Downloadable or Digital Products

Digital products are e-goods and only exist in digital form but can easily be downloaded via a web page, consumed or watched online, but can also be delivered by email.  No shipping or storage is required, making profit margins higher than any physical products being sold.

You Could Sell:

A Resource or Guide 

Make Money from Affiliate Sales as a Writer

When you own your own website you can make income from other people's products through affiliate links.  

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing is the process of earning a commission by promoting other people's (or company's) products.  neilpatel.com.

This allows you to earn what is called a passive income.  This is an income source that continues to work even after the job is complete, this could be a book or movie, or other product someone else has created.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Benefit a Writer

Your writing platform will attract potential customers as well as readers to your own products, and the links you include in your blog posts.  You may want to look into other avenues for promoting your affiliate products such as, social media posts, podcasts, webinars, email marketing etc. 

Offering Consulting or Coaching Services as a Writer

If you're already producing content regularly, and have an audience that likes what you produce, chances are some may even want to call upon your expertise at some point.

This is when you can start offering your services and making some extra income from your writing.

When you started writing you built yourself a really useful skill set that can be used to your advantage. 

Driving Your Writing Business With Content Marketing

If you want to make writing your business you need to think about how you're going to establish multiple streams of income through content marketing.

The most obvious form of content marketing is writing books.  What other avenues are there to expand your income stream as a writer?

Thinking that writing books as your primary income stream is a dangerous way to think.  

Having a single income stream can be a rocky path to choose, especially in the times we're living in today.

The more you expand you're income stream the better off you'll be.  Writing opens up so many different doors, and even new projects you can build on to increase how much you earn.

How to Really Profit from Your Books

If you want to be a successful author you need to think seriously about making real money from your books.  In this section we're going to look at how to really make your books work for you, and create a long-term income.

One Book Isn't Enough

Writing just one book isn't enough to live off if you want to make money with your writing.  You need a whole shelf of books for people to buy to make real money as a writer.

It's also worth pointing out that the more books you write, the less you have to market each one, because you'll be reaching a bigger audience of people with different subjects and genres.

Don't think less is more, think more is more when it comes to making a living from your writing.  The more you stretch yourself as a writer writing in different genres, the more money you'll make in the long run.

Self-Publishing an Audio Book, What You Need to Know

These days people lead busy and chaotic lives, so it's no wonder the way we consume books has changed.  With the birth of technology, came a huge shift in the way we digest a book.  More and more people are turning to audiobooks for this simple reason, because it's an easier medium to absorb a book.

Combine this with mobile technology and you have one of the fastest growing markets for selling books. 

Oh and I forget to mention the ai technology more people have in their homes, such as Google Home and Amazon Echo that contains Whispersync technology which allows readers to go "back and forth between a Kindle book and Audible professional narration - without ever losing your place." (From insidehighered.com).

There is obviously an opportunity for authors to stand-out from the crowd if they include audiobooks in their selling arsenal.  

Self-Publishing a Print Book, What You Need to Know

I'm pleased to say that print books haven't gone out of fashion yet, and there are still plenty of people who love the touch, feel and smell of a book.  Which is reason enough to want to write your own books and have shelves full of your own work.  But most importantly to have the sense of achievement that you've created something that other people can own and read, and know that your name is on the front cover.  

From a marketing perspective it also enables you the opportunity of offering your readers the cheaper alternative of an ebook instead of the paperback version.  

Print books are handy to have when you're doing talks, giveaways, and as a marketing tool.

Here are some good reasons why you should always produce a print book: