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The Process of Going Pro as a Blogger

Posted By Darren Rowse 12th of November 2007 Miscellaneous Blog Tips 0 Comments

When To Go Proimage by //bwr

If you’ve got a goal of Going Pro as a Blogger I highly recommend that you head over to a great post by JD who writes about the transition of Quitting his Day Job and becoming a Pro Blogger.

I get asked ‘how and when should I go Pro as a blogger’ quite a bit – and have always advised bloggers to see going Pro as a process and not an event.

JD embodies this fully. While he’s already earning $5000 a month blogging from his blog Get Rich Slowly he has decided to make the next 12 or so months a transitional process – gradually moving away from his day job with a family business to becoming a full time blogger.

The other thing that I love about JD’s post is that he gives a little insight into the two emotions that many bloggers feel as they enter into the process of going Pro – fear and excitement.

Further Reading:

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. JD ~ your site and story are great! I plan to use your blog and Darren’s to help motivate me as I go from full time employee to unemployed entrepreneur on November 30th.

  2. That was a nice post – I especially love the part where he does the risk evaluation and considers the possibility of losing his thumbs in a blogging accident!

    Seriously, this is the *sensible* way to do things and I admire him for doing it this way. Considering he’s already making $5k a month and yet he still plans to continue working at his day job for another year just cutting it down.

    If I was earning that much I’d quit in an instant! Well, I already did :-) But I really admire his ability to stick to his plan and plut out a long term strategy. I’m sure he can’t possibly fail with that kind of planning and existing success behind him.

  3. What a great post. It’s inspirational to read about bloggers achieving real success.

    I also like the fact that JD is realistic about the process of becoming a professional blogger. While many may aspire to this goal, I wonder how many have really thought it through.

  4. I am at the same point now or close to it. Last month, I made $6500 on my own, not from pure blogging but as a whole. My day job pays $30,000 a year. I spend 2000 hours a year making $30,000. I spend maybe 750 hours making $45,000 on my own. It is hard to go to work every day seeing that, but I like my wife being home with the kids.
    Next year. My day job has no benefits. I am getting paid $15 to watch my bosses site go from $30,000 a month to $80,000 a month due to my efforts.
    Maybe I just need to get a new day job. Anyone hiring a developer/SEO/do anything tech guy with only a G.E.D. for more than $15 out there. :)
    Well, at least it gives me a reason to fight even harder to get away from the rat race.

  5. An excellent and detailed explanation of how to go about becoming pro sensibly – it shows how much thought and planning J.D. had put into the whole thing. He is actually showing much courage to move from a more secure income into depths unknown (well, not too much to him since he has established himself quite a bit), and to do that he has given himself justifiable reasons. Lots of good advice in there for anyone looking to ‘jump in’. :)

  6. Stephan don’t feel bad. I’m doing a lot worse at my company and I’m doing at least 5 different jobs here (web designer, coder, handheld devices programmer, admin, ….)

  7. We all wish we could do that. The problem is that our full-time jobs take up most of our time that we could spend on writing content and promoting our websites.

  8. He has a really well thought out plan for his ‘hop of faith’ into the pro-blogger field. I not at that point yet, no where near but I am looking forward to time when I and my readership are ready to go pro.

  9. Thanks for sharing this, really interesting read. What I’d like to add from my personal experience tho is you gotta be really devoted to your blogging goals to success – I tried running a blog several times only to lose interest to it some time later… surely thease things don’t work that way

  10. That is a question I want to get the chance to ask myself! thanks for sharing!

  11. I read JD’s post and I subscribed to his feed after reading it. No doubt, JD is a very smart person, and he actually knows what the heck he is doing.

    I think is not an easy task to make the decision to quit the day job to become financially dependant on a medium so uncertain like blogging. But he basically has everything figured out; good luck to JD and wish him very much success on his new career.

  12. I would say once you make 60% of your day job salary by blogging then you should definetly switch right then. At about 40%, i would start making the transition but maybe keep your job part-time until the pay equals 60%.

    Or you could cut back on living (going out to eat, movies, etc.) for a little while until you get some more Cash :)

  13. I made the decision to quit my full-time job as well. My job was paying me $45,000 a year which was enough for me to live on comfortably but I just got tired of the hum-drum and quit at the end of October. Also I have no responsibilities so I thought I might as well do it while I still have the chance.

    I am nowhere as well organised as JD. I just decided to quit and give it a go. In my first week I made $7. In my second I made $35. In my third I made $81. This is my fourth week and I’m on course to top that again so things are going ok.

    It is hard work though. Especially when you’ve got zero talent like me! JD definitely has it better worked out.

  14. Great read.

    So Darren, did you go through a similar process? I’d like to see a post on how you went through it. From day job to pro blogger.

  15. What makes this easier is if you have skills that are in demand that would allow you to go back to your field should something go wrong with your new adventure.

    It takes a certain amount of built in “entrepreneurship” for some to consider going on their own. I admire those that go for it and love it when they succeed.

  16. What’s exceptional about this story that is goes to show you that if you do what you love while finding a way to provide some value to others, you’ll be rewarded – and often times rewarded big.

  17. Gyutae Park – check out this post which describes my own story – some similarities to JD’s story.

  18. J.D. certainly has presented a very well thought out plan for making the transition. I found this article to be incredibly useful and only wish it had been written before I made the transition myself.

    -Melissa Donovan
    Writing for Writers

  19. Thanks Darren…you give me hope. I actually just started my first-ever blog at the end of September just for fun. I decided that the almost pathetic amount of time I spent daily reading about one of my favorite subjects (MMORPG games) should at least be for something, and off I went.

    Now, after a month and a half, I find myself with a pagerank of 3, a small but decent amount of readers, and the hope that one day far down the road I may actually be able to turn a buck off the concept of blogging.

    I’ve got a long way to go, but ultimately it doesn’t matter…I’ll still be doing Lag-O-Rama ten years from now if I never make a penny on it…I enjoy it.

  20. I’ll have to try the article later. I’m getting an error page at the moment. JD must make pretty good money at his day job. I would quit my job at about 2k per month. Maybe even $1500, considering Child care would no longer be an expense.

    5k/month is twice what I make at my day job. You can bet I wouldn’t be wasting my time on that pointless job if I could make twice that from blogging.

  21. JD’s blog brings forth some great inspiration to some of us little bloggers.

    -Mike

  22. This is an awesome post!

    I’m actually going back to the work force since my wife is about to give birth to our first child.

    I’m hoping to get to your level so that I can quit working once and for all.

    Cheers,
    Carlo Selorio

  23. Great Post. Thank you for the link and the info Darren.

    I always get torn between those to emotions, fear and Excitement. I get SOO excited about something, and then as soon as that emotions fades, even just a little, I get a bit scared.

    So thank you again.

  24. I became full time with the help of my employer………….meaning they implemented a retrenchment.

  25. I love JD’s site and it’s nice to see it get some richly-deserved (pun fully intended… awful, I know) love for this post. I am hoping to move in the direction of gradually building my own blog and taking it in steps. I am just hoping to get to the step of $100 per month and then see where I go from there. $5K sounds great.

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