#09writeoff: Emma interviews a fashion blogger…

June 22nd, 2009 • View Comments 2009 Write-off, Emma's Posts - #09writeoff

For Day 13, Emma interviews fashion blogger Zephyr of CollegeFashion.net about blogging and its difficulties. CollegeFashion.net is a site aimed at offering fashion tips, trends, and deals for college-age girls. I can’t say I’ve ever seen this site before, but I’m not exactly its target audience. From the article:

7. Do you have any advice for someone starting out with trying to move their blog to a full-time employment opportunity?

Work hard and don’t expect success to come overnight. So many people start blogging because they think it’s a “get rich quick” thing, and nothing could be further from the truth! To be honest, I think blogging is one of the LEAST easy/quick ways to make money online. You have to work really hard, write well, motivate yourself, stay creative, and update as often as you can to see success, and even then success isn’t guaranteed. It’s definitely not for everyone – you have to be willing to work hard for next to nothing for a few years before you’ll see real income.

Interesting thoughts from a full-time blogger. One of the things that I’ve always thought you’d have to be able to pull off as a full-time blogger would be living on a reduced budget, because Zephyr definitely has a point regarding it being incredibly difficult to make money blogging. If any of you have been thinking about writing or blogging as a career, this post is a good read for some of the pitfalls or issues to expect.

Emma’s certainly winning the creativity portion of this content – in her 7 days of posts, she has a picture, a video, and an interview among her content, where I just have myself blathering on. Go check her posts out if you haven’t yet already!

#09writeoff Day 9: Emma writes about loving advertising

June 18th, 2009 • View Comments 2009 Write-off, Emma's Posts - #09writeoff

Yesterday, Emma wrote about her love of advertising. The language she used to describe it isn’t exactly what I would’ve chosen, as evidenced here:

It is a kind of business that touches many people’s lives (whether they want it to or not!). With advertising, you can actually point to a campaign on the street or while watching TV with a friend and say, “See that? I worked on that” and they can instantly relate to what you do. It is the kind of industry that you could be minding your own business on the bus and overhear someone talking about the campaign you’ve just spent a couple months pulling together. You can get instant feedback on whether someone liked the strategy you went with or didn’t at all.

I can’t say that’s the way I feel about the advertising business – perhaps ironic, given the type of work I do. When I look at clients that are trying to put together advertising pieces, I want to work with the ones that are either a) willing to try to do something different and creative or b) products that I truly identify with. With the amount of advertising that I’ve been subjected to since birth, I’ve mostly tuned out the “sell campaigns” that 95% (or more) of advertising is. I certainly don’t LOVE it like Emma does. Just my two cents, anyway. Still a good post, and a cool ad at the end of it.

#09writeoff – Day 7: Emma writes about dealbreakers

June 16th, 2009 • View Comments 2009 Write-off, Emma's Posts - #09writeoff

Monday’s post from Emma discusses those things that people do in their lives that we just can’t forgive. That’s right, we’re talking about dealbreakers. As she puts it:

So. Deal breakers. They’re totally individual, may make absolutely no sense at all, and are a pretty strong motivator. And until recently, I had not given much thought to them at all.

Emma goes on to list her dealbreakers of smoking and snoring. I have to admit that I share the smoking dealbreaker – sorry, any of you smokers reading this – and would include hard drug usage with that as well. If you’re destroying your body like that, I want no part of it. Loud-talkers are also a dealbreaker for me. I have fairly sensitive hearing – perhaps a byproduct of my lousy eyes – and loud, irritating voices just drive me nuts.

Past those, I can’t think of any others that are sure dealbreakers right away, although I’m sure there are some. What about you; any dealbreakers in your lives?