Writing for Your Wealth

I wasn’t going to write anything for this blog this week, since I’m at the coast with my family, but… I’m an addict, so here I am.

Before I left, I chanced across a couple of different posts from bloggers who were lamenting that they couldn’t make money because they weren’t experts. They felt they didn’t have any obvious skills they could exploit.

That argument has been on my mind, so I had to take some time out from beach-combing to respond.

It’s not hard to see where this kind of thinking comes from, as it’s pretty common advice in the blogosphere to use your blog as a way to establish your status as a trusted authority or an “expert” in a certain niche. Then you can make money by getting more clients or linking to affiliate products in your industry or creating and selling products of your own. It’s easier to get someone to buy something if they trust you and believe you know what you’re talking about.

For example, if you’re a personal trainer, you can use your blog to give diet and fitness advice. Good advice would help establish your expert status, and you’d attract more business. Or, if you’re a music instructor, you can post videos to your blog giving tips and mini lessons to show you’re a pro. Then you can sell courses on learning the guitar.

But if you’re not already an expert or don’t have any skill to exploit, then you can’t make money from blogging, writing books, creating products, etc., right?

Wrong.

First, let’s get one thing straight:

Writing is a skill in its own right

One of the folks I visited who was lamenting a lack of expertise had a very engaging blog. What I read was witty, informative, and grammatically correct to boot. (I can hardly ever cram all three of those into a single post!)

If you can write, you certainly do have a marketable skill that can translate into money. You can even call it a form of expertise. An expert doesn’t have to be someone who spent eight years in school studying a profession. Some people will say an expert is simply someone who knows more about a subject than you do.

Do you know how many people are poor writers? A LOT.

Being able to communicate through the written word is a skill, and being able to research complicated material and break it down into laymen’s terms is what writers have been doing since the first scribbles went onto clay tablets (okay, those first scribbles were probably accounting records for the king’s grain, but you get the picture). A lot of people who have written bestselling books (and money-making blogs!) weren’t officially educated in the subjects they wrote about. They simply knew how to research and how to present the material in a helpful and appealing manner.

So, how do you turn your skill at writing into money in the blogosphere?

There are two (at least!) approaches you can take.

Be a reporter

As far as blogging and creating products goes, if you’re not an expert in the niche you want to work in, then take the reporter route. Study what the experts are doing and share the helpful stuff with your readers.

Being the intermediary is a perfectly legitimate role. It becomes your job to translate the industry gobbley gook, breaking it down for the non-expert. Eventually you’ll be well-versed enough in the niche to add your own opinions.

Just recently I ordered a book from someone who interviewed a lot of internet business experts and combined the material into a $20 book. (If the book turns out to be good, I’ll post a review here.)

There is definitely money to be made filling a reporter role.

Choose to become an expert

In some areas, you really do need a lot of schooling and hands-on experience to become an expert, but in other areas, it’s just a matter of spending some time studying to gain a suitable knowledge of a subject. You may already be on your way.

Just because nobody has walked up to you, pinned a ribbon on your chest, and proclaimed you an expert, doesn’t mean you aren’t one.

If there’s a niche you’re interested in learning more about and becoming an expert in, then start reading. Also start visiting online communities and participating in dialogues. See what others with more experience are saying. And…

Don’t feel you have to wait until you know everything to start your blog.

You definitely don’t have to be an expert on everything on the first day. Think I know everything about writing to build passive income? Of course not. That I’m earning a living from my blogs and websites gives me experience in one area, but as I go along, I’m learning about a lot of other ways people are writing their way to financial freedom.

Even “real” experts are still learning.

If you have a willingness to learn and teach what you’ve learned, you can make money.