Are You Thinking of Monetizing Your Natural Writing Talent through Blogging?

By katerinaramm | katerinaramm | 18 Apr 2023

Are You Thinking of Monetizing Your Natural Writing Talent through Blogging?
Make sure you read this before starting!

Blogging is a very popular activity on the internet and constantly growing. And I can prove it to you with numbers:

There are more than 600 million blogs in the world wide web.
According to Finances Online, blogs are a trusted source of information for an incredible 81% of US consumers
Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trustworthy source for gathering online information.
Internet users in the US spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email.

And the list goes on and on. You can find many interesting statistics if you visit https://truelist.co/blog/blog-statistics or https://optinmonster.com/blogging-statistics/

Why or when should anyone blog?

In my opinion a blogger should blog when they have something important to share with the world. A blogger should start writing when they need to express themselves. Another reason for someone to start blogging is to support their online business, or to earn online through different ways.

How is it possible for someone to blog & earn online?

This is not such a simple question, it requires a more complex response but we could discuss 2 large categories.

.a. You can create your own blog, where you can earn via affiliate links, selling products or services, and monetizing via advertising or sponshorships.

.b. Complementary to the (a) or standalone, you could create a blog in one of the various online platforms that allow monetization (such an example is medium.com,

hive.blog / https://peakd.com/register?ref=katerinaramm , publish0x) or other.

(This is a list of websites I use on a daily basis, there are many more websites to choose from. My post is based on my experience for the past 5 years and is written without the use of any AI. There may be referral links included in my post, they have no cost for you)

My writing background

I was always writing, since I remember myself. But I wrote for my eyes only; I never thought of writing for an audience. I would only (and barely) accept my teachers having to read my masterpieces.

[fast forward to 2017]

I will not lie to you. I had left my job (another story to be shared soon) and I was searching for ways to earn money online. I tried many things, including freelancing, various apps and blogging sites. At the same time, I started learning about crypto & Bitcoin. So what could be better than combining the two of them?

First, I created an account on

hive.blog / https://peakd.com/register?ref=katerinaramm (2017). Then, in 2019, I created an account on Medium.com (2019) But I never actually used it or monetized it until November 2022. In 2020, I created my publish0x account!

In between, I have tried many, many platforms. But the main ones that I use up to now, are the above.

I will now share with you a list of features that you can check for every website so that you can better decide which one(s) are the best for you to use.

Platform features

Signing Up Process

What information do you need to provide for signing up? Mail? Phone number? Are you comfortable for providing that?

Monetization

When are the blogs monetized? Immediately? Or are there any requirements that need to be met?
Medium has specific eligibility criteria for an author to apply for monetization. The users will need to have at least 100 followers, and at least one story published. Additionally, the users will need to come from one of the specific countries that are mentioned in the link. They will need to create a stripe account, enter tax & bank information and then apply as an author. If you get accepted, then there is a specific process to enroll

Hive or publish0x do not have similar requirements.

What will you be paid in?

In Medium, via Stripe, you can choose your FIAT currency (usually your bank's currency)
Hive is paying you mainly in Hive/HBD (and also in layer-2 tokens, depending on certain factors). You receive these in your hive wallet (created with your account) and you can exchange them with fiat currency or auto-invest them in the platform for growing in power and increasing your earnings.
For Publish0x you need to be accepted as an author to start posting. If you are joining in the month of April, you got a chance to be accepted quicker. Check out this post for details.
Publish0x rewards you in crypto (at the moment ETH, AMPL and SPOT)

How do you earn?

You should know how you will earn so that you can decide if it is worth it to start blogging in this platform.

If you become a Medium Partner (as mentioned above, if you are eligible, if you apply and get accepted & enroll) you can earn the following ways.

In Medium, you are rewarded according to the reading time of paying (subscribed) members. Members who pay 5$ monthly subscription have access to all articles (if you are not a member you can read 3 stories free per month)
You can get members to subscribe through your referral link and you will earn a small amount of the subscription fee (This is my referral link https://katerinaramm.medium.com/membership)
Every post in theory, could infinitely earn as long as members keep reading it.
You do not have to be a paying member to become a Medium Partner and to monetize your blog. However, I have found out that being a paying member helps you be more social, you can read all posts, and also you offer something to others as you also earn from them reading your posts.
In Hive, the users write posts that are rewarded according to the upvotes they receive by the other community members.
There are also other ways to earn such as participating in different communities and earning also additional tokens, playing games to earn (splinterlands etc), use other dapps (move2earn such as actifit) or delegating hive to specific accounts so that you passively earn. Also, if you stake your earned Hive to Hive Power, you earn 2% APR, while if you stake your earned HBD (3 days locked) you currently earn 20% APR
In Publish0x, the user earns when they post and users upvote them, or when they upvote other posts. Think of it as micro payments that are limited per user. You can read more in this older post of mine, until I publish a more updated guide.

Content

Before you sign up, take some time to check out what kind of content is posted in the platform. Is it varied? How can someone find / filter specific (niche) content?
Read some popular posts and see what people are writing, what comments they leave. What are your thoughts? Are there many bots? Are there people that you could easily connect with? What about your content? Could your content fit in?

Let's check out for instance Medium.com.

(Checking from a browser where I am not logged in)

Medium.com 18th of April

Hive.blog or https://peakd.com/trending (most trending posts 18th of April)

Publish0x 18th of April

What do you notice?
Do you see that both in hive & publish0x, you can see what every post has earned? In medium you can not see the earnings of each post, only how many claps (likes) a post has and its comments.

General

Depending on the purpose of your blog posts, you may need to share posts that you already have written in the past, or share affiliate (referral links) or from time to time share AI generated content.

Check out carefully the information on every platform so that you make sure you well understand its guidelines. Also, check out if there is anything in particular that you need to know in advance before joining.

For instance, it is important to know if you are eligible to monetize in Medium. In Publish0x, most of the blogs are crypto-oriented so get read to read and write crypto. In Hive, there are many different communities so you can write about any topic!

I hope that my post will answer some of your basic questions and will help you in making a decision. Which platform should you choose? What are your goals and how do you plan to achieve them? Do you have a specific niche? Would you like to experiment?

If you are just starting, then you can start with a platform with zero investment. That will help you practice and get more ideas about how you could proceed, depending on your goals.