Before I get started, if you would like to ask me a blogging related question, please email it to or send a tweet to @blogcourses.

This mornings question is: “Can you make more money writing content on your own blog, or writing for someone else’s blog and get paid for it?”

To simply put it, it depends on what you do and how much effort you put into it.

By creating your own blog, you will not get a good flow of income within the first year, but after the initial growth stage of your blog, and you monetise your blog correctly, you can potentially earn more money in the long term with your own blog. That being said, you have to put a lot of time and effort into your blog. At least 2-5 hours every day and posting new, and unique content everyday.

However, if you are not willing to put that much effort in and not get anything out of it in the first year (which also may be a little risky), you could get a blogging job with some larger blogs. Taking this route, you will be guaranteed an income from day one. By using this method, the more posts you write, the more money you make. But if you stop writing for other blogs, you stop getting paid.

This may not be the case if you have your own blog though. If you develop your own blog to be reasonably large, you can pay other writers to write content on your blog, or get people to guest post on your blog, and you should get enough money from displaying ads and selling products, that you don’t have to put any work in (or put a little amount of work in), and the blog pretty much runs itself and gives you an income as well.

So it is really up to you on what path to take. Create your own blog and see if you can make some money in the long term, or get a paid job and get an income straight away. If you are thinking only to blog for someone else and not have a blog yourself, you may want to read these 28 tips on why you should have a blog.

However, nothing is stopping you from doing both at the same time. And if you want to get a blogging job, you usually have to show off some of your work. So it might be a good idea to start your own blog and try to make that work; and write for someone else on the side and get paid for it.

If you decide to look for a blogging job, you should check out Weblogs, Inc which is owned by AOL. You can write about pretty much any topic you want and for any blog on their network, or even start up your own through them. I am not sure about what they pay, but it was rumoured to be $4 per post, but don’t quote me on that as it seems pretty low. Another great site to work for is Make Use Of.com, but there are heaps of blogs around looking for paid authors. Just find a blog you regularly read, and see if they are hiring.

So my question to you, have you got or had a paid blogging job? What was it like, who was it with, and how much did it pay (if you are allowed to disclose). This was this Monday mornings question.