Getting A Life

So I have now signed up for PayPerPost.

This blog is something of a personal record of my work towards getting my life in order, but it is also an ongoing experiment to test whether I can cut it as a problogger. As such I am constantly on the lookout for ways to earn a little here and there in the process of doing what I would do anyway, as I have been blogging or online-journaling since 2000 or so anyhow.

I set up an account at PayPerPost about two weeks ago, give or take, but could not finish activating the account because this blog wasn’t old enough. Now that it’s over a month old, however, I have been able to set everything up and get started. So this is my first post through PayPerPost, and my assignment here is to talk about my experience with PPP thus far.

Signup was easy. You have to add some code to your blog for things to track properly, so if you aren’t good at altering your code that might be a slight snag, but if you’re trying to become a professional blogger then you need to either master basic HTML or hire a website designer anyway. The turnaround time was quick; I think I got my notification email that my blog had been approved less than twelve hours after I plugged in my blog information on my PPP account.

I also installed PPP’s Firefox plugin–equally painless–and have been playing with it a little bit. You can tell PPP when you visit a website that you’d like to blog about for pay. The plugin also tells you whether there is already a blogging opportunity at the site you’re visiting and gives you a running tally of how much you’ve earned so far.

Best of all, in my opinion, is the Today’s Random 10 feature in the Firefox plugin. When you click on it, it takes you to some random blog which is a member of PayPerPost. If you’re looking to expand your blogroll or just want to see who’s writing what out there, this feature is an excellent way to find other bloggers. And of course you can also find them on the PPP website.

I haven’t started pinging other bloggers I find on PPP yet, either through the plugin or on the website, but I’m kind of shy about just putting myself out there. However, as this is not just a personal finance blog, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings one bit to find bloggers who cover some of the other subject matter of this blog, such as parenting or household organization. Mmmmm… braaaaains to pick! Yay!

Oh, and I did say the site’s name is PayPerPost, right? That implies you get paid to post in your blog, yes? Right. So what’s the pay like? Well, it sure beats most of the assignments on MTurk hands down. Let’s put it this way, you could earn in ten to twenty minutes writing for PPP what you’d earn flipping burgers at Mickey D’s, and many of the assignments pay much better than that. The only real drawback is some of the assignments require that your blog have an excellent Google or Alexa ranking, but if you’re not there yet you can improve those numbers with time and effort. And it’s still easier than flipping burgers.