How to Monetize Your Character Blogs

Alright, you have your Character Blogs all setup and running smoothly for months now, and they have acquired some search engine and social media rankings such like Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Digg links and so on. Now, you think your creative writing may bring in some moolah too, which wouldn’t be bad, as it would help with hosting fees and to grab that expensive book you spotted last month but are afraid of asking your parents to get for you.

The question is: how can you monetize your Character Blogs?

And particularly: how to earn money from your Characters’ lives without ruining them for everybody?

My dear readers, you need not to worry that much about ‘ruining’ your stories, as that will come natural if you follow my advice. ;) Let’s begin.

1. Paid Posts: NEVER write advertorials!

Do write about slices of your Characters’ lives instead! Suppose you’ve been assigned a $10 paid post which asks you to put in three links to insurance websites with certain anchor texts. Fine, you need not turn into a TV spot spokesperson shouting out loud how great and fantastic that insurance service is! Leave that to spam-boys. What you must do here is connecting your paid post requirements with your Character’s life:

It was a sad day on my planet yesterday. All starships got blocked at the spaceport and guards would not let anybody come home without undergoing a complete checkup. My girlfriend sent me a video transmission telling me about the hassle and that she’d better stay home for the day. I sighed, then went out anyway, too sad to stay home. I headed to my insurance agency to do that plan upgrade I was meant to do next Friday, but know what? I did it today, because I can’t bear staying home when I miss my girl so bad…

Now you can see what I mean. :) Keep it this way, and your Character Blog will always stay true to itself.

2. Paid Articles: get your Character to talk about his/her job!

Article assignments are often different from paid posts, as they require some more professional approach to writing. What you need to do is to look at your Character’s career and education: what did your Character study? What is he/she doing for a job? What writing skills is he/she required to possess?

Look at this example:

Assigned Article: Write your views on Time Management
Character’s Education/Career: has a college degree from Stellar Academy and currently works as an inter-planetary merchant.

Article: Time management is often overlooked a factor when it comes to selling goods. I’m a merchant, I meet different species of people every day, and I get video calls from new customers nearly every day and night. Managing my time has turned into a survival factor, without which I would not be able to attend at my duties as a married man and a father, nor to keep up with my blogging activities. (…)

As you could see, the above Character began developing his own argumentation of Time Management around his own life, based on his experience and career. That’s exactly the way you should work this kind of task out.

If you still feel completely stuck, have a read again at your Character’s About Me page.

3. Banner Ads/Google Adsense: make them Storyline-friendly!

Although this type of monetization is not under direct user’s control, you may still work it out to meet your Character’s storyline by adding a few lines of text, just before the ads – say, travel-related ads – stating something like: “In my years of travelling I’ve been in many beautiful places. Through these random picked resources, you’ll be able to enjoy them virtually at least as much as I did.” That sounds relevant and honest, doesn’t it? Just be careful NOT to encourage clicks in your writing, because it may be considered fraud!

That’s all for the moment. I will update this guide with additional tips as soon as I gained enough first-hand experience. ;) Good luck earning money through your Character Blogs!

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