Baby, I make my living from my blog.

And you can, too. 

Look, this is not a super-glamorous sort of living that we’re talking about here.

I do not sun myself on the glittering sands of the French Riviera while my adoring man-servant feeds me succulent grapes.

Instead, I stamp around through the gritty slush of Pittsburgh winter, spend much time squinting at WordPress, and eat a lot of kale. I live with two housemates and an angry cat. But I pay my bills and my taxes, damn it, and I often have enough cash left over to visit friends around the continental United States.

And I do it all through my blog and social media presence. I do not have a boss. I do not go to a job. I nap and shower and talk on the phone to my mom whenever the hell I goddamn please. As every American should be free to do.

I knew I had attained success when one of my aforementioned housemates exclaimed to me with no small degree of wonder, “Carolyn, you just sit there on the couch and produce money out of nowhere!”

Yes. It’s true. Money simply flies to me through the aetheric vacuum tubes of the Information Super Highway. I do not even put on pants, most days.

Also! I get to tell people that I’m a professional coach for creative and magical people. And I’m not even lying!

So: winning.

I don’t mention this for the sole purpose of congratulating myself, though it does rather lift my spirits in the midst of all this wintry grit and slush and kale and squinting. I mention it because I want you to know that it’s possible. Because when I was first starting out, I really, really needed people to just keep telling me that it was possible, for the love of God.

It’s possible, my dear. You can do it.

I don’t recommend the life of online self-employment to all and sundry. But I do recommend it to folks who love to write and play on social media and who have something they want to offer forth to the world, even if they don’t quite precisely yet know what it is.

Now. Here are my three top suggestions for getting started on your own path towards a dare-devil, thrilling life of sleeping in until 11 am and talking to your mom from 2 — 3 pm all while still paying your rent and occasionally eating at restaurants!

1. Just begin. Really. Like, now. The idea first occurred to me to start writing a blog in 2005. I put it off until 2010. Do you have any idea how rich I could be now if I had tossed my velvet top hat into the personal development blogging ring in 2005? I could be diving into swimming pools full of gold dubloons just like my hero, Scrooge McDuck. I could be sunning myself on the French Riviera next to Havi Brooks and Steve Pavlina and wooing their man-servants for my own. But noooooooooooooooo. I put off getting started just because I didn’t know what I had to say. Pffffffffffffffffffffffffft. That’s the lousiest reason in the world. What I didn’t realize then is that you only discover what you have to say by beginning to say it and being completely willing to sound like a jack-ass along the way. But in 2010 I got hip to this secret and started writing. It worked so well that I even turned my blog into a book on how to wake up your genius, a book that Random House published this fall! Once again — it’s possible. You can do it.
2. Solve your best friend’s problems. If you intend to eventually make a living from your blog, it stands to reason that your blog will have to offer something that other people value. People tend to value having their problems solved. But here’s the tricksy part: you don’t know “people.” You only know individuals. That’s also the good part. Because people are individuals. See? And if you single out just one special individual’s problems to solve with your posts, then you’ll be writing in a style that’s direct and relevant and fun. I recommend that you start by solving your best friend’s problems on your blog. Why? Because you probably already do, but she just doesn’t listen and instead always goes back to that slob who listens to the Dave Matthews Band and smells like rancid patchouli. Well, that there is what makes your eventual blog readers and clients and customers even better than your best friend! They’ll read your advice. And sometimes they’ll even take it.
3. Get connected with other enterprising folks. I didn’t have any readers for my blog (and thus no clients for my business and no money coming to me effortlessly through the aetheric vacuum tubes of the Information Super Highway) until I joined a group of other bad-asses who were also working on creating lives for themselves outside the conventional mold. The reason for this is that once I joined such a group, I now had the attention of other people with developed online presences. These kind and wondrous people read my writing, liked it, and shared it. Then other kind and wondrous people started reading my writing, until my whole life became enveloped in a silken cocoon of wondrousness and I became a caterpillar. A caterpillar who blogs. (Like you do.) Now I’m very proud to run my own group of magical bad-asses, many of whom run thriving businesses of their own with astounding blogs and social media networks. Also they’re very loving and very brilliant and magic, which is how I generally prefer people to be. If you are also loving, brilliant, and magic you may want to join us for support and good times. We’re called the Outlaw Court. You know, as in a renegade forest government of anarchic entrepreneurial fairies. It all makes sense if you don’t think too hard about it.

In Conclusion

Life these days is pretty screwy. Most every conventional job description I can think of sounds to me like a circle of Dante’s Inferno. Perhaps it does to you also. If this is the case, I recommend that you get started on the project of carving a life for yourself based around an offering that comes from your own innate genius.

It’s okay if at first you don’t have a “business plan.” I don’t think I ever had one of those, unless we wish to count the journal entries that say “Priority #1: this month — make money. Do not starve.”

I like blogging as a means towards figuring out exactly what your creative entrepreneurial offering is because what really is a blog but a collection of essays? And the verb “essay” means just “to try.” An essay is a piece of writing that works towards discovering something not already known. So get started with your essaying. And let me know how it goes.

A bit about me, Carolyn Elliott

As you may have gathered from this article, I coach magical, creative people to live turned-on, ecstatic lives full of genius and challenge. I’m the author of Awaken Your Genius: A Seven-Step Path to Feeing Your Creativity and Manifesting You Dreams (North Atlantic / Random House). I also lead the Outlaw Court, a secret group where magical people are hugely supported in bringing their Things into the world — if you’re magic and you know it, you’re welcome to apply to join the Outlaw Court.