Should you blog for a network, or for yourself? I’ve been asked several questions about this over the past few days, so I might as well give my opinion here.
In my blogging course, Blogging for Dollars (the course for which this blog is the companion site), I focus on two styles of blogging: pro blogging/ career blogging, in which you blog for others, and entrepreneurial blogging, in which you blog for yourself.
Network blogging for new bloggers
If you’re a brand new blogger, blogging for a network is an education in blogging, and that’s how you should approach it. There’s a lot to discover about blogging, and when you blog for yourself, you’re in charge of the discovery. 
When you’re blogging under contract, whether it’s for a company or a network, you won’t make as much money as you can make when you blog for yourself, but in the early days of building a blog, you won’t make much money either, so it kind of balances itself out – but of course when you’re blogging for yourself you’re blogging to build a business, and when you blog for someone else, you’re building their business.
So – as a new blogger, consider blog jobs of many different kinds, because they give you priceless experience, and you’re being paid as you learn.
Blogging for yourself: building a business
When you blog on your own blogs, you’re building an income post by post. There’s no one to crack the whip – you need to be a self-starter, and to motivate yourself.
Everyone’s different. If you can motivate yourself to keep blogging even when it seems as if there’s nothing much happening, then you’re a born entrepreneurial blogger. You have the ability to think beyond today – to the next few years when your business will bloom, and grow into an income stream which will keep you in the style to which you want to grow accustomed.
In conclusion, whether you take on blog jobs, or blog solely for yourself depends on YOU. It depends on how much you know about blogging, and how much you know about yourself. Both are viable options.
And you can certainly do both, so why not try a few blog jobs, and use the experience to grow your own blogs?
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