Today, I’m going to step away from the subject of money for just a brief moment (as I sometimes do) to discuss another issue near to my heart: blogging.  Yes, as you might guess from the sheer volume of material I’ve written, I’ve learned a thing or two about being a blogger.  Now, I’m going to share a few pointers to those considering getting started in blogging, particularly those who want to use it as a source of alternate income.  I’m not trying to scare anyone off from blogging; I certainly find it a fun and enjoyable way to spend my time, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this right now.

But much of what you have read about the process of blogging seems rather upbeat and optimistic.  You might have the idea floating around in your mind that blogging can serve as a quick and easy way to generate income.  That, unfortunately, is not the case; instead, some of the realities you’ll face while blogging include:

1) You won’t make much money (at least, at first): Before you ask, yes, it is possible to generate a good income, even enough to replace (or exceed) your day-job income, while blogging.  I could point out any number of bloggers who have done just that (Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar is my go-to example).  BUT, that is far from saying you can simply start blogging and the money will pour in.  Not only do bloggers like Trent illustrate how much work you need to put into blogging to make money from it (writing for years, multiple times a day, before earning enough to quit his day job, and even then only earning half as much from blogging as his job was paying), but the very fact that there are successful bloggers in most major fields means you have competition already in place to keep you from dominating the market.

Picture a swimming competition, where the most famous swimmers have already lapped you several times

So, what’s a more realistic view on the income you can earn?  Well, Darwin of Darwin’s Money, who is a quite successful money blogger, currently earns over a thousand dollars a month, after years of blogging.  Hardly the level of income you need to earn if you want to tell your boss to ‘take this job and restaff it’; but for some perspective, I typically earn less than a dollar a day from my blog after two years of writing (and can go days without earning anything at all), and I still consider myself fairly successful.  If you want to start blogging to quit your job, whether next week or years down the road, be advised that it is unlikely to come to that.  Instead, you should consider blogging as more of a hobby, and…

2) You’ll need to blog about what you love (if you hope to keep at it): Now for a quick reminder about how much you need to blog to keep your blog fresh.  Most suggestions you will hear recommend posting at least once a day, or 365 posts each year.  That said, there are successful bloggers who don’t publish that often, getting by on three to four posts per week (about 150 to 200 posts per year), and there are also prolific bloggers who publish multiple times per day (like Trent again, who publishes twice a day and puts out about 730 posts per year).

All of this is just to say that if you hope to be successful, you will end up writing hundreds of posts per year at minimum.  If you are writing about something you enjoy and love to write about and discuss, it should be no problem; I personally enjoy talking about money, investing, and finance, and so The Amateur Financier keeps humming along.  If I was trying to write about something I didn’t really care for, say sports (what can I say; I’m a nerd at heart), I probably would have called it quits years ago.  Find a topic that you enjoy and you can blog about it forever.  (If you are hoping to make money at it, you probably want to make sure it has some wider popular appeal as well; if only you, and maybe your mom, are interested in reading your blog’s topic, you’ll have even more trouble than normal turning it into a profitable enterprise).

3) You’ll have to ensure that you enjoy writing (as you’ll be doing a LOT of it): Regardless of what topic you decide to write about, one thing you will need to enjoy doing is an incredible amount of writing.  Even if you don’t publish a post each day, you’ll still need to write regularly in order to keep the posts flowing.  To help put things in perspective, I’ve written over 500 blog posts, which clock in at about 1000 words per post (possibly more; I tend to be rather verbose), for a total of 500,000 words written. (And that’s just the posts themselves; it doesn’t count responses to comments or comments on other blogs, which I’ll get into in my next point.)  For comparison, that is a higher word count than the first four Harry Potter books combined.  And I’m nothing compared to the more prolific bloggers out there.  If you don’t like writing, and writing a lot, stay away from blogging.

That said, if you don’t like writing but still want to get in on the blogging band wagon, there are ways around the writing aspect of it.  With the availability and (relatively) low cost of audio visual equipment nowadays, you could fairly easily do a audio blog.  Or, if you are fairly photogenic and get a hold of a webcam, why not do a video blog?  (Or vlog, I guess they are also called, although that’s a bit too much abbreviation for my taste.)  Even if you want to stick with a traditional blog, there are options for you; I recently picked up some transcription software and a audio headset, and as soon as I get the hang of it, you might be reading a transcribed version of this web page.

4) You must be prepared to socialize (and socialize, and socialize): So, you started a blog, you’ve been publishing steadily, but you still aren’t getting much traffic.  Well, my friend, you’ve forgotten one of the most important steps in blogging success: socialization.  Yes, one of the best ways to get out the word about your new blog is to comment on other people’s blogs.  Find people who are blogging about the same sort of topics as you, and comment on their posts (and respond to comments on yours), share ideas with them, join any blogger organizations in your area of interest, even offer to guest write an article or two.  If you do all this, it will come back to you in the form of more traffic (and more profits) down the road.

The disadvantage is that doing all this will take time and effort.  You can easily spend much more time trying to get out word about your blog than you do, say, blogging.  Such social networking (to borrow a phrase) also tends to build on itself; you comment on someone’s blog, another blogger takes notice and comments on your blog, so you return the favor and comment on this second blog.  As you get more comments, you try to comment more yourself, the number of people in your network increases, and you soon find yourself with dozens of blogs on your ‘To Read’ list, with no hope of catching everything they have to say.  For a ‘passive’ income source, blogging requires quite a bit of work, even outside of the actual effort to put words into a post.

A Final Encouragement

I hope I didn’t just send dozens of would-be bloggers screaming into the night.  There are plenty of reasons to blog that I haven’t shared yet.  You get to share your views with the world, and actually have (at least some) people read and understand them.  You get a level of feedback and encouragement that is rare in most public forums.  You can, when you become successful, influence any number of readers and help to shift their opinions on issues that are close to your heart.  And yes, if you keep at it and are successful, you can end up earning sizable amount of profit, perhaps even getting up to a substantial portion of your income from your blog.

All this article was designed to do was to help remind you that it is not a short, easy, or guaranteed road you face to reach those points.  If you want to become a blogger (or some variation thereon), it will require quite a bit of effort on your part.  If you go through that effort, I wish you good luck; it’s always nice to see someone else try to join the blogger crew.  Have fun, and here’s hoping you have much success!

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The contest is over now; I’m choosing and contacting the winners.  Thanks to all who entered and tried to help me improve my blog!

Well, it’s 2011 now, and the new year brings new opportunities to improve. Let’s be honest, there’s quite a lot I could stand to improve, and my blog is at the top of my list. I’ve already set a number of resolutions involving this blog, which will hopefully enable me to improve my Alexa Ranking, bump up my number of Feedburner subscribers, increase the number of comments I get, and in general, get much more attention for all my writings here on The Amateur Financier.

That’s where all of you, my readers, come in.  I’m hoping to make some changes in 2011, and want to know your opinions on things like what subjects I should cover, how I should promote my blog, and in general, how I can make this blog more appealing to all of you out there in the blogosphere.  (And what better way to learn what my readers are thinking than to come right out and ask them?)

I trust my readers more than the average think tank.

Now, you might be wondering why you should be so generous; after all, marketers, consults, and think tanks can make thousands, even millions of dollars for sharing their expertise.  Why should you give away yours for free?  Why, for the chance to win valuable prizes of course!  I know that if you’re like me, you want to know what you might be able to win.  So, with no further ado…

What You Can Win

Since it is the new year, it seems appropriate to give you a gift that can help benefit you throughout the rest of  2011.  What am I thinking of, you ask?  Why, a personal finance magazine subscription, of course!  I’m actually a subscriber to numerous personal finance magazines myself, and they give me an different insights into the world of money, provide me with useful factoids to fill my mind, and have even inspired a blog post or two in the time I’ve been writing.

So, what sort of magazines are we talking about?  Any personal finance magazine that costs under $30 for a yearly subscription, including, but not limited to, these*:

-Money Magazine
- SmartMoney
- Inc. Magazine
- Fast Company
- Entrepreneur
- Fortune Magazine
- Forbes Magazine

Or any other magazine you might want to receive, so long as it is (a) related in some way to personal finance (that is the theme of my blog, after all) and (b) under thirty dollars for a subscription.  (I’m not made of money, you know; at least, not until you help me to become the King of All Bloggers!)

(What’s that, you say?  You already have more magazine subscriptions than you can really keep up with?  I sympathize; I subscribe to most of the magazines listed above myself, in addition to some magazines connected to my biochemistry background.  Here’s my solution: if you win, feel free to give away the subscription to a friend or significant other by giving me their name and address.  Or ask your local library what magazine they would like to receive; you’ll be able to help your neighborhood and still be able to read the magazines whenever you like.  Don’t let your own magazine subscriptions stop you from entering.)

The Questions

By now, you’re (hopefully) starting to pretty excited by this whole plan. If you want to enter this contest, it’s pretty simple.  All you need to do is leave a comment below where you answer the following three questions:

1) What money related topics would you like to see covered here on The Amateur Financier?  Do you want to read more about investing, saving, smart spending, or something else entirely?

2) What methods are needed to successfully pull the marketing of The Amateur Financier up to higher levels?  What systems or companies should I approach to bump up my blog’s influence?

3) Lastly, what is your favorite type of blog entry?  Do you like when I respond to other people’s blog entries, enjoy my round ups, or particularly like my discussions of my new worth?  Inquiring minds want to know!

There you go, three simple questions, all of which would help me greatly in transforming my blog for the better.  I thank everyone in advance who want to help me out in the process.

How to Win

There are three simple steps to enter yourself in this giveaway:

1) Answer these questions: Post a reply to this blog entry that answers these questions as best you can.  You don’t need to type for hours; a simple answer, as long as it provides me with useful information, can be more useful than a three page long rambling response.  Just do your best, answer all three questions, and try to help me out.  You MUST leave a response that gives some answer for all three questions to be entered in the contest.

2) Promote this contest: You can increase your number of chances to win by helping me to get the word out about this contest.  By including this contest in a round up or providing a link on Twitter, I’ll give you another chance to win (or two, for both of these) when choosing  some of my contest winners.

3) That’s It! That’s all there is to it; simple, no?

There will be a total of three winners to this contest, each getting a subscription to the personal finance magazine of their choice for themselves or others; one winner will be chosen as giving the most helpful answer, while two others will picked at random from the other entrants.

Other Notes and Details

-The deadline for entering this contest is January 14th (a week from this Friday); that should give you plenty of time to formulate a decent response to this blog.  The winners will be announced on January 17th (two weeks from today).

-Please do your best to answer the questions listed.  If you want to provide me with further advice, go right ahead, but at least answer the given questions (as they will be the most helpful to me).

*The links to the magazines that I included are my Amazon Affiliate links; if you opt to subscribe to any of the magazines via these links (and they are pretty interesting magazines), I will receive a portion of your subscription price.  Just a warning so you don’t think I’m trying to put anything past you.

Good luck once again, and I look forward to reading what everyone has to say!

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With the end of the year approaching, I am looking forward to this coming year with anticipation and hope for the future.  One of my major goals, of course, is to make more money.  I definitely enjoy making money (I’m hardly unique in that respect), and anything I can do to bump up my income will get my attention and due consideration.

And so I read The Financial Blogger’s guide to running multiple blogs (while maintaining his sanity and working less than twenty hours each week, no less) with a great deal of interest.  I’ll be honest, I hadn’t given much thought to adding another blog to my repertoire; it’s been quite a challenge just keeping up with one blog, although, perhaps if I follow the advice on hiring out some of the work, it would be more feasible.

Money, the goal which we all seek.

So, I though I should consider some of the pros and cons of running more than one blog.  It’s not something that should be undertaken lightly; after all, I’ve put hundreds of hours into my blog over the past two years, and no matter how much I outsource the work, another blog would mean many, many hours of more effort.  So, do the potential benefits of starting another blog (or two, or three, or…) outweigh the hassles and expenses?  Let’s start with some of pros, the reasons why more than a few bloggers run multiple blogs.

The Pros of Multi-Blogging

-You can create your own network of related blogs…: You can call it ‘synergy’ as The Financial Blogger does, but the idea is simple: you can expand your influence in a particular area by increasing the number of blogs you run.  It also gives you a chance to move beyond your particular niche and explore other aspects of your blogging field; I could started a blog that focused on ways to save money, or started to cover more on alternative investments, while I could continue to focus on investing and money management basics with The Amateur Financier, thus expanding the subjects I cover.

-…Or go in a completely different direction: On the other hand, you can also opt for an unrelated topic; I could start a blog that covers organic chemistry, for instance, or maybe one that looks at anime (both subjects that I enjoy that have nothing to do with personal finance).  While this option offers less opportunity for cross promotion, it does enable you to break into different fields, and exercise your creativity.  (It also might help you preserve your sanity, if you care about that type of thing.)

-It’s easier the second time around: There’s a lot of things I’ve learned while creating this blog that would enable me to make another blog much more efficiently the second time around.  It would still be a lot of effort, but the year or so I spent learning the ropes and getting my feet wet here would help me to get another blog up, running, and (hopefully) turning a profit in much less time.

-More blogs mean more opportunities for more money: Let’s get to the heart of the matter; if you want to maximize your money earning potential with blogging, one method to do so is to set up more than one blog.  Two blogs means twice as many opportunities for advertisements and other money making techniques, three blogs triples the possibilities, and so on.  It’s not a guarantee that you will multiply your earnings as you increase your number of blogs, but the opportunities will exist.

So, plenty of benefits are possible with multiple blogs.  But by now I’ve learned, there’s never benefits that come without some downsides.  So, some of the cons of having multiple blogs include:

The Cons of Multiple Blogs

-More blogs require more time…: Probably the biggest reason most bloggers limit themselves to just one blog is that increasing the number of blogs you run increases the time needed to run them.  While you won’t necessarily double  your work load by doubling the number of blogs you run (there are economies of scale to consider, and you can combine some of the tasks you do for your blogs), it is certain that writing out more articles will increase your time expenditure.  There are ways to avoid spending all your time on your blogs, but they usually require…

-…Or more money: You can solve the time issue, at least in part, by opting to outsource some of your blogging tasks, from technical support to marketing to even writing blog entries.  However, none of this comes free; if you want to outsource the work required for your blog, you’ll need to have money to pay the people who do that work.  This is fine if you have the money available, but if you don’t have much money and little ability to go into debt to get more, it is a stumbling block.

-Good help can be hard to find (and manage): Even if you have the money you need to hire others to help you keep multiple blogs running, you still need to find employees or partners with whom you can work on the blogs.  Even after that, you need to be able to motivate, work with, and generally manage your new blogging compatriots.  If you, like me, you’re not that good at socializing and aren’t really a natural leader, that’s almost a more daunting task than trying to do everything yourself.  It’s definitely a different skill set than blogging as an individual, which you may or may not possess.

-Your personal situation might make it impossible: Because of the aforementioned time and money constraints, it can be impossible for you to start another blog at a particular point in time.  Being a grad student, I’ve found myself short on time and money this past semester, which has cut into my blogging; starting another blog is almost out of the question right now.  And then there’s the fact that your family or significant other might resent you putting even more of your efforts into another blog.  (My fiancée has threatened to castrate me if I start another blog, for example.  I think she’s joking, but until I can start a blog without greatly increasing my work load, I don’t want to take that chance.)

My Plans for Further Blogs

In the short term, my lack of available money (and limited time when I’m not working on the Amateur Financier, doing housework, or studying) limits how much more I could do in starting new blogs.  If I get far enough ahead on my blogging here (far enough ahead that I can avoid that whole threatened castration thing),though, I might consider starting another blog.  (Probably not one closely related to personal finance; I like the idea of stretching my writing wings a bit).

In the longer term, I do like the idea of creating an online empire all my very own, and working to generate an income that I can manage fairly passively.  My first step will probably to look into hiring a virtual assistant when money is not as tight (and I’m creating more of an income through my own efforts), and seeing how that works out; it’d be nice to expand my ability to get things done online.  After that, I’ll slowly build my online kingdom from there.

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My friends, much as I had hoped to avoid doing anything this dramatic, my current situation compels me to do so: I’m taking a hiatus from The Amateur Financier.  For the rest of August, I’m taking a break from regularly updating my blog and posting new articles.

I’m not disappearing completely (at least, not yet).  I will continue to respond to comments made on the four hundred plus entries I’ve already posted, talk with any readers, and read and post on other blogs, as normal (perhaps more often than I have been doing lately, actually; I’ve been doing a lot less blog reading than I used to, one of the things I hope to change during this hiatus).

The ‘Why’

There’s several reasons I’m doing this, but most of them boil down to one thing: time.  I have been feeling short on time for a while now, having trouble keeping up with everything I need and want to do.  I’ve tried to cope by cutting down on what I’ve been doing; in the blogging realm, that’s meant reducing the number of blog entries I publish each week, reading fewer other blogs, and commenting much, much less than I would prefer.

Even with all of those measures, I’ve still been struggling to keep up with my blog in intact.  From moving in with my fiancee in January and taking on the role of official dishwasher/laundry washer/dog walker (along with having my computer occasionally kidnapped by said fiancee, while her own is in need of repairs) to getting a job in May, I’ve been increasingly having trouble keeping up with my blog on top of everything else going on in my life.  I’ve been trying my best to keep up, but as you might have noticed, there’s been more than a few times when I’ve had to back date posts or try to cram in an article during the wee hours of the morning.

August promises to make things even worse; in less than three weeks, I will be starting grad school, which means that I need to register for classes (yes, the way things have worked out, I’m not registered for classes yet), relearn organic chemistry, find a place to live, move in, visit with family members (both mine and my fiancee’s), AND finish my stint of work at Wal-Mart.  There is a good chance that I will not have enough time over the next few weeks to keep up with my blog and everything else I need to do; unfortunately, when it comes to choosing between school work, family, and my blog, my blog unfortunately will always lose.

At the end of the month, things get even more complicated; that’s when I start graduate school, and will likely have even less time to spend online.  (Although, I’ve had semesters during my undergraduate career where I had so much spare time it wasn’t even funny; if something similar happens, perhaps all my worries will be for naught.)  There is a good chance that I might not be able to continue this blog while going to classes at the same time; part of the reason for this hiatus is to give me a chance to build up a reserve of posts for when I’m at school, or at least, figure out a way to bow out of my blog gracefully.

What Happens Next

As mentioned, I’m not trying to disappear completely, simply get a little more breathing room to get things done in the real world.  I’ll still be around if you need me; if I manage to get things under control, I might even be back to posting regularly well before the end of the month.  As for what happens once grad school begins…That I honestly do not know, yet.  Again, if time allows, I might be able to resume blogging by the end of this month without any serious problems; on the other hand, I might not be able to continue with my blog at all, at least while I’m attending classes (a major portion of time for the next two years). In any event, this is not the last you’ll hear from me; I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated on my progress, and to provide a final answer about what will happen with The Amateur Financier soon.

Before I go, though, I’d like to say one final thank you to all my readers for spurring me on, asking thought provoking questions, and challenging my post; you’ve helped to make this blog all worthwhile.  Thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.

Your Amateur Financier,

Roger Raby

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The one year anniversary of when I started the Amateur Financier is coming up rapidly.  (It’s this Sunday, in fact; has a year really gone by this fast already?)  As I look back on my blogging career, short though it might seem, I can’t help feeling that I could be doing much better in my blogging career.

So, it was with great interest that I read about the Financial Samaurai’s Alexa Ranking Challenge.  (For those who don’t really get into blogging and the intricacies thereof, Alexa is a site owned by Amazon that analyzes websites and ranks them according to their impact; the smaller the number, the higher the ranking, and the more influence and impact the blog has.  Google, for example, has a rank of one, while my own humble blog has a rank around 580,000; check the badge to right to see the most up to the date number.)  FS’s challenge is simple: improve your ranking, improve your blog, and work to promote and support others as they attempt to do the same.

This sounds like a simply wonderful idea; it’s something I’ve been trying to do now for quite a while, but with more support, a ring of friends to help (and from whom to receive help), and tangible goals to meet (for me and my blog, that means getting my ranking under 200,000 by July 4th), I feel even more energized and motivated than ever before.  Plus, as an added bonus, he’s attempting to form a group called the Yakezie from everyone who can meet their goal, and that just plain sounds cool.  Look at their symbol:

The Yakezie Symbol

So, just how am I, Roger the Amateur Financier, going to break into the top 200,000 in Alexa rankings and become a master blogger?  I have a few thoughts on that issue already:

-Post 4-5 Good Entries Each Week: Too often, I’ve been in a big rush or otherwise unmotivated, and didn’t put quite as much time and effort into my blogging as I wanted.  No more; if I can’t come up with something worth writing, I’m simply not going to post anything. If I’m not forcing myself to come up with an entry each day, the ones that I do post should be of even higher quality.  And speaking of not posting each day…

-Take at least one day each week off from posting on my blog: Besides allowing me some time to enjoy life rather spending it in front of a computer, I’ll have a chance to catch up on blog reading, build up a buffer of ready to be published blog entries, and otherwise make things easier for me down the road.  Currently, I’m thinking of taking Saturdays off and moving my weekly collection of other personal links to Sunday, leaving the weekdays for ‘real’ blog entries and possibly guest posts.

-Try to write at least two entries each day: Why two?  That will allow me to publish one here on the Amateur Financier while having one in reserve for a buffer, for guest posts, for submitting to freelance writing sites, or any number of other purposes.  Plus, if I only achieve half of my goal, I’ve still written one post for that day, which isn’t too shabby.

-Write more guest posts, and accept more on this site: I’ve been reluctant to let anyone else post here, mainly for personal reasons.  From this point on, I’m going to try to accept one guest post each week (if anyone is wants to bask in the Amateur Financier’s glory) as well as submitting AT LEAST one guest post per week to other blogs.  I think my main targets are going to be the fellow would-be Yakezie members; after all, one of FS’s conditions for getting in is supporting each other, so why not start here?

-Read and comment on others’ blogs: I’ve been bad about this lately, and getting worse.  Besides building up some comment karma (that is, I comment on others’ blogs and I get comments in return), it’s not a bad way to put myself out there, get the name Amateur Financier on a variety of blogs, and maybe get a little traffic as a result.  Plus, I first got into financial blogs by reading, and I kind of miss being able to spend a whole afternoon just going through back posts on some of my favorite blogs.  Now that I’m not trying to write blog entries on Saturday, that will be a perfect day to go out and read some good blog entries.

There, that’s a pretty solid set of rules to follow; if I can do all that, I should be in very good shape, and will be a member of the Yakezie by mid-July.  Luckily, the Financial Samurai has assured us that nobody is going to remove any joints from our fingers; that would take a lot of the fun out of it.

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As you might know, from any of the times I’ve mentioned it on my blog or via my Tweeter account (@amateurfinance, just in case you’re curious), I recently hosted the Carnival of Twenty-Something Finances.  It was an interesting and even, dare I say, fun experience, but it was a little overwhelming.  Since it was the first blog carnival I’ve ever hosted, I had little idea what to expect.  So, for anyone looking to host a blog carnival of their own in the future, here’s some of what I learned from my experience, which I now pass onto you:

First, get an early start on making up your post.  I’ll be the first to admit, I’m a bit of a procrastinator at heart (especially now, when I’ve got a night job that throws off my schedule both on work days and rest days), and tend to push things off as long as I can.  You might be tempted to do the same thing with your blog carnival; after, you’re just going to be cutting and pasting a bunch of blog posts’ names and web addresses, right?  But doing a good job requires more than that; you should read all the posts, get a feel for what they say, try to organize them by topic or type (maybe even picking out a few as your favorites and calling them the best of the carnival) and write a short blurb for each one.  Done right, a decent blog carnival can take just as much time and effort as a good blog post  (and perhaps even more, especially when there are a large number of entries and/or you decide to go really over the top with your presentation).

Which brings up my second piece of advice: go all out with your carnival blog.  It’s tempting to look at a carnival as a freebie post; other people write all the interesting stuff, you just put it all together, slap on a few personal touches, and watch as you get all sorts of traffic from the contributors, their readers, and anyone who happens to mention the carnival in the future.  But that’s exactly the opposite of how you should be thinking.  If you’re going to drawing all this traffic to your site (and to this one blog entry in particular), you want it to stand out and be memorable.  Show the visitors to your blog (some of whom are likely seeing it for the very first time) some of your wit, charm, and intelligence, as you try to impress them and convince them to become dedicated readers.  It’s like a first date, so put your best face forward and give it all you can give.

Your Goal: Make your carnival more amusing than this

Third, choose a good theme for your carnival.  A strong and unique theme can help you stand out from the crowd, provide you with plenty of ‘color commentary’ you can add to carnival, and even help you decide how to organize the posts you receive.  (My theme of anime fit pretty well with dividing the posts by topic, while the previous host choose a Major League Baseball theme that worked well with how he ‘ranked’ the articles.)  Try to pick a theme that you really like, that isn’t too close to the topic of the carnival (besides seeming uncreative, you might end up stepping on someone’s post), and that doesn’t conflict with the advice in the posted articles (if you’re hosting a weight loss carnival, don’t post pictures and recipes of your favorite desserts with comments about their delicious taste and aroma.)  Also, unless your blog specifically covers more ‘risque’ material, themes like your favorite pornos or types of drugs should be avoided.

Fourth, follow the golden rule: treat the contributors as you would like them to treat you when you submit to a carnival.  Read through their work, comment if you have anything useful to add to the conversation, write to them if you have any questions or comments, send a quick email letting them know they were included when the carnival has been posted; anything you can do to make the whole carnival seem easier and more fun can help make it that much more popular.  Besides encouraging others to act the same way, you’ll also help to increase the chance that blog writers will link back to the carnival and visit it themselves, all of which will help to drive some traffic to your site.  (Which is at least part of the reason you’re doing this, right?)

Finally, have some fun with it.  Yes, a carnival is a lot of work, hours of time spent reading blogs you might not care about, organizing them, adding comments and pictures, and generally making the whole package that much more presentable.  But there’s fun to be had, as well; choose a theme you’ll enjoy, add clever quips to your descriptions of the contents, even drop a few jokes into the post.  All this will make it much it much easier to handle all the reading and other work you’ll need to do, and can let you add a personal touch to the post, as well.

That’s all there is to making a good blog carnival post.  So go out there (there being the BlogCarnival page, in this case) find a good carnival related to the topic of your blog, and start the hosting!  It’s definitely a fun time.

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“Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don’t want to be a richer man”

Actually, unlike David Bowie, I WOULD like to be a richer man.  Also unlike Bowie, I can’t issue ‘Bowie Bonds‘ in order to raise money.  Instead, I’m trying to monetize my blog more effectively.  I’ve actually approached Mrs. Micah through her BlogCrafted site in order to make a number of changes to my blog.  Some will be cosmetic (like putting up a new theme) and some will be more functional (changing how I go about monetizing my blog, so I can start to make more of a profit from my efforts).  The end result will be a more interesting, more useful, and more profitable Amateur Financier.

The big change over is currently scheduled for Sunday, so watch this space for a new look and feel to my blog.  Onward now to my financial report:

As you can see, I’ve also switched up how I’m doing my weekly update posts.  Rather than type out my finances each week, this way I can put the new numbers in a spreadsheet, and have all the calculations I want to run done for me.  Spreadsheets are always fun.

There’s not much change this week; I added my more money to my savings and my investments went up, for an overall increase in my net worth.  Given the current financial environment, I didn’t get much of a boost from interest payments on my savings,but with any luck, that will change soon.  I’m happy with the progress I’m making.

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Dang you, ROI!  I’ve been tagged by My Life ROI to do a meme covering seven things you don’t know about me.  I suppose I can’t put all the blame on him, though, as he was tagged by the Weakonomist.  Ah, well, I haven’t exactly been shy about sharing things on this blog; what’s a few more factoids floating around out there?

“7 Things You Didn’t Know About Me” Meme Rules

1. Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.

2. Share seven facts about yourself in the post.

3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.  Yeah, this isn’t going to happen; I think ROI got to everyone I would tag anyway, so if you’re reading this and want to do it, just let me know, and I’ll post a link to your article in one of my weekly round-ups.

4. Let them know they’ve been tagged.  Kind of hard to do when I don’t know who to tag; again, let ME know if you do this.

Here are my 7 things:

1. I was on the forensics team in college, which, contrary to what you might suspect, actually involved giving speeches (Forensics comes from the Latin for ‘related to the law’ (or so I’ve been told), which explains why shows like CSI cover ‘forensic science’ and why making your case to a group of judges is part of a forensics competition.)  My best event was After-Dinner Speeches (ADS), humorous speeches that are designed to inform and amuse.
2. I won the Pennsylvania State Title in the ADS category in my junior year, for a speech on the differences between men and women.  Part of my appeal was the ‘visual aids’ that I utilized.  (Get your mind of the gutter; I had two pipe-cleaner figures, one a blue pipe-cleaner boy, the other a pink pipe-cleaner girl complete with small pink bow.  I think the pipe-cleaner people were more popular than me.)
3. I managed to get a tuition-free ride through college thanks to my high SAT scores.  It was kind of nice, and is one reason why my student loans weren’t too outrageous when I graduated.
4. Among my many hobbies and interests is drawing, and I actually am pretty good.  (At least when I have time to practice; lately, all my free time has been spent blogging).  Here’s one of my pictures, of which I am particularly proud:
   

   A 'chibi' style girl I drew.

5. My biggest spending vice is buying manga and anime (Japanese style comic books and animation, respectively).  Luckily, I’ve joined an anime club, which enables me to borrow some of the club’s materials and cut back on my own spending.  I still occasionally splurge, though…
6. I love Organic Chemistry.  For whatever reason, it just clicks with me, whereas most of other people (including virtually of the students who come to my review sessions) seem to struggle endlessly with it.  In fact, if and when I get far enough ahead with this blog that I can I turn my attention elsewhere, I’d like to start up an organic chem blog/site (yes, I am that big of a geek).
7. I hate April Fool’s Day with the firey passion of eighty-two thousand red giant stars.  I’m not a huge prankster, so I tend to be the victim more than the pranker.  Yesterday, I ending up getting my rump wet because some joker put water on one of the computer chairs in the break room.  Darn You, April Fool!

Well, there you have it, seven things you didn’t know about me.  Once again, I’m not tagging anyone else, but if you want to do this, feel free and let me know.

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Hello and welcome.  If you’re reading this, it means that you found your way here from my old blog.  Or that you happened to stumble across this in your other travels throughout the internet.  In any case, it’s good to see you here, and I hope you’ll find some worthwhile and interesting information.

I’m still in the ‘moving in’ stage of this process.  I hope you’ll be willing to bear with me; this move will ultimately make this blog better, and allow me to make this site better and more interesting for everyone.  If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please feel free to reach me at theamateurfinancier AT gmail DOT com.  I look forward to providing you with a great blog experience!

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I have some good news to share with you all; I’m going to be moving! Well, my blog is, anyway.

Yes, after reading up on blogging tips and advice at the Money Blog Network, I’ve decided to get my own domain and make a more serious effort at blogging as a serious endeavor. I’ve already set up the weblog at www.theamateurfinancier.com/blog/, and as soon as I get things up and running (probably this weekend, as I’m making a concerted effort to have this switch-over complete by Monday), you’ll have a brand-new Amateur Financier site to read and enjoy!

I’m letting all of my loyal readers (or at least, the two people currently following me on RSS feeds) know about this change-over to express a couple of concerns. First, to paraphrase Doctor McCoy from Star Trek, I’m a biochemist, not a webmaster. There might be some quirks and other problems in the transfer that prevent me from doing a seamless transition from Blogger to WordPress (hosted on Dreamhost, for those who want all the gritty details), and I just want to give you all fair warning.

Second, I’m not sure how this move will affect those of you following me using RSS feeds. I hope that the transfer options on WordPress will allow me to adjust everything from my end, so that you can continue to receive my words of wisdom on a daily basis. But to ensure uninterrupted bulletins from my blog, you might need to update your feeds. (And if you are linking to my blog elsewhere, I ask you to please adjust your links when the new blog is up and running.)

Third, this move is part of a larger effort on my part to make this blog more relevant and interesting to you, my readers (and, I won’t deny, more profitable to me). So, please, if you have any advice or suggestions, on issues from the appearance of the blog to the specific subjects I should cover, let me know. This is a good time for making changes to my blog, and any feedback I can get will be given all due consideration.

Finally, thank you to everyone who is watching me; I hope that I can continue to entertain and inform through my writing.

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For those of you who read my post last Monday, you know the college where I am working had Spring Break last week. Since that’s currently my only job (although, hopefully not for too much longer *crosses fingers*), I effectively had Spring Break as well. I spent most of it out visiting my girlfriend, and had a great time.

Unfortunately, though, it’s left me behind in my blogging. I’ve managed to get the last two entries out during this rather busy weekend, but I’m getting stuck about what I should write this week. Luckily, I have a few ideas of how to break my mental block:

1) Catch up on my PF blog reading – I’ve got over two hundred entries to read in my RSS feed, just from the few writers I follow regularly. Reading, digesting, and possibly commenting on all those articles should certainly spark an idea or two.

2) Reading more PF books – I’ve been falling behind on my reading to learn lately; between my job, my blog, and my personal life, I haven’t had a chance to read some of the books I’ve really wanted to read. Besides sparking some ideas for related posts, it might even be worthwhile to consider putting up a few book reviews.

3) Engage the PF community – I’m currently a member of the Money Blog Network forums, where a lot of PF bloggers gather and discuss various issues. More than a few of the topics I’ve read through made me think, ‘hum, this might make a good blog entry’. Now all I need is some follow through.

4) Write to teach myself – There are plenty of personal finance and money topics I’d like to learn more about; making an effort to identify, study, and then write about those topics would be an excellent learning experience, and would probably provide enough material for years worth of posts.

5) Consider a different blog – I like personal finance, and love writing this blog. But, as they say, variety is the spice of life. Perhaps cutting down on the 7-10 entries a week I put up on this blog and starting another blog for one of my other interests could help to keep me motivated.

Just some thoughts on how to break my Monday ‘Blah’ mood and start writing again.

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I came across an interesting post on Slate regarding a court case over online links. Essentially, a real estate website called Blockshopper was being sued by Jones Day, a multinational legal firm, because of how Blockshopper linked to some of the lawyers employed by Jones Day (in the context of real estate transactions involving the lawyers). Jones Day made the argument that such links were a form of trademark infringement, in the sense that the links might imply that there was an affiliation between Jones Day and Blockshopper.

Numerous groups appealed to the judge to dismiss the case, including Public Citizen, the Electronic Freedom Foundation, the Citizen Media Law Project, and Public Knowledge, but ultimately, Blockshopper settled. The terms of their settlement dictate that they reference lawyers at Jones Day by posting the full URL (aka, http://www.jonesday.com rather than Jones Day).

‘What’s the problem with that?’, you might ask. Well, as the Slate article goes on to describe, at issue is not just Blockshopper and Jones Day, but the broader issue of how, when, and in what fashion bloggers and other online publications can link to supporting documents. It presents a slippery slope, where companies can demand what link text is used to reach their sites, as well as the other information that is incorporated in the linking text, leading online publishers to either dispense with links altogether or have to deal with any number of different requirements from the linked sites.

And sadly, there have even been recent efforts to stop people from linking to public sites altogether, as in the case of Jennifer Reisinger. At issue is whether she could link to the Sheboygan police department’s web page. If she’s unsuccessful, it could have the effect of decreasing the willingness of websites to share links and other information.

I’m not certain how this case will end, but being a new blogger, I’m interested in how things shake out. If this case and other similar cases currently pending end with rulings in favor of allowing websites to control how other sites link to them, the internet landscape could look much different in a few years; much more barren and less of a web, only positive comments being readily accessible. I know I don’t want that kind of legal landscape; I’ll have to see what (if anything) I can do to support the cause of allowing free linking to public sites, regardless of the content of the linking site.

Disclaimer: Given the subject of this blog post, I feel I should mention that I am in no way affiliated with any of the groups, corporations or websites associated with the links in this post.

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