Let’s face it — most blogs don’t pay for guest posts. It’s considered a marketing activity by the writer, who gets a link back to their site.

That can be worth it, too. I’ve gotten some amazing connections and clients from blogging on popular sites.

But I believe writers should be paid for their work. And sites that take guest posts still get a piece of writing out of the deal.

So I did a crazy thing…

Back in late 2010, I did something sort of nuts — I decided to start paying for guest posts.

At the time, my audience was pretty small and I was still earning most of my living from freelance writing.

It didn’t make economic sense on the face of it. I just thought it was the right thing to do.

I needed to put my money where my mouth was. I hoped I might inspire (or is that shame?) some other bloggers into paying for posts as well. I also hoped being different from the norm by being a paying writing market might get this little blog some attention.

And it worked

On both fronts, it worked! Make a Living Writing has received loads of attention, subscribers, and traffic from being published in many digests of paying markets. Even better, quite a few sites decided to pay after seeing me do it.

But I’ve neglected a critical last step here — to connect you to those paying markets so you could rake in some cash.

Fixing that now. Here’s my personal list of blogs that pay around $50 a post or more, from my own writers’ guidelines page. They’re listed in the order they began paying for posts, most recent first:

1. Your Online Biz — Thrilled to have inspired Darnell Jackson to top me — he began paying $100 a post in March 2013. Nice job, Darnell.
2. Write Your Revolution — Sarah Russell’s blog joined the ranks of $50-a-post paying markets in February.
3. Be a Freelance Blogger — Sophie Lizard has joined the smart set and now pays $50 a post.
4. The Renegade Writer – Excited to add Freelance Writers Den’s Other Den Mother Linda Formichelli to the list of people who’re taking the high road and paying $50 a post.
5. ReadLearnWrite – Paying $50 a post after seeing my Problogger post about paid guesting in Feb. 2012.
6. David Worrell’s blog, Rock Solid Finance (formerly Your Inside Guy) was the first niche blogger to jump on board my bandwagon and start pay $50 for guests posts back in late 2010. So I think he’s the coolest. You should definitely read his blog.
   
7. Freelance Switch – they pay around $75 per post. So I think they’re cool. And now I even guest blog for them on a regular basis myself. (They are owned by Envato, which has a half-dozen other sites that pay, too.)
8. HouseLogic – This site operated by the National Association of Realtors pays $1 a word — I had an opportunity to interview their editor a while back for an article for The 2013 Writer’s Market. If you’ve got a good twist on a shelter story and strong reporting skills, you know where to go now.
9. One Spoon at a Time — Paul Wolfe was inspired to start paying $50 a post back in Fall 2011. This one was inspired by my announcement…feels good to know I’m helping to create new paid markets for writers.
10. OnText – OK, they only pay $40 a post. But maybe some of you would like to know anyway, I’m betting.
11. Patch – AOL’s Patch.com, as of this writing, often pays $50 and up for short blog-postlike articles.
12. Make a Living Writing — can’t forget to mention my own site! Still proudly paying $50 a post. (Due to overwhelming response, I now only take guest posts from students or grads of Freelance Writers Den or Jon Morrow’s Guest Blogging course.)

Those dozen get you started. Fortunately, a couple other bloggers have been busy compiling more helpful info on blogs that pay, and now there are several other good lists out there — and I’ve collected links to all of them here.

How to find 100+ more paying markets

Two are by Bamidele Onibalusi of the newly renamed Writers in Charge (formerly YoungPrePro), and one is by the abovementioned Sophie Lizard of Be a Freelance Blogger. One older list is from the freelance-training site Matador. The assignments range from blog posts for niche bloggers to fully reported online feature articles for major national magazines’ online sites.

Here are links to those below:

•  Writers in Charge’s original list of 30 paying markets (which really lists 33)
• Sophie Lizard’s 2012 list of 45 Paying Markets (has good deets on the rest of those Envato sites I mentioned above)
• Writers In Charge’s 2013 list of 45 More Markets (which really has 46).
• Matador’s 2010 list of 27 markets feature a wide range of pay rates up to $1 a word+ and Matador is itself a paying market, as Oni notes on one of his lists. Rates may have changed at some markets since this was published, but it’s a nice compendium of higher payers.

I got curious and compared all these lists to see how many listings were unique. Eliminating all the duplication between the lists and counting my 12 above, there are nearly 120 unique paying websites and blogs listed in all. Nice, huh?

I’m thrilled to have helped add a few names to these lists of places that pay. Possibly my finest achievement here on the blog.

Now that you know how many markets pay, I have to ask:

Why not get paid?

As a blogger, you’ve got a choice when you look to guest post. If you’re going to guest post for exposure, I say, why not get paid, too?

I recommend making paying guest markets your top priority. That’s what I’ve done and it’s allowed me to earn quite a lot while also getting attention for my writing and my blog.

And if you have a blog you’re looking to build, consider paying for guest posts. Just a suggestion.

Ever gotten paid for a guest post? If you know more paying markets, please add to my list.

It’s been more than a year since I began paying for guest posts here on the blog.

I’d like to report on how that experiment has worked, and how guest posting is going to work on this blog in future.

First off: I’m proud to say I paid $1,600 to guest posters last year!

It feels good to be paying other writers. Paying for posts also has many other benefits.

Going from free to paid posts meant I attracted more quality writers and great post ideas. I’ve loved the fresh success stories and strategy posts I’ve been able to present by guest posters.

I don’t know everything about freelance writing, especially about what it’s like to break in today. So I think it adds to the value of this site to present success stories, tips, and techniques from new writers.

Paying for posts is a marketing bonanza

My blog has been mentioned on many popular blogs in roundup posts about paying markets — like this one and more recently, this one.

The paid guest posters also tend to become big fans of this blog. I see them retweeting this blog all the time.

I’ve met many fascinating writers and formed some new friendships.

This year, I will probably accept more guest posts than last year. I usually published two a month last year, and now I’m striving to put up three or four a month.

So that’s the good news. Paid guest posting has been a successful strategy for my blog. I consider every dollar I’ve paid out to be money well spent.

But there was a downside

That said, there are some real challenges to accepting guest posts.

I get many junk pitches daily from link-seeking websites, riddled with basic English errors.

Few writers can manage to follow my guidelines and submit a headline and outline.

I do tire of explaining that I am not going to read or publish the pre-written post writers have sent me. (I’ve since learned these submissions are often duplicate content anyway, so that was a good instinct on my part!)

Even when writers can do the pitch process right and get an assignment, I’d often receive posts that needed substantial editing.

With a few submissions, I ended up refusing to publish their submission because it either wasn’t what I assigned, or would have been more work to get in shape for publication than writing a post myself.

I felt bad about saying “no” to these writers. But I’m committed to the quality of what I present here.

The idea of having guests is partly to save your own writing time, but it often doesn’t work out that way.

I’m not the only one who’s getting tired of playing editor to all comers — Kristi Hines of Kikolani recently made the decision to stop accepting guest posts on her blog and write them all herself.

On Problogger, you can now only pitch by invitation.

I thought hard about it, and decided I don’t like either of those options.

But I have to make some changes to make the guest-post process less time-consuming, and also to make sure I get quality posts.

My new rules of guest posting

Here’s what I noticed about guest posts as the year wore on: The vast majority of the pitches I accepted were either from members of Freelance Writers Den, or from students in Jon Morrow’s blogging class.

The ones that were more work — or flat-out hopeless — came from writers who were not part of either my community or Jon’s program.

So that’s my new policy: I am accepting guest post pitches only from members of one of those two programs.

That leaves the field open to over 1,500 writers to pitch this blog. I think we’ll still see plenty of fresh, useful tips on how to earn more from our guests.

And hopefully I’ll save a lot of time in the editing process, which will allow me to work on projects such as ebooks that will benefit readers, too.

There’s an art to pitching a popular blog and to guest posting, I’ve learned, that few new bloggers understand.

Taking a quality training program that teaches you how to do it can be well worthwhile, if you’re serious about blogging.

I’m looking forward to seeing more great guest posts as we go through this year.

What do you think of my new guest post policy? I’d love your feedback in the comments.

A few weeks back, I talked about bad guest-post pitches I’ve received, and outlined some of the elements of a good one.

One writer asked if I would show some examples of pitches that were accepted here — so here are three.

One needed a little back-and-forth and refining before it was accepted, as you’ll see.

I believe none of these have run yet, so you can look forward to seeing them in their entirety in the next month or two on here.

I also notice that each of these pitches had weaknesses to them, too. Blog post pitches don’t have to be perfect — but they do have to convey that you have a strong, unique idea, know how to execute it, and have some experience in freelance writing.

The idea also needs to be something I haven’t written about before, and probably wouldn’t have thought to do otherwise.

I put these aside to include in this post a few weeks back. Looking at them again, I notice something important about them — two of the three of these are from people whose names I already knew in some context. One is someone whose blog I’ve guested on, and the other is from a respected organization I know as well.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: relationships matter.

But a great idea can always get you in cold — this first post got in the door just by being a close reader with something new to say.

This first writer pitched a strong headline (so rare to see!) with a counterintuitive twist that made me want to read more. I liked how Jessica took the time to spell out her points so I could get a great sense of what the post would be like.

Jessica Lunk wrote:

Dear Carol,
Sometimes to get unstuck, you just have to move, even if it is in the wrong direction.  This is the heart of a piece I would like to write for the Make a Living Writing blog, The 5 Writing Rules I Broke to Get Unstuck.

The 5 Writing Rules I Broke to Get Unstuck
1.  Never write for the content mills. -The content mill was my internship. -Not lucrative, but does provide experience in meeting deadlines and meeting the needs of a client.
-Also is a good introduction to SEO and why content matters online.
2.  Steer clear of Craigslist. -Great clients can be posting anywhere.  -In my case, it was a retired business owner coming out of retirement to start a new business whose ad I answered on Craigslist.  He is still a client today.

3.  Have a specialty or niche. -While having a niche is ideal, you can’t become an expert in a day.  -Sharing your journey is valuable. -The more you explore, the more unique your perspective, and the more connections you can make between your subject and the rest of the world.
4.  Ask permission. -If there isn’t a clear-cut answer, go for it. -It was unclear whether or not I could market my writing as “handmade” on Etsy.  But, I went for it and landed several awesome clients.
5.  Don’t copy. -The best formulas always work, and you don’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel to write a great piece.
Five years ago, I was an administrative assistant with an English degree. I dreamed of breaking free and getting paid to write.  Now, I am a content marketer and copywriter for a software company, with a few freelance gigs on the side.  I blog at _____, and have even had a blog post featured on LinkedIn.  I would love to share my experience with the Make a Living Writing community.
Carol, would The 5 Writing Rules I Broke Get Unstuck be of interest to you?
Sincerely, Jessica Lunk
p.s.  I love the Make a Living Writing blog.  Thanks so much for being an amazing resource!

(Note: While sucking up is really not necessary, this p.s. did let me know Jessica was a regular reader of the blog, which is something I do look for.)

This next pitch did a good job of focusing in on a small detail in writing query letters that could help readers get more assignments. I liked the laser focus:

Hi, I’m C. Hope Clark of FundsforWriters.com. I’m also author of the newly released Lowcountry Bribe, from Bell Bridge Books. My writing experience encompasses many guest blog posts, but also magazines like Writer’s Digest, The Writer, TURF, Landscape Management, VOYA, American Careers, and more. Some of my best work, however, goes out to my readers in the FundsforWriters newsletters. The four newsletters go to 43,000 readers each week and Fundsfor Writers has been chosen by Writer’s Digest for its 101 Best Websites for Writers for the past 11 years.

(Note: I really don’t need this much background, and feel free to put it at the end. In this case, Hope had me at “I’m with Funds For Writers,” a respected organization I know well.

I’ve read you for some time, and know Linda Formichelli well. Both you ladies do marvelous work.
After watching you from afar, I’d love to proffer a guest post for your blog.

Title: Multiple Personality Querying

When pitching magazine editors, the need to nail story premise, hook and match to the publication’s
readership are a given. Many writers, however, use a cookie cutter bio once they’ve pitched the story
when the bio could actually nail the contract. One of my examples involves my landing a gig with
Landscape Management magazine just by virtue I’d personally installed a new lawn. The editor was more
intrigued with my take on landscape companies than my experience, especially since the query letter
was already well written. Another instance involves American Careers Magazine, where the editor’s
interest piqued at the fact I’d been an HR director before I’d delved into freelancing. TURF Magazine’s
editor was drawn to my degree in agronomy. Fact is, I pitched each case with a different bio, a different
pyramid presentation of my history, experiences, and education, matching each need with my talent
that worked best in selling my ability. This 500-word piece would introduce your readers to the critical
need to choreograph a bio as well as the opening pitch for the story itself.

I look forward to hearing from you.

C. Hope Clark
Editor, FundsforWriters
Writer’s Digest 101 Best Web Sites for Writers – 2001-2011

This final one, from YoungPrePro‘s Bamidele Onibalusi, for whom I’ve guested in the past, needed some work — but Oni was willing to put in the time and get the gig.

Hi Carol –

You know we once talked about me contributing a guest post to Make a Living Writing?

I’m trying to write a lot of guest posts this month and have some big ones scheduled, I’d like to contribute to Make a Living Writing too.

I’ve been making some changes to my blog lately in terms of how I’m able to get clients, and I’m noticing some interesting things; I’ve gotten 3 clients in the past two weeks, two of which are paying over $100 per article.

I’m thinking of writing a post on how to use a blog to generate writing clients for MakeaLivingWriting.com. What do you think about the idea?

Best Regards,
Oni

18 Year Old Blogger and Writer.

Blog: YoungPrePro.com

Oni — where’s your headline and outline?

–Carol

Hi Carol –

Sure thing! Here’s my idea below:

Headline: How to Turn Your Blog into a Client Generation Machine

Outline: Having a blog should be the most important marketing strategy every freelance writer should consider, because if done rightly it can be a great source of quality clients. In fact, recent data <http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31320/Blogging-Trumps-Traditional-Advertising-in-ROI-Head-to-Head-Case-Study.aspx>  from Hubspot has proven that blogging is actually more effective than Superbowl ads for lead generation. The reality, however, is that just putting out an “hire me page” won’t make much of a difference, especially if you have a budding blog. The idea of this article is to share a few unique tactics to get clients to hire you.

Here are the points I’ll consider:

Scare People Off with Your Hire Me Page: I recently put up an hire me page for my blog in an attempt to get better clients, and the results have been disappointing; I get like 5 – 7 requests a week from people who want to hire me, but are only willing to pay peanuts. I decided to edit my hire me page, with a PS telling people not to hire me if they’re unwilling to spend, or if they have low budget. The result has been 1 – 2 clients in a week, but that are ready to pay well for their services.

Publish Tutorials and Posts with Your Experience: My ultimate guide to guest blogging <http://www.youngprepro.com/guest-blogging-guide>  is very effective at sending guest blogging clients my way, and that’s because it’s like…the ultimate…on the subject. It gets around 10 – 20 links every month, it is being referenced everywhere, and it ranks #3 for the term “guest blogging”. It’s an authority on the subject, and that authority passes on to me; when people enjoy my information on guest blogging, the next thing they think of is hiring me, and my info is there.

Publish Regular Case Studies to Show Your Expertise: I run regular case studies on how I use guest blogging for my business, and it is often very practical and realistic. In return, it has been a good source of clients to me. Case studies show my familiarity with what I do, the fact that I get results from it, while convincing people to use my services.

Focus on SEO Traffic: The majority of my clients find me by searching for keywords in Google, and this is understandable considering the fact that around 50% of my traffic is from the search engines.

Kindly let me know if you love the idea, and I’ll write up the post on it!

Best Regards,
Oni

Oni gets extra points for these nicely defined bullets – they’re even bolded so I can scan them quickly. I like scannable posts and so do my readers, so this is a great way to pitch me.

Speaking of which, I’m fixing to run more guest posts this summer than usual, so if you’ve got a creative approach to freelance writing that’s made you more productive or gotten you more clients — and we haven’t covered it here before — feel free to check out my writer guidelines.

Last year, I started actively soliciting guest posts for this blog. My original idea was to find a few posters who’d like to guest post regularly, once a month. I did that weekly for a year on WM Freelance Writers Connection, and thought it was a great experience for me…so maybe some readers would like to be regular guest posters on my blog.

You told me my idea sucked.

After all, I’m all about empowering writers to get paid more. How could I ask writers to regularly write for free?

I thought about it. I realized I had accomplished something.

I had created a brand on this blog.

My brand stands for something — it stands for fair pay for writers. That means I have to be true to that, always.

I immediately switched to simply soliciting single guest posts from writers. Which were done for free.

Because after all, guest posting is something we all do for free, as a marketing activity. Right?

But the free guest posting idea still bugged me.

Especially in the past few months, as this blog began earning a very modest but still meaningful income.

I’ve crusaded for three years now against $15 articles and $20 blog posts.

Why, I had to ask myself, do I still think free guest posts are OK, especially on sites that make money?

The answer is: I don’t.

I’ve decided that while I may continue to choose to guest for free on other sites, I don’t think it’s OK for me to ask writers to post for free here.

That’s why I am now paying for guest posts.

Yes, this is going to hit my budget. But I’ve decided it’s got to be done. Somebody has to take a stand and say that if a blog is a money-making business, writers should be paid.

I kept waiting for one of the big, popular blogs to start paying and start a trend, and then lots of blogs would pay for guest posts.

But that hasn’t happened.

I may not be starting a trend, but I’m going to start paying writers for guest posts. Because I feel it’s the right thing to do.

Here’s how it’s going to work:

For now, I will only be accepting two or three posts a month. I will be paying $50 a post. That’s all I think I can afford.

I realize that for some of my readers, this will make me a highly desirable market, while for others it will be an insultingly small amount of pay.

In either case, I’m going to pay $50 for each blog post I publish.

Here’s my plan — I will send the writer a payment or, if you’d like to guest here but don’t want my lowly $50, I will instead donate it to InvisiblePeople.tv, an awesome nonprofit I learned about at SOBCon that is raising awareness of homeless people’s struggles through video and helping to inspire change, including construction of more low-income housing.

I pay on publication.

As this blog grows, I may take more guest posts and/or raise my pay rate.

Want to guest on my blog?

Here are my writers’ guidelines. Please read them carefully.

Make a Living Writing provides authoritative, helpful advice that doesn’t pull any punches. I’m seeking posters who can offer straightforward, practical, valuable, no-bull information that’s rooted in personal experience. Concrete examples are encouraged.

Please be a regular reader of this blog before you pitch me. Be familiar with the topics that have recently been covered on the blog. Propose something different.

Know how to write strong headlines.

Some particular areas where I am always looking for guest posts include specialized writing niches, time management, and the technical end of blogging and writers’ Web sites. I also like success stories about how a writer broke in, or got a great client.

I prefer posts of about 500 words or less, though a long-list type topic might need more space.

Proof relentlessly. Write concisely. Know AP Style.

Check the popular posts sidebar at right for a sense of what readers like.

Posts should be unique and previously unpublished. You will not include any lies in your post, or especially anything that slanders or defames anyone else.

I retain the right to use your guest post in future ebooks and other products. However, you may reprint/republish your post after 30 days.

Compose your post in your WordPress so that it formats well, if you can. Please suggest an image (either free or a cheap one from istockphoto) and provide credit link information.

Once your headline and outline has been approved by me and you’ve written your post, send me two things: a .txt or .rtf plain-text version of your proposed post for putting into my WordPress html mode, and a Word doc for easy read-through.

I offer two links in your tagline (or you can stick one of those in the post, if you prefer). That is all. Keep your tagline short – three lines max.

Have a passion for helping other writers make more money.

Do not send me finished articles without an assignment from me. They will not be read or accepted.

When you’re ready, email me your pitch. It should include the proposed headline for your blog as well as an outline of the points you would cover.

If I think there’s potential there, I’ll contact you on email and we’ll flesh it out.

I look forward to having some terrific guest posts on the blog, and to helping create more conversation around the idea of pay for guest posts.

For great examples of guest posts I’ve published in the past, see my permanent guest-post submission guidelines page.

What do you think — should guest posters be paid? Leave your opinion in the comments below.

Do you have questions about how to earn more from your writing? Learn more in my community Freelance Writers Den – take ecourses, attend live events, ask writing pros your questions in our forums, and use our exclusive Junk-Free Job Board.

Photo: Flickr – ba1969