I started this blog about a year ago, for the benefit of friends and family who wanted to know what I was up to. Eventually I began to get requests to guest post on commercial sites. There was no pay for these posts; the idea is that an unknown blogger benefits from the exposure. It kind of made sense to me. After all, when I started out as a singer I was grateful for the opportunity to sing and be heard. So far though, these posts do not seem to have generated much traffic to this blog.
Next came the "paid" articles for online travel sites. I call them "paid" because earning 25 dollars for three days' work merits quotes. It's not that I'm a particularly slow writer, although I'm sure the more experienced can toss off these pieces quicker than I, but when you have to add photos, links, and in one case recorded sound files, it takes time.
The long-term goal of all this is to establish myself as a writer with expertise on the Turkish Mediterranean, and thus eventually to earn actual money writing for actual print. I'm not expecting this to happen any time soon, but it's nice to feel like I have a 5-year plan.
And now for the obligatory travel photo:
Phaselis, Antalya
