Introducing the Sports Dollar's Newest Writer...

Posted 6/6/08 - Kellex

I'd like to introduce everyone to the newest writer here at the Sports Dollar, Joshua Lobdell! We've been busy during these first 3 months and thought it was a good idea to bring someone on to help share their views and success stories in the sports blogging world. Josh comes to us as a very successful online writer with hopes of something greater.

I may be somewhat of a cheeseball, but I asked him to write me a post that we could use as an introduction to our readers. Here is his take...

Who I am, and why you should care.

Hello to all you wonderful Sports Dollar readers. My name is Joshua Lobdell, and I, like many of you am a sports blogger. The powers that be here, have asked me to come along and share with you some of my wisdom on how to make a little cash writing sports blogs.

My Qualifications

I know what you are all thinking, “Who is this jerk off?” and “What makes him think he can tell me how to make money writing my sports blog?” Well in a little more than three years I have transformed from a writer, writing general sports stories on a weekly Myspace.com blog to the Head of the NASCAR department at www.fantasyinsideronline.com, a member of the fantasy sports writers of America, a full member of the NASCAR media, in line for a vote in the upcoming NASCAR Hall of Fame, and I make enough money doing this that it is my full time job working out of my home. This saves me a load of money on my taxes each year.

As soon as I finish my College Degree, I am in line for a beat writer position with mlb.com covering one of the 32 teams of Major league baseball. Once there, I will be a member of the Baseball Writers of America and after ten years I will also have a vote for the Baseball hall of Fame.

There is success out there to be had, but this is not an easy endeavor. First things first you must think of this as a job. It will take a lot of effort, networking, emails, business cards, appearing at events, and all that other stuff that makes things work.

Over the past three years I have labored at a great many things to get myself to this point. The main idea of me writing here as a blogger is to tell all of you how I did it and the other as a Department head is to show some of you what specific website editors are looking for.

At FIO I have the final say on every NASCAR writer we employ and I also have a minor say in the other sports writers the sites employ. With that base of knowledge I can show all of you how to avoid things that would make people like me move on to another blog instead of yours.

Also in the near future I will be hiring more writers, and this could be a very good way for some networking to occur. In this business one must always have an open mind, and the email you neglect to send is probably the one that doesn’t open the next door.

My History

Enough of all that for now, let’s look a little more at my unique history. I learned all of my promotion skills while serving as the Director of Community Relations for the 5 time World Champion Semi Pro Women’s Football team Detroit Demolition.

Before I did that, I ran a website dedicated to the Local Detroit Music scene and managed a few bands. I also spent some time as a GM of a movie theater.

What these jobs all had in common was the ability to get people to come to where I was and spend their money. It is with that idea that I embarked on my sports blogger career.

As you might have guessed I live in Detroit, I am married with a 2 year old son. Much of my work day is spent typing stories, I submit a column to FIO 4 times a week, I write at least two blog entries a day, and coming soon I will be doing a 5 minute spot on a sports pod cast, and then in the fall I will launch my own NASCAR themed pod cast.

Based on the traffic I see each day I would gather that I reach about 100 thousand people a day. Not to shabby for a guy sitting at his computer dissecting NASCAR stats and personnel moves.

Is this a legitimate career yet? Honestly no, but it does affect my tax return so that is a nice start. Honestly, I don’t even know what a good income doing this is, my family doesn’t want for anything and to me that is the measuring stick of success.

With all of that being said I look forward to showing all of you how to build a successful sports blog, for whatever your measuring stick of success happens to be.

Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?