You’ve set up your blog, you’ve found a terrific theme, you’re producing content. . . now what? How do you attract the right target audience?

Create a social media strategy.

Which specific social media platforms you use will depend on your niche and your audience. Basic rule of thumb? You need to hang out where your audience does.

Here are five social media hangouts almost every blogger should use.

LinkedIn

If you’re blogging about kids or puppies, you don’t need LinkedIn to reach your target audience. However, if your blog is part of your portable career strategy, a LinkedIn presence is a necessity. Yes, LinkedIn is smaller than some of the other social platforms, but it’s the one social media platform that’s exclusively for business.

Joining is super easy.

1. Go to http://www.linkedin.com/
2. Fill out your first and last name, password and email
3. Click “Join Now

Once you have an account, you need to create your profile. We’ll walk through that in another post.

In the meantime, once you’ve joined, please invite me to connect with you — just let me know you’re a Future Expats reader. (You’ll find me here.)

Facebook

You probably already have a Facebook account. If you don’t, get one. With almost a billion members worldwide, your niche doesn’t matter — you’ll find like-minded people on Facebook.

If you have a portable career, you should have a Facebook Page for your business as well as a personal page.

To get started on Facebook, point your browser to http://Facebook.com and provide your

1. first and last name
2. email (twice)
3. password
4. gender
5. birthday (they limit children’s usage so they want to know you’re over 18)

Press the “Sign Up” button and you’re in.

You can follow the Future Expats page on Facebook — in fact, pop in and say “hi.”

Twitter

Ah, Twitter. You either love it or you hate it. But believe me, Twitter isn’t just for broadcasting to the world what you had for lunch.

Some people don’t get the 140-character mini-blog. Others, like Chris Brogan and Brian Clark, insist it’s the best social media platform for connecting with others and for sales.

It’s not as intuitive as some of the others, and it takes a while to get a feel for how really useful it is.

Twitter’s easy to join. All they need is your

1. Full name
2. Email
3. Password

Once you’re on board, send me a tweet to introduce yourself at http://twitter.com/FutureExpat and I’ll start following you.

Google Plus

This is the new kid on the social media block. No, G+ doesn’t have as many members as Facebook or Twitter. But there’s a compelling, over arching reason you should have a presence: Google Search.

Google is the king of search, and as a blogger you need to be found. So if you want to rank well in Google Search get active on G+. It’s that essential.

If you already have a Google account because you use GMail, Calendar or any of their many other services, signing up for Google Plus just takes a second. Go to https://plus.google.com/up/start and Sign In with your Google account.

If you’re a new Googler, head on over to https://plus.google.com/up/start and select “Create an Account.”

They want a little bit more from you:

1. First and last name
2. Username
3. Password
4. Birthday
5. Gender
6. Phone
7. Email
8. A little captcha to prove you’re not a robot
9. Location
10. Check to agree with Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Click the “Next Step” button and follow the instructions.

You’ll find my Google Plus profile here. Introduce yourself, let me know you’re an expat or future expat, and I’ll add you to my Expats circle!

Pinterest

Pinterest is another relatively new platform, but it’s growing fast.

Pinterest lends itself exceptionally well to creative endeavors — photography, art, crafts and design of all kinds. I’ve just started using it, so I can’t speak from a lot of experience, but I can see tremendous possibilities.

Pinterest works by invitation only, so joining has a couple of layers.

If you know someone with an account, you can ask them to send you an invite. (Leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll send you an invitation if you’d like.) Otherwise, go to http://pinterest.com/landing/ and fill in your email address to request an invitation. Once you receive it, follow the instructions to create your account.

Create a Profile

After you’ve joined any of these social networks, your next task is to create a profile. We’ll talk about that next time.

This is the 12th installment in our Blogging for Expats Tutorial Series. You can find the previous installments here.

Following in a more experienced person’s footsteps is a great way to learn something new, or to take the fear factor away from a scary new undertaking.

Sharing an expat’s experience with the process of relocating, or their life overseas, can teach some very useful lessons.

Here’s a list of expat and travel blogs and websites that are worth a look. To my surprise, I discovered it’s been about three months since the last one, so here’s a new list for 2012.

1. My Life In Canada Under the Snow
2. Gringos in Paradise (Mexico), for American expats in Mexico
3. Anywhere in the World, expat entrepreneur from France
4. The Road Less Traveled, American couple spend part of every year in Mexico in an RV or boat.
5. Overseas Exile, American currently in Amsterdam.
6. Far Away Hammer
7. The Venice Experiment, American expats in Venice, Italy.
8. Without Any Walls, expats in Germany.
9. Gringos Abroad, a family of Canadians in Ecuador.
10. Piglet in Portugal, writes a lot about food as well as other aspects of everyday expat life in Portugal.
11. Nicaragua Dispatch. This is actually an online newspaper, but I found it well worth spending some time with.
12. Expats in Italy
13. The Zieglers Blog, expats in Canada

Travel

These are not your typical travel sites, but sites of people who spent most of their lives traveling.

14. A Little Adrift
15. Travels of Adam
16. Magic Travel Blog
17. The Adventures of D
18. How to Travel with Pets
19. Fox Nomad
20. Tech Guide for Travel
21. Ramble Crunch, an American/Canadian family traveling through Europe and Turkey.

Do you have a favorite expat or perpetual-travel blog you’d like to recommend? Leave a link in the Comments section!

This is the 11th in our Blogging for Expats tutorial series.

So you’ve got an idea for your blog, you’ve worked your way through the basics of setting it up, maybe you’ve even posted a few articles. But your site still doesn’t look as professional as you’d like.

What to do. . . what to do. . .

Back in Tutorial #5 we discussed themes and how they can dress up your blog and help attract readers.

If you remember, WordPress is what makes your blog work, and the theme provides the look and feel of your site, and determines how it behaves. I used a house-building analogy: WordPress is the foundation, and the theme determines the exterior look, door and window placement and other decorative and functional elements.

Depending on your subject, you’ll choose one type of theme over another. Just as different home designs meet different families’ needs (think about trying to get to an upstairs master bedroom if you’re in a wheelchair, for example), different blog themes meet different needs and provide different functionality.

When you understand them, you’ll choose the theme that works perfectly to bring your subject and your audience together.

Theme Frameworks and Child Themes

Several of the best premium theme designers now separate the theme framework from the design.

Why separate them? Because it can save you oodles of time (yes, that’s a mathematically accurate number, oodles) later on when software updates happen. When the framework and design are intertwined, sometimes you’re stuck re-customizing elements. When they’re separate, your design changes stay intact even when the framework is updated.

Of my preferred theme designers, Studio Press has one framework, Woo Themes offers a mixture of framework/child themes and intertwined themes. They do offer you the option to create your own child theme.

Elegant Themes are all intertwined, but they give you the option to create your own child themes.

So one way or another, these three designers all make it possible for you to set up your theme to run on a framework with a child theme.

Don’t confuse the theme framework with WordPress. WordPress is still what makes your blog or website run. It’s still the foundation. To go back to our house analogy, think of the theme framework as the building’s framing, and the child theme as the design elements like whether the exterior is brick or stucco.

Here are a few basic theme styles, with descriptions of what they do and what type of business they’re best suited for.

Magazine Theme

A magazine theme presents the reader with a lot of options right off the bat. A typical magazine theme will have one large, eye-catching graphic at the top, then a lot of small headlines and excerpts of just a couple of lines. The home page is usually very busy, with lots going on.

This is not the type of theme you want if your topic is minimalism, meditation or something along those lines. However, if your site deals with celebrities, it might be just the thing.

Here are a few examples:

• Backcountry Theme by StudioPress
• StudioPress Magazine Child Theme
• Woo Themes Currents
• Woo Themes The Journal
• Woo Themes Premium News
• Magnificent by Elegant Themes
• Aggregate by Elegant Themes

Corporate Theme

A corporate or business theme takes advantage of the full CMS (content management system) power of WordPress. These are full featured websites, not “just blogs.”

• Enterprise by Studio Press
• Woo Themes Sealight
• Nova by Elegant Themes
• SimplePress by Elegant Themes
• LeanBiz by Elegant Themes

Portfolio Theme

Portfolio themes are designed to show off photographs, art, jewelry and other items that require lots of high-quality images.

• Manhattan by Studio Press
• Crystal by Studio Press
• Envisioned by Elegant themes
• Woo Themes Simplicity
• InStyle by Elegant Themes

Multimedia Theme

Multimedia themes showcase a variety of media — not just images, but video and audio as well. Perfect for musicians, videographers, or personal bloggers who like to share in lots of different formats.

• Woo Themes Premiere
• Woo Themes Backstage
• Webly by Elegant themes

Tumbler Style Theme

A tumbler-style blog, or “tumblog,” is characterized by short posts using a variety of media. A tumbler theme is also a multimedia theme in the purest sense, but its noted for the brevity of the posts.

• Tapestry by Studio Press
• Woo Themes Slanted
• Woo Themes Elefolio
• DailyNotes by Elegant Themes

E-Commerce Theme

• Woo themes Woo Store
• Woo Themes Canvas Commerce
• eStore by Elegant Themes
• Woo Themes Sliding

Flash! This just in. . . Woo Themes has just created a huge money saving WooCommerce Xmas Bundle. . . part of their 12 Days of Christmas offering. . . Check it out. . .

Specialized Business Theme

Just as there are many business and corporate themes, there are quite a few themes that have been designed with a specific business in mind. Here are just a few.

Real Estate Listings

• Woo Themes Estate
• Elegant Estate by Elegant Themes

Car Dealer, Real Estate or Rental Agent Listings

Woo Themes Listings

Designers

Fabric Theme by StudioPress

Book Clubs

Book Club (This is a child theme only, works with Listings framework above.)

Events

Event by Elegant Themes

Restaurants with Menus

• My Cuisine by Elegant Themes
• Woo Themes Diner

Reviews and Ratings

In Review by Elegant Themes

Crafts and Hobbies

Bee Crafty by StudioPress

Education

Education by StudioPress

Wikis

Woo Themes Wikeasi

City Guide

Woo themes City Guide

Freelance

Freelance Theme by StudioPress

Mobile and Fully Responsive Themes

I’ve grouped these together, because fully responsive themes are the newest upgrade to themes for mobile devices. You can purchase a theme that’s designed exclusively to display well on smart phones, or you can get a fully responsive theme which automatically adjusts to look gorgeous on any smart phone or tablet, laptop or desktop computer. These are incredibly versatile themes, and eventually all WordPress theme makers will be designing them.

Many themes already work well in mobile applications, without any fanfare. About 35% of visitors to this site view it on mobile devices, and it’s a mark of the StudioPress theme’s excellence that it works just fine without any fussing or special code.

• Handheld by Elegant Themes
• Driskill by StudioPress
• Woo Themes Buro
• Evolution by Elegant Themes

Personal Blog or Journal

These themes work well for traditional blogs.

• Memoir by Elegant Themes
• Glider by Elegant Themes
• Lifestyle by StudioPress
• Social Eyes by StudioPress

Super Flexible Themes

These require a bit more customization, but you can get exactly what you want.

• Prose by StudioPress. (This site runs on the Prose child theme and the Genesis framework.)
• Woo Themes Canvas. (Be sure to click on the Business, Magazine and Portfolio links in the demo to get an idea of this theme’s incredible versatility. To see an example of a soon-to-be-launched site I built using Canvas, click here.)
• Chameleon by Elegant Themes

So there you have it — just a handful of the thousands of wonderful premium WordPress themes available. There are some good free themes, too — I recommend Atahualpa if you’re going that route.

Remember, though, you should never use a free theme you find from searching Google. Only use themes that are available through the WordPress interface. Here’s why.

Still pondering what to get for that expat or future expat on your Christmas list? I thought I’d have some fun with the run-up to Christmas and one of my favorite Christmas ditties. Between now and December 25, I’ll bring you the 12 days of Christmas, shopping-for-expats style.

Each day we’ll focus on one aspect of expat or plan-to-be-expat life.

Ready?

On the Second Day of Christmas, my expat gave to me. . .
Two Blogging Books
And a website for to earn some money.

Book #1: How to Become a Successful Freelance Blogger

Don’t want to maintain your own blog but still want to earn money blogging? Freelance blogging is the answer, and this guide by my friend Paul Cunningham will show you how. Here’s my review.

Learn More about How to Become a Successful Freelance Blogger here.

Book #2: 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, Revised and updated for 2012

If you plan to blog as part or all of your expat portable career, get a jump start with the new, revised and enlarged 31-day plan. Here’s my review of the new version and the original book.

For dramatically better results from your blog, I highly recommend this ebook program. It worked for me! Learn more about it here.

On the Third Day of Christmas. . .

On the third day of Christmas, my expat gave to me
Three Premium Blog Themes,
Two Blogging Books
And a website for to earn some money.

If you plan to support yourself overseas using a blog, you need to do it professionally and that means using a premium theme. I work regularly with themes from three companies, and I recommend them highly. They all make gorgeous, useful, functional themes.

Whether you plan on offering your services, selling products, offering updated news or displaying your portfolio, you’ll find themes that will work for you from these vendors.

All of them also offer excellent customer support.

Genesis Theme Framework and Child Themes by Studio Press

This is a rock-solid theme framework. That’s really all I need to say about that. . . In addition to the framework, you need a “Child Theme.” That provides the decoration, the look and feel you want for your blog.

Future Expats runs on the Genesis Framework with the Prose Child Theme, in case you were wondering.

See all the Genesis themes here.

Elegant Themes

I’ve built several sites using Elegant Themes. (You can see them here and here if you’re interested. There’s another one in progress here.)

If you’re just starting out or not very technical, an Elegant Theme might be easier to work with than Genesis.

See all the Elegant Themes here.

Woo themes

Woo themes are extremely versatile, and they have the best e-commerce functionality of the three I’m recommending here. So if you’re planning to sell products, this is the theme designer you should be looking at.

They also offer a Full range of pages for any style of website. (Here’s an example of one that’s launching shortly.)

See all the Woo Themes here.

Are you getting some ideas about what to get the expat blogger in your life for Christmas? Leave a comment!

If you plan to blog as part or all of your expat portable career, you can get a jump start and save some money within the next 10 days.

ProBlogger Darren Rowse has just released the new, updated, better-than-ever version of his classic 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Early in my blogging career, I invested in the 31-day program, and it helped me to:

• Come up with more interesting topics to write about
• Write headlines that get more attention
• Leverage social media to grow my audience
• Gain confidence in my abilities to make blogging pay
• Actually make blogging pay!

So far, over 19,000 bloggers have benefited from the original book. (I wrote about it here.)

Now he’s revised and updated it, and added even more material. Instead of 31 days worth of tasks, you basically get 38!

If you want to make money with a blog, you need to do more than just sit down and write. This book will help you with the business side of blogging, as well as the creative side.

31 Days to Build a Better Blog normally sells for $29.95, but for 10 days you can grab it for only $22.50, a 25% discount. (That’s less than 73 cents a day!) Even at full price it’s a screaming bargain that will help you become a successful blogger much more quickly.

If you’re a blogger just starting out, or if you’ve been blogging for a while and your progess has stalled, this will get you moving in the right direction. Although Darren doesn’t normally recommend it for “pre-bloggers,” people who haven’t actually started a blog yet, you can use the Blogging for Expats tutorials here to get set up, then dive into the book.

Here’s more information.

Ready to rock ‘n roll? Grab your copy right now.

Blogging is a workable portable career for expats, requiring only some expertise, a computer and an internet connection. It can be an excellent way to fund your untethered life overseas.

Before you get into the technical issues of setting up your blog, though, you need to have some sort of a plan. Because, if you’re doing it right, a blog is a business and every business requires planning.

Sure, it’s wonderful to think about knocking off a few articles from your hammock while sipping margaritas on the beach, but if you want to generate an income you’ll need to do more than that.

Today we’ll take a look at planning for a successful blogging business from a bird’s eye view. Over the coming weeks, we’ll drill down and get more detailed.

Four Things to Think About Before You Start

Before you ever touch your keyboard or register your domain name, here are four basic items you need to spend some time on.

1. What to write about
2. Identify your audience
3. Have something to sell
4. Have a way to sell it

Once you’ve determined what you’ll write about, you can choose your domain name. Your subject will suggest some obvious possibilities.

If you’re living overseas and planning to write about your adventures in your new country, something like NewLifeinPanama.com might work.

If your passion is cooking and you’ll be sharing recipes and techniques, SusannasPanamaKitchen.com says it all.

If you’re a CPA and plan to blog about an accounting or tax-related topic, choose a businesslike domain name that your audience will relate to.

It’s important to have an idea, before you start, of who your audience will be. Two bloggers writing about Panama will have very different content if one audience is 20-somethings who love the night life and the other is mid-level executives tired of the rat race.

Once you’ve settled on a topic and have a sense of your audience, you’ll need a way to make money from, or monetize, your blog. There are lots of ways to create an income from a blog, and you can use one or all of them in combination. They include:

• Selling advertising space on your blog
• Finding companies that sell products or services your audience would pay for, and joining them as an affiliate
• Creating your own product to sell
• Selling a service

Most people look at selling advertising space first, but it’s not very profitable unless your traffic (the number of people viewing your site per day) is very high.

As an affiliate, you can offer almost anything to your readers. Your commissions will vary widely, from a small percentage if you sell a book from Amazon.com to a 50% commission for selling an electronic information product. Many major retailers have affiliate programs, and you can affiliate yourself to companies in the travel industry, retail, entertainment, and more.

While it’s tough to make a good living from affiliate sales unless you have thousands of visitors each day, affiliate selling can be a nice supplement to other blogging income streams.

Creating your own product is more difficult, but infinitely more rewarding than selling someone else’s. You can make a better income with a smaller audience when you sell your own stuff.

I’m mainly talking about electronic products here — if you’re living the untethered expat life with a portable career, you probably don’t want to get involved with packing and shipping a physical inventory of items, although it’s possible to do so.

One blogger I know started with a study guide for a professional exam he was studying for anyway.

I recommend building your blog on a WordPress framework, and teach how to use WordPress in our ongoing tutorial series here. Down the road, I plan to incorporate the tutorials into an e-book about building a WordPress blog.

If your topic is fitness, you could create videos demonstrating the exercise techniques you write about.

When creating a product, keep in mind that today’s buyers are not willing to pay for information, but they are willing to pay to learn how to do something.

Many bloggers use their blogs to generate interest in the service they provide. Writers, life coaches, accountants, lawyers, computer programmers, almost any service provider can create a healthier business by adding regular blogging to their marketing mix.

Do you already have a blog? Share a link in the comments below!

photo by stevendepolo on flickr

In our last installment of Blogging for Expats, we learned how to add content to a WordPress blog. Today we’ll go ahead and add some eye candy.

Keep in mind that some WordPress themes require you to handle images a little differently, but this will work with the majority.

It’s very common to see two sizes of the same image in a blog post. When you view the post on a page by itself, you’ll see a large version, and when you see a page with a list of posts and brief excerpts, you’ll see a small image, or thumbnail.

Here’s an example of a page with thumbnail images.

WordPress calls the larger image and its thumbnail the Featured Image. WordPress handles the resizing for you, so you can use the same image for both.

You can add other images as well, but you’ll only have one Featured Image per post. In this post, it’s the big “W” WordPress logo.

Adding the Featured Image

Let’s walk through the steps to put a Featured Image in your post.

Choose an Image, and edit if necessary

Most of the pictures you see on websites are either jpg or png images. Generally they’ll give you the best quality while using the fewest resources. So if your image is a different format, convert it to either png or jpg.

While WordPress can resize the Featured Image to make two different sizes, before you upload that image you should make sure it’s only as large as the largest version you want to display.

The reason is that images use up a lot of bandwidth. If you want an image that’s 4″ wide and you upload a 10″image, your server actually processes the 10″ size even though it’s being displayed smaller. So if your pictures are too big, your pages will load very slowly and will discourage your readers and site visitors from hanging around.

I’m not going to get into image editing here — it’s way outside the scope of what we’re covering. If you go to this link, you’ll see a list of resources for that.

Upload the Featured Image

So, you’ve got your image, you’ve sized it properly, now let’s add it to the beginning of your blog post.

Open your WordPress dashboard, and go to the post you want to add the image to.

Position your cursor at the beginning of the post, and click the “Add an Image” button just above your editing window. It looks like this.

You’ll see a new window with four tabs at the top. You can add an image from your computer, from a URL, from the Gallery or from the Media Library.

We’ll add a file from your computer, so select that tab then click the “Select Files” button. Navigate to the image file you want and select it.

After a few seconds, you’ll see a screen that looks like this. Notice the title has already been filled in for you. Under the title are fields labeled Alternate Text, Caption, Description, Link URL, Alignment and Size.

Alternate Text

This is the word or brief phrase you see when you hover your mouse over the image. It’s important — Google uses it for search.

Caption

Self explanatory — if you want a caption for your picture, enter it here.

Description

This is also important for search. In the example shown here, I used the same phrase as I used in the Alternate Text, but normally you’d have more information in the description.

Link URL

If you want to link the image to another website, or a different page on your site, enter that URL here. Otherwise, your reader will just see a version of the image on its own page when they click on it. Or you can leave it blank and select “None” below, to have no link at all.

Alignment

Here’s where you choose whether you want your image on the left, center or right. Since we’re uploading a Featured Image, choose Left

Size

You have your choice of four sizes here, but since we’re inserting a Featured Image, we’ll stick with Full Size.

Use as Featured Image

Once you’ve finished all your selections, click the link that says Use as Featured Image. This tells WordPress you want to use this image in the post, and also as the thumbnail image that’s displayed along with the post excerpt.

Here’s where the difference in themes comes into play. With some (like Woo Themes), that’s all you have to do. With most others, like this Genesis Prose theme I’m using, you also must click the Insert into Post button. It’s important to select Use as Featured Image before you choose to Insert into Post.

Add a Little White Space

You’re almost done. Now you just need to give your image a little breathing room so it doesn’t butt right up against your text.

In your editing window, click on your image. It’ll turn blue and you’ll see two little icons on it — one’s a big “X” for delete, and the other will let you edit the image. Click to edit.

You’ll see two tabs at the top of the popup window, Edit Image and Advanced Settings. Select the Advanced Settings.

Scroll down until you get to Image Properties. You can add a border (I usually don’t), and add some space around the image. In the little boxes, fill in the number of pixels you want — I usually use 10. You can experiment to see what looks good to you, on your blog. Just type in the number for the vertical space and the horizontal space. They can be the same or different.

Click Update to save your changes, and you’re done.

This is Part 10 of Blogging for Expats, the tutorial series to help you with the basics of starting a WordPress blog to help support your overseas. You can find the previous tutorials here.

Do you have questions about adding images to your posts in WordPress? Feel free to leave a comment. . .

Recently I promised to find out more about how travel writers balance their lives between work and travel. To that end, I spoke with Gary Arndt.

Gary is a travel blogger, which is a slightly different — but equally portable — career.

Gary explained the difference between being a travel writer and a travel blogger:

“Technically, I don’t consider myself a travel writer. Most travel writers either work on staff for a publication or work on a freelance basis for other publications. They get paid to write. While I do travel and I do write, I don’t sell my writing. I write almost exclusively for myself on my own travel blog. What I’m doing is, the tradition of travel writing, very new.”

Gary started his blog in 2006. He wasn’t really planning on turning travel writing into a career, he just wanted to travel the world. But his blog surprised him.

“I created a blog so I could share my adventures with my friends and family. I had no idea it would take off to the extent that it has. I decided to take things seriously in December 2007 when I was in Hong Kong and I realized the amount of time I was putting into my site wasn’t commensurate with the attention it was getting.”

Gary’s been traveling and writing full time for the past 4-1/2 years now. He finds sponsors for most of his trips, and hopes to turn a profit with the blog by next year.

So far, he’s visited over 100 countries, been to 49 of the 50 United States and nine of Canada’s ten provinces. He’s also visited 150 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In addition to the normal modes of transportation — planes, trains and automobiles — he’s also traveled by elephant, camel, hot air balloon and helicopter.

Gary didn’t have any special training in either photography (which he’s very good at!) or writing. Most of his college courses were in Economics and Mathematics, in fact.

I asked Gary about his balance of travel and writing. “Do you write while you travel?” I asked. “Take copious notes and do your writing when you get home? How do you manage?”

His answer surprised me.

“I seldom take notes. Most of what I write is at a higher level about the history or culture of a place, or just my thoughts. Most of my time will be spent taking photos and then just remembering what I saw and doing background research online.”

Gary believes the qualities that make a good travel writer are being passionate about traveling and sharing your stories.

Gary shared some advice about the travel writing business:

“This is a very difficult business to get into. Everyone has glamorous ideas of being a travel writer so the supply of writers is very high.

“However the number of outlets that will pay you to write is always shrinking. The first thing I’d do is set up a blog and use that has your home base. Anything else you do, in addition to getting paid, should be to prop up your blog. Having your own audience is ultimately the best job security.”

Gary’s blog is called Everything Everywhere. Check it out!

Travel Writer Training

Not everyone can plunge in without special training and make a go of a new line of work. Sometimes you just don’t have the luxury of time for the learning curve, or maybe you don’t want to wade through the marketing aspects of the business on your own.

If you’re interested in travel writing and, unlike Gary, feel you could benefit from some training, take a look at MatadorU.

They call themselves a “new media school for travelers,” and can teach you the skills you need to become a travel writer and help you take better photographs.

Watch the video below — it tells you more about the ways MatadorU can help you become a well paid travel writer. Their programs teach you, not just writing, but also what you need to know to market and sell your work and create your own successful travel blog.

They have some insider goodies to benefit their students as well — like a relationship with the prestigious National Geographic Traveler, which recruits writers from MatadorU. Watch some exclusive interviews and inside advice from Traveler staff.

Gary Arndt is a travel, photographer, public speaker and writer who blogs at Everything-Everywhere.com. He has been traveling around the world non-stop since 2007 and has visited over 100 countries. His blog is one of the internet’s most popular travel blogs and has been named by Time Magazine as one of the Top 25 Blogs in the world in 2010.

Photos by Gary Arndt

Blogs by and about expats are a great place to find information, ideas, tips, and get a general feel for what it might be like to live elsewhere. Here are a dozen interesting expat blogs I’ve found recently.

Europe

Expat in Germany provides information about living in Germany (and a little bit about Canada). The author is a Canadian serial expat who’s also lived in Thailand, S. Korea and the US.

Not From Around Here, subtitled “Stranger in a Strange Land” is all about the adventures of a US transplant to the UK.

Emtpy Nest Expat is an American who seized the moment (kids grown, no grandkids yet) to lace up her traveling shoes. She’s lived in the Czech Republic and is currently in Istanbul, Turkey.

Adventures in Expat Land is the blog of an American writer living in the Netherlands, where her husband works with an international organization.

Latin America

Monday or Something is not an expat blog, per se, but an interesting account of what it’s like to live in a place for one month, then move on. So far the author’s published from several locations in Panama, Nicaragua, Belize and Honduras.

The Mexile looks at Mexico and the UK from a British point of view. Back in England now, he lived in Mexico for five years and loved it.

An Expat Life in Nicaragua, an American in San Juan del Sur for the past four years.

Rewired and Retired in Nicaragua, another couple who moved from the US to Nicaragua, in this case a tiny island. They’ve been happy there for seven years.

North America

With more than a dollop of the dry wit and self-deprecation the British are famous for, Culturally Discombobulated looks at the Big Apple. His take on Pop Tarts and hurricanes is hilarious. . .

Expatlogue chronicles the adventures of a British family newly arrived in Ontario, Canada.

Asia / Pacific Rim

Expatria, Baby is a tongue-in-cheek look at living in Japan with a small child. The author is Canadian, her husband is Swiss, and they’ve been in Japan for about four years.

In Search of a Life Less Ordinary follows a Brit married to an Australian who lived in Canada for a while and are now located in Sydney.

Sooner or later, if you decide to blog for some or all of your expat income, you’ll have to maintain and update your blog while you’re traveling.

It can be done, but it requires a much higher level of organization and planning than you might be used to.

Do It Ahead

Do everything you possibly can before you leave. Think about all the elements that go into keeping your blog updated. Your list may be different from mine. For Future Expats, I do the following:

1. Plan upcoming posts. Before you can write a post you need to plan. Always keep a list of at least 20 possible blog topics for those times when you might need a mental nudge to come up with a topic. If you know you’ll be away from your home base for two weeks, as I am currently, figure out how many posts you normally publish during that time. Then add one or two to give yourself a cushion once you return.
2. Can you use some guest posts while you’re away? Make all the arrangements well in advance. Once you receive a guest post, sit down and do any necessary editing right away. Schedule it from within WordPress to publish at the appropriate time.
3. Write your posts. If it’s not time sensitive, get a post written, edited and uploaded, and schedule its publication from within WordPress. They’ll publish automatically and you won’t have to give them another thought.For posts that have a time-sensitive aspect, write as much as you get ahead of time. Then you’ll only have to polish and add relevant details while you’re on the road.
4. Update social media. Respond to blog comments, and to questions and comments on Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus.

On the Road

Plan your trip so you have some blocks of time when you know you’ll be able to access a computer and the internet. Even if you’ve been able to pre-schedule all your posts, there are still some tasks you’ll have to accomplish to keep your blog up to date.

I like to schedule in an entire day here and there to catch up with my blog and any other writing I have on my schedule. You may function just fine with a couple of hours here and there, everyone’s style is different. Just make sure you schedule it and then stick to that schedule.

While you’re on the road, you need to do the following — at a minimum — to stay current with your blog.

• Write, edit and/or upload any posts necessary
• Review the comments readers have left on previous posts and respond to them, where appropriate
• If your travels are related to your blog’s subject, take lots of pictures to use now and later
• Stay current, as much as possible, with your readers, followers and fans. Plan a few minutes every day if you can to check in with Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus and your other social networks.If it’s appropriate, let your readers know what’s going on. I’ve been posting updates on the Future Expats Facebook page to let readers know I’m on the road. Because this is a US trip I’m not being specific, but when I was in Panama last spring I posted on the blog and on social media where I was in the country.

Last, don’t get obsessive. Life happens, and your readers will understand that. If a post goes out a few hours, or even a day late, it’s not the end of the world. Enjoy your trip.

Do you have any tips or tricks for getting work done while you’re traveling? I’d love to hear them!

photo by guiguis on flickr