Have you ever dreamed of writing for Lonely Planet ? Well, your dream is about to come true. Lonely Planet has launched a new program giving a chance to bloggers to be published on Lonelyplanet.com and earn money from it.
The program called Blog Sherpa (or Blogs we like) allows Lonely Planet to use your articles, but the Google Adsense Ad showing next to your articles will have YOUR Adsense ID. Which means that you will get 100 percent of the money coming from any clicks on the ads served next to you content. (See an example of article here)
How to submit your blog
When you login to Lonely Planet site, click on your username on the top right. You will then see a new link called “My travel blog”.
Click it on you will be taken to page where you can click “New Travel Blog”, then enter your blog url, a description of your blog, your Adsense ID (you need to get one at google.com/adsense if you don’t have one yet) and of course you have to select the Blog Sherpa program.
I’ve submitted Voyageek and will report on the revenue that the program is bringing, but my blog is probably not the best candidate for it, because I don’t write long posts about destinations. If you have great content about a country or a city, you are likely to be selected and make the most of Blog Sherpa.
All in all here is my summary of the pros and cons of entering the program:
The Pros
-This is an extra income with no added effort. You already wrote the content for your own blog.
- You get a backlink to your blog from a site with great trustrank.
- Your writing will be showed to travelers that might not have heard about you otherwise and you might get new readers.
-You associate with Lonely Planet, a trusted travel brand.
The Cons
-Your blog content is no longer unique. You created duplicated content on another site. Your article on Lonely Planet will compete with the same article on your blog for the same keywords. And guess which site Google will consider the most relevant content ? Not yours. Even if you created the content, Lonely Planet site is likely to be seen by Google as more relevant because of all the inbound links they have.
- And that’s it
UPDATE: I crossposted the articel on Travelblogexchange and there are lots of comments, make sure you read them. Also I should have explain that you have to tag the posts you want to appear on LP with “blogsherpa” and the destination covered. See here for more details.
#1 by Tony W on July 31, 2009 - 6:06 pm
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When you agree to that the BBC and LP will own your web site for ever. And for what, $5 a year? Guide book sellers are realizing their future is limited. Don’t sell your soul kids.
#2 by Merrill on August 1, 2009 - 5:41 pm
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http://lplabs.com/blogsherpa/index.php?title=FAQs
* What happens to my copyright?
You retain all copyright to your work, you do not pass lonelyplanet.com any rights beyond allowing us to display your posts on lonelyplanet.com. We may wish to use your content in other lonelyplanet.com products in the future, but we will always contact you and agree a fee for this.
Pingback: BlogSherpa, Here I come « Voyageek
#3 by Flynn on August 21, 2009 - 2:59 pm
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Monetizing….is a bit like selling one’s soul. Especially to LP. For what, fame? Only money? You can also ask LP to provide you with clothes, boots tagged Lonely Planet;;;or any other brand.
Help them to ruin some more nice spots,the ones they don’t send their authors to.Frankly, I do no see the point. It just contributes to make tourism an industry, thanks !