The world is changing, the curtains are dropping you no longer need to have a degree to earn, you no longer need to button your shirts and walk to an office every day. You no longer need to walk on pre-laid paths to become successful.
This is a new era where each one of us can make our own homes and make our own lives. You can be anything and anyone you want, you can reach the stars and drink the ocean. You can ride the clouds and live with the wild.
I would personally call it the wild era, where you can do anything and still become successful before we go on when I say successful I don’t mean that you conquer the world being successful as a person is living a life where you don’t regret a single move.
You can fly and still make money for a living oh yes, here are 10 bloggers who are chasing their dreams with their hearts and living in a world of their own.
10 Best Indian Bloggers to follow to stay inspired:
1.Harsh Agrawal :
Harsh Agrawal, popularly known as Blogging scientist and has been the father of blogging in India.
“He started blogging as a hobby, and soon it turned into a passion and later a profession. He started blogging career with first blog ShoutMeLoud.com and later on added many more blogs to make sure that I don’t put all the eggs in one basket.“
SHOUT ME LOUD is his blog where you can find all technology, blogging and SEO related articles. He blogs about everything that you need to know about technology and blogging. so if you want anything from a spec of dust to whats in space then shout me loud is the place. Harsh Agarwal is your guiding star if you are thinking about starting a blog.
He quotes “With your words, you have the power to change the world”
I’m one of the living proof that one can make an easily sustainable earning with Blogging, and opt it as a career option. With ShoutMeLoud, I share all my techniques and ideas that helped me to make over $45000 a year. Just to be clear, this blog is for people who believe that they can work and earn money online, and are pretty serious about it.
On my personal front, I’m just another average guy who is doing what he likes. I’m a B.tech Graduate, and I love travelling, photography and learning new things.”
He makes money usually by affiliate marketing, paid reviews, blog consulting and through speaking gigs. He simply sees blogging the way an artist sees art. he always focuses on turning more people into his blog through his events and lives webinars on YouTube.
He also says
“I’m a student and I will be a student until the time I die, and when you have a curious mind, you are always willing to learn and try new things. I never let my blogging career become boring, as I keep trying something new.”
the money will never come easy. Blogging is a serious work, and more quality you will put in, more money you will make.
He suggests ” A blog business plan will ensure that you reach your goal of making money. Start making goals like “I have to make $100 from blogging this month” and once you reach that goal, think of making $1000 and then $10000.”
“Don’t wait for the magic to happen, take proactive steps and experience the magic”
These are the monetization technique ShoutMeLoud uses:
- Affiliate marketing
- Review
- AdSense
- Online Products
- Consulting
He says these are ways you can turn your blogging journey to make money. But you also have to make sure to do justice to the product its only by that you will become who you want to be. another one to remember is to do it with passion and not just for the pay.
2. Miss Malini :
The social media Jedi, as they call her found her calling in 2000, where she moved to Mumbai with 40,000 to set up her life.
Miss Malini’s blog is hitting the charts for a lot of reasons, especially to know whats happening where and who is dating who? Nothing pulls our attention more than knowing what is happening behind screens and to know the life of famous stars. Malini the 40-year old youngster, passionate about writing turned it into her career.
She has travelled the world but the key to her caged heart was in Delhi. she got into dramatics and even has been a part of a dance troupe called Veronica and the planets. she has done everything that felt right to her heart and kept seeking what she needed. she soon became one of Sonam Kapoor’s posse and even was once a backup dancer. like I said, she has her arms legs and heart in all that she can.
She went Mumbai in 2000 where her life as a blogger began.she says “I got into a cab, and the cab had disco lights, everything was neon, and I went out at night, and everything was so bright,”. It was love at first sight for Malini. From here on, the starry-eyed young woman’s life unfolded like any conventional Bollywood drama.
Malini admits she has been pretty lucky– somehow always in the right place at the right time. She moved to Bombay into a house with six girls and a pigeon.She served a brief stint as a freelance emcee, copywriter, radio DJ at 92.5 FM Radio One and as a gossip columnist for Mid-Day before moving on to Head of Digital Content for Channel V. And then, MissMalini happened.
Malini started blogging as a hobby in 2008 and upon her expertise in journalism and the Photoshop and HTML skills she soon had everything she needed and she gradually became the one stop for all the people’s needs from Bollywood to fashion to lifestyle. She soon formed her own army of people in their twenties to spread the word in social media and other things. That’s how missmalini stepped oceans and seas and hit worldwide.
“People around the world know our country for what they watch on Discovery Channel or Slumdog Millionaire but so few talk about the enterprise and talent India has to offer,” she rues.
She lives her life simple, she is named ‘ Indias most famous blogger’ by Huffington and Forbes but she shows no signs of such. she is living the life she worked for.
“Her philosophy in life is simple: the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is how to love and be loved in return. “Close your eyes and think of the one thing you would do for the rest of your life if nobody paid you to do it. Now that’s what you should be doing for a living. Once you find your voice and a unique gap in the market, you are likely to be successful at it.”
She makes money by simply blogging about products, lifestyle and Bollywood on whole.
5 rules of blogging: Malini Agarwal’s advice on creating a hit blog
1. “Find something unique, that no one is writing about.”
2. “Only write on something you’re passionate about.”
3. “Pick something you’d happily do all your life, even if no one paid you to do it.”
4. “Don’t start a blog to get famous, or to make money.”
5. “When you do make money, you’ve got to bootstrap. Invest what you make.”
3. SHIVYA NATH :
“years ago, I gave up my home, sold most of my possessions and embraced a nomadic life. This journey has taken me as far within as with my feet.”
Shivya Nath, the shooting star quit her corporate life at the age of 23 just to breathe the wild air. She gave away everything she once owned and surrendered her life and being to the world. She works on the go if she is short of money and lives this never-ending journey.
Like each one of us, she too grew up in a traditional Indian family in Dehradun at the base of Himalayas. She says she spent her childhood wondering what laid beyond the mountains.
She studied in Singapore and started working there, that’s where it all began she learnt everything about social media and was instantly taken away by the travel bloggers that lived around the world. She says
“It was impossible to tame my restless cubicle-bound soul, so in 2011, I took a 2-month sabbatical from work. I went flash-packing across Western Europe with a friend and volunteer-travelled by myself in the high Himalayas of India. In those two months, I saw, experienced and lived more than I ever had before, and decided to quit my first and only corporate job with the dream of travelling the world on my own terms.”
She avoids being the tourist and instead blends in with the local, she eats, drinks and sleeps like the natives. She mostly travels solo or with a friend. She likes to get to know the people and breathe all the country air left rather than looking at the big attractions.
She has lived the traveller blogger life and started earring through her travels, she also freelances whenever she can. But travel blogging is how she is making her living. She embraces the idea of working with travel brands that helped her find her self and made her travel life easier and happier.
She also says
“Although the income is unsteady, I have managed to fund 80% of my travels in the last 1.5 years through travel blogging – that includes epic adventures in Central America, Europe, Georgia, Jordan, the Caribbean and of course, India! What hasn’t changed is staying true to my travel style, and never recommending anything to my readers that I haven’t personally experienced and loved”
Her notion is to never to forget the reason why she wanted to travel and hence she only chooses brands that don’t let her change who she is or what she is here for.
- Travel campaigns
- Branded content
- Social media partnerships
- Freelance work
She makes money from the above. And money is never her motive she doesn’t want the luxury packages she goes for the heart and soul and not for the body.
She makes approximately 1-2 lakhs per month. But the challenge here is she can never predict what she is going to make but travelling has sure prepared for the worst, she is ready to hitchhike and even sleep under the stars. But what she knows is she is going to have the time of her life.
She is open to everything, she has lived the travel life both ways. She gets both the good and bad out of it and has blogged everything about it, to her eyes everything is an adventure.
She is wild and free, like the ocean waves.
4. Devesh Sharma:
Devesh Sharma runs the most incredible WordPress related site WPKube. He has been building websites since 2009, he is not only tech enthusiast but he also shares exceptional blog posts around WordPress related stuff.
Devesh is just 19 years old blogger, entrepreneur and affiliate marketer from India who loves to write about topics related to WordPress. Before starting WPKube.com, Devesh owned Technshare.com blog which he sold for $7000
WPKube is a WordPress related blog which covers all the tutorials of WordPress themes, plugins, step by step guides on building a successful blog with WordPress. His blog is truly amazing with content packed articles around WordPress. WPKube provides quality tips, hacks, tutorials, and themes for beginner users.
Blokube is another one of his own which is a blogging community site for bloggers and internet marketers. It currently has around five thousand users.
he says ”
To be honest, the main reason I got into blogging was to make money.
When I used to blog at Technshare, WordPress and thesis theme were two topics that I frequently blogged about on the site, so it was a natural progression to learn more about the technical side of things. After a few months, I ended up starting my own WordPress blog.“
Devesh Sharma makes money by blogging product reviews, services and marketings. And the thing is his reviews are true to his heart. he only publishes it once he knows or finds the value of it. He also sells WordPress themes and plugins.
He is passionate about what he does, he is always there to help you through it, he guides you and is open to questions anytime.
he shares his strategy to drive traffic to a blog
1.Quality content
2.Guest posting
3. Forums and blogging communities
he also says ”
Start by improving the design and content of your site. The best approach is to focus on producing quality content and building relationship with other bloggers in your niche. ”
5.AKANKSHA REDHU :
Akanksha 30, a Delhi based fashion/lifestyle blogger built own cocoon in a very few years. Akanksha has worked with many lucrative brands including Burberry, Gap, Honda and Michael Kors and is living the dream of SO many aspiring fashion lovers.
She was born in Golconda, near Hyderabad but lived all over India my entire life. Her dad was an army man and hence the moving around all over the world which really helped her observe and live all styles of life. Her heart’s calling was fashion and she studied fashion designing at NIFT and she instantly fell in love with the creative side of the world. she kept a visual diary of her creative work and that is what turned into akanksharedhu.com she would randomly post things that caught her eyes and heart and also her college assignments on her blog which pitched gold.
Once she set foot into her workspace she knew that this wasn’t going to be the space she will grow in, she spent a lot of time in creating her own fashion label and her own set of mind-blowing accessories while also trying to blog. well it didn’t go along well she had to pick between the label and the blogging and with the heavens looking over her she picked blogging.
She took time to perfect the look of her blog right from the content and the quality of photographs she was posting. She started with a point and then tasted many works of the camera.
she says ” I love my photographs to pop, so I always look for clean backgrounds that still have nice, bright colours but are not too busy. It is sometimes hard to shoot in Dehli, with so many people and all, but I shoot in the mornings when the light isn’t too harsh and the roads are not too full. When I am travelling to a beach or hilly location, the world is my playground. I can shoot anywhere and the photograph will look magnificent.”
FIND WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE, GIVE IT YOUR BEST SHOT AND THE REST WILL FOLLOW.
The key to becoming a successful blogger and making money through it is consistency. Being consistent will pull readers. you can help grow your audience by posting content which will instantly draw them in. it also builds trust with brands who would like to collaborate with you.
” If you want to get into blogging, the best advice I can give is to just do it. Start today, right now! Remember to be yourself and not compare yourself to other bloggers. I definitely think my individuality and unique sense of style has set me apart from others. I am not afraid to show off my body in a bikini or mismatch an outfit with random accessories because I feel that is what makes me different.”
Fashion and lifestyle blogging isn’t an easy thing but with consistent work, you can turn it into your career. the simple rules are
1.Quality
2.Consistency
You need not fit your self into boxes not meant for you. style things in your way and watch the world follow it.
6.Srinivas Tamada:
Srinivas is an engineer, blogger, thinker and founder of 9lessons programming blog, a very popular web development site. Topics Tutorials focused on Programming, Database, Jquery, Ajax, PHP, Demos, Web Design, CSS and web apps. He says “I am an Entrepreneur, Blogger, Thinker and most important I live, eat and drink Web, in short, I LOVE THE WEB.”
“Curiosity is free-wheeling intelligence.”, His Curiosity towards the world of the web made him learn the web programming well actually he isn’t a great programmer who can crack the world but he sure is a great implementer.
He started blogging with google blogger in 2008 and then switched on to his own domain the 9lessons.info.
“My first success was I did customize a blogger template, it made people turn towards me,”
he says the trick is to make people fall in love with your idea, once it happens then you will make your way out successfully. he explained things mostly complicated ones in a simple way that people chose him over the universities. he never followed any pattern or books he uses his own ways.
he earns by simply teaching people what he knows, he helps them understand what he knows in a new way. He says one way to drive traffic is the organic search way, following the SEO rules give better results. Social networking sites are for viral traffic, nowadays Facebook implementing new things we have to adopt all those social plug-ins.
He also released Wall Script, a collaboration of 9Lessons tutorials implemented with Jquery, PHP and MySQL. The Script gives a platform to build a social networking site and it stands with 900+ downloads till date.
he is also working on his dream to be an entrepreneur, with a small team of four excited to do special things on the web.
He also says that if you want to get into blogging then do it, for success you just need to wait for it to reach people.
7.AJAY JAIN :
“I’ve met doctors and I’ve met lawyers, and they all say they have jobs that help them sleep like a baby. I’ve met chartered accountants and I’ve met builders, astrophysicists and engineers, architects and chefs, all doing exactly what their 11-year-old selves had wanted. However, ask each of them if there was one thing they’d throw away their entire career for, something that would grant them fulfilment as well as unabashed happiness. A guilty pleasure, if you may. That unanimous fantasy is travel journalism.”
His journeys of discovery and self-discovery as a traveller, blogger and entrepreneur, mark the journey of Kunzum.com: at first, a travel blogger’s diary, then the wildly popular website which led to the opening of Kunzum Travel Café. Today, Kunzum is a reference point for people who like their travel served raw and real.
Ajay explains how he never intended for Kunzum to become a brand – to him, it was more of an enterprise to show Indians and the world how one needn’t go too far in search of ethereal beauty. “In a way, Kunzum started as a social enterprise. I wanted my blog to do its bit to sell the India Travel Story to the wider world, promote tourism and create sustainable livelihoods,” he adds. As of today, the site directly reaches over 70,000 people, and much more through shares and forwards.
“Being an entrepreneur in spirit, though, I could never stop at just writing content. I ventured into Kunzum as if I were on a journey, and just like any trip, I allowed myself to be surprised at every milestone. This is how ‘Kunzum – the business’ evolved. “
Under the Kunzum name, Ajay began exploring everything else he could do for to help his love for travel along. He started writing books and these were published under the imprint Kunzum.He also set up a gallery for his photographic art print.
And all these led him to the kunzum travel cafe. ” We did the math and realised our downside would only be the raw material cost of the coffee, tea and cookies. We were anyway running the space as a gallery with staff, which was trained to make coffee. The café did not have any additional overheads,” Ajay explains.
“The decision was strategic from one angle: when people come in for coffee, they will see my books and prints, and that would lead to sales. That happened, and lots more too. ‘Kunzum – the brand’ today would not be as known but for the café,”
he says blogging is quite risky too but its too bad not to try. you always have a backup when you are a blogger you can simply jump back to what you were doing. He makes money through his books, his photographic prints, his kunzum travel blogs.
He offers three hacks that helped him swift and change styles.
Ajay says,
“First, address the following questions: Why am I blogging? Who is my audience? Why would they consume my content? How will I market my blog to get to the desired audience? Bloggers must be multitaskers, and have a grip on writing, photography, videography maybe, a bit of technology, marketing, accounts and design. Most bloggers will have to do all these themselves; it is not easy to afford to hire someone to do it.”
Once it does start grabbing eyeballs like you had planned, you must strike the iron when it is hot. “You cannot just rely on eyeballs alone to get you ample advertising revenue. Be enterprising. This could include books, e-books, consulting, events, content syndication and speaking engagements. The blog can be the springboard to open other avenues for you,” Ajay adds.
You may have flat tyres, but these only create pauses, not stops.
8.ARCHANA DOSHI :
A kitchen is a place of joy for some and for some, it is a place where you give birth to new recipes which will live on even after you. Archana Doshi is one such woman known for her vegetarian healthy recipes that she passionately cooks and writes about. She aims to bridge the gap between gourmet food products and enthusiastic foodies. She is a blogger, food writer, an author, a food stylist, photographer and consultant.
She grew up in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu and wasn’t exposed to a lot of cuisines around the world but for a family who loved to eat and cook planted healthy eating habits in her. her mother was fond of cooking and experimenting a variety of cuisines. she collected a million recipes and tried them all. she cooked so passionately simply creating art in flavours that ignited the chef in Archana. with a formal training from her mother, she learned the art of cook and made her whom she is today.
Once her work life stopped and motherhood began a spark to start writing a recipe book hit her. and by the time the blog world was budding, she chose the internet.
“Ever since I started the website, Archana’s Kitchen, I have been trying to perfect my recipes every time I cook. My kitchen became a “test kitchen” and this began showing in my recipes as well. Each time I cooked, I wrote, and again when I cooked I re-wrote the recipe. So every single time I cooked, I would make a change of ingredient to the recipe and viola another recipe came out of it!”
Archana’s kitchen then became her full-time work.she cooks she types she records and even design menus. she also is generous enough to share them with many aspiring cafes and brands.
She started making money when over a million visitors visited her website they soon gave her opportunities to start a food consultancy and also helping brands with product placements she even started conducting online video training sessions for her clients and fans. She is a food writer, an author, food consultant, food photographer and a culinary trainer.
“A health food studio is a distant dream. I will have to wait until my children are old enough to take care of themselves without my presence, which is when I can get myself into doing something I love – Yoga and Health Food.”
She is also a certified yoga instructor and had to choose between teaching yoga and managing my kitchen and chose the latter.
“Yoga has many principles that I believe that the first two are very important Yama and Niyama – Ethical conduct and a daily living discipline. I adopt this discipline and teach my children to do so as well. The rest will fall into place with good reading, education and practice.
And in my kitchen, week after week, I think of how best I can incorporate super healthy foods into the diet of my family. Making sure, a share of proteins, minerals, vitamins and carbohydrates go into the diet.
Combining food and yoga is something that comes to me naturally. Teaching, serving healthy food and at the same time teaching yoga are all those things I want in a studio that I dream. The two for me seem inseparable and spreading this knowledge is what I love doing.”
As a Food Consultant,
- Work with cafes and catering services to help design their menu’s with detailed recipes and online culinary training.
- Provide consultancy with new product development for retail markets.
- Work with food companies for product placements, through classes, videos, recipes and advertisements on my website.
Don’t look around, just write your mind. Blogging is all about writing passionately. Be super passionate about whatever you write and do and things will follow.
“I always wanted to make money on the Wall Street. When I discovered that there was an internet street, I thought why not; and this earning doing what I love.
My revenues from the blog are through advertisements on the website and YouTube. One can earn revenues through blogs by subscribing through AdWords by Google and also through product placement ads that specific companies request you to.”
9. Bruised Passports :
The couple who gave up their jobs to travel the world
“Of all the books in the world, the best stories are found between the pages of a passport”.
Vidit Taneja and Savi Munjal, who shuttle between New Delhi and London — their two homes — are making this a reality. The couple’s most memorable moments are probably from their passports which have multiple visas stamped in it. The duo loves exploring new places and has visited over 500 cities in 65 countries. So crazy they are about travelling that they have quit their jobs to take it up as a living.
“Our journey isn’t just about new countries, it’s about meeting new people, garnering tens of thousands of experiences, and living every moment, saturated with colour and happiness. It’s about celebrating the little things that people seem to have forgotten – stars, flowers, poetry, good vibes and perhaps, most importantly, freedom. It’s about chasing our happiness and living every second without regrets,” said Vidit and Savi
They travel all 365 days of the year, and what’s most important, nobody funds them. Yes, you heard that right, they have got no sponsors. The two spend all their hard-earned money on exploring amazing places around the world, a dream many of us would love to live.
so what do they do for their travel funds? “We work as a travel photographer and travel writer duo to sustain ourselves while we are on the road. Our articles and photos are published in a number of renowned magazines, newspapers, and online portals including BBC Good Food Magazine, National Geographic Traveller, and The Huffington Post. We’ve also appeared in a TV show on Discovery Channel and TLC Asia. In addition to this, we have longstanding relationships with brands, who occasionally host us while we travel. And some of the ways in which we earn money includes travel writing, travel and fashion photography, working with tourism boards, public appearances, public speaking, television appearances and display advertisements on our website”.
The couple traves for both fun and living, they have good times and also the bad. They love experiencing new cultures, trying new foods, and making friends across the globe. Living each moment without regrets is their priority, so they try and follow their hearts as much as they can.
10. POPXO :
If you are wondering that who is the founder of POPxo.com, it is Priyanka Gill. The young entrepreneur is the face behind one of the best fashion blogs out there. It all started in the year 2006 when Priyanka Gill age was just 25. she decided to open a fashion blog and named it eStylista. It became quite famous and had a lot of visitors in a short span of time. The same blog then went on to become the famous POPxo.com.
As of now, apart from running the website she also invests in lifestyle brands and early stage technology startups which look promising and are innovative. She is also a frequent contributor to top publications such as ‘The Guardian’, ‘Vogue India’ and even ‘Hello Pakistan’. Priyanka is also an editor of Harpers Bazaar India and manages the content there.
Priyanka Gill is an entrepreneur, there is no basic salary that she picks. It all depends on how her businesses and investments do over time. She is among the finest female entrepreneurs in the current scenario and tries to work as hard as possible.
“POPxo creates stories, videos and social media content about the things young Indian women care about. We talk about everything from fashion and beauty to weddings and work. We even talk about sex, from a female perspective.”
Fashion, food, technology and style are her passions and if there is one person who can blog and put them all into one and also turn it into a thriving career it is her, priyanka gill.
Gill wrote about everything that caught her fancy, until she realized the ambition and talent she housed, saw the opportunity, and decided to go all in with the hand she was dealt.
BUILD A LIFE, NOT A CAREER
“One would think between being an investor, entrepreneur, writer and free-lance journalist, she’d crumble into her duvet and pull the darkest blinds down the minute she gets time off. But she manages to have a fifth and sixth facet to her life- that she does only for herself and gives no less priority than her work- being an art aficionado, and a socialite. Aside from investing in modern Indian art She also promotes contemporary Indian art by hosting soirees around the topic, in the right circuits.”
Comments ( 1 )
Yogesh Kumar
I am a follower of Harsh Agrawal and heard about Miss Malini blog also. But read about other Indian blogger first time here. It’s a nice list of successful bloggers and can be inspiration for the others.