Emma Cossey is a freelance blogger/writer/web editor. Multi tasking numerous roles she freelances from her home in Reading where she writes for popular lifestyle blogazines for Aigua media; dollymix.tv, Shoewawa.com,OSOGLAM.com as well as other websites Dorkadore.com and ItsOpen.com. She also manages the social media and web content for Reading University Students’ Union. A social media expert, she gives advice on how to make the most of web resources and using social media to its full potential for your blog.

Here she talks to Wannabe Hacks about how she made the brave decision to leave her dull business career behind, to pursue her passion for writing. She tells us how she made it possible and gives her tips for aspiring bloggers.

You originally studied Business at University, what inspired you to make the change to become a writer?

I’d love to say I always wanted to be a writer, but the reality is I never had any confidence in my writing – so I took the safe option of doing Business at University. I then went on to do a series of roles that I lacked any real passion for.

My last job took a big hit to my confidence. I handed in my notice, started looking for other jobs, and discovered a huge community of people on Twitter who genuinely loved their job. Most of them owned their own business, or worked as a freelancer. Knowing that it was possible to love what you do inspired me to finally give blogging a go.

What was your first break as a freelance blogger/writer?

A couple of weeks into joining Twitter, I saw Gemma Cartwright tweet about looking for an intern for a company she was working with at the time. A couple of days later, I saw Judy Johnson advertise an internship with Wahanda on Twitter. I undertook both internships and they kindly let me do some of it from home and some in London. I then ended up getting a job with Gemma’s old boss, Katie Lee, as an editorial assistant. It all kind of went from there!

Would you say it is more difficult to become a journalist if you have not studied journalism at University?

I’d say it’s definitely harder to become a journalist if you haven’t studied journalism at university. Not impossible, but you’ll have to work a damn sight harder and be prepared to take on more internships (unpaid and otherwise) to gather more experience. That’s fair enough really – it wouldn’t really be fair for those who had studied it if anyone could jump in!

Blogging doesn’t have the entrance barriers journalism has, so getting into it wasn’t as difficult. But I suspect making a success of it is more difficult because there are so many more people in the industry.

A lot of people think that you cannot turn blogging into a prosperous career, what would you say to them?

You can! But you’ll need to put a lot of effort and hours into it. I work 65-70 hours a week, so its definitely a full-time job! My average day involves researching, writing posts, sourcing images, checking facts, promoting content on social media sites, attending press events, emailing PRs and clients and dealing with invoicing. That said, I love doing it so it doesn’t feel like work most of the time.

Don’t miss the next part of the interview where Emma gives her tips on how to make your blog successful and why social media is so important for bloggers.