OK, the title is a bit clickbaity but the general idea is that in 2011, I lost my second job in a row thanks to a chronic illness I’ve now had for 12 years. I was lost, no work and no money, just a penchant for writing and an obsession with the internet.
Step forward WordPress and within days (and some long nights) I had set up a website and founded a business called WordNerd. With no real idea of what I was doing, I started marketing and blogging about my services and since then I’ve built a small business from the ground up.
I work as an online copywriter, mainly writing websites and blogs, and I also train people how to blog. I started without a penny to my name or any contacts, and now, less than five years later, I freelance two days a week for a very large brand who head-hunted me, I was in London yesterday teaching six business owners about blogging, and I can manage my own workload and my health.
If it hadn’t been for a website and blogging platform called WordPress I don’t know that any of this would have happened and I have no idea what would have become of me if I had been unable to work for myself.
Lots of people are unsatisfied at work or they need flexible working hours to accommodate their health or their family, or for any other reason, but they’re scared of making that leap and working for themselves. I think my story could show people that simply with a laptop and WordPress (and a few 1a.m. nights working out what the heck CSS is and how HTML works) you really can follow your dreams and achieve anything.