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An acquaintance of mine who makes a fair bit of money from blogging has taken to railing against blogging. Loudly.
I’m not sure why he loathes blogging so much because his blogs catch a fair bit of traffic and he really is making some money at it. And he writes for blogs at least daily. I won’t mention names, that’s not what I do. You may see him around.
But I will say this: it is not possible to succeed at blogging without having everything you do being available for public scrutiny. Good, bad or indifferent. If you fail, it’s public. By definition.
Disclaimer: I loathe word “blogging” with a purple passion.
But I use the word “blogging” because 1. everyone else is using it, and 2. what, exactly, is it we’re doing here, anyway? Blogging, that’s what.
Now there’s a couple of things about bloggers that I have observed over the years.
First, bloggers tend to learn by doing AND writing. Thus we have 10,000 articles on “How To Install WordPress.”
I don’t have a problem with this. People who learn by writing are my kind of people, and being able to read what they wrote gives me some insight into who they are and what they know. I like that.
Second, anyone writing for the internet on a regular basis (blogging by any other name) must surround themselves with the tools of the craft, they must learn the language, and they must practice their craft – however poorly – in public.
That is to say, everyone’s initial foray into blogging is indistinguishable from worshipping at the altar of a blogging cargo cult.
This is no different than painting. If you want to paint, you have to buy paint, brushes and canvas. And practice. A lot.
If you want to be successful at blogging, you have to practice, a lot.
If you want to be successful at anything, you have to practice, a lot.
But don’t let anyone tell you why you should or should not blog.
Art takes time to develop, a lot of time. Blogging being a performance art, you will be scrutinized, criticized, complimented and lauded. Pay little attention to any of it. Just keep doing what you know you need to do, and let the gadflies bite someone else.
And if the word “blog” is offensive to you, substitute “Writing personal, product, marketing, sales or relationship articles on a regular basis on the internet for the purpose of [insert your purpose here].” If that isn’t enough, move off of blogging software completely. In fact, move away from any database-driven web publication and code your web pages up by hand. That will surely remove any temptation to “blog.”
