There seems to be growing voice within the blogging world stressing ultra-success. It’s mainly due to the need of being vocal by the Make Money Online crowd. Their chosen niche demands that they stress big money in order to attract a following.
I want to remind folks that there is nothing wrong with building a cool site, a growing site that you thoroughly enjoy and not worry so much about building it into a huge money making machine. Keep it fun.
A bit of background: I never entered blogging with a view to doing it full time. I owned a used bookstore and created The Bookshop Blog to help other shop owners become better sellers. The site has grown slowly, my ad spots are all sold and the site puts a couple bucks in my pocket. Then last year I decided to launch a blog on my other passion, Hockey. I’ve convinced 35 writers to provide tons of original content (1600 posts in year 1) and the site is gaining a nice following/ making a bit of money.
Realistically, I’m not sure if I’ll ever be a full time, 6 figure blogger and that’s just fine. It seems the Make Money Online guys always stress the idea of treating your blog as a business. But a business is dog eat dog, tough, wrought with failures, struggles and missed goals. Here’s another way to view your blog, a very enjoyable pastime that enables you to connect with a pile of bright, fun people all while putting a few bucks in your pocket.
Think of other hobbies that chew up a good amount of time. How many of them give you the opportunity to:
- Communicate daily with a cool group of peers
- Grant you a potentially huge audience for your creative side
- Exercise your mind by reading and doing so many different things each day, as opposed to the same thing over and over again like most hobbies
- And the big kicker – Put money in your wallet – whereas stamp collecting or flying model plans will severely deplete it.
All this sounds great to me and I feel there is no shame in proudly declaring that I am a very successful 4 figure blogger.
I will continue to work at my pastime, develop it, improve it, and we may even get around to selling our own information product on The Hockey Writers this spring.
Like most young kids dreaming of the Major Leagues, most bloggers hope to be amongst the A-Listers one day. The reality is that if you can be comfortable in the C-List, make a few bucks and be proud of your site(s) then don’t knock yourself for not making it to The Show. This year, if I make enough extra dough to take my wife on a nice vacation – well that would be something! And I would be feeling mighty fine…
Ps feel free to remind me about this post when you see me speaking at one of the big blogging conventions in a couple years (wink)
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Dude. 7 year blogger, and very much a 3 figure blogger! I know tons of successful bloggers who haven’t made a penny (I also know people who do the complete opposite of the “Make Money Online” crowd – just write awesome blogs – and are now writing to massive audiences in national newspapers).
For most of us, blogging is a hobby, sure it may not make us a fortune, but the connecting with people, improving your skills & making enough money for beer & burgers is good enough for most
Right On Rhys!! Here Here for the 3 figure blogger!
Hey Bruce! Pretty interesting post
I’m kind of from the other side of this post.. however, I’ve gone through what you say here. I started blogging with the purpose of making money and when I was in the three figure, I was always under the pressure… although, I would say that I enjoyed it the most at that time. Now that the revenue has gone up and I’ve got employees to pay – the pressure of making the money has increased too.
I kind of stopped enjoyed blogging as it felt more like work, that is one of the reason why I joined problogger.com where I could interact with people who enjoy blogging and thus will eventually motivate me to blog and have the same fun as I used to have back then
Thanks for sharing Mayank, hope you can get some of the fun back!!
I think that your blog is what you want it to be. No need to compare your motivations with anyone. That’s the great thing about it!
The other nice thing is that at any time you can decide to change the directory. If you are small, you can devote more time and energy to make it more. If it’s become too much, cut back.
Good thoughts!
Debbie Ferm
I meant trajectory:)
By the way, I love the name, “The Big Desk.” Very cool.