Recently I’ve received multiple emails about blogging:
How to start one and how to grow your readership.
(subtitle: You Really Shouldn’t Be Asking Me)
If I was a good blogger, I’d write out a post with all sorts of tips, but I’m not and I don’t even like to write so I’m directing you to other bloggers; so many topics are covered which means I can get back to doing what I do best: eating candy and taking pictures of myself.
{Yeah, these are “big” bloggers I’m linking to; so sue me, call me a brown noser (again). If you want information, you ask the people who know what they’re doing. You wanna learn about singing, you go to Celine Dion not Milli Vanilli… which begs the question why anyone asks me in the first place.}
**Julie from pbfingers has a whole page of blog posts with everything from how to increase your readership, how to deal with negativity and how she made blogging her full-time job.
**Tina from carrotsncake also has a page with tons of blogging-related posts including how to start a blog, improving your photos, blogger responsibility, tips and how it became her job.
**Katy Widrick has so much technical social media information on her site; most of it is so far over my head and to be honest, I’m not interested in anything technical, but she has a lot of blogging, twitter and facebook tips including the Do’s and Don’ts of Guest Posting.
**Monica, the one I just asked to marry in my love letter post, did a Fitbloggin presentation on Blogging 101. She also has a post on mean comments and how to respond with grace (something I should probably learn instead of my normal, Oh you wanna go to Fist City? Good cause I just bought 2 tickets!)
Be prepared to put in the time.
Blogging takes time, lots of it. I’m in awe of those of you who can daily blog, work full-time and keep your family out of jail.
I’ve said this before, blogging isn’t hard work but it is work. Just like admin or secretarial work isn’t always physically hard, it’s still a lot of work and you probably don’t bound out of bed to do your job every.single.day.
Sometimes you won’t want to answer the 115th email about your Garmin, how to lose weight or how to come back from an injury, but you do and you do it appreciatively because someone cares enough to read your crap and email you.
It also takes time to grow your readership and reach a level of success, however you choose to define it. See the above bloggers for tips on growing your blog, but it doesn’t happen quickly. at least it didn’t for me.
I didn’t know any bloggers (or anything) when I first started and would have never emailed a blogger for advice, a link, or a guest post. I’m a passive middle child, what can I say.
But you flounder around for awhile and learn as you go. You put in the time and effort and maybe eventually it becomes something big or maybe you decide the whole blogging shebang isn’t for you. Either way, life goes on; the world doesn’t end when your blog does although it seems like it at times.
When I get stressed about the blog (usually a technical issue) Jaymo likes to remind me that my life will go on the same whether I blog or not. And he’s right: one day I’ll quit blogging and my life will be pretty much the same lame as before except with more free time… more time for this drama.
I don’t know, I’m just not loving Jenn as much anymore.
