I’ve been watching my Dad being a ProBlogger for a year now – here’s 5 things that I noticed about how he does it:
1. My Dad Reads More than He Writes
One question I hear a lot of people asking My Dad is ‘how much time do you spend writing each day?’ I think it’s a good question, but a better one would be ‘how much time do you spend reading each day?’ You see my Dad reads more than he writes. I think he does this because his writing gets better after reading what others say and because it means he’s learning more about his topics.
2. My Dad Talks All Day to Other Bloggers
Another thing my Dad does all day is ‘chat’ to people. He talks to them on his Skype headset, he types to them on his instant messenger and he even meets some of them in the cafe down the road for something called a ‘cafe lartay’. I think My Dad does it partly because blogging looks like a lonely job but also because it helps him blog better. It gives him new ideas, helps him get people to read his blog and link to it more and it even finds him partners to work with.
3. My Dad Only Uses a Few of the Ideas He Comes Up With
I was looking on my Dad’s computer the other day and found a folder called ‘posts in progress’ which is filled with text files of half finished posts. Some of them are just blank text files with a post name as the file name, others have 10 points that need to be expanded. Others are half thought through ideas or questions from readers. My Dad has hundreds of files in this folder and he puts more in every week. On days when I’m being a little bit naughty and he can’t think straight to come up with a new idea he goes to this folder to help him get started.
4. My Dad Works A lot – but less than he Used to
My Mum tells me that My Dad used to work from when the sun made my room light to after she used to give me the last drink of the day (I don’t have that drink any more because I’m a big boy). That seems like a very long time to be looking at the computer box. He still does look at it for a lot of time in the day but less than he used to. My Dad now takes me for walks every afternoon where we go to the park for a swing and on the weekends he sometimes doesn’t look at the computer box for a whole day. I think he’s a good blogger because he knows he has to work hard but especially because he knows when to stop working.
5. My Dad is Different, like the Wiggles
I don’t read any of Dad’s blogs (I want him to start one of the Wiggles and then I would) but I met a few people that do read them and they tell me that one of the reasons that they first started reading what he writes is because he had something different to say. I don’t know how many blogs there are in the world but I would say it is at least as many as all of my My Mum’s, My Dad’s, My Grandma’s and My Grandpa’s and my toes and fingers all added together (and maybe more). That is a lot of blogs and to get people to notice yours you need to stand out a little – like the Wiggles do in their colored skivvies!
I could probably think of a lot more things to tell you about blogging and perhaps one day I will (although I think I could make more money writing it as an e-book for you to buy – I am an Ontraprenor like My Dad) but I have to go and have my morning sleep now.
I hope you had fun learning about My Dad with me.
