Nate has posted an article titled The Pressures of Blogging Consistently which outlines four pressures that bloggers face:
- Pressure #1: Regularly posting articles
- Pressure #2. Ever-increasing expectations
- Pressure #3. Catering to a larger audience
- Pressure #4. Lacking confidence
All very true points and some worthwhile things to ponder before getting into the blogging for money game.
Nate’s post reminds me of a conversation I had with a blogger who IM’d me asking if I would be involved in helping him start up a new blog. When I asked why he’d want to do that he told me that if he could just get me to recommend him as a good blogger that he’d ‘make it’ and be able to earn money from it fast.
I spent the next 15 minutes trying to show the guy that there’s so much more work behind starting a successful blog than just by having another well known blogger link up or even be involved.
What this blogger didn’t seem to get was that successful, money making blogs almost always are the result of daily posting over years. While you might get lucky with a big incoming link to something you’ve written, unless you can back up your linked to post with another of a high quality you’ll loose 99% of the visitors that come your way.
Yes some blogs do seem to be on a fast track as a result of exceptional quality, luck or very smart marketing – but these are the exceptions rather than the rule.
My recommendation to the blogger was that he either take a ‘long term’ and ‘hard work’ view of blogging or that he find a ‘real’ job to help him get the cash he needed. I’m not sure the advice went down that well – sometimes the dollar signs floating in front of our eyes block our view of reality – but it’s a hard truth that needs to be repeated.
