How Someone Who Hated Writing, Makes a Living Blogging
This is a blog story by Glen Allsopp who writes about viral marketing.
A few months ago, I received an email from Deelip Khanal of MaxBlogPress, asking if I would share my story with the readers here. At first, I was a little hesitant as I’ve shared most of my blogging advice in a lot of interviews recently, but then I had an idea.
Instead of me sharing my biggest tips about blogging, I just want to show you what is possible. After all, you can read tips on writing scannable content, creating killer-headlines and promoting your blog posts anywhere. However, at times all we really need is a little inspiration from somewhere who has been there and done that to get us going again.
If you’re losing a little bit of motivation for blogging or don’t really think you can achieve what you want to, then this post is for you. Allow me to start this story with a little of my background. In school, I absolutely hated writing. Despite being in the ‘high flyers’ class which meant that myself and 20 others took their English exams a year before anyone else in the country, I was definitely struggling. Computers were far more my thing and I would rather type out an essay than write it.
Being handed another assignment which involved 3,000 words, hand written, just drove me insane.
Over the next two years, I went through college and built up websites (some of which were blogs) on the side. In fact, three years ago, my first ever blog was the one I now write for full-time after giving it a recent resurrection: my site on viral marketing. For a year, I wrote on the site purely as a way to build up search engine traffic. I didn’t care about making my articles sticky or how viral they were; I simply cared about search engine rankings.
Of course, how search engines work and what I focus on has changed a lot, but even after a year of pushing myself to write and hoping that I would start to enjoy the process, nothing seemed to be helping.
Then something changed…
Getting Over Yourself
I slowly let my marketing blog die and wasn’t writing much online until I launched another site, PluginID. In just over a year, the site has gained over 6,000 subscribers and is viewed as a top 10 blog in the personal development industry.
If you’re wondering what changed between a guy that hated writing to one that makes enough money through blogging to support himself full-time, then let me tell you:
- I Started Writing What I Want To Read - I decided this would be the best way to judge whether I was writing excellent content that my audience would care about. Instead of writing things for search engines, or for teachers (like in school), I simply focused on writing what I wanted to write about. And, miraculously, I started loving it.
- I Realised the Importance of Content - Some people get so caught up in SEO, design and their analytics stats that they completely forget about the most important aspect of blogging: your readers. And, your readers are simply on your site for one thing: your content. Instead of writing for search engines, I started to realise that my blog would only grow if I provided massive value to my readers, so I started putting a lot more time and attention into my writing.
- I Stopped Caring About Things Out of My Control - After pumping out articles for a few months, it suddenly hit me that there is just no way I can ‘control’ whether people like my work. At school, I could study as much as possible and try to produce the best work that I can, but at the end of the day it’s up to the teacher to decide on my grade. Focus on what you can control (writing and promoting the best content you can) and then remain indifferent to how ‘well’ that article does. When you eliminate the number of things you focus on, you naturally start to enjoy the things you do.
- I Left Editing Until the End - Typically, with written content, I would edit as I go because I didn’t want to make a mistake on paper and have to start again. As you would expect, when I jumped into the online world, I kept this same method (as many people do). I now find that it’s much more enjoyable, and produces much better results, if you try to get down everything you want to say and then come back and edit the content later. This allows you to stay in the flow and enjoy two separate modes when writing your posts.
Each of these 4 things, individually, had a big impact on how I now operate online. Combining all of these changes meant that I went from literally dreading having to write posts, to living what I do and now enjoying writing as my favorite medium.
If you ever find yourself down about your writing ability or demotivated to write your next post, then keep these in mind. I went from someone who hated writing to making over $50,000 with my blogs in 2009. There’s no way you can’t do the same.
This is a blog story by Glen Allsopp who writes about viral marketing. If you liked this post, you may also enjoy his in-depth article on guest blogging.
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nice tips..!
i like it
Thanks for sharing Deelip. I used to be in niche blogging and what inspired me to write content everyday is because I do love to write about some niches such as health and gadget. So, the money will come eventually without you notice it.
Blogging is about your content and I am agree that CONTENT IS KING.
As always, awesome tips and awesome content that made you who you are today Glen! PluginID is great blog.
thank for that article… iget more idea now
I find the post quite inspirational but a little vague.
50,000 blogging, How many blogs do you have?
I have 25 and write 4 articles per day so each blog gets at least 1 new post per week. Unfortunately, I am no where near 50,000.
Should I be managing less blogs, and focus more on generating more revenue?
Thanks for your time.
Tim
Hey Tim,
I have 2 blogs. I prefer to have 2 awesome websites at the top of a niche than 4 or more good or great sites.
When your online writing more reader oriented with the basic objective of reaching out to your readers will yield more subscribers to your posts.
Great tips. I found that once I started writing for the readers and not the bots it made a huge difference. Many times I struggle to begin a topic, once I get started it flows smoothly. Great point on editing after the article is written. This way you don’t interrupt your thoughts and flow. Thanks for sharing!
This is really great. I will like to share part of this story and the link in one of my free reports to drive some points home. I hope I’m permitted.
I quote something similar below - from an interview Rich Schefren made with Gary Vaynerchuck some years back.
This was the the word of Rich;
“I wouldn’t have either. Actually, I read about this in the report. I didn’t start making the kind of money I make today until I stopped SEO, I stopped Pay Per Click, our company does it now but I just focused on writing these reports that delivered immense value. When I started writing these reports, the whole concept in the back of my mind was people’s attention is getting scarce. So, your marketing in and of itself has to provide value. If your marketing doesn’t provide value then whether you make that sale today or not is irrelevant because what you’re much more concerned about is are they going to pay attention to your marketing in the future and they’re only going to pay attention to your marketing in the future if every time they walk away from something of your marketing they feel like they have a good deal whether they bought or don’t buy.
For me, my biggest concern is when people read my reports or watch my videos that I’ve created, it’s not whether they bought or not, it’s whether they felt like it was worth their time. If it was worth their time, the next time I have something to market, I’ll also get their attention. If I don’t, I’ve lost that person. I won’t be able to get to them again. They’ll say I read that report and it was a waste of my time
then there is no reason to read the next report. It’s so important that your marketing gives value.”
Thank you for sharing your story and your tips. I’m really at a crossroads right now trying to figure out what I want to do online. Writing is hard when it’s forced and no one will keep it up if it’s a miserable experience.
I also think editing separately, like you suggest, will help. I’m constantly editing because I like everything to be “right.” No more!
This inspires me to write for pleasure! Thank you,
Kari
Thank you Glenn,
you said you didn’t want to write another tips article but this one came out pretty nice!
Best regards.
metalorn.
Thank you all for the kind words!
You’re very welcome.
Testing my account URL.
Great Inspirational!!
Great post! The most important thing I’ve learned about blogging is similar to your #1: I write for me. I write what I find interesting in a way that feels genuine. I don’t put on a persona, I just write.
I like it!
I have also discovered that writing what you enjoy reading makes a huge difference. Now, I’m more focused on sharing information with real people and not just writing to drive traffic to my site.
I always edit as I write, but I’m trying to quit
You have rekindled my hope because I think I am a step ahead of you. I like writing so much that I can take it as a day job. I hope to be like you some day.
Great tips for anyone wanting to start a blog. I think everyone thinks the same thing when people say “its all about blogging”. They just think “well, I hate to write so it’ll never work”. but the truth is, if you just stick with it, good things will happen. unique content is king.
Thaks for advice, but i want to ask, how to promote your blog ?? i mean how we know the readers come to our site without promoting our site ..?? maybe you can give us some tips for that ..
thanks .. great advice
I think we all should take a lesson from maxblogpress. Look at how we readers come here to comment and read the blogs here. What brought you here? I received an email and here I am!