Bill Jodele sent me the question I thought was most worthy of being the 25,000th post on this blog. For it, he receives a nice gift and the answer that follows. But first, here's what he asked me…
So how does one get to 25,000 posts on one's blog?
Well, it helps if you love to write and I really do. I have no particular opinion on whether I do it well. Years ago, I developed the belief that it's harmful to a writer to have a high estimation of his or her own ability. It's usually harmful to the work and if you go around saying it, it can be harmful to your employment. Most people who hire writers are of the opinion that if someone tells you how great they are, it's because they figure you won't come to that conclusion if you read their work.
In my case, I only know these two things: I enjoy it and there's a very long list of things I'm worse at. If I couldn't support myself writing, I'd probably spend a large part of every week writing just for myself. I'd put in my nine-to-five at Subway making six-inch meatball subs on Italian bread, then I'd go home and write all night.
July of 2019 will mark a half-century of me being a professional writer and unless things take a drastic plunge between now and then, I will log fifty years of never having once thought, "Maybe I should do something else with my life." That is not necessarily a brag. I know people who'd say it shows a lack of courage or a lack of sufficiently-high dreaming…but in this world, we do what works for us and that's what works for me.
What I like about blogging is (a) it's writing and (b) it's writing for me. Some wise person will someday say, "An artist is never so free as when he draws for his own enjoyment." Perhaps one already has. Either way, it's fun to spend some of my time at this keyboard putting down whatever's on my mind, unfettered by concerns that some editor won't like this or some producer doesn't want that.
I have friends who started weblogs because they thought it would help them professionally. Someone, they figured, would read their blogs and say, "Hey, I wanna get that guy for this high-paying job I have." If my experiences are typical, that does not happen often and the offers that do materialize are usually to write for the same rate the blog pays — i.e., nothing.
(Full Disclosure: My Amazon links have lately been netting me somewhere between $300 and $700 a month, though they've occasionally sparked much higher. If that sounds like a huge windfall to you, subtract the $2500 a year I spend on hosting, estimate the number of hours I put in and then reconsider. Fortunately, I have been able to do almost all the design and tech work myself, and I have friends like Josh Jones and Glenn Hauman who pitch in when a software problem is above my non-existent pay grade, as so many are.)
It does bring me work because people who see my writing in more professional venues have an easy way to contact me but that's not why I do it. I think part of my longevity at this is that I've never expected it to lead to anything.
If you start blogging because you think it's going to bolster your career, you can get real disappointed quickly and lose interest. Over the years, a few writer-acquaintances started blogs and immediately wrote to ask me to plug them and link to them. I often wrote back, "I'll link to you after you get your tenth post up" and the link never happened because they never made it that far.
Here is a bit of advice for anyone who's thinking of starting a blog. Don't start by trying to figure out software and hosting and web design. Start by verifying that you can keep the thing filled because very few people will follow a blog that goes weeks without a new entry. See if you can write twelve posts of a non-time-sensitive nature in one month, three a week. That would be twelve posts of more than a few sentences…twelve posts with which you're satisfied. If you can't do that, don't waste your time setting up a blog.
If you can, then get the thing up and running — and don't be surprised if it feels like you have a new puppy in the house. It has to be fed on a regular basis and every so often, it will make a mess on your carpet…in the case of the blog, by crashing. This blog is hosted by an expensive but utterly reliable hosting company. Before I went to them, it cost me a lot less in money but a lot more in time and tsuris.
Then once it's up and running, try to see how long you can manage to get new content up there every few days before you have to use one of those twelve warm-up posts you did. As long as possible, save them for those inevitable moments when you can't spare ten minutes to blog but feel the need/responsibility to post something.
What should you post? Well, the great thing about blogging — and really, really make sure you appreciate this — is that it's wholly up to you. You will not experience a freedom like that in many other portions of your life. I would politely suggest though that only a small percentage be devoted to your career and general self-promotion. I am assuming here you want some sort of readership and most people won't read a blog that just says, "Here's what I have coming out that you can buy next week."
I am pleased and feel like I'm doing it right when one of my publishers e-mails me to ask, "How come you haven't written on your page about that new book you did for us?" People will tolerate commercials but they expect a fair amount of program between them.
And then enjoy blogging for the sake of blogging. It's hard work at times but so are a lot of things that are worth doing. The benefits? You'll hear from some friends you haven't heard from in some time. You'll make new friends. No matter how innocuous your posts are, you'll hear from someone who thinks you're a friggin', uninformed idiot. You'll get a lot of requests to promote other folks' projects. I enjoy a large, smart readership so I have only to ask a question and I get dozens of answers, many of them even correct.
But none of this will happen if you don't enjoy writing. I do and I've never understood people who do it voluntarily but constantly complain how much work it is. There's a quote attributed to various folks but mostly Dorothy Parker: "I hate writing but I love having written." To me, that's like saying, "I hate hitting myself over the head with a ball-peen hammer but I love how it feels when I stop."
If that's how you feel about writing, don't blog. I mean, think about it. There must be something else you can do to not make any money.