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Wage Slave Rebel Dispatch
So You Want To Be A Blogger, Part One – Choosing A Topic
Blogging is a wonderful way to ease yourself into the lifestyle of a wage slave rebel. It’s something you can get started on cheaply, it’s not terribly time consuming so you can work it around your current schedule and — as we’ve seen time and time again — it has the potential to grow into a full-blown, full-time career.
For those of you who want to make the escape from corporate culture but are still nervous or afraid, blogging is probably even the best possible option. A successful blog can give you the confidence you need and connect you with people who can help you get where you’re going. As Corbett Barr notes in his post on choosing business ideas, a blog is a delayed revenue business. What this means is that you’ll spend most of your time at the beginning creating quality content and building a community around your site in order to accumulate a large readership. Once your readership is large enough, you can monetize your blog through advertising or by offering products such as ebooks, screencasts, etc. This model might not be desirable for a lot of people, but it’s perfect for aspiring wage slave rebels because it allows you to get something out there fast and to be gradually pursuing your goals rather than jumping into self-employment.
Finding A Topic
The most important thing to decide is what your blog will be about. There are some guidelines for choosing a topic.
- Write Passionately You have to write about a subject you are completely passionate about. If there’s anything you seem to always find yourself talking about, be it golf or writing or flying or cooking, that’s probably the general area you need to stick with. If you already love talking about it chances are it will make for an awesome blog. Also, being familiar with the content helps you interact with the community that will develop around your blog. Blogging is all about community.
- Find A Peculiar Perspective If your passion is cooking, it’s not enough to say you’re going to write about cooking. Cooking is a very broad subject and, if you haven’t notice, every broad subject has a popular blog to go with it. You need to focus on a niche. You need to hit your topic from a perspective that no one else has so that you have something fresh and valuable to offer your readers. For example, instead of a blog about cooking you could create a blog dedicated to cooking traditional Brazilian dishes. You don’t want to make your topic so narrow that there’s no audience to accompany it, though. The purpose of finding a more targeted niche is so that in the future when you want to release an ebook or take on advertisers, you’ll have a better idea of the kind of product to create or sponsors to contact.
- Don’t Be Afraid To Enter An Existing Niche There’s a good chance that whatever you want to blog about there will already be hundreds if not thousands of other bloggers writing about the same thing. Don’t worry about that. As long as you are passionate about what you’re writing your blog will stand on it’s own. It’s actually quite beneficial to start in a reasonably populated niche. Over time you’ll get to know the other bloggers and you’ll start helping each other out, whether that means tweeting each others posts or writing for each others blogs or whatever else. It’s good to have friends blogging in the same niche as you.
Really think about this step as it shapes every other decision you’ll make. If you choose the wrong topic, your blog might never see success. People can see through incompetence and apathy, so choose something you love and stick with it.
Part Two – Setting Up Your Blog
Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/shinythings/ / CC BY 2.0
Related posts
- So You Want To Be A Blogger, Part Three – Creating Compelling Content
- So You Want To Be A Blogger, Part Four – Promoting Your Blog
- So You Want To Be A Blogger, Part Two – Setting Up Your Blog
- The Secret to Quick and Consistently-Awesome Writing
- Want to Start a Blog, Gain a Following, Help People and Make Some Money Doing It?
Hey JD!
Awesome post. Many people do not know anything about blogging, about a year ago I myself was one of them. There is such a large community online and so many people who regularly read blogs.
Whats even better is the joy of writing! I love it!
I think what is very important like you say is choosing a topic you are passionate about, something you WANT to write about. Whether it is for an audience of 10 or 10 000 people, that you keep your style and your passion. It is easy to tell if someone is writing about something they don't really enjoy.
Blogging is a long term thing, and over the life of a blog you will likely write hundreds or even thousands of posts.
Thanks for sharing this:)
Keep well! Diggy
You are right. I probably should have included that! It definitely requires not just a passion for what you are writing but a passion for writing itself. If you are in the blogging business to make money, chances are it's not going to work out for you. You definitely need to be a talented writer and it helps if you love to write. How else could you write those hundreds or thousands of posts? If you don't like writing you probably won't last more than a week or two.
Hi J.D. Sometimes it seems it takes forever to earn a living from blogging but there are so many great reasons to get started.
It takes time and work, but definitely worth it in my option!
Once I finish this series I'll add to it an introduction with these points. I might not have made it very clear why you would want to start a blog and these are points that definitely need attention. Establishing authority and credibility and getting a reputation within the community are, for me at least, the most important aspects of blogging.
Thanks for this addition, John!
I agree with you, JD
Passion has to be number one, because it is the passion that will guide your enthusiasm and it is your enthusiasm or excitement that will get you to do the things that you may not enjoy along the way.
My blog is for people who like the nomadic lifestyle, and as such falls under the lifestyle design umbrella, and living life on purpose is what I am passionate about. What I get excited about is teaching. It's in my blood and in my soul. I have been teaching, both formally and informally since I was about 10 years old, and when I am talking about living life on purpose, I get excited.
So I guess my passion is living life on purpose and my niche would be Location Independent People or Nomads.
Great post, thanks for helping me clarifying things. Keep up the good work.
Rasheed
You might have a really fundamental point there, Rasheed. When I think about WSR and what it means to me, it's not just about having a topic and a niche, it's about teaching people. I have never taught a class or anything formally, but I do have this passion for wanting to see people reach their potential and to stop putting up with the crap that keeps them from living the lives they want to live.
Maybe this desire to teach, this desire to share your experiences for the benefit of others, is also a necessity for starting a blog. I mean it certainly helps and the value it adds to the blog really shines through.
This is a great post with lots of good advice. I'd have to say my favorite bit is: "Write Passionately." I think that is the most important part of blogging – passion. When the blogger is not passionate, it shows!
Passion is what makes a blog. If someone actually gives a damn about what they are saying, you can tell and their words will hold a lot of weight. This is why it's important. Blogging is all about becoming an outspoken leader in a community. If you don't know what you're talking about no one is going to give you much credibility and no one is going to keep reading what you write.
Hi J.D. Thanks for this. I am a fairly new personal development blogger and have come across this world of blogging in the last year or so too. Really enjoying it, the writing, the interaction and the exhange of different ideas. It's great to read this post because it makes me realise how far I've come but also the possibilities out there – look forward to the next post! Thanks Jen
For years I've been a closet blogger. I've set up many anonymous blogs that I planned on keeping and I have this secret desire to be a novelist and a writer. It all made sense, but in my early attempts at blogging I forgot the most important part… the audience. I wrote only for myself and I wrote things that weren't particularly valuable to anyone else.
I had a plan for Wage Slave Rebel and that was to be myself, make sure my name is hooked to every blog post I write.. it's even plastered across the top. Why? Because now I have a name to ruin. It helps force quality out of me. When I'm writing something, now I have to think, "Do I want this associated with me?"
This is why I started on this series. I want people to really understand what they should be planning and how they should operate in order to get passionate readers.
Great thoughts JD. There are so many reasons to become a blogger, and the motivation will be different for everyone, but I think everyone can gain something from starting, even if it is just a personal blog.
I also think your advice about not being afraid to enter an existing niche is valid. We are at the point where there are very few (if any) niches not being covered in some form or another. As long as you can add interesting thoughts to the conversation, there will be always be room for more people.
Nice work!
That's what's great about the internet. It seems like everyone has their own audience. It really feels like there's enough to go around, so entering an existing niche isn't a problem. And the support and community (neither of which I expected to the extent I've experienced them) is overwhelmingly awesome.
I think the most important thing to consider when starting a blog is what you ultimately want out of the blog. If you're looking to build a blog that will be a significant source of income then choosing your topic / niche is crucial. It can (and usually does) take a lot time for such a blog to become profitable requiring many hours of writing and seo work to be done. I've tried starting blogs on a couple of niche topics in the past and its a lot of hard work and effort. The main problem I found was that I ran out of things to write about or just lost interest before the blog became successful. There are much less stressful and faster ways of making money online and offline.
There are loads of other great reasons for writing a blog such as connecting with a community as a figure of authority who is respected.
The reason that I keep a blog is for my own personal development. I've got about 50 half written articles that I haven't published that are just waiting for me to polish up and finish. Most probably won't get finished or they'll get combined into other articles. I sometimes just like to write to get my own thoughts in order and it doesn't matter whether these articles get finished or not.
Another great thing about keeping a blog like this is that you don't feel pressured to write. You can take it or leave it, and it doesn't matter whether you get 10 readers a day or 10,000.
I think the most important thing when starting out writing a blog is just writing about things that you want to write about whether they inspire your or just because you want to share them. You can always tighten up your niche in the future if need be.
Solid stuff. I'm glad that you discussed entering existing niches, because these days if a niche is not being serviced, it probably means there aren't that many people interested in it (not enough to support a blog financially, at least!). That's not always true, but in most cases.
I think the biggest benefits I've gotten out of blogging relate to being seen and increasing my connections. Blogging well on a certain topic can make you an 'expert' on that topic, and there are so many valuable connections to be had online that if you write something that is of value to someone, you will almost always make a new friend/ally.
Writing something of value is like paying it forward, or as a super-spiritual friend of mine would say, 'Putting a penny in the karma bank.' You will almost always make back what you invested with interest.
Those are my biggest benefits too. Now, people know me for something and I get emails asking for help on lifestyle design or setting up blogs or building online businesses. Not only is the blog successful in and of itself, but the recognition I get from it presents me with lots of new opportunities.
I like that saying and it probably sums up blogging perfectly. It's really about providing value and helping people out.
Good stuff. It's especially important to really love what you are going to be blogging about, so I'm glad that you mentioned that. It's actually easy to start blogging, but it's even easier to quit blogging. I've had blogs in the past that lasted 1-2 months, and then I HATED posting on them. Luckily I've really found my groove and I look forward to posting on my current blog. Good advice!
Very good point, Nate. You were lucky though! The blogs I had before WSR lasted one or two weeks. There were several of them, too. What helped me is to stop seeing the blog as a personal blog and to start seeing it as a business opportunity. This keeps me brainstorming posts, hopefully posts that will have value for their readers. I'm glad to have finally found my groove too!
Good stuff. I really appreciated your first point being passion. I'm a believer that todays digital community contributors are the next media content providers. Get out there and start writing, recording and commenting on things you love. Passion is rare, and we use the word like it means nothing. True fervor is powerful and when you go with your gut and really share that, people will pick up on it, you'll be noticed and you'll be communicated with. If you're smart you'll also monetize it. That type of content will beat out newspaper, tv, and radio "programming" anyday. I've bent the internet to my will for years now, but only recently have I started to really contribute. It's a game changer for people reading and more importantly for the person writing. Glad to see an intelligent focus on this!
"I'm a believer that todays digital community contributors are the next media content providers."
This was such an interesting statement. I'd love to see how you would elaborate on that. I think you are definitely onto something.
I kind of base my whole philosophy about community and contribution on the open source community. That people can create and share for the sake of creating and sharing, asking nothing in return except that others also create and share is a really fascinating and appropriate philosophy for the internet and for blogging. People who contribute quality content the most tend to rise to the top and become leaders of their respective communities. Blogging can learn a lot from the open source community. The more comments, tweets, stumbles, diggs, posts and guest posts, the more likely you are to get to the top as a blogger. It's all about engaging people, readers and fellow writers alike.
JD, I like the post. I think there is a fine line between choosing a niche topic and one that is too narrow for you to be able to find enough topics to write about. I am of the mind that if you are a good enough writer that you don't have to stay within a particular niche but can branch out and encompass other topics and still maintain your following. Obviously getting the following is the hard part.
In case you're wondering, I found you by following Corbett Barr. As I am new to this arena it is always great to read more experienced bloggers post. Corbett has been very helpful to me. Experience goes a long way in my book. .Lookin forward to your next post on Monday.
Best, Bob Bessette
Corbett is a great writer and I love FreePursuits. I was happy to get a retweet from him today!
Anyway, you're totally right. A good addition to this post might be that you need to seem to choose a small niche. For example. WSR is about lifestyle design and self-employment. It seems like a narrow enough niche, but in reality lifestyle design can mean anything from travel to blogging to productivity. It leaves me open to write about lots of things as long as its skewed with this "own your life" perspective.
I hope to see you back here again, Bob. Thanks for stopping by!
Hey JD,
Great advice for blogging, here. I find out everytime I write that if you try to force it, or write about something that doesn't excite me, it doesn't work. People can see through your lack of passion, and dishonesty, and there's no way being fake can succeed. I like how you talk about building up an audience slowly before monetizing. That's my long term plan, and I have so much respect for the bloggers that did this successfully- it takes so much time, effort, and patience. But… it's awesome when you see people that have worked hard and it ends up panning out.
Looking forward to part 2!
Karen
Yeah. Patience is necessary if you want to make a blog work. You really have to build it. But I believe that if any blog churns out quality information at a consistent pace (1 or 2 posts per week on scheduled days) for three months, it can be successful. Of course, this depends on your definition of success. To me success means having built a steadily growing readership and getting 10 or 15 comments on each post.
I've been publishing at WSR since July 13 so I'm coming up on almost 2 months. In that time I've gained nearly 100 subscribers (waiting for the last few to push me over the edge), taken my page rank from 22 million to 900 thousand and get a decent amount of comments on each post, not to mention being able to take part and be heard in this lifestyle design/entrepreneurship/location independent community. For 2 months, I would consider WSR a huge success. It just takes some patience and consistency.
JD, I am impressed with your subscription rate. I tend to agree that you have had great success for only 2 months. Good luck with taking it to the next level. There are so many innovative voices in this arena…
Best, Bob
Hey JD—
This is some great info for a new blogger. It has always been tough to be creative at all times but if you are writing for an audience you need to understand they want original inspirational work.
Thanks for sharing the great advice with fellow young bloggers.
Dave LifeExcursion
That's exactly what they want. I'll tackle how to come up with original inspirational work later on in the series.
This is certainly a good reference for inspiring bloggers. However, i would differ my opinion on narrowing your niche too much because sooner or later they will run out of topic. It is important to know that you will have topic to write on even say 1 year later down the road.
That's true. By choosing a niche, I'm meaning to say you can't make a blog about "travel" or "food" and expect it to succeed. It's too broad. You'll be lost in thousands and thousands of voices. The topic should be narrow enough that you have an easily targeted market and big enough that there's enough interest in it to necessitate a blog.
Thanks for stopping by Karlil!
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