The truth about blogging no one tells you #MondayBlogs #Blogging #AmWriting
Have a blog, they said. It will be fun, they said. Liars. Liars. Multiple pants on fire. Turns out that everyone really does have an opinion about everything. Many of those opinions will be misleading. Misleading is a politically correct word for lie. Yes, lie.
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Lie Number 1. If you write it, they will read it. I don’t care how funny, how moving, how well-written your blog post is, if you don’t have some kind of following whether it be social media, blog followers or devoted book readers, no one is going to read it, because they won’t be able to find it.
Lie Number 2. Blogging is easy. What exactly is supposed to be easy about blogging? Because none of it’s easy. From the setting up of the blog itself to writing blog posts to finding followers, easy is not the word to describe the work involved.
Lie Number 3. It will make you a better writer. Okay, I’m not saying that blogging will make you a worse writer, but what’s the goal here? Blog writing and novel writing are two completely different things. It has, in fact, taken me nearly a year to figure out how to write blogs. Don’t believe me? Check out this blog where I explain the torture that is finding your blogging voice.
Lie Number 4. It helps you build an audience. Um, no. The blog itself doesn’t help build the audience. All the work around the blog – networking, finding similar blogs, building that author platform – that helps you build an audience.
Lie Number 5. It makes you stand out. This one makes me wonder what the person was smoking. Because everyone has a blog nowadays. How does adding your blog to the sea of blogs out there make you stand out? Please, someone, explain this to me because I’m obviously doing everything wrong.
Lie Number 6. You’ll make some money. Seriously? Well, I guess ‘they’ never defined how much money. Sure, you can make some cash with your blog, but to make serious money, you need to put in serious time. You’ll also need to balance the appearance of ads with how it effects the look and feel of your blog. I’ve personally chosen not to have any ads on my blog (except for those WordPress ones I can’t avoid), because I think a lot of blogs get carried away with advertisements.
Lie Number 7. You’ll become more comfortable with being known. Oh wait, that’s actually true. Scratch that.
Lie Number 87. It makes you happy. I’m not even touching that lie with a ten-foot pole. No. Just no.
Yeah, so this is just a funny post that I dictated while walking the dog the other morning. And man, do you get funny looks if you dictate to your phone in a foreign language while in the park. Anyway, this post is also meant as a cautionary tale. Blogging is harder than it looks. Know the ‘facts’ before you get started or you’ll end up like those other so-called bloggers who haven’t updated their blog in years.
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