Blogging to Make Money
Guess what? A lot of people blog just to blog. Yup. Many of us self-publishing indie authors blog because we have been told that it is something that we’re supposed to do. So we blog. We put out our online diary, journal, or whatever you want to call it, and our hobby of writing continues instead of our authorpreneaurship growing.
Are we writers or authors? If we’re authors instead of writers, then we can’t just be writing to no one. As authors, we have to write for an audience, and we have to publish it for mass distribution to a wide readership.
Next, are we authors our authorpreneurs? If we’re authorpreneurs instead of just authors, then we have to have widespread recognition of the value we offer. This value can be achieved through our blogs, which causes people to become willing to spend their money on us via buying our books and services. Making money and creating a business around our books is what Authorpreneurship is all about. And blogging is one of the many tools we can use to help this happen.
Hey, we can’t write forever to no one. We have to add value. We have to have an audience. We have to make money to support our efforts in blogging and self-publishing. That is what will help us continue to do what we do in making the world a better place. If we don’t ever make any money, we might be wasting our time, as well as losing valuable time with our families. Also, if no one reads our stuff, then we’re not really making a difference, after all.
Here’s a tip. Don’t do this blogging thing the hard way. Pretty much everyone does it the hard way. Most of us write about whatever interests us. And of course, that’s a good thing in some ways, but perhaps not so good in other ways, especially if we’re talking about fitting into and growing in the business world of authors. So, let’s do blogging the easier way that makes more sense in the business world of authors by finding out first what people want us to write about. And then write about that in a way that we’re capable of that interest us.
It’s a lot easy to find an audience first and then write for their needs than it is to write about whatever we want and then find an audience later to like it, share it, and buy it. But most of us still put the cart before the horse on this one because we’re still thinking like writers, or maybe authors at best, instead of authorpreneurs.
This business of authorpreneurship is tough. It’s not for the weak. Creating a successful paying business around our book is a lot of work. Ideally, we should be blogging every day. However, most of us don’t have that kind of time, especially if we have day jobs. Others don’t want to work that hard. We need to blog at least once a week, so we’re staying in front of our people. Waiting a month to blog causes our people to lose interest in us and forget who we are. It also allows someone else with more content to move into our position and muscle us out.
Also, not only is blogging often hard, but it also takes a long time to gain traction. However, most of us grow frustrated over time and quit. It’s hard to keep going after a year or maybe two, or perhaps, even more, when you’ve poured your heart into blogging and haven’t seen satisfactory results. Most of us quit too early, though.
Now I’m not saying to just mindlessly continue to do over and over things that don’t work. But, what I am saying is to learn from your mistakes because no obstacle out there can’t be mounted with sustained intelligent effort over time. Don’t quit too soon. You are luckier than you know because you have a platform from which your voice can be heard above all the white noise out there. Most don’t have that.
Once you learn enough to get that blog humming along, pretty cool things begin to happen. Now you have a following. You have an audience that can’t wait to see what you put out next. You also have an engaged audience that clicks on your links and buys your products and services. You could have some advertising money coming in, too.
Also, right from your very own blog, you could be writing your next book while getting real-time engagement and feedback from your tribe. Writing your book and blogging don’t always have to be separate activities that consume twice the time. I have done this book writing thing while taking my tribe along for the journey a few times on my blog. Writing a book from your blog is a great strategy for writing a winning book. You already have your audience, and they’re going to appreciate the convenience of having all that information in one place in your book. In addition, you could even make a few bucks off of affiliate links from other indie authors. These other authors should little bit higher up the mountain than you so you can learn something from them and leverage their bigger audience.
The bottom line is that blogging is a good tool to help you go get your audience. So blog away, and have a little bit of fun at it too while you’re at it. Nothing is holding your creative genius back from greatness as a blogger who also has great books and services to sell as well.
*Watch this FREE video lesson on this chapter:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAhOzhfU6wM&list=PL_-39bUXJitwL8cHUpiZ5mO0-JJuaPOVl&index=16
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