The Qwertyrash Blogs

ProBlogger is asking for contributions on a series about what habits make a blog successful, titled Habits of Effective Bloggers

I’m going to put forward the one that seems most obvious, but is most under appreciated: Work Hard. Blogging ain’t a free lunch - you still gotta put the hard yards in.

Blogging is one of the few things anyone can do and anyone can make a significannt income out of.

So why isn’t everyone? Because it’s hard. The universe has a built-in protection mechanism to stop everyone getting rich. It’s called working hard.

Anything worth doing will require working hard. Anything worth doing that you can make good maney out of, will working even harder.

Making easy money from blogging is like magic. It ain’t gunna happen. We all wish that magic was real, but if it was, there’d be chaos. For instance, you’d zap your siblings and they’d zap you; The Capitalist would be zapping the Communists, and vice versa; and so on. Mankind wouldn’t have got past day one. We’df would have all turned each other into frogs or worse. (Hmmm? Maybe that’s how fish evolved into land animals?)

Blogging is 24/7
If you want to make a living from blogging, it is a 24/7 venture. The Blogosphere never sleeps. That doesn’t mean you can’t sleep but blogging is about information and the information in the Blogosphere flows constantly. Consequently, you will find that your mind is switched on to blogging and issues in your field of expertise as long as you are awake. That in itself can make it hard work to stay focused when you’re at your day job. Carry a notebook. When you have ideas jot them down and get back to work. It won’t take long though to feel like you are blogging constantly - even though not actively writing posts.

More than writing
And blogging is more than writing. Tasks include maintenance on your blogs; reading, reading, reading of news in your field; writing and editing posts; responding to comments; responding to email; monitoring stats; monitoring ad effectiveness; writing comments on other bloggers’ blogs; and so on. Blogging is a busy business.

Blogging can be tedious
Blogging can also be quite boring. That’s probably one of the biggest shocks. Posting daily, especially multiple times, can quickly begin to feel like a clerical job. Boring jobs feel like drudgery which feel like hard work. Not everything about blogging is always going to be fun. (But what job is?). Mind you, mostly blogging is quite enjoyable, provided you also enjoy working hard.

Blogger’s Block
Coming up with ideas and writing and refining them can also be laborious. Many bloggers who aim to write original pieces daily get hit like a brick in the face, with that one sooner or later. The ol’ blogger’s block. Once that kicks in you’ll know about hard work.

What choice do you have?
But all jobs get boring at times, are laborious, require working hard. There’s no job you can find that you are going to love every minute of every day.

Blogging can and should be fun but will still involve working hard work. If it only feels like hard work and not fun for too many days or weeks, then maybe you’ve chosen the wrong topic to blog on.

So you got a choice: Work hard for someone else who will always control how much money you can earn. Or work hard on your blogging where you can control how much money you earn.

bloggingblog helpeffective habits

Technorati Tags: blog help, blog tips