The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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Bloggers Are People Who Don’t Like To Work

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It is another sunny afternoon in Los Angeles and I am out with the boys again. We’re all playing hooky from work…sort of. Truth is that at the moment we either work remotely and or own our own businesses so it is not hooky in the sense that we are punching time cards.

There is no plant or quarry for us to return to. No cubicle filled office with micro-managing supervisors sending us emails because we showed up five minutes late…again. Ok, I am the only one who ever had that happen. It is a number of years ago but we still laugh about it.

These emails would show up in my inbox and chastise me for being five minutes late to work. They never included the times that I would work through lunch or stayed late to finish projects. Nope, they would just be these little notes in which they would calculate the minutes and tell me how much I cost the company. Of course they were so busy suing former partners it made sense that they would pick on tiny details that had no relevance to actual production or revenue generated.

It is funny how fast time passes because what was once yesterday is now years ago and in many ways feels like it happened during a different life. And in many ways it was.

Once Upon a Time

We’re sitting around a table talking about nothing important and laughing about college memories. We’re closer to 50 than we are to twenty and I make a crack about how we used to sing “hope I die before I get old.” Don’t know how it started or when, but there were more than a few moments back then when we would start singing Baba O’Riley or some other song by The Who.

Of course there were others and since none of us were singers we always took advantage of the support of the other guys singing with us. Don’t know why it is, but you can take a group of 10 men and ask them to sing and if they do it together they can make it sound ok.

Someone brings up OccupyLA and we are all in agreement that we think it is a waste of time. Doesn’t matter if we agree with any of the things they say they are fighting for none of us can see how that situation would have led to the kind of change they hoped for.

It reminds us of the LA Riots and how many of the looters waved to the camera as they stole things from burning stores. Can’t tell you how many of those people found themselves in serious trouble not just because of the legal issues but because they threw away old furniture and then when the stolen goods were recovered ended up with nothing.

Soldiers of the (Mechanize) Artillery, 40. Inf...
Soldiers of the (Mechanize) Artillery, 40. Infantry Division (California Army National Guard) patrol the streets of Los Angeles, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was a crazy time and we all agree that we have been very lucky. We have had our share of hard times and trouble, but overall life has been good to us. Still, we all work hard and there is not a one of us who takes what we have for granted because we have seen how fast things turn around…in both directions.

One of the guys asks me if I am still blogging and I nod my head. They don’t ask too many questions about the blog and that is ok with me. I think they are more interested in finding out if I am still doing it.

And then I hear a male voice behind me say something about bloggers being people who don’t like to work, are narcissistic and a host of other disparaging remarks. I don’t react or respond to him because I don’t care. He is not the first person to say it nor will he be the last.

But I see no point in engaging with him. What am I going to do ask him how he can afford to be out in the middle of the day doing nothing. It is a stupid remark to make in this town especially because we live in a city where the coffee shops and restaurants are filled at odd hours every day. Some of it is because of the entertainment industry and some of it is just because.

Sunset at Huntington Beach, California.
Sunset at Huntington Beach, California. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I look at the fellas and I ask them where they think we’ll be in five years. Various answers are thrown out but I am not willing to make definitive predictions. Life is very different from what I had thought it would be five years ago and I am confident that five years from now it will probably be different than I expect.

They push for a real answer and all I am willing to say is that my plan is to be doing the things that bring me joy and make me feel fulfilled. That is part of why I blog, because writing brings me joy and words make me smile.

Got to run play dad again, but before I do here are a few pieces of music to share with you.

Jogi– Panjabi MC

The Power Of Bhangra-Snap! vs Motivo

Kashmir– Led Zeppelin

What Kind of Blogger Are You

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The mysterious pundits of the blogosphere often say that bloggers shouldn’t try to be all things to all people. They recommend that bloggers pick a niche and stick with it. They’ll tell you that if you do it well you are more likely to find readers, build community and of course improve your SEO results.

Ask me to tell you what kind of blogger I am and I’ll give you a list. I’ll probably tell you that I am a dad blogger and or a writer. If I am feeling extra saucy I might try to spice up that description a little bit so that it packs more punch.  Or I might not. Really kind of depends on the situation and my mood. I don’t like it when people ask questions like “how are you” or “what do you do” solely because it is a social courtesy. So if I am not convinced that you are really interested I’ll probably say very little.

But that is really neither here nor there because the real test is this blog. If actions speak louder than words we need to take look at the words on the page that are here because of my actions and see what we find:

What I Dream About
A Dream As Of Yet Unfulfilled
Reciprocity in Blogging
WordPress Comments Vs. Livefyre
Do You Play By The Rules
Father’s Love Their Daddies Too

Those five posts cover parenting, blogging, writing and a few thoughts about what I am trying to do with my life. Sounds pretty close to the description I said that I would give above. But if you are trying to monetize your blog that really doesn’t do as a good a job of covering the bases as it could and should.

Because what we really need to look at is my About me page. I don’t have to look at my stats to know that it is one the most heavily trafficked pages here and I am willing to guess that it is similar for other bloggers. If you are trying to monetize your blog I’ll guarantee that prospective customers/advertisers check yours out just as they my own.

My page has a “blurb” about my professional background and links to some of my work. I tried to inject a bit of my personality into it. I didn’t want it to be something dry and lifeless so I made a point to include the paragraph about being a would be superhero and a man with Walter Mitty like fantasies.

If I have done my job properly people will read through the page and see me as a professional who has a sense of humor and is a decent writer. If I have done my job properly brands that are interested in working with a father will recognize me as such. If I have done my job properly literary agents who are looking to hire a new novelist will contact me. If I have done my job properly prospective clients who are looking for freelance writers will reach out to me.

But if we circle back to the initial question of what kind of blogger are you my real answer is that I am the kind of blogger who has fun blogging.

What do you think about all of this?

A Successful Blogger

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This post is a perfect example to me of the convergence of my love for writing and blogging. The post began as five reasons why no one cares if you are an A-List Blogger and then evolved into a simple Q&A.  But midway into the Q&A post I realized that I didn’t agree with what I was writing. Midway into it I learned a few things about myself and had to stop and smile because this is part of what I love about blogging. I love this opportunity to write down my thoughts/ideas because I learn about how I really feel.

I write them down and gain clarity as to whether my ideas are based upon logic or just arbitrary decisions that stem from who knows what. People like to think that we are rational. We like to think that our actions are based upon logic but far too frequently that simply isn’t true.

My initial thoughts on what constitutes the definition of a successful blogger is that it is a subjective question and that most bloggers probably haven’t thought about this. I still maintain that it is subjective and that most haven’t thought about their personal definition of success. However where I changed my thoughts was in regard to whether people enjoy setting goals for themselves.

I don’t like planning out every aspect of my life. I don’t like relying upon calendars, alarms and or reminders. As I sat here writing I thought that setting goals for blogging sounded far too much like work and that people wouldn’t like it. But as I thought it over it occurred to me that this wasn’t entirely true for people or for me.

I am constantly setting goals for myself. I have objectives that I wish to meet and things that I want to do. In the gym I work towards certain fitness goals. On the basketball court I work to improve my game so that I can do XYZ. Here in the blogosphere I work to build my brand, increase exposure and generate more income from blogging.

And most of the time I enjoy all this. Kind of funny to me to think about it, but it doesn’t completely jibe with how I think of myself, but it is true.

Have you ever thought of what your definition of a successful blogger is?

Dear Angry Blogger

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angrymommyblogger

Dear Angry Bloggers,

Consider this an open letter to any blogger who is unhappy with the way that they are being treated by brands and or PR agencies. I am a bit confused by your anger and I wonder if your outrage is real or manufactured.

We are going to operate based upon the assumption that none of us are being forced to blog. Of course in the age of reality television when someone like Kate Gosselin is famous it is entirely possible that I am wrong about this. It is possible that some man has a gun pointed at your head and is insisting that you blog about how proud you are that your son can now poop in the potty or why that one night in college is so memorable.

For most of us this is not the case and our time at the keyboard is entirely of our own choosing. And choice is the operative word here because we all have a choice as to whether we wish to work with PR agencies/brands. If we don’t like the terms that are being offered we can try to negotiate better terms or simply say no.

There is a lot of power in that word, no. Use it wisely and you’ll often find that you receive better terms but that is the topic for a different post. So let’s circle back here for a moment and talk for a moment about what is going on.

A business who wishes to use your blog for ads/sponsorship is doing so because they think that you will help reach prospective customers. This is all about the eyeballs. They want to be targeted and to reach as many of those eyeballs for as little as possible.

Your job as a content provider is to provide proof that you reach those eyeballs. If you can do that you have some leverage to work with. If you can’t prove it than you have to find a way to convince them to throw you a bone and then you have to hope that the campaign performs well enough for them to want to return.

But you face multiple challenges here. Many of you are playing a game where you do not know or understand the rules. You aren’t able to approach these prospective sponsors with the degree of professionalism that you really want to have. Learn their language, find out what sort of terms they use to talk shop and you earn some more credibility. That is not a guarantee that they will work with you either, but it helps.

It helps because you want to make a case for your blog to be included. It helps because you want them to be able to justify your inclusion to whomever it is they report to. Don’t be fooled, someone is looking at metrics here. Someone is spending time looking at the ROI of a campaign. Help them by making it easy for them to understand why you should be included.

But again, that is touching upon material for a separate post. What we are really focusing upon here is the nonsense that is being spewed by bloggers who feel like they are being mistreated. You will receive emails with multiple mistakes. Perhaps they misspelled your name or made it clear that they haven’t read your blog. That is silly and unprofessional on the part of the sender, but it doesn’t really require a 800 word post on how you are being mistreated.

Delete it and move on.

The reality is that you are operating in a crowded field with a low barrier to entry. If you don’t like how you are being treated get out or find a way to distinguish yourself from the crowd. It is not easy but it is not impossible either.

Whiny Bloggers Quit Because It Was Work

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Whiny face

It is probably unfair of me to paint the bloggers in this article with such a broad brush. Yet, I can’t help but roll my eyes because what I read is so very silly. Take a look at the excerpt below.

“There are about 31 million blogs in the United States, a number expected to swell to 34 million by the end of this year. But Mr. Harbison is part of a small but growing trend of blog quitters. Last year, the number of blogging teens and adults ages 18 to 33 declined, in the first reported drop in blogging, according to Pew Research Center data.

Some have simply switched to another blog-like medium, say, Twitter or Facebook. Others have faced unpleasant facts about blogging. It’s cheap to do but usually doesn’t pay. Having a platform may be fun at first, but building a following takes much more work than simply typing and posting.

And millions of them go virtually unnoticed, despite the occasional breakout sensation like the humorous “Stuff White People Like” and the Julia Child-inspired “The Julie/Julia Project.”

When “people see these, they say, ‘I can do that—it will be easy,’ “ says Raanan Bar-Cohen, vice-president of media services at San Francisco-based WordPress, which hosts 16.5 million blogs. “If you’re looking for fame and fortune, blogging has as good a chance as any medium,” he adds.

But new bloggers misunderstand what the venture is really all about. “The best bloggers are good at highlighting, snipping and curating,” Mr. Bar-Cohen says. All that draws “the feedback that is as or more important than the actual posts.”

The effort involved in building a following caused Ray Silverstein to give up. Mr. Silverstein, 73, is principal at Pro Presidents Resource Organization, a Chicago-based small-business consultancy. Four years ago, he began blogging about small-business issues in order to draw traffic to his firm’s website.

He posted about twice a week but failed to read other blogs, comment and connect. “You really have to work the blog more,” he notes.”

If you are in this with dreams of getting rich you better hope that you love it too. There is a reason why I keep repeating certain truths about blogging. There is an exceptionally low barrier to entry. Anyone with a computer and internet access can start a blog. There are a million different voices competing for the same readers as you and many of them have no business sense/intelligence whatsoever.

But let’s ignore all that and read the last line of the excerpt I provided.

“He posted about twice a week but failed to read other blogs, comment and connect. “You really have to work the blog more,” he notes.”

Blogging takes time, effort and work. They call it social media because it requires many of the same social skills you would use in the real world. In the real world you build relationships first and ask favors later. Why would it be different here. What makes people think that if they simply write a story millions will come knocking on their door. Sometimes luck is more important than talent. We see that here all the time.

Sorry, I just don’t feel badly about this. If you start a brick and mortar business it requires time and effort to make it work. It requires commitment. Blogging is no different. If you can’t deal with it or don’t feel like it works for you than you really should find something else. In the end if you don’t love blogging you are going to find it to be more trouble than it is worth.

Dear Angry Mommy Blogger

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Dear Angry Mommy Blogger,

Hello. It is your good friend Jack writing to you from his little corner of cyberspace. I am here to tell you that my heart bleeds for you, poor little mommy blogger.

You, the overworked and under appreciated renaissance woman deserve better than you have received. For the past year or so you have worked really hard to build a blog that you can use to get free crap to giveaway to your readers. You have gone to parties, conferences and conventions and worked really, really, really hard to be nice to the mean girls as well as the nice ones.

Every day you devote hours to your blog. And you do that in between changing diapers, driving carpool, cooking dinner, telling stories about how crazy your mother-in-law is or swapping stories about the stupid things your husband does.


Whiny face

But in spite of your best efforts you aren’t given the respect that you so rightly deserve. The brands want you to work for free. They send you press releases and ask you to write about their products/clients without any sort of compensation. That is the kind of stuff that you did when you were a new blogger and didn’t know better. Back in those days you were happy to get any sort of attention from a brand. It made your heart sing to get that email from the PR person. You remember the one. It made you feel appreciated and acknowledged.

Fortunately you are better educated now about the game and understand how it works. A virtual eternity has passed since then and now you know that someone tried to take advantage of you. Your mother taught you better than that, you don’t put out for free. You didn’t do it in high school and you sure as hell aren’t going to do it now.

You have seen the banners floating around other blogger’s sites and you know that they aren’t better than yours. You know that if they can do it so can you. So you tightened your belt, arched your back and joined some of your sister mommy bloggers in raising your voices in outrage. This abuse is going to end and soon, because if it doesn’t those brands will be sorry.

You won’t stand for emails that address you as blogger any indication that the writer hasn’t read your about me page and three other recent posts. Don’t those PR people read. Can’t they understand that women make major purchasing decisions, that moms are a mighty force in the world.

What? What is that you say? You have never heard of me. You don’t know me, have never heard of Jack and can’t understand why I have taken a rude and sarcastic tone. Why I am shocked I tell you. Outraged that you haven’t any clue who I am. My poor fragile male ego is destroyed.

But before I climb back under my computer desk let me throw a few things out at you, free advice/commentary. There is a very low barrier to entry in blogging. You don’t have to spend money on hosting, themes or domain names to get into it. All you need is an internet connection.

The field is cluttered, noisy and more crowded than the most popular concert you have ever been to. And to make matters worse the shrinking attention spans of people has made it even harder to get their attention, let alone keep it.

If you want to survive and thrive in this environment you need more than luck and hope. You need to remember that it is a marathon not a sprint. You need to remember that it takes time to build a business and that is ok. Because most bloggers don’t last. Most give up relatively quickly.

So if you can hold on, if you can sustain your effort over the long haul you will benefit from it. And you need to remember that doesn’t necessarily mean that you will ever earn enough to support your family from blogging. But you might. Or you might reach a point where it generates enough monthly income to pay for a few extras, to cover gas and groceries.

I know, you aren’t really interested in hearing me lecture you. Have no desire for a man to come fix the problem or to offer solutions. You have a husband/brother or father to do that. So I suppose that I’ll go back to being my cranky, curmudgeonly self  at one of the daddy blogger’s joints.

It has been a while since we shared a beer, bitched about being nagged at and rolled our eyes at being forced to see chick flicks like Sex and the City 2.

Editor’s Note:  If I have learned anything in 12 years of blogging (I started in May ’04) it is that many of the comments and complaints about it are cyclical. We always hear about how it used to be better and how we wish fewer people were selling out.

This post is tied into that sentiment, it was first published in 2010. As I sit here writing this note six years later it is funny to see how the more things change the more they stay the same.

The only thing I claim to be an expert upon is how to last in blogging. You have to have fun because if you are not, you just won’t hang around. Find you way to have fun and just write.

P.S. If you like what you see here take a moment look around and see the other posts, there are only about 10,000 to check out. 🙂