Make A Living Writing

Can a successful blog be general? Writer and MALW blog reader Gina Alianiello recently emailed me about this issue:

I’m trying to start a blog. I feel like an anomaly–I am a generalist. I am interested in writing about a range of things from health, social issues, women’s issues, holistic agriculture and more.

I wonder if you subscribe, like so many people do, to the idea that a successful blog must necessarily be focused on a narrow niche. I keep thinking a blog can be general, but with many narrower tags or categories.

What is your opinion on the viability of a blog that informs, educates and entertains on general topics?

I’ll start by saying that whether a general blog is “viable” depends on your goal. Is your goal with your blog to set your creativity free by having a place to instantly publish your daily musings? If so, a general blog is just fine.

But if you want your blog to help you earn money, either by showing prospective clients you understand blogging and could blog for them, or by creating a large audience you could sell products to or line up advertisers based upon — then you need a niche blog.

Why? Let’s take those two monetizing aspects one at a time and discuss.

If you’re using your blog as a showplace for your skill in hopes of landing a good paid blogging gig, your niche blog makes a good audition piece because virtually all paid blogging is niche-oriented. On Entrepreneur.com right now, for instance, I blog about issues of concern to small business owners. Over at BNET, my blogs offer pointed analysis of goings-on at large public retail and restaurant companies. For one of my current small-business clients, SuretyBonds.com, I research and write about new laws requiring business owners in various industries to buy surety bonds.

See what I mean? These blogs are not general. Businesses and publications are looking for bloggers who understand how to work a niche.

If you want your blog to be a moneymaker in itself, this involves drawing a large audience, whom you and your advertisers can sell products and services. The problem with a general niche here is that you can’t catalyze a big, loyal fan base if one week you’re writing about agriculture, and the next week you’re writing about women in the military.

Imagine I’m your reader. I do some Web browsing on a topic of interest, and I find your blog. I read your post and I love it! I subscribe. But the next post is about something totally different, and the next one has yet another topic. Now I’m annoyed! And I stop visiting.

Whereas if all your blogs are about tattoos, or Formula One racing, or geocaching, or business productivity…people who care about your topic can more easily find you, fall in love with you, and become rabid fans. Because your blogs will frequently mention similar terms (such as “freelance writing” here at MALW), your search rankings for that topic will rise as you post more.

More people will come. And then you can sell to your audience. Which all likes the same stuff, and that makes it easy to figure out what to sell them.

If there’s a general blog out there succeeding in doing this, I have yet to see it. So if you have multiple topics you want to blog on, Gina, the answer is: multiple blogs. They can even start off just as separate tabs on the same Web site, and then spin off to their own sites if they take off. But each topic blog needs a separate place to live, a place for fans of that topic to come where they can count on learning more on the subject they love.

I’d say you are not a generalist, Gina. You are a writer with several possible niche topics.

Thanks to Gina for emailing me with this question. Got a question about how to earn more from your writing? Leave a comment and if I like your question, I will answer it here at MALW.

Photo via Flickr user Annie Mole

Now that we’re getting settled into our new home at Make a Living Writing, it’s time to open the mailbag and answer a reader question.

Maureen recently wrote me with this introduction and a question about blogging:

I worked for years in book publishing, [for] 2 literary agents, then finding books to adapt into screenplays and teleplays.  I had a health catastrophe which has been straightened out in the past two years, thank goodness.  Before that health crisis occurred, I had already decided that I wanted to be the writer.  So I am an apt pupil to anyone who is a good writer, and able to support him/herself through this.

I’m outlining a book which will be less of a memoir and more of a cautionary tale to other people who suffered the same health problem, and don’t feel I’ll have any problems with that.  Also, drafting two screenplays.

My question for you is how does one successfully blog?

I’ll take a stab at this even though I’m not entirely sure what Maureen means. If you’re asking how blog format is different from writing articles, I think it is distinctly different — more casual, shorter and ideally offering links to readers that allow them to read more on other sites if they’re interested.

Don’t know if you saw this post I did on whether blogging is for you:http://caroltice.com/blog/15?PHPSESSID=0143b264a3dd5c61d815a9fef98522d5 – maybe useful in thinking about blogging success.

Or maybe you’re wondering how to physically get your own Web site where you can blog? There are lots of sites that can help you with that — just discovered this one recently, which is free:  Yola.

If you’re asking how you earn money by having a personal blog, I would recommend you check out Leo Babauta’s great free ebook on how he got 100,000 subscribers for his very lucrative blog, Zen Habits. Essentially there are only a few ways to make money off your blog — affiliate marketing, selling ad space for an up-front fee on your site, selling information products, and using the visibility to get other writing jobs.

For me, I feel like I am successfully blogging. I hope I’m a success in that I’m providing useful information to my community. As far as earning from it, I’m just launching my monetizing strategies. So I’ll have to see how it goes.

Also, what’s your definition of success — You have 100,000 subscribers? You make $100K a year with it? You get a major publishing-house book deal? You simply manage to post two blogs a week? You get a lot of comments? You get linked to a lot? You get to polish your writing and develop your style? You get article assignments from $1-a-word magazines?

Everyone defines success differently. Also, what’s your blog about? Different blog topics monetize in different ways.

I haven’t made a dime directly from my blog at this moment but consider it a huge success in building a community of writers who’re interested in earning more from their work. That has been my immediate goal, and I’m very happy with the progress I’ve made on it.

It’s helped me get great-paying jobs blogging for companies. The exposure has been great, I’ve met wonderful new writing friends some of whom will help me promote my ebook in future, and it has helped me learn a lot about how to write impactfully in this new format.

It also led to the great opportunity I got recently to be a regular blogger for the WM Freelance Writing Connection, exposing me to a whole new audience.

I’m getting 300-400 visitors a day, or was before the move, which I’m very happy about for just starting this blog in ’09. I’m hoping to explore ways to earn from my blog that help my community and don’t annoy them…count on all of you to let me know how I’m doing.

Maureen — write back and let us know if you start a blog, and if so how it goes.

Readers — how do you define blogging success? And how is your quest for blogging success going? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think it takes to successfully blog.

Photo credit: andyp uk