01937: A Lack of Self-Promotion


When people ask me why I blog, I find that I don't have a readily available answer. I guess you could say that it's mostly a passion and at times it's also an output for...something. I vent my frustrations through my blog-related writing even though I don't necessarily clearly articulate what exactly is stressing me out. I share a lot about my life but I don't share everything that happens because that's the trick to things.

Despite how much I blog, I don't see myself as a "pro-blogger" as the usual "industry" term goes. I've yet to see my blogging as an alternate job or a source of income. Despite the fact that I do have Google AdSense ads enabled on all my blogs, the limited passive income isn't even enough to cover my custom domain costs. But that's okay - these blogs are not about the money. I feel that should they become about the money, then it'll stop being fulfilling.

For similar reasons, I've never really put too much conscious effort into promoting my blogs. Sure, a new blog post will trigger an automatic cross-post announcement on Twitter, Facebook and eventually Google+. That's pretty much the bare minimum that one can do and it happens pretty much on its own. But I don't do much in terms of interacting with other bloggers, trying to negotiate cross-promotion deals and all that fun stuff. I haven't really run any serious blogging contests nor do I reach out to potential sponsors hoping for free swag.

This is not to say that I don't think about it. There are always going to be those moments when I wonder if I could taker this on full-time and just write and write and write and somehow turn this into a living. But I guess I like the stability and benefits that come with full employment in a corporation as opposed to going entirely "freelance" as it were. At least I don't feel that way just yet.

Maybe I'll manage to organically grow a loyal following given enough time. Maybe I'll be able to establish myself as a writer through other channels and then folks with discover my blog as a consequence. There are any number of possibilities for how things might go.

And thus I continue to write.

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