What it Takes to Become a Successful Independent Blog Writer: Numbers and Tactics
www.residentcontrarian.com
Note: This article has a fair amount of overlap with this one. Be forewarned and trust your priors on whether or not you’ll enjoy another. I’ve been running this blog for about a year and a half, and it’s been a blast. Part of that is just having a chance to write in a place people will actually see it. But I’m lucky to have that; in the same year and a half, I’ve seen multiple blogs made by reasonably proficient writers come into being only to stop existing a few months later because they couldn’t find an audience.
Thanks for writing this. I will most certainly take your advice and start reaching out to some people who might be in the next few orders of magnitude more well known than myself, and see what happens. I'm in the "write because I love doing it" camp, and I also see it as a way to network with people who share my interests / concerns, but I can see my motivation lagging if I don't have an "event"; writing takes up a lot of time, and it needs to start justifying itself more substantially if I am to continue.
I didn't know you also read Parrhesia; small world, eh?
Great post! Probably the best advice writers could get when it is all said and done. The only thing I can think to add is "Write more, because writing is like exercise: the more you do the easier it is, and the opposite is also true."
I also would add your earlier plug resulted in a rough doubling of my subscribers in the following week! Either that, or people were really into the review on a forge kit, or were hoping I would be posting horrible 3rd degree burn pics shortly there after. Granted, doubling only took like 30 people, but still! I don't even have a twitter account, and most of my family and friends don't have a blog, so pretty much all my traffic is from effort posting in other people's blog comments sections. And now from here :D
Hey, everyone: There's some sort of glitch happening with comments right now. Everything seems to be working from the comments pane (i.e. if you click the word bubble icon at the head of the article) but otherwise it's hard to reply to people right now.
There's also at least on my end some slowdown with the site in general that's affecting all my recent articles. I've emailed Substack about it, and hopefully they will get it fixed pretty quick.
Very interesting post. I have a small newsletter in Portuguese - otherwise I would invite you to read it :) My experience is very similar to the one you described by the end of your text. I had 2 successful texts that brought me 80% of my subscribers. Until the last moment, I was unsure if it was even worth it to publish them. They felt very uninteresting to anyone other than me.
After reaching a subscriber milestone, I posted 2 texts that actually cost me a few subscribers. I couldn’t quite understand why - they were not very controversial. But I guess that our writing also selects its audience. I don’t have any intention of earning income from my newsletter, it’s really a passion project. So it felt bad to lose some of the readers I earned, but I trust that over time it pays off to maybe risk a few subscribers in order to build a loyal audience, more aligned to what I’m trying to accomplish.
Hey man, totally subscribed to your blog because SlateStarCodex linked to your Sadly, Porn review. So you're right!
Thanks for writing this. I will most certainly take your advice and start reaching out to some people who might be in the next few orders of magnitude more well known than myself, and see what happens. I'm in the "write because I love doing it" camp, and I also see it as a way to network with people who share my interests / concerns, but I can see my motivation lagging if I don't have an "event"; writing takes up a lot of time, and it needs to start justifying itself more substantially if I am to continue.
I didn't know you also read Parrhesia; small world, eh?
Great post! Probably the best advice writers could get when it is all said and done. The only thing I can think to add is "Write more, because writing is like exercise: the more you do the easier it is, and the opposite is also true."
I also would add your earlier plug resulted in a rough doubling of my subscribers in the following week! Either that, or people were really into the review on a forge kit, or were hoping I would be posting horrible 3rd degree burn pics shortly there after. Granted, doubling only took like 30 people, but still! I don't even have a twitter account, and most of my family and friends don't have a blog, so pretty much all my traffic is from effort posting in other people's blog comments sections. And now from here :D
Hey, everyone: There's some sort of glitch happening with comments right now. Everything seems to be working from the comments pane (i.e. if you click the word bubble icon at the head of the article) but otherwise it's hard to reply to people right now.
There's also at least on my end some slowdown with the site in general that's affecting all my recent articles. I've emailed Substack about it, and hopefully they will get it fixed pretty quick.
Very interesting post. I have a small newsletter in Portuguese - otherwise I would invite you to read it :) My experience is very similar to the one you described by the end of your text. I had 2 successful texts that brought me 80% of my subscribers. Until the last moment, I was unsure if it was even worth it to publish them. They felt very uninteresting to anyone other than me.
After reaching a subscriber milestone, I posted 2 texts that actually cost me a few subscribers. I couldn’t quite understand why - they were not very controversial. But I guess that our writing also selects its audience. I don’t have any intention of earning income from my newsletter, it’s really a passion project. So it felt bad to lose some of the readers I earned, but I trust that over time it pays off to maybe risk a few subscribers in order to build a loyal audience, more aligned to what I’m trying to accomplish.