Friday, May 20, 2016

Nonfiction Review: Blog Inc.


After ten years of writing two (and sometimes, three) blogs, it’s been a long-time goal of mine to learn more about the technical side of blogging and how to earn some money from my blogging passions. As a freelance writer with limited time and energy, it’s tough to justify the hours I spend writing posts for my blogs…for free! I recently finished reading Blog, Inc: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community by Joy Deangdeelert Cho, and while I already knew the basics, this comprehensive guide to blogging gave me some new ideas on how to improve my blogs and perhaps earn a little money from them to help support their continued existence.

Blog, Inc. covers just about everything you need to know to write a blog. The first chapters cover start-up, with topics including types of blogs, domain names, hosting, and much more. Cho also covers some less obvious topics, like blogging etiquette, writing a bio, and setting up a workspace. Once she’s described the basics and how to get started, she goes on to discuss the business aspects of blogging, like protecting your work, keeping track of financial records and taxes, and all of the ins and outs of placing ads on your blog. She even explains how to take things one step further, with advice on blogging full-time, working with a partner, getting published, and more.

The layout and design of Cho’s book makes it very easy to read, browse through, and digest. She is, after all, a graphic designer herself, and it is clear she has applied some of her own lessons on writing a blog to her book, with short, digestible sections and eye-catching fonts and graphics. The information in her book is interspersed with examples of successful bloggers. Each blogger profile includes an overview and a Q&A about how the blogger got started, where they get their ideas, and other aspects of their blogging success.

The first third of the book was mostly stuff I already knew or had figured out, since I have been blogging for ten years, but I think these sections on the basics would be very helpful to beginners. I tabbed plenty of pages in the rest of the book, on social networking, financial stuff, copyright protection, and analytics. The part I was most interested in – monetizing a blog – was informative for me, though I had hoped to find some blogging professional secrets and was a bit disappointed to learn that the main way to earn money from your blog is simply ads. I have avoided these so far, not wanting to “bother” my readers or overload my blog. Also, one of my blogs is for people with serious chronic illness (many of whom are financially destitute), and I don’t want any advertisers preying on them or selling them things they don’t need.

The anti-ad attitude is my own problem, and I am considering ways to work around my misgivings (please let me know in the Comments how you manage this!), but Cho’s book at least gave me more information on the how-to and the possibilities. Overall, although I got a lot of information from her book that I hope to refer to again, I did feel that I wasn’t really her target audience. I write a book blog and a chronic illness blog, and her example bloggers were all in more visually prominent fields: design, fashion, “lifestyle” blogs, and food writing. Since Cho is a graphic designer herself and her own blog has that focus on the visual, some of her advice seemed irrelevant for someone writing about books and illness. Though she did mention something called Multiple Blogging Disorder, which I just might have!

If you are considering starting up a new blog or are new to blogging and plan to focus on a very visual topic, then Cho’s book is a perfect, indispensible guide. If, like me, your blog is less visual and/or you are an old hat at blogging, then this book is less focused exactly on your needs…but there is still a lot to be learned from certain sections. Cho is a very successful blogger herself, who has turned blogging into a full-time job, picked up clients because of her blog, launched her own product lines related to her blog, and (obviously) published books (there are more) from her blog content and blogging experience. She is definitely a blogging expert, and you can learn a lot from this easy-to-read, pleasingly designed book.

179 pages, Chronicle Books

7 comments:

  1. I'm surprised her advice was placing ads for monetization. I've heard so many other successful bloggers saying diversifying is key and ads are the lowest source of their overall income. I don't like Google ads as a visitor so I have not installed them on my blog and ads only work if you have tons of pageviews. I agree it's tough being in the book/chronic illness niches but I do still think visuals are key even in our niches. Pinterest still drives most of my traffic and I have learned to create visuals even if the post doesn't have an obvious one (like a book cover).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very interesting, Tanya. What do you mean by monetizing by diversification? How does diversifying help you earn money? Yes, same impressions as you said - I don;t get enough pageviews to make ads worthwhile & I don;t like them myself!

      I keep hearing how great Pinterest is for driving traffic to blogs, but I just don't have the time for another social media outlet...let alone creating custom visuals for each blog post - I can't even find the time to write the posts right now! ha ha

      I agree some visuals are important for our blogs, too, but it's a different market than those blogs which are primarily visual (design, fashion, etc.).

      A lot to think about! Thanks very much for your comments & suggestions - I would like to know more about diversification.

      Sue

      Delete
    2. Making money by diversifying meaning using different income sources, like you freelance, might also write sponsored posts, might sell your own ebook. The more successful bloggers don't earn it on ads alone. Checking out my blogging tips board on Pinterest or just Google blog income reports. Many of them show different income streams. I hear you on the one more social media to worry about. I like Pinterest the best and creating images so that part is fun for me. I love taking pictures too.

      Delete
  2. I'm also anti-ad. Long term, I'd like to use my blog as a platform to sell my other writing. But I'd need other writing to sell and a bigger audience. The analytics section of this book might be most helpful, then.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, same here, Joy, and I have to keep reminding myself that my blogs HAVE been helpful in getting me freelance writing work (paid), so in that way, they do help bring in income.

      Delete
  3. After reading this, I'm thinking I need to learn how to make custom visuals. I've been thinking how cool they are. Is there anything in the book on that?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not a lot of specifics, Heidi.

      I found this article online helpful:

      https://amylynnandrews.com/how-to-make-a-blog-button/

      I used her instructions along with this website to make the button for my Big Book Summer Challenge (in the sidebar):

      https://pixlr.com/express/

      I would like to do the same to make a new, updated banner with a custom pic.

      Hope that helps!
      Sue

      Delete