Should You Give Up?

I recently read a post on John Chow about when to give up on your blog. He has suggested that when your blog is no longer fun to you, and it seems more like a job than for fun, its time to give up. I disagree with him. While the Chow usually gives great advice, here is my take on what you should do.

Blogging for money is a difficult job. Not all of us can be like Darren Rowse, John Chow, Shoemoney or even John Cow. They are the professional bloggers that we all look up to. Was it easy for them to make money online? Read into their past entries and you’ll see that some had it hard (Darren nearly gave up on blogging), some were trying to see how they could do (John Chow), and some lost their daytime jobs in the process (Shoemoney). John Cow is a bit of an anomaly since he is doing well immediately, but hey, the Cow knows who to link to. To get to the point, giving up blogging for money or blogging in general is always an option, but its not the best one.

What I suggest you do is to take a step back, and find out why you have lost interest. I, for example have four blogs running right now. I started out with simply one blog, and that was about movies. Why did I start that one? Because I work at a movie theatre part time, and I really enjoy movies. However, I did find it more and more difficult to write about movies, and that I was branching out into more blogging for money, and blogging tips on that blog. That was not the niche Intermission at Work was geared at. Instead of giving up on the blog, I started this one so I could write about something I wanted to do with blogging, make money and pay for my car. At the same time, I could write about my car since that is what the money will go to!

However, in starting a blog about making money online, I found that there were more topics that I felt I wanted to write about. I am a pretty impulsive buyer. My girlfriend says its difficult to get gifts for me because I buy everything I want. Well, since that is something I am interested in, why not start a product information/review blog? I did just that, and on my blog Joe Likes It!, I review products that I am interested in purchasing, and will provide feedback on products that I have purchased. It’s monetized through affiliate links, so if people are interested in what I write about, it can make me some money as well if they buy the same thing! This is extremely fun for me, and it allowed me a forum to write about products I like!

Well, of course, I wasn’t done there. I am also a huge Boston University Hockey and Boston sports fan in general. So what did I do? I started a sports blog, Let’s Go Terriers, so I can write about the games, as well as the goings on in the sports world for me. I also set up a forum on this blog, and a forum for my sports blog so I can better communicate with my readers (as few as they may be). Now I can grab tips from people who post in my forums, and hopefully have much more communication with people reading my blogs!

Is this the method that everyone should follow? Of course not. But it is something to think about. I’ve had so much fun setting up the new blogs and forums, and I hope that you will read them, enjoy them, and participate as well. I made blogging so much fun for myself, and at the same time, I’m making a bit of money. My first earnings report will come in for you at the end of the month, so I hope you will be back for that. In the end, I relieved a lot of stress for myself because when I want to write about something, I just have to find out which blog it fits best on, and I don’t have to worry about something not being geared towards my niche.

Hopefully the next time you think about giving up, you will think about this post and remind yourself what made blogging fun for you in the first place!

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