There are lots of articles on how to become successful as a blogger but if you read in between the lines on most of them, you might get the nagging suspicion that the authors are not themselves actually successful bloggers…
That means that a lot of the content you read about blogging is speculative and hypothetical – which isn’t terribly useful.
What would be useful would be to hear what being a successful blogger is actually like. What is it like on a day to day basis? What are the positives and negatives of making money this way? Let’s take a moment to answer those questions…
The Day-to-Day
One of the reasons that a lot of people want to become successful bloggers is because they think it’s a completely work-free, stress-free job. Of course, this is not, in fact, the reality. While it’s true that running a blog is definitely much easier than working 9-5 in an office, you shouldn’t think that you can just relax all day if you’re a blogger.
If you want blogging to be your full time ‘career’ then you need to treat it as such and you need to work ‘full time’ on it.
That said, this is definitely a ‘leisurely’ full-time. You can probably get away with 5 hours a day with the TV on… But if you ignore your blog you’ll see your income wane.
In terms of stress?
Blogging is a lot less stressful in many ways than having a boss breathing over your shoulder but it is still a little stressful. One of the sources of these stresses is simply the fact that you won’t want to lose your fortunate position. If you’re making a living from a blog, how do you ensure that you stay that way? What if you wake up one day and your AdSense account is revoked? What if Google has taken your site off of page one? These thoughts will haunt you… So be smart and make sure your business is resilient.
Fans
Something that is really pretty awesome about being a blogger is all the fans. People will e-mail you praising your work, asking for advice and generally treating you like a celebrity. It’s a massive ego boost. But then you’ll also get trolls, you’ll get people saying ‘hey I live down the road from you!’ (which is creepy) and you’ll have e-mails you can’t answer.
Is running a blog full-time awesome? Absolutely. But it’s not without its challenges. Make sure it’s right for you before you dive in!
