[7 lessons I live by as a blogger] Lesson #1: You’ll never know what’s gonna hit
Every blog is a data point.
No writer has a perfect record. Every writer has some “flops” (underperforming pieces).
A flop could be a result of anything (content-audience misfit, poor delivery, bad algorithm…) - many of which you cannot control.
The difference between top writers and the rest is how they view a result.
Average writers see every blog as a flop or a win. Top writers see 1 thing only: data.
Every time you hit publish on the Internet, you are creating a data point.
Everything you publish is a feedback signal, revealing what readers love.
Do they prefer stories or data?
Aspirational or Actionable content?
200 or 1000-word essays?
Posts to be delivered early in the morning or late in the afternoon?
…the list goes on
You’ll learn very soon that you’ll never know EXACTLY what will blow up. What you love writing about might not be what people love reading from you.
So your best shot at understanding your readers and the Internet is to publish, OFTEN, and A LOT.
The data you collect from all the published posts will help you develop a “blogger’s sense” - an educated intuition about what people love - an asset only “experienced” bloggers have.
Fortunately for all of us, “experience” here is not measured by the years of writing. It’s measured by the number of pieces you have published, or in our language, the amount of data you have about the Internet.
So no matter how “early” you are to this game, you can always catch up with more “experienced” writers by publishing more often than them.
The more you publish, the more data you’ll have.
The more data you have, the faster you’ll learn.
The faster you learn, the better you can serve your readers.
The better you serve, the more they’ll come back asking for more.
Lesson #1: You’ll never know what’s gonna hit. So just keep shipping!
Write. Publish. Learn about the game. Come back. Improve. Ship again.
—
This is a 6-part series about “6 lessons I live by as a blogger”. These lessons are drawn from my experience publishing 400+ pieces of content online and helping 100+ bloggers overcome their fear of writing online.
If you don’t want to miss out on any lesson, sign up for my newsletter here to get this in your email inbox every Saturday:
Next week, I will share my secret about how I actually reframe a flop as a data point. It’s called “You’re not that important.” Stay tuned!
—
I’m also enrolling aspiring bloggers for my 6-week online blogging BootCamp. We have 4 last Early Bird slots (who will get 15% off our usual tuition).
If you’ve always wanted to start your online writing practice, do it with me and 100 other bloggers here: https://lu.ma/wotn4
Check out more info on our website: https://bit.ly/writing-on-the-net-cohort-4-by-mở