I have been wrestling with a decision for months.
My blog, which has had some great moments, some not so great moments, and some crazy traffic moments, has made me a modest amount of money over the 4 years I’ve been writing. When I say modest amount, I mean my biggest month I had pay pal payments totaling a whopping $230.
Now, I want to start by saying to all my sweet, amazing friends who are in the process of monetizing and especially to those of you making a considerable amount of money, please keep going! Many of you are amazing at it! But I’m . . . NOT. I get bored very quickly with all of the marketing and I find I spend hours and hours and hours . . just to be discouraged when Google AdSense denies me YET AGAIN. It’s exhausting.
So now, that I’ve decided NOT to monetize, I’m focusing on all the fun I can have writing (which is, by the way, why I started blogging in the first place: I write. Somebody other than my husband reads it. Win/win).
I can follow people on all the things because I’m generally interested in their content, not because they followed me first.
Sorry, but a lot of the people I follow on twitter I’m really not that interested in, but if you want to build your audience the follow back thing is kind of necessary. Sadly this means my twitter feed is filled with body building supplement ads and other nonsense that although I’m sure important to many is NOT actually important to me.
I can get on Pinterest to learn things, not just to promote my own material.
Having once written a scathing post about everything wrong with Pinterest, I actually really like it now. Great recipes and interior design ideas. But every time I was on there I felt like I had to be strategic to grow my audience. I’m tired of the strategery (not a word).
I Can Write About Whatever I Want!
If I want to get political? Go for it! If I want to get all artsy fartsy and write fiction or poetry? I can! If I want to write 5 times a day every day and then not write again for 3 months? My rules! I won’t worry about SEO and consistency and making sure I’m reaching a broad audience. Oh, and let’s not even get started on the fact that I don’t have to include pictures unless I want to. I am so sick of trying to find pictures for my posts! I may write a poem for my mother today in fact. And I might even put a picture in. Or not. Think it will go viral? Betting not.
NO MORE CHECKING GOOGLE ANALYTICS!
Oh, can I get an AMEN on this one? Those numbers have been killing me. I’d be having a fairly good day and then take a quick sneaky poo look at the numbers and WHAT?? How did I only get 300 hits today? What have I done wrong, Readers? Where is my value? Why don’t you love me? I am overstating. But only slightly.
I can write a post titled 5 THINGS ABOUT (fill in the blank) and only write 4. Or 6.
See what I did there? I’m free, Kids. The Jen train is off the rails and it’s anything goes!
But pretty much it will just be the same. So don’t worry. Tomorrow I’ll most likely write about running or Disney.
Jen
😀 We never went the monetized route and I am so glad for a billion reasons including all of the ones you listed. Too much headache for too little $$ if you ask me, but more power to the people who did it. I also never wanted to be a walking billboard on the interwebs. Happy writing 🙂
Exactly. If I sat down and figured out my hourly wage for blogging? Frightening. Blogging has given me many gifts that aren’t monetary, though, including friends like you!!
Great points. For me, blogging is a hobby that needs to be fun. Monetizing is hard work and I just don’t have the time it takes to be “successful” in a way that GA gives me credit for.
Exactly! This is the second time I’ve really pushed the monetizing and it just sucks the joy out of it for me! I’ll keep it a hobby. And secretly hope some publisher somewhere will offer me a book deal with no work from me whatsoever . . .;)
You go, girl! Can’t wait to see where this takes us!
There is quite literally no telling . . . .;). Thanks for your support, Friend!!
You’ll be even more amazing now!!!
And I’m with you…I have a tough enough time writing semi-interesting (VERY interesting to me. Sometimes!) posts without having to factor marketing and people-pleasing and “I never heard of this stuff til you offered to pay me to write about it and now I absolutely ~~~love~~~ it” writing…
You’re the best, Anne! This is how I feel exactly. And I was getting that feeling in the pit of my stomach that I was on the wrong track. Glad to be course correcting!