by Skellie
Photo by eschipul
As Skelliewag approaches 3,500 subscribers (barring huge Feedburner errors…) I’ve started to accept that the blog has grown into something that many people would class as popular, successful and so on. One thing that strikes me as strange is how little talk there is about the ways in which running a well-established blog differs from running a blog in earlier stages of growth, both in terms of the things you find yourself doing and the demands on your time.
A lot of bloggers are envious of niche-leading blogs with a big feedcount, lots of comments and daily traffic in the thousands. A lot of bloggers also want these things for themselves, but there’s surprisingly little information out there to indicate whether they should be careful what they wish for.
In this post, I want to describe in more detail what so many people are striving for: what it’s like to run a popular blog.
The unique challenges
1. Lots more admin. More links, comments and stats to track mean more time spent on the admin side of all these things. If you use ads and affiliate programs, expect to spend even more time tracking and tweaking those.
2. Many people asking for your time. Whether it’s to answer a question or give advice, you’ll find that while you have less time, people ask for more of it. As one blogger with many other commitments it’s impossible to cater to the needs of everyone, particularly when requests are difficult or time-consuming.
3. More frequent mean-spirited criticism. Whether it’s from a hit-and-run commenter or someone who picks apart every post you write, mean-spirited criticism increases with traffic and visibility. Luckily, more criticism generally leads to thicker skin, and at this point you’ve generally achieved enough success that the nastiness of one person bothers you less.
4. More emails. While the contents of emails tend to be more exciting when you run a ‘popular’ blog, the volume of emails you receive isn’t. Achieving the ‘ideal’ empty inbox is tough. One of the best things I’ve done to improve my email situation is set up filters to automatically delete Wordpress comment notifications, new Twitter follower emails, and so on. The only thing I ever did with them was delete them, and it wastes too much time and clutters up your inbox if you continue to do so manually.
5. More visibility when you make a mistake. That half-baked post your wrote at 3am in the morning probably won’t cripple your blog if it’s still relatively modest. However, if thousands of people read your half-baked post and you make a big mistake, factual error or express yourself in the wrong way, your mistake can spread far and wide.
6. More frequent blogger’s block. By the time your blog becomes ‘popular’ you may have written several hundred posts. Unless you’re covering news or a very broad topic it becomes increasingly difficult to write content that’s not only unique for your blog, but unique for your niche. If you’re not someone who naturally has an abundance of post ideas, you may struggle at this point.
7. More pressure. Once you have a ‘popular’ blog there’s a lot of pressure to do grand things with it: make the front page of Digg, break into the Technorati Top 100, launch innovative projects and so on. While the ability to chase these opportunities is a blessing, the pressure to further succeed can weigh you down, particularly when things go through an inevitable plateau.
8. You have to say ‘No’ more often. As more people ask for your time and offer you things (sometimes things you don’t want at all) you’re forced to become better at saying ‘No’ politely. This can be difficult, particularly when the person you’ve refused takes it personally.
9. You have more to lose. A 30% subscriber drop when you have 100 subscribers is not fun, but it’s not hard to recover from — it might only take a day or so, in fact. Losing 30% of 10,000 subscribers is a different matter entirely: a setback which could take months to overcome. The more you have, the more you have to lose, and that can be quite stressful.
The good stuff
1. More cool opportunities. From collaborating with people you admire to being offered a book deal, it can sometimes feel as if you’re offered a new and amazing opportunity every time you check your email. When you can direct and shape a lot of attention, you seem to become a lot luckier!
2. Interesting people want to know you. Or, at the very least, they’ll be less resistant to your attempts to get to know them. You might be able to interview people who you’d never dreamed of talking to, or get comments and emails from bloggers you’ve always been inspired by. This part is a lot of fun.
3. You have a bigger audience. It’s nice to know that a lot of people enjoy reading what you write. While I’d always choose an engaged audience over a super-big one, knowing that thousands of people will read what you write makes it a lot easier to stay motivated.
4. You can earn money (if you want to). I truly believe that a big attention hub like a popular blog can always be made profitable, even if ads and affiliate programs don’t work well. Whether it’s AdSense, eBooks or consulting services, you can almost always find ways to turn a big chunk of your attention-share into income.
5. You can self-promote less. You can finally afford to stop talking about yourself and focus on giving other people a reason to talk about you.
6. People want to write for you sometimes. Writing a quality guest-post is actually one of the nicest things you can do for a blogger. It can save a few hours of their time, or if they employ paid writers, $50 to $100 dollars. Not bad, right? A well-established blog means more people will offer to write for you.
7. You can use your blog as a launching pad. Whether it’s for another blog, a product or service, or the book you’ve always wanted to write, having a well-established blog allows you to direct attention where you want it. It often allows you to give new projects a very useful head-start.
8. More feedback and unique perspectives. You’ll hear from more and different types of readers who appreciate your stuff. You’ll start to learn how your writing affects different types of people. Connecting with readers is one of the nicest things about blogging, so it’s nice to be able to do more of it.
9. You can charge premium rates. If you offer a rates-based service through your blog your notoriety will allow you to charge premium rates. I don’t know how much Brian Clark charges for copywriting, or how much Seth Godin charges for marketing advice, but I suspect it’s a lot!
10. You get free stuff sometimes. I’m at the stage where I get the occasional invite to a web app beta test, or free review copies of certain books (usually only if I ask for them!), but by all accounts the amount of free stuff you get increases exponentially as your popularity does.
Blessing/curse
1. You get a lot of interview requests. It’s really fun to do interviews at first and you’ll probably accept all interview offers unconditionally (”Wow — people want to interview me!”). In truth, though, doing an interview on a small blog generally means that none of its readers know who you are and aren’t particularly interested in what you have to say. A ten question interview might take half an hour to answer and yield just two or three clickthroughs. Due to the time-investment, I’ve started to approach interviews a little like guest-posting and ask: “Is it worth my time to appear on this blog?” (unless the blogger is a friend, in which case I can’t say no). After doing something like twelve interviews in one month I’ve also lost all desire to talk about myself, which doesn’t help!
2. You have an abundance of options. When starting from scratch your only real option is to try and get visitors and subscribers. You’re concerned only with growing. When you have an established audience your number of options increases dramatically. How are you going to use your attention share? Are you going to branch out into other projects? Are you going to hire a writer? How are you going to monetize? While it’s great to have an array of options, the sheer number of decisions you have to make can be stressful.
Is it worth it?
Absolutely. Running a well-established blog, while challenging, is very much worth it. It takes a lot of hard work to achieve, though — and a lot of time. A blog you write yourself is definitely not a muse!
If you’re embroiled in the struggle to get somewhere with blogging, I hope this post has reassured you that the hard work is most definitely worth it.
Skelliewag features daily discussions on content creation, great ideas you can use, and design tips. Join the community by subscribing!
rss feed
61 Comments, Comment or Ping
Tom Beaton
I am glad you ended that saying it is still worth it!
You have worked hard and deserve your success. I am glad you are finding it rewarding and have found ways to deal with the inconveniences.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Nez
Hi Skellie,
I must say you do come up with the most interesting posts — I especially like reading about the train of thought leading up to today’s post.
Thank you for sharing.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Lightening
That was a fascinating post to read. Thanks for being willing to share.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Shaun
Ah, thanks for letting us glimpse your brains a little.
Out of curiosity, is there any reason you don’t use ads on your blog?
Feb 22nd, 2008
Evan Meagher
Your honesty is refreshing. I’ve read a number of these kinds of posts elsewhere, but they often seem to gloss over the negative aspects of blogging and capitalize on all the money and fame you can get. Good post!
Feb 22nd, 2008
skellie
Thanks everyone. I don’t think the experiences are specific to me alone — I think the other 2,300 blogs bigger than mine (according to Technorati) probably have somewhat similar experiences. With that in mind, maybe I should have called the post ‘What’s it Like to Run a Moderately Popular Blog’? :).
@ Shaun: I never really wanted to. It has been profitable for me, though — the blog has allowed me to become a freelance writer and I recently got a book deal. Sometimes you can get more without ads, I think.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Roberto
Hey Skellie I really enjoy your blog all the best!
Feb 22nd, 2008
Warren
Very insightful. It is remarkable the similarities in blogging that there are in any other business growth. It is truly a blessing and a curse to create something that is popular.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Johny B. Goode
That’s cool. The whole idea of taking your blog to the point where people want to read it is interesting. To have an interesting thing to say is also helpful. :).
In terms of being of interesting, you’re doing great!
Feb 22nd, 2008
PlasticPilot
Thanks Skellie, this gives me more energy to work towards a popular blog in my tiny niche.
Regarding the number of e-mail from Wordpress notifications, may I ask why you set up a filter instead of de-activating it at the source ? My two neurons brain probably missed something here
Feb 22nd, 2008
CatherineL
Hi Skellie - I was pleased to notice you’re having problems with your feedburner stats too, as I just looked at mine and wondered what I’d blogged that was so awful.
These are great points. It sounds like the busier your blog gets, the busier you get.
My blog is nowhere near as busy as yours yet, but every time my traffic increases, I feel under more pressure not to screw up, or write something that people won’t like.
Feb 22nd, 2008
skellie
@ Plasticpilot: I don’t know how to deactivate it at the source, and it takes a few seconds to set up a filter in Gmail. Option #1 would have taken longer for me. Certainly not as clean, but productivity has to be messy sometimes ;-).
Feb 22nd, 2008
Mike Smith
Hey Skellie,
congradulations on everything. This blog is one of the very few I read every time a new post is created.
Do you see a large dip in rss readers today? It seems 3-4 blogs I’ve looked at including mine have around 50% less readers showing. yours is showing ~1500 for me right now.
Mike
Feb 22nd, 2008
Sarah Stewart
Hi there, this isn’t a problem for me-only have 3 subscribers!!
Feb 22nd, 2008
Dave Conrey
One of the reasons I love reading your stuff, Skellie, is your realistic outlook on situations. There’s no grandeur here, just facts and point of view. You lift us up with inspiration, but don’t give any unrealistic expectations. This post is a perfect example of that in action.
Feb 22nd, 2008
JD
Have you set boundaries around your blogging time?
For example, do you have a minimum routine?
What’s your max time you spend weekly on the following:
- admin
- writing
- planning/thinking
- reflecting
Feb 22nd, 2008
Sharon Hurley Hall
You can spend a lot more time tnan you think dealing with blog admin. Thanks for the tip on filtering the WP notifications; since I check my comments daily (ok 3 or 4 times daily) anyway, then I don’t really need the notifications.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Ben
Interesting read. One thing caught my eye though. Why do you have to delete comment notifications from wordpress? Why don’t you just turn them off in the options?
Feb 22nd, 2008
Amanda
Hello Skellie,
Thank you for posting such an honest article about the impact of popularity for you. Like JD, this has also made me wonder if you have needed to set limits on your time spent blogging as your popularity has increased?
My own blog is nowhere near so popular (I’ve almost reached my 500 subscriber target…) though over time I’ve noticed how much the demands on my own time have increased. It’s been interesting to learn how such great popularity has affected you, and how you’ve dealt with this.
For Mike: I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed a great dip in Feedburner subscriber counts today! I hope this is just a temporary glitch!
Feb 22nd, 2008
David Bradley
Hey, if your’s is popular and successful at 3500 subscribers, do I make the grade with mine bubbling at just under the 3000 mark…?
db
Feb 22nd, 2008
skellie
@ Mike Smith: Yep, my subscriber count dropped by more than 50% yesterday. It usually happens when there’s an error with Google Reader’s reports. Nothing to worry about (unless you’ve just written a post about alien abductions on your blog — in which case the drop may be genuine).
@ JD: I set aside one day a week to write posts for Skelliewag. For the rest of the week it’s pretty low maintenance, the most time-consuming thing is probably answering email, but I’ve become really good at it (through necessity). I couldn’t work under a formalized system of 1 hour to do this, one hour to do that.
One thing I really need to work on is avoiding repeated checking of stats and so on. It seems so small, but it really ads up over time.
One day I’d like to write about how much writing posts in advance can improve the quality of content on a blog. The lack of a deadline/time pressure means you can really give each post the attention it deserves.
@ Amanda: I think my answer to Mike should give you an idea of what my routine is like. And congrats on nearing the 500 subscriber milestone — it gets a lot easier from now on :-).
@ David Bradley: You’ll know from the way people talk about you. I only realized my blog was ‘popular’ when people starting talking about it as such.
I think it’s something the crowd has to decide for you.
Feb 22nd, 2008
Mrs. Micah
While I wouldn’t mind being more popular, I sometimes read peoples comments on blogs like Penelope Trunk’s….and there’s just so much anger. I don’t know how well I could handle that. I guess I’ll devise a method if it starts happening.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Marsha
Thanks for the great post. I appreciate your honesty in presenting both the good and the bad of your situation. It’s a situation that I hope to find myself in one day.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Corinne Edwards
I was shocked, Skellie, as I got more readers, I got more flack and criticism.
Some on comments. We can control those if they are profane or too hostile to other commentators by deleting those.
The social network sites we cannot do much about.
Hopefully, the old adage that all publicity is good, holds true here.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Linda R. Moore
Ah, interesting…and I also came here to suggest that you just turned off notifications from within Wordpress. I did that months ago…I like the surprise of logging in in the morning and finding, wow, Actual Comments!
I guess now is not a good time to ask you for an interview then. :: ducks and laughs ::
Feb 23rd, 2008
Faina Sechzer
Skellie, your blog is on my list of absolute best. Notwithstanding it’s popularity and the amount of work it takes you(responding to comments, e-mails, etc.), it makes me feel that you are interested in your readers. I recommended it my post; I hope you can deal with additional subscribers:)
Feb 23rd, 2008
Ben
Great post! Interesting to see perspective from someone at the top
Keep up the great work!
Feb 23rd, 2008
paidtwice
Congrats!! Your success is well deserved.
I think being more popular is sometimes hard because your scope is different. 6 months ago, having 3 new subscribers or 100 pageviews in a single day was energizing and amazing. Now, it feels like I need to keep creating the next big thing to grow substantially and get that same energy return and validation.
I still like it though
Perception is a cruel mistress.
Shut off comment notifications at the source:
Click “Options” tab in WP dashboard
Click “Discussions” tab there
Uncheck the “anyone posts a comment” box under the heading “Email me whenever”
Ta da!
I did this a while back, it rules.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Brian
This post is an example of how you have become so popular Skellie - you are a down-to-earth blogger. You don’t try and “sound popular,” instead, you just say it how it is - and that is what people, including myself, want to hear.
Congratulations on your success, and best of luck to you and your blog, or should I say blogs, in the future.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Lin Burress
I can’t even imagine what your schedule must be like, guest posting and answering email, participating in forums, all while creating monumental posts for your own blog.
I have learned so much from reading your blog Skellie, and have enjoyed digging deep into your archives to learn even more, that I hope one day my blog can be just 1/4 as popular as yours is. Thank you for sharing the pro’s and con’s, but also congratulations on your well-deserved popularity.
Feb 23rd, 2008
shawn smith
Wow. Really nice post. I’ve been building my blog audience strongly for a few months now and I will say, the more subscribers I get, and the higher my profile rises, the more admin I really do. The half-baked posts is a problem too. Sometimes you just want to put up a quick note, but readers want gold (or maybe I want gold). It doesn’t happen every time. Blogging fame sounds it comes with good and bad. I wonder what would happen to a popular blogger that wants to stop one day.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Lani
It’s good to see someone highlighting the extra work that is involved, and some of the additional hurdles face. Having had a couple of 4 figure bumps recently on my personal blog, I’ve realised just how much I am not ready to deal with that kind of traffic. Yet. It makes the other issues you talk about here (and elsewhere) very important. And I know I need to get all those ducks in a row before I start pushing towards “success”. In fact, having all those ducks in a row would qualify as success, regardless of traffic.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Jaden
Informative and interesting. Thanks.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Ani
I launched my blog 3 days ago as part of my “living on purpose” project. I registered the domain 4-6 years ago (inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh’s books about “living in the presence: Being Peace). I was challenged by someone to do something that is important but not urgent for one day and I decided to launch the website. I have in the past 3 days read through most of the posts on this website. I love the way you write and how you make down to earth information and practical advices entertaining and inspirational reading. Good look with your new blog AnyWired.Even though my blog is new and I don’t have any intention to make much money out of it. I have subscribed to AnyWired because I enjoy your articles. Thanks a lot.
Feb 23rd, 2008
Ani
How do I subscribe to the comments?
Feb 23rd, 2008
Bruce
Thanks, Skellie…my blog’s only a month old, but this post shows me some of the things to expect in the future.
I haven’t read a post like this, and it really helps!
Feb 24th, 2008
bugsy
speaking of mistakes on item number five…
“That half-baked post your wrote”
shouldn’t ‘your’ be ‘you’?
Feb 24th, 2008
Jason
Wow! This is amazing! I run a few blogs myself and one of the points that I strongly can identify with is the pressure you feel to produce quality content! I think you are very well equipped to handle this sort of situation though! Good luck!
Feb 24th, 2008
Kelly Rigby@ SHE-POWER
Skellie
Loved the honesty and general usefulness of this post. What it’s like at the top of the blogging heap is not a topic often discussed by “successful” bloggers. I actually felt like I read a unique perspective. No re-hashing of old ideas here!
Thanks.
Feb 24th, 2008
noble pig
Thanks for the great advice, it’s always insipiring to read from someone who has made it at what you are trying to accomplish.
Feb 25th, 2008
Mandy
Thanks for this post it is a good insight into what we can expect in the future when our blogs become popular! - Hopefully…
I suppose wherever you are with blogging it’s a challenge and thats part of the appeal. We read popular blogs that inspire us and want to emulate that for ourselves but at the same time we should think about what that would mean to us.
you’re right we should be careful what we wish for…
Feb 26th, 2008
Roshill
I really Appreciate your work here it is great to hear people are actually intervening them selves through blogging….
I must Say i have become your Fan Do Visit My blog too I mean Its not much but yes you may find a few things to your liking there ….
Please do comment ….
here are my Blogs …
roshill.blogspot.com
soulintoxicated.blogspot.com
thehauntedblogger.blogspot.com
Thank You Soo much for your time
Feb 26th, 2008
Jenny
I am trying to get up there, but I think I’ll never make it. Being popular is for the people who know how to make the most of everything. That’s not me.
Feb 26th, 2008
Ben
@Jenny:
And though you protest
your disinterest
I know clandestinely
You’re gonna grin and bear it
Your new found popularity!
La la la la … You’ll be popular
Just not as quite as popular… as SKELLIE!
Feb 26th, 2008
diverdown
Agree with your assessment - it just gets busier.
Loved the reply to another commenter when you said productivity had to be messy sometimes.
That’s probably at the top of the list in the hardest things to do, but you just have no choice after a while.
Congrats - keep up the good stuff!
Feb 26th, 2008
Dee
Thanks for talking about the challenges of running a popular blog, I don’t think I’ve read about it before.
I don’t worry about the time it will consume, once my blog is as popular as I’d like it to be. One of my biggest fears though is running out of things to blog about. I don’t think it is possible though, is it? There’ll always be something to blog about, even if it takes a week instead of a day to come up with content.
Feb 26th, 2008
skellie
Thanks to everyone for the lovely comments — how cool are you guys? Wish I could say thanks to you all individually, but this comment would be a mile long.
@ Mrs. Micah: Yeah, I’m not sure how I’d fare if my blog comments were like that. I have a friend who reads Skelliewag and makes fun of me because of the positive comments. I think I have the best/smartest readers ever, and I’m not sure what I did to get you all.
@ Bugsy: Ironic! Thanks for pointing that out. The trouble with writing long posts is that proofreading takes forever (and I’m still not very good at it).
@ Jenny: Being popular is for people who are driven and willing to dump options that don’t work and try something else. Nobody makes the most of everything, but if you have the aforementioned things, you’re halfway there. I think you can do it.
@ Diverdown: Well I feel kinda bad now, because a few people have given me the Wordpress solve for the problem, but I sorta think — I don’t get any emails I don’t want from that source anymore (at least, I don’t see them) so I like to think the problem is already solved ;-). Yup — productivity is kinda ruthless sometimes, hehe.
@ Dee: That’s one of the toughest things for me, particularly not writing about technology or news, the topic is kind of static and therefore it’s hard not to repeat yourself. I think you’ll definitely have more writer’s block, but you have to develop strategies to get around that, like thinking of post ideas and writing posts in advance — so you have more time to be uninspired and nobody knows about it. As you said, you just need to give yourself more time.
Feb 26th, 2008
Blogging For The Money
Skellie, thanks for the reality check for those of us who like to imagine that you’re over there putting your feet up, sipping your favorite beverage and wallowing in loads of cash. Clearly you got where you are by dint of hard work, and you’re prepared to continue working hard to stay there.
You’re still my Shero.
Feb 27th, 2008
Nubloo
True post, there are pros and cons for every increase of exposure, not only if you’re a blogger. The downsides you describe - especially the full inbox
- will always be there. It’s just what you make of it that counts!
Feb 29th, 2008
John Cow
You get an A+, being spot on with every point you bring up.
Mar 2nd, 2008
mac
Always a fan of you skellie. Its true when a blog become popular, there’s a lot of things to do and a lot of time to do it. Some bloggers didn’t realized how hard it is to make a good blog. With your explanation I hope it will be an inspiration and motivation to them to give a 110% in their blogs.
Mar 2nd, 2008
Reply to “What’s it Like to Run a Popular Blog?”