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Sometimes the Writing Game reminds me of a... · by Sach O
So what’s a successful blog?
Most bloggers would consider themselves successful if they could quit their job and support themselves solely off of their posts. I have no statistics to back that up but I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in that category and generalization from self is a pundit’s best friend. For others though, anything less than a mini-media empire that can easily be sold for a tidy sum, counts as a failure. Sometimes success exceeds our expectations, I’m pretty sure when these 2 guys started drawing cartoons on the internet they didn’t think they’d fill a stadium with 20 000 screaming fans years later.
Ironically, blogging’s greatest asset as a medium also makes it extremely difficult to gauge if anyone is truly successful at it: it’s entirely independent and arbitrary. Judgement day is swift for the mainstream media: first week sales and opening weekends rule the roost and if you don’t make it out the gate you’ll probably never make it at all because no one’s going to be checking for you next week when you’re old news. It’s fairly easy to approximate whether you’re the king of the world or a homeless bum on the streets of LA. The independent grind is a far more complex animal to assess: it takes years to acquire a truly loyal fanbase and by the time you reach that point, whatever media covers what you’re doing won’t have any reason to mention that you’re well off and living happily. It’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears to build something from scratch and a lot of people get fed up with the process: there’s no breaking point and no top-of-the-hill where everything suddenly gets easier. Just the daily grind to get bigger so you’d better hope you really enjoy what you’re doing.
The flipside is that if you ultimately succeed, you’ve built yourself a fanbase and business model infinitely more stable than anything big media can offer you. You own your content, you control your distribution and your word of mouth fanbase actually “connects” with you far more than an anonymous demographic on a spreadsheet. Hollywood lets you rent their system but when you’re not that hot shit anymore, prepare to get evicted.
No one can tell you if you’re successful or not except your own damn self and the best boss is the little voice inside your head that says to keep working, even if you feel like crap, because you enjoy it. There’s no guarantee you’ll get 20 000 people into a convention center but there’s a guarantee that you won’t if you quit early in the game. And personally I see a market for an Ohword brand dinosaur rap revival show.
You need to get up, get out and get something. How will you make it if you never even try? – Cee-Lo Green. Pre Gnarls Barkley.
Comments for "Sometimes the Writing Game reminds me of a..."
“Most bloggers would consider themselves successful if they could quit their job and support themselves solely off of their posts.”
As far as I can tell, this is a nearly unattainable goal for a music, or at least a hip hop music, blogger. The closest thing is to make the leap to print journalism. Which is no fun.
— noz Aug 31, 07:07 PM
I really don’t think Hiphop blogging has gotten far enough along to really judge. It’s impossible now, but let’s see what’s going on in 5 years. If rap and/or any of us last that long in the first place.
— Sach Aug 31, 08:30 PM
Nah, noz is right. Just plain blogging on your own about your interests is extremely extremely unlikely to earn you any kind of living.
On the other hand, people have made money on it by using blogging to propel themself into better jobs, better consulting deals, books, etc. And you get rewarded with a lot of intangibles.
But unless your hobby happens to be high-priced pharmaceuticals you shouldn’t blog under the impression that it alone will someday support you.
— Rafi Aug 31, 09:04 PM
I had a writing teached tell me that there were three jobs that people would do for free… Astronaut, circus clown and writer. I will co-sign the last one since I have written for commercial radio shows and print media and I never got a dime.
— Billy Sunday Aug 31, 11:06 PM
too bad I didn’t have a spelling TEACHER
— Billy Sunday Aug 31, 11:07 PM