I got into a conversation the other day with someone who earns their living making hand-made items for public sale. It’s an insanely difficult job because not only is there the manufacturing there is the need to actually sell such items which means you have to be a whiz when it comes to marketing and getting yourself out there. In many regards this common complaint of artisans and crafters is one not too dissimilar to trying to make it writing. When I was asked how I was expected to make money blogging it got me thinking about all the things I have done and all the time I have spent trying to make my own dreams come true.
I started my travel blog on a whim. My boyfriend at the time wanted to wow everyone by taking a trip across the Lower 48 States in one epic road trip. I was game and all the happier to share my travels with the world so I got my first smart cell phone to take photos with and wrote as I was going along – sort of. Obviously being on the run and sleeping out of the Jeep every night we had no Wi-Fi which resulted in us going to McDonald’s every three days or so and me hastily writing out everything I could remember as quickly as I could. It reminded me of the timed tests which had thwarted my every attempt to complete them in my grade school years. It was still a great trip and I got a lot of people I knew following my adventures but I did a ton wrong in this first attempt.
- I did not invest in a proper digital camera and at the time cell phone cameras were not that great. This means that although these entries still exist they’re not “high quality content” and the search engines very rarely pick them up. Even worse I took most of the photos out of the car window as a passenger or while speed walking because my boyfriend said he was OK slowing down but I knew he’d be super annoyed if we did. Had I taken my time the photos would have been way more impressive.
- I rushed everything. I wasn’t really allowed time to breathe or recuperate. It was all go go go! I slept about six hours a night, which wasn’t enough, did not take any naps, and sustained myself almost exclusively on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The result? I was a ball of anxiety the entire time, I was super ill-slept, and my brain was just not functioning at high capacity anymore. Add to that the rush to write entries in a reasonable amount of time so my hyper intensive boyfriend could get the fuck out of McDonald’s and on with his life and…. only a few years later I have only the haziest of memories of the whole damn thing. My blog entries are short and sweet and really didn’t capture what it was really like.
- I did not monetize this blog in any way because that was not my goal. It was created to stroke the ego of my narcissistic boyfriend. I had somehow taken a back seat in my own work.
- I let other people, er person, direct me too much. It came from a place of pure insanity. Ideally I should have been doing this for myself because I was passionate about it. No other reason.
After the end of that trip I attempted to keep the travel blogging going but I didn’t own a car and my boyfriend was less and less willing to go anywhere I wanted to go. Sure, we’d go to all his favorite things but mine? Very quickly I realized this just wasn’t going to be a thing anymore. I still blogged but not about travel.
It wasn’t until after the inevitable break-up that I got my own car and immediately decided to pick up on travel blogging again. I didn’t have the money to go across the country but I could certainly cruise around New England looking for interesting new places. This time I was already on a better foot. I was doing it for myself and I was determined to make it profitable someday. I researched and did everything I could find to get my name out there.
- I bought it an actual domain name and a real goddamn camera. Investments.
- I learned to use AdSense and immediately put it up which meant I had to be approved for AdSense first – this took several months worth of “high quality content” before I could even get this far. And from here I had to abide by their user agreement. This doesn’t sound hard but sometimes it can be for really stupid and arguable reasons. I’d already been forced to take down an article on another blog because it was considered explicit. It was not in any way explicit to any normal functioning human being but I digress.
- I also learned how to add a Donate button because I heard this was a great way to get support and keep people engaged and involved.
- I created two FaceBook pages – one of my writing in general, one just for the travel blog. I also joined Twitter and Instagram all of which I had to learn because I didn’t bother with them before. Despite being encouraged to spread myself even further and get even more social media accounts I never accomplished that although YouTube continues to beckon.
By now my computer skills were getting sharper then I ever thought they would be. I never expected in a million years I’d be designing my own websites and trying to figure out algorithms. It’d only get more complicated from here. Now that it’s all set up and has been for about two and a half years this is still the amount of time I have to put into keeping it maintained.
- I spend between an hour and eight hours driving both to and from each destination. Time spent.
- Once there I usually stay for between a half an hour and five hours. More time spent.
- When I get home I then have to upload all the photos and write a blog entry. This usually takes an additional hour, sometimes two, because in addition to writing I have to figure out which photos to use, where to put them, what tags and categories are appropriate, etc.
- After all is said and done I then have to make sure people see it. So I have to post it to my personal Facebook page as well as my writing page and my blog specific page. It helps if I can also share it to certain groups who may find it interesting. I also try to make my rounds on Twitter and post five photos on Instagram. Why 5? I just find that gets the most engagement. Why, I don’t know.
- On days off I have to keep people engaged so I spend a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook that I otherwise wouldn’t bother with just communicating, commenting, meeting people, being friendly, networking. This all sounds pleasant and often is but it’s very time consuming and sometimes pretty exhausting for a severe introvert like myself.
So as you can see, even with the cheapest of the cheap travel blogs such as mine (where I do not spend money at restaurants, hotels, shops, or ticket selling destinations) it’s still a LOT of time and investment, each entry often consuming a whole day of my time and because of my health usually a full day after for recovery. And if you’re wondering if it’s paid off then no… to date not a single soul has hit the donate button. Though traffic has improved it’s still only about 10-15 people a day and AdSense has only made about $13 in the six or seven months it’s been on the website. I won’t see it until it gets over 100. I do believe I have sold one, maybe two of my books off my blog. Another $8 or so.
So why put so much effort into something that is giving so little return?! Well… if I were doing it solely for money I probably wouldn’t be doing it at all. I do it because I enjoy it. I do it because I love sharing my experiences with people and it gives me so much joy and wonder when people I know follow my footsteps to the same destinations because of something I said or did. It’s my way of putting good out there in the world. And in the meantime I know my writing can be lucrative if there’s enough traffic so I continue to produce “high quality content” and hope for the best. Maybe someday it’ll start booming and good things will come of it. Until then I am just happy to keep plodding along. My goal is basically to make enough money to pay for the domain first and foremost. I’ll set new goals from there.
**All photos for this blog entry were taken by Theophanes Avery for her travel blog Catching Marbles.**
