Here is step one in the process of making money from your blog. It is a delicate cocktail to blend – one part marketing, one part soul-searching, and a handful of crushed ice blended to perfection and set upon a coaster in front of the right person at the right time.
The courses will tell you to figure out who your reader is. I use reader in the singular not because I think there is one person out there that will read your blog, but because as a writer you have to be able to describe and understand the average person who you want to read your writing. That’s what I call the market-builder approach, and I have to say it is horribly flawed for many. Unless you want to write for average readers. You could write about ndubz and capture a small slice of the mainstream – aim for the average, those closest to the median, the norm.
What I propose is something completely different. Write for yourself. Write for an audience of one. The ultimate in focused marketing – figuring out not “your reader” but “the reader“. When I was thinking about what I was going to write about this afternoon, I wanted to write some more lyrics from a rapping infant called the Gonch from Big Babies. And then maybe something about my new taxi cab.
All of which is scarcely interesting at all to anyone who isn’t “the reader” aka me. But you know what? My tiny world needs to know about the Gonch. I have a right to know what on earth was going through my head if I get to read this all again in 20 years time. So I might as well write for myself. And put in affiliate marketing links for things I want to buy online. So when I buy them, ka-ching, I get the kickback. Brilliant eh?