Category: blogging

Blogging is freedom

June 26th, 2021

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging and writing for myself vs freelancing over the last few months. What I’ve come to discover is that I really enjoy blogging here, writing how I like and about what I like.

When I’m dipping into freelance work, it’s work. You’re writing in line with a publications style and against a set of rules. It’s much more difficult that you may imagine if you’re used to writing for yourself like me. The initial pitches often go ignored and need chasing, your work is edited to fit in and you often have to chase to get feedback or payment. It’s a career choice you need to go into (for me anyway) with no expectations of being able to make a living straight away and is taking a lot of time to build up any sort of contacts or regular work.

For me, freelancing and blogging has let me discover why I enjoy the freedom of writing for myself and why I started doing it in the first place. My site is now getting support from the community to pay for hosting and anything else is a bonus. It won’t pay the bills but let’s me have some creative freedom and I know that there are some of you out there that like reading my stuff and supporting independent creators – that means a lot to me (and thank you to those that have supported me).
Advice for tech blogging

June 14th, 2021

This is a really great post from Matt over at Birchtree. I really agree with him here, trying not to bring others down and try your best to add something more positive to the conversation is good advice.

But where I really get behind it is this quote:

First off, beefy content (should make this a tag on this site…) takes longer to make, likely won’t get any more traffic than your small stuff, and isn’t even what a lot of your potential audience wants. Sure, we all like a good longform article sometimes, but most people want smaller pieces of information they can consume quickly so they can get on with their lives.

It’s the thing I do here on my blog, smaller more digestible posts that you can read and get on with your life with.
WordPress starts to prioritise Stories

June 1st, 2021

WordPress unfortunately seems to be continuing to slowly turn itself into a social media platform.

Stories got added a few months ago but in the recent update I went to do a post and Stories are now top of the pile, above a blog post.

I’m hoping this isn’t a trend and WordPress refocuses with what it’s good at – providing a solid platform for bloggers.
Should you write a blog post if it’s under 300 words?

May 18th, 2021

Simple answer to this for me, yes.

I’ve been reading up on Google ranking and why you should use social media if your post is less than 300 words but for me I write where is right for the post.

If it’s a question or sharing some cool new gear or app then I tend to use Twitter, anything else goes on the blog.

I use my blog as a stream of my thoughts and interests, as you’ll know if you’ve been following me for a while, I don’t do huge reviews but I like to keep them short as your time is valuable.

So, yeah I think if you have a blog then ignore Google ranking and write exactly what you want and where you want to put it.
Where I’m creating content going forward

April 25th, 2021
I wanted to share some of my thoughts on where I am going to create content going forward. I’m being pulled in a lot of different directions at the moment and I only have so much capacity so I am simplifying things. This is also in response to the great response I had from my Twitter poll, showing 66% of you wanted me to keep the content on the blog.
1. The main source of my content will remain here on my blog, supported by donations or patreon (none so far, but I’ll keep hanging in there for potential sign ups)
2. I will continue to send out my weekly newsletter all about Star Wars, this is a free newsletter
3. I am putting both the LJPUK Newsletter and Home Screens podcast on hold, I don’t have the capacity to do this right now with my job searching taking up the majority of my time and I cannot justify the input I’ll need to put into them. I did consider moving both of these to a paid tier and maybe I will depending on Patreon support but at the moment I cannot
I hope this makes sense, there’s only so much I can do creatively at the moment. As always thanks for reading my content and being engaged in what I’m doing.
The results are in…

April 23rd, 2021

Yesterday I asked you, my readers where you were consuming my content – here are the results.

So my blog wins pretty easily here, I’ve got a bit of thinking to do but the blog is definitely going to be staying as my source for tech, Apple, apps, productivity and the odd bit of guitar and Star Wars.

The newsletter is fun and I’m going have a bit of a rethink on that one, along with the podcast.

Thanks for all of your input.
Turning off the infinite scroll

April 12th, 2021

When I sat down today to write up a few posts I decided to also tweak my site a little, make it a little cleaner and making the menu bar clearer. Along with this I decided to turn off the infinite scroll on my site.

The infinite scroll on social media I feel has been detrimental to our wellbeing and knowing when to stop is so important. I realised that my site was infinite scrolling just like Twitter and I didn’t want it to be enabled.

You can see 10 posts and then decide if you want to move to the next page of 10 apps and go from there now, I’m not sure how many readers navigated the site this way but I feel that it’s a better way to view my site.
Are you a writer or a blogger?

April 12th, 2021

Writing is something that I enjoy but I’m not sure that I’m good at it – yet. I feel that I am more of a blogger, with this I mean that I enjoy writing on my own on this site and smaller pieces of content. It’s quick to read and quick to absorb, something you can pick up and doesn’t involve reading for 10 minutes or more. I’m not at the mercy of the publishers CMS or their editors, I can write what I want – how I want.

I have done freelance writing in the past but lately I am being rejected with every pitch that I make. I’m not sure if this because I don’t have good longer form ideas or I’m not that interesting. This to me makes me more of a blogger than writer I feel right now.

One thing I miss about freelancing though is working with an editor. Editors are great to work with and have really helped me improve my writing and how to get more out of WordPress i.e. using the SEO tools available to me. It helped me understand how to format a post for the web and use the correct images, which after a while you get completely used to it becomes second habit. After a while though I found that I couldn’t make changes to their process or suggest improvements and that’s where I have fell back to blogging and being on my own again.

What do you think? Do you want to be better at longer form writing or are you happy writing for yourself on your own terms?
My creative projects

April 11th, 2021
I’ve been doing a lot of planning on my walk this morning thinking about my creative projects, now I’m coming to terms with keeping the blog as a side project. I’ve got a lot of interests and want to scratch those itches too so here is a list of everything I’m working on, I thought it make it easier to follow what I’m up to. I have also cleaned up the menu on the blog to show this a bit more clearly too
- The blog, will continue to be where I write the majority of my work. I enjoy the easy posting from mobile and whilst there are things I don’t like about WordPress it is the best solution for me right now. Also thanks to my supporters I have been able to pay for another year of business hosting
- My Star Wars Newsletter – this has started really well and it’s nice to write about one of my other passions in a different format
- My podcast – this is a relaunch of the home screens podcast
- Lastly another newsletter about what I’m up to outside of the writing and maybe a bit more behind the scenes on writing a blog – still figuring this one out
Thanks for sticking with my on this creative journey of mine.
Giving up trying to make a living with a blog

April 10th, 2021

I’m not going to lie, it’s been tough going trying to support myself with this blog and I’m finally taking the pressure off myself and throwing in the towel of trying to make any sort of a living with it. It might sound defeatist but the realistic view of going all in with Adsense and still running a site I’m happy with has had me beat.

Blogs that make it are either ones that have already been established for a long time and have a large audience and post niche ads (think Carbon ads) or ones that post constantly re-blogging anything related to the field that they are in and including a tonne of ads on each page with the hope people click on them.

I’m on my own writing about what I’m passionate about but I’m not established so places like Carbon rejected me and I’m not turning my site into clickbait with a tonne of ads.

What I’ve realised is that the ad model doesn’t work for small outlets like me that have a wider focus. I’ve earned less than £3 in my couple of months running ads and that’s pretty demoralising.

What I’ve discovered is that I have some great readers that have supported me via donations and that’s really helped me keep the blog going by paying for my hosting – it has fully funded the site itself. This is amazing and I didn’t expect it and now I need to put some food on the table.

I’m going to be making a few changes and post less to this site, putting value into a newsletter that I can really focus on.

At the moment I have hosted this here, no content yet but wanted to share with you as soon as I had these thoughts. I’m also going to be making this a paid subscription (not at first), I know I’ll lose readers but I have to jump into this with both feet and see if it can support me.

Thanks for sticking with me and I appreciate all of those that support me and independent writing.

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