Even the Big Guys Started Out with Nothing
Many bloggers, at least those trying to make an income online, if not with their blogs then with some other online ventures, look to the big name bloggers for inspiration. Sometimes, too, it can serve as a source of frustration. When your blog earnings are several levels of magnitude below John Chow’s, that can be disheartening. Even setting “realistic” goals can seem daunting. If John Chow can get $25,000 per month, why not go for 10% of that? Some of us struggle to get even 1% or 1/10% of John Chow’s monthly blog income.
And, even though many top bloggers will tell you what they did to achieve success, getting to that point can be a long road trip, even if you have the map in hand!
But, rather than reading the current entries of the top bloggers, try digging back in their archives to see where they came from. Check out this early entry by John Chow, wherein he mentions his blog is getting 100 readers a day! In another early post, he bought some lottery tickets. Here is his first post on John Chow dot Com, and note one of the commentators suggests he go back to his old job! “Moto” has come a long way!
And, here is one of his early posts… about dinner.
Now, check out this post and ask yourself if you could ever imagine that that guy would one day be making $25,000+ per month with his blog!
Anyway, so, anytime you get discouraged by blogging, start digging through the archives of some of the top bloggers and see their posts from their early days when they were where you are at now. It can be a lot more inspiring than reading something more recent, where they are making the big bucks.
well said dan, it’s tough seeing $.01 per day in adsense. then you hear about affiliate programs and contextual advertising and blah blah blah. it’s all about posting semi regularly and not getting caught up in delusions that you’re going to make millions overnight. setting realistic goals is the first step.
You’re getting a penny per day!? That’s more than I get most days. On the other hands, some days I do better than that, so the average works out to be more than a penny per day. But, checking the stats every day can be a real downer.
i agree with the checking of stats. i try not to check them everyday, this way i don’t get caught up in the depression of seeing 0 visitors
I do check them nearly everyday. It lets you know what’s working and what’s not. And you learn a lot of things that don’t work!
Now this is a really great post. Everyone on the web started somewhere and struggled just like to rest of us. There are many out there that dream of being the second coming of John Chow but fail to produce any valuable content, but after reading his first blog post content must not have been ‘king’ back then.
I stopped checking my income stats and just wait for the checks to come in the mail. There is nothing better than a surprise amongst all the bills.
Don’t forget pictures of your lunch and dinner! That’s something John Chow has apparently done from the beginning, and keeps on doing it.
I love reading old john chow- it’s much better then his new evil incarnate.
Saw him at Affiliate Summit, he looks like a pretty normal human in person-
a normal person that smells of money.
But he still counts his greenbacks one at a time like the rest of us. His are just larger and more numerous.
Haha…some of his older posts aren’t very good. I guess he pays an editor to correct his grammar now. You are right and it is very interesting to see some “pros” early work. It really takes sticking with blogging for several years to get somewhere; although, someone occasionally gets big quickly.
And that “somewhere” is frequently not where you wanted to go!
Very interesting, Dan!
Thanks for letting us know there’s hope for us, yet! Writer’s Notes had close to 300 unique readers yesterday. Guess that’s a positive signpost on the long road to blogging success! (Unfortunately, I have very few RSS subscribers because Orble only offers a partial feed. Hope they’ll follow my suggestion and change to a full feed soon.)
Cheers!
Jeanne
That’s more than I have!
Thanks for touching on this topic. It brings relief back to many struggling bloggers out there that’s trying hard to make it someday.
I hope so!
Excellent post. I’ll definitely return to those links when I’m feeling discouraged. Not that I’m trying to be a “JD Chow” or anything, but I wouldn’t mind seeing a little income from my humble blog.
We all have to start somewhere!
You should be getting some traffic from all your nude postings! Of course, sometimes that traffic doesn’t monetize well.