I have just found out that I broke the number one rule of professional blogging: “Don’t name your blog with a personal name unless you’re famous”! I really didn’t know that when I started blogging, :). Thing is, I never thought to sell crap on this blog. Adsense on this site is recently functional again, this very blog isn’t yet three months old, so even if there are some older posts transferred here from the previous free hosted which had other names all together, this is the one who counts, and it counts on my name, or more exactly, on Rodolfo Grimaldi’s name. I read a post on some blog, about it’s author who said he is famous and lazy because he is famous (which is not true, I don’t think there is a lazy blogger who is famous, and especially not the one claiming that), I also read in other blogs that you have to work all day, from dusk till next dusk, which is also a thing I don’t believe.
What I believe is that you have to work to produce e good read for everyone, and if you can’t please quite everyone, just choose your readers and address only them, in that way you can become sort of famous in your own way, :). How to choose your readers, is another story, for another time, it’s in fact an advice to define your niche and your audience by that!
Uncle Sam
[source: kurafire.com]
What is making me nervous is that everybody is selling the same cheapish lines, wrapped differently, I have to admit, and because they’re not new, I’m gonna ask you if this isn’t crap, by the way…
I’ve just read yesterday, or the day before yesterday, a post named something like “6 easy steps to become an internet millionaire”. You noticed the crappiness of the title from the beginning, I’m sure. You haven’t read wrong, it is stated indeed “easy” and “millionaire”, not talking about Twitter followers or blog readers, but of real money. The easy steps were something like: “Be prepared to do what it takes”, “you need a lot of traffic” (this was referring to the blog or blogs or sites), “do it now, don’t wait” and “you have to invent something new”, like Digg.com or Facebook or something, a brilliant advice, indeed. This blog post was a guest post, but in the “free ebook” the actual blog owner offered in exchange for your email, I read what motivated me to write this post. I had to have named my blog “cheapideas” or “buysellmoneyblogging”, and so on, oh, but I was wrong again, you wouldn’t name the blog with more than two – three words.
Seth Godin
[source: andytraub.com]
I have learned a few things, related to that, crappy or not. @AdrianaPari was right by sending me a post by someone we both respect a lot, and I’m sure you do too, it is Seth Godin (Author of Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, Poke the Box, and Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?). The post was named “selling nuts to squirrels”, a perfectly appropriate title and topic, as in “sell nuts to squirrels not to dolphins”, which is just as it should be. The great majority of marketeers are trying to sell everything to everybody, by artificially convincing you that you “need” what they’re selling, which is why serious offers coming with all good intentions are neglected as “crappy” without even checking to them. On the other way, if someone thinks your stuff stinks, if you don’t think so, it doesn’t matter.
Shakespeare’s Dilemma
[source: coxandforkum.com]
I’ve read also on a great number of other blogs that to have and operate a blog is easy, you just need to have ideas, mostly new ideas, if possible, anyway, from this affirmation to the one that to become an internet millionaire is easy, I prefer the former one as it is, and reformulate the last one like this: It is easy to become an internet millionaire if you have something revolutionary in mind, a new Facebook or Digg, you need to consult… oh boy, I’m not going to tell you that, I mean, who to consult, because I was just going to make a joke, and it would have been highly unappropriated, it is a serious post, not a joke, after all. You have to figure out for yourselves what to do if you have indeed a revolutionary idea, and you’ll become internet billionaires, not just millionaires, 🙂
Let’s laugh a little, with Oprah and Palin!
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Copyright © 2011 Rodolfo Grimaldi Blog – Breaking Rules
Ha – amazing the things you believe when you begin blogging. I was told the opposite as a writer with a blog – “don’t use a name other than your own.”
Sorry I too am a rule breaker and am doing ok with an award winning blog that I co-founded. Go figure!
They referred to something like “wrapping your blog title with a keyword”, but I found it logical to brand a name in the title, without ever reading anything beforehand, :). What I saw in a lot of advice packages, was “expensive advice” from people who have “money blogs” like Problogger or Blogs Daily Tips or C-level (by the way, the lady from C-level claims she “studied and researched for a whole year” before she started blogging), and more. Those rules we are all breaking.
🙂 Maybe you’re taking these things a bit too seriously. Those “rules” are just content for blogs or (e)books, opinions – knowing better, you avoid wasting time on them. Some things may not suit you, but that doesn’t mean that other people aren’t willing to pay for them. The same goes for “the great majority” you’re talking about. Everybody is free to fail (one way or another) and succeed. It’s regrettable to have junk raining over us, but one’s got to learn how to deal with it, and not contribute to it.
With serious offers and good intentions there’s a problem: they are not enough! Like with ideas, you need significant amounts of key action to make them matter. Some people are happy being millionaires for taking action with petty offers. Money comes and goes. Ultimately, it’s not about millions and billions. It’s about value – and that has many translations.
You made your point, :). As I have mentioned already, it was an impulse, :).
That post with the “easy steps” was not fiction. More than that, it had a lot of support from people with borrowed heads to think instead of their own. I agree with you, it is upon anyone to choose, to fail, or not. I’m pleading for a “junk free”, a cleaner info flow, even if I had to pay for it, sometimes. I regret I feel sometimes the needing to express this urge. Thanks, 🙂
It is upon the reader, 🙂 I was a little bit nervous writing, I’ve changed my mind to give names just before hitting “publish”, anyway, they’re visible now to people who think with their own head. To pay for such books or advice is really lame. To pay attention to the fake isn’t the end of the world, it’s how we learn in the process, 🙂 Thanks for passing by, 🙂
Yes, you’re 100% right. The most annoying thing is to read the same things everywhere. And people keep reading those things. I’ve read a few of those books and posts and blogs… but what’s the value of it anyway? Normally, I’d read something that I already KNOW. Funny thing is, if I know how to become a super-successful multimillionaire and/or genius, or super happy and successful for that matter, why aren’t I supper successful and happy. Why? Eventually, I just stop reading those. I see them as the bane of social media. If you’re going to give advice just give advice about what you know in your own twist. Do not repeat what others have said a thousand times before, sheesh..