Hello lovelies. This is Zoe from nosaferplace and I have been a blogger for two years now. I really struggled with my blog in the beginning and it took me almost a year to realise, that I actually had to put a lot of time and effort in to make my blog work (who knew!).
I'd seen many well-known bloggers and assumed it would be easy to write a few posts and sail off into the sunset in my new found glory. Let me tell you: it isn't easy. My journey as a blogger has been almost like a rollercoaster, there have been times where I've cruised along and not much has changed, times where I've zoomed up and had bucket loads of motivation, times where I've crashed down and not blogged for months and times where I've looped a loop and my world seems to have been turned upside down (in a good way!).
After my first year of blogging, I was only posting once every few weeks, I wasn't talking to many people online, I wasn't promoting myself or talking to authors, I felt like a failure and stopped blogging for about 6 months. I'd forgotten why I blogged and how good it used to make me feel.
It was around June last year that I bought myself a new laptop (with a webcam) and decided to give YouTube a go. I look back at my first video and the quality was awful, I cringe inwardly at my "posh" voice I put on in the beginning, but it got views and gave me the confidence I needed to get back into the blogging world.
A year later and I am now a full-time blogger and YouTuber. Blogging has started taking precedence over YouTube now, which is something I never thought I'd say. And the main advice I would give? Don't put pressure on yourself, living up to your own expectations is setting yourself up for failure. As soon as I cared less about views, followers, comments etc, things started to progress for me, at a very rapid rate.
I started blogging for WHSmith, publishers started to send me books, authors started talking to me, I was invited to events, my social media engagement was growing and a lot of you now will say how "lucky" I am but it isn't luck, it's hard work and lots of it. I'm definitely not complaining, I love my job and I wouldn't change it for the world but it's currently 7am and I've already started writing and there are days where I'll sit at my desk reading/writing until 6pm to try and stay on top of everything I've got going on.
My Top Tips:
- Don't take on too much work. I know it's exciting when things start taking off but you'll just end up letting people down; after all, you're only human.
- Interact with other bloggers. I want to shout this from the rooftops. I only started doing this around 6 months ago, when Rebecca started blogging, we got chatting, and I realised the difference it made having blogger friends. The support and encouragement you'll get from the blogging community is overwhelming.
- Don't be scared to talk to new people. I know how frightening it is to talk to well-known bloggers but as I said earlier, we're all just humans...and usually lovely ones.
- Build up a relationship with authors and publishers. DON'T go straight in there asking for books and interviews etc. Start to chat with them, like their tweets, make yourself known. There's a fantastic new blogger called Amy (GoldenBooksGirl) who does this perfectly, so go and check out her Twitter for tips.
- Sign up to sites like NetGalley and BookBridgr, they are both great for requesting new books when you're just starting out and also a great way to get involved in blog tours. Blog tours will boost your audience significantly.
- Join in with online chats and attend bookish events if you can, they are all great ways to build your blog and make friends along the way.
- Finally, just be yourself. I tried to "be" like other bloggers for a while because they were doing so well but don't try and be like other people, there's no one better than yourself.
I am definitely not a super successful blogger but I'm so proud of where I am at the moment and how much things I've changed have for me. I'm definitely not on a rollercoaster anymore, the only way for me is up...and my journey's only just begun.
by Zoe (@ zcollins1994) from No Safer Place
This post has been kindly written in support of #Rebeccas24HourReadathon. SomeOne Cares is a charity that helps support survivors, young and old, who have suffered of rape or some form of abuse at some point in their life.
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