What this does for us is levels the unrealistic expectation that we’re going to get rich or famous overnight. The universe just doesn’t work that way. People don’t care about us until we prove we care about them (over and over).

I totally agree with what you’re doing — writing to boost your profile and improve your writing. I’m doing the same. It’s humbling but also a great way to refine our ideas so that when we are “discovered” people will say to themselves — ‘I wish I had read this guy a long time ago!’

Anyway thanks for sharing your very interesting story. I hope you’ll come back.

I admire the enterprising approach you apply to your blog. You’re working out the rules as you go, keeping things ethical and fair and continuing to produce great content.

I don’t see how you can’t go wrong with this model, and in time, for all your diligence and hard work, the opportunities (and money) will start manifesting for you.

In the 18 months since, that has never happened again.

That was a tough lesson, and I wondered what I was doing wrong. I thought that was how blogging was supposed to work: you write an article, 20,000 people read and discuss it, then you write another and repeat. It was tough to accept that my first post was just lucky and caught the attention of the right redditors at the right time.

I had ads on the blog at first. Even if I managed to repeat the reddit feat every single day, I’d still be making way less than minimum wage. So I removed the ads and now focus on it as a way to improve my writing and gain a higher profile.

I have some paid ads which helps pay for the time I do spend on my blog, but I have found that getting sponsors works much better then getting “Paid” to blog.

For instance, I trade products with local companies at a rate that is much cheaper to them then if they were to have to pay money for an ad in the paper.

My ads start at $30.00 a month. However, I mandate they do a 6 month or 1 year contract. If a sponsor can provide a service to me that I may need… whether it’s clothes, airlines, travel, food, etc., I simply give them the ad for the same rate in cash as it would be in sponsorship.

I make no real promises and I disclose all I do for them in any post that I may write about the company.

However, I rarely will blog about a sponsor… they already have their “Ad” on the blog… so no need to “Pimp” their company so to speak.

I think you got a great thing going and I’ve enjoyed learning a lot from your blog.

I don’t always listen to the lessons you have given… but the ones that I have taken in, sure has helped me as a blogger.

Now if I could only figure out how to frigging proofread my comments before instinctively hitting submit.

Congrats on a year!