Writing for fun versus writing for profit

Posted by stuart as , , , , , ,

I’ve been giving a fair bit of thought to my motivations for my online adventures recently. I’ve been trying to work out exactly where I’m hoping that they will take me, and what I hope to acheive.

We all dream of being the next Joel Comm, Shoemoney, or Darren Rowse from ProBlogger, but is this realistic?

I love to write, it’s kind of an escape from the drudgery of day to day life with my health problems. Any money I make is really a bonus. I’ve spent the last couple of months setting up “mini-sites” to see if I can make a few extra bucks, registering domains, link building, writing content etc. But is it really worth it if the majority of it is a chore?

The writing part of it is what really floats my boat. I don’t enjoy link building, I find submitting sites to directories a chore, and SEO is a real pain in the ass.

So I think I’ve come to a bit of a decision. I love writing in this blog. It makes me absolutely no money, but it’s about a subject I enjoy. I like looking at what other people are doing online, I like following other peoples online adventures. So I will continue to write here.

I also have another blog over at the Renal Unit. It’s about kidney disease, dialysis, and transplantation. I enjoy writing about that too. (It’s something I know a bit about, and something that (hopefully) I can make a bit of a difference to peoples lives with)

All the other sites I made were a grab for cash. They’re about subjects I’m not really interested in, therefore struggle to consistently create useful content for.
I’ll keep an eye on these other sites, and maybe I’ll have a change of heart at some stage in the future. But I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, there’s no magic keyword density, traffic building secret, or undiscovered niche which will make me rich.

Good luck to the rest of you in your online adventures, and I look forward to keeping tabs on how you’re going…

Stu