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Blogging: It’s All In the Family

Posted By Guest Blogger 5th of March 2011 Miscellaneous Blog Tips 0 Comments

This guest post is by Salman of CompuWorld.

It was the second year of my graduation studies when my dad arranged for an always-on Internet connection at our place and I plunged into online chatting like never before. While I was busy living my fantasies online, my dad was busy scolding me for misusing my time. My frustration level grew exponentially as a result of my family’s reaction towards my style of socializing online. I started a blog on blogspot just to prove that I wasn’t fooling around.

What started as a result of ego has today become the most confusing and alluring career option of my life.

I assumed that my family would be proud of me as I was the only one to have a website of his own in my college. But their reaction was unbelievable. Nobody approved of the writer inside me, as it brought no monetary benefits.

The struggle

I continued to blog on daily basis for the next two years while I was completing my graduation. My first two years’ work brought enough money into my Paypal account that I could start a self-hosted blog on my own. Still nobody approved of my blogging as all that I had earned was already invested back online. Blogging for two years with no earnings whatsoever to show needs patience, and a willingness to ignore the heart-breaking comments from those around me. I became pretty good at that.

With two years of experience and graduation under my belt it was time to join a MNC as a software engineer and give up blogging … but recession came to my rescue! My company delayed my joining for over a year and I was gifted with the necessary time to earn some quick bucks online. I started my career as a freelancer and my earnings touched my current yearly salary in half the time period. Money flowed in and so did the writing contracts from various websites.

Showing an interest

Sometimes money can buy satisfaction, and it did buy my dad’s satisfaction with my alternative career as blogger, which happens to be the default term that my family uses even for freelance writers. Slowly my dad’s interest grew in a business where I was earning loads of money from the comfort of my home and ultimately I registered a domain for him.

I taught him few basic rules for a successful blog:

  • Be patient. Your blog will be successful sooner or later.
  • Don’t assume that you will be a millionaire straight away. You might earn nothing during your first six months of blogging.
  • Use basic terms and never sound overly complex.

My tech blog was two years old when my dad’s blog on stock market tips was launched. Today, his two-year-old blog’s traffic is five times that of mine. His subscribers are double mine. And his earnings per day are four times mine—and all these numbers are growing quickly.

My Dad’s blogging secrets

What did my dad do with his blog that I didn’t do with mine? He invested time into his blog. Dad is a stock market investor and has no boss above him to report to. He shares the stock market news and tips that come by during his regular surfing hours with his blog’s readers. He gives huge amount of time to his blog.

Meanwhile, I hardly get any free time to blog after my day job as software engineer and freelance writing contracts. Also, he is content enough with the trickles that AdSense sends him every day. His motto is to continue blogging as long as he can as he loves to do so.

Today, with over four years of experience as freelance writer, tech tips on my blog might not be generating much traffic but my dad is slowing cruising towards a successful blogging career after learning from my mistakes. Usually it is the son who works hard to fulfill his dad’s dream. In my case, it is my dad working hard and patiently to live my dream.

Salman is a software engineer by profession and blogger at CompuWorld while his dad blogs at BellTheBull and is a full-time investor in share market.

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Comments
  1. You said it correctly. Patience is the key. I have been stupid to start up numerous different blogs and abandon them after two months because I was not getting any readers. I am very impatient when it comes to progress. I like to see progress, and I like to see it now. After several days of high traffic, when I got a stretch of days where I got no traffic, I would abandon the site for weeks at a time because I was not seeing progress.

    Now, I have come to realize and understand that it takes time and patience. I have recently started up a new website/ blog that I feel can develop into something great. It has only been online for about a month, and I have seen some pretty high traffic at times. I reached a stretch where I did not receive any traffic for about 4 days however, and I thought about quitting. I decided not to, and this article reassured me that I made the right decision.

    I am going to continue with my site because I feel like I have found a great niche to be in with a small amount of competition. I want to see success, but I understand I need to be patient.

  2. I always like to hear the personaly stories of how bloggers get to where they are online. Encouraging to know that other people have experienced the problem that lots of people have about others around them not seeing the benefits of doing something for so long and not getting much out of it for a long time.

  3. What a Story man. Really Inspiring. Thanks for sharing it :) Just loved it man.

  4. Very funny but inspiring….

  5. I love stories like this, they inspires me to do more. You dad was very lucky to have started his. Thanks for sharing Salman!

  6. Good Post. At least your Dad can have no complaints if you ask him for a loan. Perhaps you can charge him a small fee for all those mistakes you made on his behalf.

  7. You definitely need to love what you do to blog. Especially if money is not flowing in. I always enjoy stories like yours because it keeps everything in perspective. I have a relatively new blog myself and sometimes its hard to write articles (and draw pictures in my case) knowing that it nothing may ever come of it. However, if you keep at it and really enjoy what you do, it can be a really rewarding experience.

  8. Thanks for sharing your inspiring story. :)

    I can understand how it feels for your family members to be skeptical about what you’re doing at first. I went through the same thing initially. But good to know that it all ended well.

    Cheers,
    Allen

  9. Thanks Georgina & Darren for this push. This is surely gonna give my blogging some direction.

  10. Good story and I learn lots from it. Thank you for sharing.

  11. Actually, I started blogging when I was in college already and I wanted to earn money out of it. But the more you look at blogging as a cash dispenser, the more it will become difficult.

  12. This is a very inspiring story. I love hearing from other people that it takes time for a blog to take off. You just got to stick with it, it’s not a get rich quick scheme.
    -Corey

  13. It’s important to make time in your life to do things that may have no monetary rewards or any other kind of rewards other than the fact that you simply enjoy doing it. I’m glad that your dad and you have both found success in blogging because it is seldom that someone is able to earn an income from actually doing what they love. Great story with a great less. Thanks for sharing!

  14. A great story. Every business that I’ve ever started happened because I had a passion for it. I’m glad you were able to extend this to your father’s life. The combination should help you to do even better in your business as you are able to share intelligence.

  15. Great inspirational story. I always belief two heads are better than one, and clearly a father and son professional relationship can be more beneficial to reap from.

  16. It sounds like your dad is quite a guy. Thanks for sharing such an inspiring story with us. Good luck to the both of you!

  17. Great Story Salman. I have been wasting my time online too but now i am serious at blogging.

  18. Vineet Kumar says: 03/05/2011 at 6:16 pm

    Nice to know the story behind your success as a blogger and of course the way your dad involved into blogging is also very interesting.

  19. Thanks for sharing that story Salman.
    “Use basic terms and never sound overly complex.” ~ best advice, thanks!

  20. # Just Do It! If you’ve thought about it, force yourself to try blogging. Blogging is a great way to build your individual brand or to help your companies in branding (our blog regularly receives twice to four times the amount of traffic that our website does). It gets easier as you go. Give yourself eight weeks. If you don’t like it, at least you tried.

  21. Congrats for keeping on, when you family did not see your vision. What does your dad say now? Has he apologized?

    This is a lesson to all parents. Wasn’t it Antigone who said: “What does it matter if I am young, and right?”

    • Yes you are right Mary, I should apologize, but at the same time you know every parent have some concern about there teen age children that whether they are going in right path or not and thats what i was doing. I am very proud of my son that he was not wasting his time on internet as most of the teenage guys do.

  22. The inspiration that I have taken from this story is to keep at it. I am a wife and mother, who has just hit 50 with a desire to do something different with my life. Not so sure the rest of the family see it that way. They think I am “playing” on the computer.
    I would like to earn some income from this venture( eventually) but the fascination with the Internet is what is driving me at the moment. I have broadened my horizons so much, who would ever have thought I would be blogging at my age and loving it.
    Thanks for the post
    Joy

  23. I have certainly paid my dues as a blogger. Now after five years and three blogs I finally have a blog that gets at least 600 hits a day. I know where you are coming from.

  24. It’s so brilliant that you’re family is involved in your blogging!

    Great article and thanks for sharing.

    Krizia

  25. Now that is an interesting story….

    I wrote a post a few weeks ago about my family being “not very nice” about the money I was making- I was telling them how I made $7.00 here, and $8.00 there….. They started getting an attitude, “Oh that’s $15.00 in 3 years” or something to that effect…

    I didn’t get to tell them about the $35.00 on another site, and $50.00/mo on another…I was too hurt to go on!

    I then told myself their opinion does not matter…I know I’m making money and each month, each year, whatever… it goes up.

    Someday I’ll get the last laugh……

    But it’s funny to note how now people I know are starting to get interested in what I do…maybe they are taking notice!

  26. It seems to be a common theme that many bloggers find success – a lot faster, anyway – once they lose their full time jobs. I’m sure it’s mainly because they have so much more time to work with – and some of the reason is probably that they’ve got a real fire lit under them: motivation to bring in the money, or see the bills go unpaid. (And no one wants to go THERE.)

    The tone of your post here sounds like you might be short-changing yourself. You talk about how much better your dad does than you – but it sounds like you made the conscious CHOICE to move away from straight blogging to get more fully immersed in writing for websites and such. (As you mentioned, you stopped having much time for blogging because of all the other jobs you had coming in.)

    Also, I think it’s something to be proud of that you persevered in the face of adversity. It’s not an easy thing to do, and it proves you have a lot of internal drive. But you moved beyond that to take it several steps farther to convince your father of the validity of blogging for a living. And you taught him enough that he’s become a success.

    You have a lot to be proud of.

  27. Jeetendra says: 03/06/2011 at 6:08 am

    @Salman… you inspired lots of peoples over here. I know how hard it was for all of us when we were waiting for joining in this MNC. but that time as well you were involved in fulfilling your passion.And we were very scared of posting any comments when we see uncle added in your social network profiles. HeHeHe.. :)
    Some people appreciate, some people laugh at you, its you who is gonna decide what you need to do with your life.

  28. Funny, your family sounds old school just like mine. The folks don’t understand how it works and keep on criticizing me. I’ve been messing around the blogging idea for the past 3 years and not really working it. Just lame excuses that I made for myself. Lucky for me I have a wife that is supportive, if not the dream would have been dead a long time ago. The fear I have is losing that steady pay-check and losing the health benefits. With a wife and 2 kids, I could lose everything. I do have hope and I’m slowly working to get to the day where I can quit my 9-5 job. Thanks for sharing.

  29. It all starts with that. Nobody would support you in your blogging not unless they see the fruits of your labor. I hope I can prove to my family that being a blogger is a productive career.

  30. I’m still working on the patience. Thanks for reinforcing this crucial aspect of blogging success.

  31. What a great story… Who knew… from critique to successful convert. Loved it! :-)
    Elizabeth

  32. Thanks for sharing your story Salman. I agree patience and hard work when fused together bring suitable results

  33. I think in the beginners bloggers have to face such problems. The family and fraternity of people around us hardly believe in the abilities of a young fellow so we have to be tolerant for some time before we could actually taste the flavor of success

  34. It’s not easy being a blogger or writer online and offline, for that matter. I am glad to see your family finally respects what you do and acknowledges it. My family still has trouble (they called it playing online) with it, even when I was bringing in money to pay a majority of the bills.lol

  35. There is a pattern I have observed in these sccess stories. Most people create blog in their domain of expertise e.g. Salman being a SEngg. and his dad, with all the classical tips of blogging, started it in their respective fields. There is reason for it as well that is it strengthens your earned expertise and you always have some thing substantial to contribute. If one starts a blog on a “hot topic” because it is hot, I believe sooner or later he will be short of either words or reasons to continue as mentioned in earlier comments. But if you want to explore some theme further apart your “domain” then it requires time to grasp its fundamentals. In order to succeed you have to Believe.
    Regards

  36. your dad maybe take you as a case study and story as well to told to their reader. Atleast you learn form the mistake while you still young. You still able to earn lot of money as your dad because blog still a way to earn money. That fun to see your blog which you write about your dad and your dad write about you. As long the topic and the content is interest then you reader will continue to follow your blog. No pain no gain , you need to spend time and some money on your blog to get better return. Good post do take time, good writer do need time to train out as well.

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