If you’ve started a blog to become the Next Big Author or Creative, then you should give up right now.

Despite what the myriad of bloggers on your WordPress Reader or Twitter are telling you—amidst their epic cries of Buy my book! Buy my booook!—you will not become famous by virtue of tapping your fingers onto the keyboard and blurting word vomit onto your professional writer’s blog. You’d have a better chance writing a letter in blood to the devil (The Big Five publishers) or begging for a short story journal to not pay you in exposure and love.

If you’re an unknown, the majority of your followers will be other writers and creatives. Sure, a percentage of these people may be interested enough to buy your book or watch your YouTube channel or like your social media accounts, they’re nowhere near the majority. If you’re a virtual unknown with a newly minted blog, your comments—if any—will read something like this:

DebbieWrites reblogged your post: How to Deal with Writer’s Block, #71,281,633

Some great tips for writing! I have followed these to perfection to write my latest novel, Romance Under the Sea which is now available on Amazon and Smashwords. It has mermen who are just like my ex-husband Phil who is very educated!

MagnumOpusReads

Great tips! I especially like #5

This is worthy of a reblog and I have liked your post and may in the future like your web site.

Scammy McScammerson

I have had a very merry peruse of this writing and I have believed it to be of great and perfectionist use. I have found this material to be very informative and enjoyable. Thank you for your great use of time and follow.

DeclanImmison – Professional Writer and Editor

Unfortunately i cannot give money to your campaign for new writer’s teeth—those fangs that are shaped like books sound awesome though—but i can retweet this to my 21,000 followers (even though I follow back 23,000, so it’s not like i have a fanbase)!

If you’re looking to start a blog to get advice from other writers, then this is the perfect place for you! If you keep up with the community, by commenting and liking and reblogging and even posting yourself sometimes, you will gain some fiercely loyal friends and people you can look to for help when the writing gets tough. You will make friends…sometimes. Most of the time, you’ll just have the time for a bit of a chat with others who are going through the same slog as you.

Writing is an inherently solitary task, unless you’re the sort of writer who takes their laptop to the local coffee shop and shouts out your WIP (work-in-progress) at the barista while you’re waiting for your seventh double-fat skim latte macchiato to be delivered by that same overworked barista to your table. Note: I know nothing about coffee. Does this make me less of a writer? Uh-oh. Second note: No. Most writers do not write in coffee shops and shout their WIPs to overworked baristas.

Joining the blogging community can be a great way to meet others who are just like you: writing away their days in the hopes of become the Next Big Thing.

But if you want fans and adoring lovers, simply by virtue of writing a blog, you’re not gonna get it here. That train passed over a decade ago, back when blogging on its own would get you a huge fanbase. People like Perez Hilton and miscellaneous fashion blogs opened up on sites like MySpace (remember that?) and Blogspot and are now raking in the cash (or dealing with the ensuing bankruptcy). Blogging now is like shouting out into the void, hoping desperately that some speck millions of miles away will notice you and even talk to you. The odds are pretty slim.

There’s no one way to become a megabuck$ quadrillionaire author living in an ivory tower with seventeen writing rooms and fifty-eight cats, sixteen of whom are named Cat Who Naps on My Lap. Methods like blogging, selling your soul, even writer’s newsletters that are sent your email inbox (does anyone even read emails that aren’t bills?) have been tried by millions before you. If it worked, we’d all be quadrillionaires.

On the other hand, if you can deal with people constantly trying to sell you their $2.99 novel about mermen on Smashwords and Amazon, then you can keep at the blogging. Because even if you don’t get any comments or likes, sometimes it can be fun just shouting into the void. Blogging really is the twenty-first century diary.

Dear Diary,

Why are all these amazing Smashwords/Amazon novels about romance and mermen always rated ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐? Can’t there be a four star review for once? Why is Debbie’s friend Susan the one giving glowing recommendations? Maybe it is an excellent book, but are the mermen really that divine, Susan?

Love from Writer102989214