I’m going to be honest with you. When I first started off blogging I thought that this was a way for me to share Madison’s adventures growing up. I was never under the impression that I would make it to the big leagues and I’m very, very, VERY far away from that. However I did think like most people adventuring into the world of blogging that people would want to read about my boring mundane life. Well people besides my family and friends that is. I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you’re a blogger I’m sure you get the usual questions from everyone who wants to start a blog, and the main question being, “how do you get free stuff?” I’m going to tell you that in life, there is no such thing as free stuff. No one told me what to expect when I became a blogger so I’m going to share what happened and what’s going to happen.
As I mentioned above, there is no such thing as free stuff. We work for those things that you think are free. Being a blogger is a job, whether it’s part time or full time, it’s a job, especially if you’re planning on taking it seriously as you really should. It means deadlines, doing social media work, lots of writing and picture taking, and don’t forget tax filing at the end of the year. You don’t want to mess with Uncle Sam!
Now this post isn’t about how you can go ahead and get those free stuff but what being a blogger has been like for me. I would say it has literally sucked the life out of me. Life it seems like has slowly passed me by and I’m in a time warp. Sure I loved getting what you call “free stuff” but then my house started looking like one of the house from the TV show Hoarders. I had “free stuff” that I didn’t need or particularly want. “Free Stuff” here, there and everywhere. My UPS, FedEx and even the mailman knew me by name. There were boxes piled up everywhere. Essentially I had to give almost everything away. What that meant for me was that I just worked for free. And trust me no-one does that!
If you think you have kids and don’t know where the hours have disappeared to because all you did was look after your child and now it’s dinner time, well being a blogger is ten times worse. You start a blog post, you edit a few photos that goes along with that post, you share via social media, respond to comments on your blog, visit a few other blogs and comment on their posts and before you know it, you’ve just spent about 4 hours “blogging”. However you do it all in the name of “networking” and trying to make your blog stand out, but you feel great because you just earned $200 for that blog post doing 4 hours of work. Seems like an easy $50 an hour right? Well guess what, your social media work for that post doesn’t just end that day, no you may have to share for another week or more, so that $200 blog post you just felt great about may now turn into less than $5 an hour. That’s even less than minimum wage.
Now you may think well it’s all good because all you do is stay at home and write about the things anyway, you’re not going out and so it couldn’t be that bad. Well think about this. You go to work and at the end of the month you get a paycheck. Or you may get a paycheck twice a month. Well sometimes it doesn’t work that way. While we may get paid, sometimes we don’t get paid until 90 days (yes that’s right, 3 months) after we’ve done the work. That wouldn’t fly in the real world but it sure does in the blogging world. There are even those you have to follow up with after that so said 90 days is over to find out where your money is. You know that Rhianna song “Bitch better have my money”, yes it’s like that!
Now think about your day job. Your boss gives you work to do and you have a deadline and you may even get an extension. Well that’s what the blogging world is like. You get a job and you have a deadline and while you may get an extension, it’s not recommended getting one unless you had extenuating circumstances. You have a schedule, stick to it. Buy a planner! Although you MAY have one of those “bosses” who gives you work and expects it to be done that very day. Yes there are companies like that. The ones who you negotiate with for weeks before they send you an item but email you the very day you receive said item asking when it’s going to go live. We all know those bosses.
Those “free stuff” is going to cost you and it has for me. It has cost me valuable time with my family and friends, so this year I’ve made a promise. NO MORE! It’s time to take back my life and share our adventures, share the things we like and share the “free stuff” that we like and need, not the free stuff that we “want”. Sometimes it’s best to just head to your local Walmart and pick up the stuff you want and spend the rest of your valuable time with those you love. And so what if you don’t get the views that you thought you’d get, trust me, the big bloggers didn’t when they first started either. Take everything one day at a time and do what you love.
