"Julie and Julia" - Expect a surge in blogging by those looking for "success"?

[Jillian Slack]

With all of the publicity for the film that came out in theaters in the USA yesterday (Aug. 7, 2009), "Julie and Julia," I found this newspaper article and thought it was interesting in an odd sort of way.

OK, Julie Powell cooked her way through Julia Child's cookbook in one year and blogged about it. The blog became a memoir and is now a movie. Powell has another book set to be released in December.

So, this has established her as being successful.

I'm excited to see the movie and I think it's fabulous that she found success and, apparently, got herself out of the depression and boredom that led her to the project in the first place.

Now, this article that I found is titled, "Julie Powell found fame with her blog, can you?"

Here is the link:
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_...=news_Features

What I found odd about this story was the fact that it never establishes exactly what constitutes fame or success for a blogger.

Julie ended up with lots of readers, a memoir, book deals, and a movie.

Perez Hilton (celebrity blogger) is mentioned, along with a few others who have a lot of web traffic and book deals.

Darren Rowse, who is well-known in the blogging world, is quoted.

But it never comes out and says if you do THIS or THAT, you are now considered a "successful" blogger.

Maybe that's because the piece was so short and there isn't room to talk about what constitutes success in the blogsphere.

Or maybe that wasn't the intent of the story. There have been plenty of times in my years as a journalist where I was given a very specific assignment and, even though I found something else of interest while researching and interviewing, I was told to stick with the original assignment and NOT branch out.

Or maybe the reporter didn't know enough to dig a little more.

Or maybe we -- those of us who have niche blogs -- simply know SO MUCH more than the average person that we're (I'm) expecting too much when I read an article about this business model.

It didn't mention actually making money with your blog. It came close:

Some bloggers who are hoping to attract advertisers measure it in the number of visitors. Others who want to increase their profile focus more on the number of comments or sites linking to their blog.
Why else would you spend so much time on it (unless you found it very therapeutic and it was your version of knitting or whatever)?

Powell is quoted in the conclusion:

"You have to kind of set aside the `how many hits am I getting?' `am I going to get Daily Beast linking to me?'" said Powell. "And get back to the basics of `I'm going to do this because I love it.' Whatever `it' is."

Good quote. You've got to have passion for whatever you're doing, no matter what, or you'll get bored, life is too short to do something you hate, etc.

Still, once you get those hits and visitors, what then?

I think we'll see a surge in people starting their own blogs with the release of this movie.

I also thing there will be a lot of people abandoning their blogs after they get started. They'll be excited after they see the movie, with dreams of getting their own book deals, and then they'll get bored.

But a lot of them won't get it. They won't understand the intricate details that many of us have learned by studying Internet marketing. That's good for us because we'll still be standing when the bru-ha-ha dies down.

Jill

[bgmacaw]

You can sleep all day
and still get paid
when the sun goes down
we'll do it all over again
Cause when you're on a roll

YouTube - Puddle of Mudd - Famous

I hope that it’s everything
That you dream about
Be careful what you wish for
I hope that it’s everything that you dream
When everything’s falling apart at the seams
And I know that you never believed in me
Don’t ever let ‘em ___ with your dreams

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Jillian Slack

I think we'll see a surge in people starting their own blogs with the release of this movie.

Jill

I'll take that one step further. I think we'll see a surge in people starting blogs about cooking their way through a cookbook. And I'll bet that most will get bored and quit before they finish "Appetizers".

[chrisgarrett]

Well it makes a change for Twitter to not be the latest shiny new thing, eh?

The "make money in your underwear" thing has been through the MSM every six months or so but perhaps this will be different due to the Hollywood treatment

Good for sales of our book I guess, but I do hate it when people get burned by the hype.

Added: Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,027 - so, no uptick yet

[Jillian Slack]

John, your sig line made me chuckle.

I'm a member of the other PETA: People for Eating Tasty Animals. Our motto is "salad is not food - salad is what food eats."

Jill

[TyBrown]

My wife is dying to go see this movie. She's been blogging and earning money with it for a while and thrilled that there is now a movie about her passion.

[Jillian Slack]

Many will think that it must be easy -- start a blog about something, sit back, and wait for a book deal or movie deal, and then they'll be on easy street.

What they don't realize is it's totally possible to make a decent income (or even an exceptional income) from blogging, even if Hollywood never comes to knock on your door.

Since your normal, everyday folk won't know (and won't be interested in researching) how to build traffic to their new blogs, I think a lot of them won't be successful, as far as making money.

I already see a lot of this. I've heard local people being interviews on the radio and on TV, talking about their blogs, but when I visit I see that they are just blogging for the sake of blogging. Nothing on there to make money.

What's sad is when they put so much time into it, without any hope for revenue.

Why bother to send out press releases and get on local TV and radio, pimping your URL out to everyone, only to have them visit and that's that?

Oh, well.

Maybe some people are happy using their blog as an online diary with no intention of building a following or making money.

Jill

[wmd]

An article can not establish what constitutes success because success is different for every person. Maybe some want fame and fortune on the level of Perez Hilton, maybe others just want to sell a few thousand copies of a self published book, or maybe others just want to get out of debt.

There should not be an established definition of success... but what articles should do is tell each person to establish their own definition of success and then build a plan to get to that point.

What many articles fail to mention is all the hard work and time that you must put into the project in order to reach success... they probably will not tell you that you need to put in 40+ hours a week in addition to your day job for quite some time before you reach your level of success.

[DogScout]

I think there are already 170 million blogs on the net. 163 million are 'abandoned', meaning no one has posted or commented on a post in them for 6 months.

I foresee another 30 million abandoned blogs a year from now. (By that time 30 million hosting accounts should expire so the numbers would stay the same?)

Success in blogging? If it means getting to the top 100 in Technnorati, it is unlikely that can be done without a team blogging style. All the top 100 have a staff of writers. They are like on-line newspapers. Success should be 'if you are happy' with the results which could mean happy with the number of comments, the number of readers, the income or just the fact that you can do it and doing it makes you happy.

[Dana_W]

The movie probably will spawn a wave of people trying to make money from blogging about their "passion" or whatever. The unfortunate thing is though, the reason that we hear about these successful bloggers in the news is because they did something exceptional - they are the exception, not the norm.

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from starting a blog and trying to make money with it - I'm saying, don't bet the farm on it.

It seems that the blogs that are successful have a combination of a few factors - they're very entertaining to read, they update frequently, and they're just lucky. Like novels, a lot of excellent blogs out there languish in obscurity.

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by Jillian Slack

I already see a lot of this. I've heard local people being interviews on the radio and on TV, talking about their blogs, but when I visit I see that they are just blogging for the sake of blogging. Nothing on there to make money.

What's sad is when they put so much time into it, without any hope for revenue.

Why bother to send out press releases and get on local TV and radio, pimping your URL out to everyone, only to have them visit and that's that?

Jill

Jill, people will do amazing things to get recognition, things they wouldn't do just for money. Look at all the goofy reality TV shows...

Napoleon once said (paraphrased) that he found it simply amazing that soldiers would fight like wolves and die for bits of ribbon and shiny metal, or ink stains on a piece of parchment.

[chrisgarrett]

Originally Posted by Dana_W

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from starting a blog and trying to make money with it - I'm saying, don't bet the farm on it.

Just like internet marketing

[Taylor French]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

I'll take that one step further. I think we'll see a surge in people starting blogs about cooking their way through a cookbook. And I'll bet that most will get bored and quit before they finish "Appetizers".

Already quite a few of those. Some were out long before the movie. It seems to be a bit of a popular concept. This person just happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right combination of factors to pull everything together like this.

[Karen Blundell]

Will a blog have overnight success? It's possible. Anything is possible.
More likely though, like anything, things happen in stages. It takes time to create something of value.

Think about it. It took Johns Wu, 22 years old, who sold bankaholic.com to BankRate for a hefty 15 million, 2 years to grow his valuable blog.

Isn't that inspiration enough for people to want to blog? Never mind this Hollywood spin. Blogging is already popular and is here to stay. And for that I'm truly grateful

[MarkAse]

Yes anything is possible, most people realize about a month or two into writing their blog that it isn't as easy as they think. Coming up with new engaging content takes more work then having a conversation with your wife at dinner!

More bloggers=more visitors for my blog....which is great in the long run.

[Jillian Slack]

I've been a member of Amy Bass' program, The Niche Blogger, for several months, as have many other members of the Warrior Forum.

It has been a fabulous investment and I am armed with the skills to make my blogs generate revenue.

Chances are, I won't end up with a movie about the blogs.

But I'm happy with some decent revenue flowing in and a small following of readers.

Jill

[misterwrecker]

Originally Posted by Jillian Slack

Many will think that it must be easy -- start a blog about something, sit back, and wait for a book deal or movie deal, and then they'll be on easy street.

What they don't realize is it's totally possible to make a decent income (or even an exceptional income) from blogging, even if Hollywood never comes to knock on your door.

Since your normal, everyday folk won't know (and won't be interested in researching) how to build traffic to their new blogs, I think a lot of them won't be successful, as far as making money.

I already see a lot of this. I've heard local people being interviews on the radio and on TV, talking about their blogs, but when I visit I see that they are just blogging for the sake of blogging. Nothing on there to make money.

What's sad is when they put so much time into it, without any hope for revenue.

Why bother to send out press releases and get on local TV and radio, pimping your URL out to everyone, only to have them visit and that's that?

Oh, well.

Maybe some people are happy using their blog as an online diary with no intention of building a following or making money.

Jill

Yes people will blog and it doesn't have to do anything with making money. It is suppose to be an online diary but that's just not how it is most commonly used anymore. You may see this as a waste of time and maybe I would too but that may be somebody's passion.