My Pros and Cons of Blogging

After a full year of blogging, I’m going to discuss the Pros and Cons of Blogging!

Let me start out by saying that blogging isn’t as easy as some bloggers make it sound (at least not for me).  I figure I spend at least 3 to 4 hours a day, everyday, blogging and doing blog supporting activities.

Blogging Pros…

• The major reason I blog is for the freedom of expression of thought!  It’s a liberating experience!
• Blogging allows a tighter focus and re-enforcement of the learning about your blogging topic.  For me, this is personal finance.  It allows me to hone in on the topics and obtain a mastery that would be difficult to accomplish without blogging about it.
• Free books on your blogging focus.  I get to re-enforce me learning by authors asking for a review of their book.  So far, all the books I’ve read have been pretty good!
• A great unrealized side benefit was the continual improvement in my writing and communication skills.  I’ve improved both my writing and speaking skills via blogging.
• I continually learn things everyday by researching topic, and by reading other great blog sites.
• There is a little bit of money to be made.

Blogging Cons…

• There is a little bit of money to be made.  (no, this isn’t a misprint of the last Pros sentence above).  While there is a little bit of money to be made, for the amount of hours worked, its way below minimum wage rates (at least so far).  For my first 5 months I only made $5.00.  That said, I really didn’t know what I was going for at least 3 of those months!
• Without support from other bloggers, the first few months can be lean and discouraging.  I almost gave up a few times.  If it wasn’t for another beginning blogger that would visit and comment daily at my site, I would have quit a long time ago.  Unfortunately, her non-blogging world got busy and she had to quit blogging herself.
• There is also a never-ending amount to learn!
• The stress from outages!  I continually check my site to make sure it is up and working.  This is a necessity because various networking parts external to my site can and do go down!
• The addicting “statistics monitoring” activities.  This may drive you crazy if you are a constant stats checker!!!
• Writer’s block!  Quite a few times I would be blogging at 2:00, 3:00 and sometimes 4:00am…  Augghhh!
• Reading other blogs and commenting.  This is a mixed blessing!  I was an avid reader of blog sites before blogging for many years.  But after you jump in the blogging world, you discover that there are a ton of quality blogs that should be read and commented on daily.  This is a huge chuck of my blog supporting activities, even if I do love it!
• Prioritizing blogging and family.  I’ve seen some great blog sites have to be shut down because of family turmoil!

So there you have it, for me the Pros (while less in number) outweight the Cons

If you are a blogger, how has your experience been?  Do you have any additional details on the activities of blogging?

-MR