My 4 pillars of blogging

I have been blogging for some time now, and I can honestly say that it’s been a growth journey.

I started blogging primarily for myself – essentially to organise and articulate the thoughts in my own head. If others were to draw anything useful from that, well that’s a bonus.

Guiding principles

Recently, a few people have been asking me for blogging advice, mainly around getting started. This got me thinking…

What are my guiding principles for blogging?

I believe blogging is about being honest with yourself, so what values or standards to I hold myself to?

After a period of deep reflection, four overarching themes shone through. I call these my 4 pillars of blogging.

1. Be bold

This is the advice that Wikipedia gives to its contributors, and I love it!

There’s no room for shrinking violets on the Internet.

If you’ve got an opinion, let’s hear it. It’s just as valid as anyone else’s.

2. Add something new

There’s no point being an echo chamber. Thousands of other bloggers are happily doing that.

Your blog should build the collective knowledge bank, not merely repeat it.

If you want to write about a particular topic – even a popular one – go for it. Just find your unique angle: Maybe an aspect no one else considered? Perhaps an insight based on your personal experience?

3. Challenge your own content

After you’ve written something, challenge its accuracy.

Did someone report supporting evidence in the academic literature? Have you seen it with your own eyes? Or is it just your opinion?

If it’s the latter, that’s fine – just make it transparent.

You’ll be surprised how many bloggers dress their opinions as fact.

4. Formulate a 1-liner

If you can’t summarise your blog post into a single sentence, you obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.

Take a step back, reflect on the key message you are trying to convey, and maybe jot down some bullet points.

Then distill that into a 1-liner.

You might even use it as your opening line.

Let it flow

While the 4 pillars provide a useful framework for blogging, please don’t take them too seriously.

For me, a blog post isn’t meant to be a lab report or a journal article. In contrast, it’s a forum for free thought – something very rare in this fast paced, time poor, ultra standardised world.

I typically germinate my blog posts with a central idea, then I start writing off the cuff. Only after I have some sense of the body do I apply the 4 pillars retrospectively and tighten up the prose.

Have a go

If you already write a blog, I hope my advice helps you.

If you don’t yet write a blog but are thinking about it, I say to you in true Aussie style: “Have a go!”

You will embark on a journey of growth not only as a person, but also as a thought leader.

The end of publishing as we know it

In my previous article, I pondered how we are – finally! – entering the age of the e-book.

Already we are seeing an acceleration in the sales of e-books, which I expect will correlate with a resurgence of reading as an informal learning activity.

But I suggest that another, less obvious, effect of the e-book phenomenon will be a resurgence of storytelling as an informal teaching activity.

A lost art

Storytelling is as old as language itself.

Thirty thousand years ago, the Australian Aboriginals used Dreamtime legends to share and retain knowledge from generation to generation.

Stories such as The Special Platypus and The Little Flying Fox taught their audiences the virtues of modesty, identity and tolerance.

Western culture also has a rich storytelling history. For example, fairy tales such as Hansel & Gretel and The Ugly Duckling taught their audiences the virtues of love, dignity and respect.

But somewhere along the journey we lost our way.

What happened to the storytelling tradition of my culture?

Sure, we still tell stories in the form of books and movies – in fact we’re inundated with them – but I’m not alone in feeling that the big publishing houses and film studios of the world have hijacked the art of storytelling for the sake of pure entertainment.

Cash is the modern religion, and formula sells.

Light at the end of the tunnel

As e-books become more accessible, the act of reading will inevitably become more popular. Schlock will still be on the menu, but so will be enlightening tales with authentic messages.

For example, stories like Oh, the Places You’ll Go! will eventually join the other Suessical classics online and find a whole new generation of bookworms to inspire.

But you don’t have to be a famous author to get published online. Gone are the days of struggling writers submitting their work to arrogant publishers, only to receive knock back after knock back. (And don’t get me started on literary agents!)

These days anyone can publish their own story – easily.

Insert plug here

I decided to put my money where my brain was.

In the tradition of Aboriginal legends and European fairy tales, Ryan the Lion is a children’s story that explores themes of identity, tolerance, and self approbation.

Ryan is a lion cub who acts like the other animals in the jungle because he thinks they are cooler than he is. In doing so, however, he attracts their ridicule.

As Ryan grows up, his mane gets longer and his roar develops. Soon he attracts admiration, and he feels pride in being himself.

The DIY revolution

Ryan was ridiculously easy to publish.

There is a plethora of self-publishing services out there, but I decided to go with Digital Text Platform for several reasons:

•  I trust Amazon,
•  Kindle has sold in the millions,
•  My e-book is automatically stocked in the Kindle Store,
•  I can create hardcopies via DTP’s sister service, CreateSpace,
•  My commission percentage is healthy, and
•  I retain control over my work (to update it,
    to set its pricing etc).

Oh, and it’s effectively free!

I have since published Ryan the Lion via Smashwords too for similar reasons, but principally because of their distribution deal with Apple.

Macmillan’s stoush with Amazon was a walk in the park

The moral of this blog post is: I’m happy because I’m empowered to tell my story, and my target audience is happy because they can access my content at the press of a button.

The only ones who aren’t happy are the big publishing houses. Just wait until they realise the world’s storytellers don’t need them any more.

The age of the e-book

For about a decade, people from all corners of the globe have been saying “We are now entering the age of the e-book”.

Whenever I heard someone say that, I couldn’t shake off the analogy of the real estate agent saying “Now is a great time to buy”.

It just sounded empty.

Something in my gut told me that it simply wasn’t true. And you know what? Year after year, e-books never took off, despite all the exciting forecasts and fanfare.

However… is the tide finally turning?

The new players

A myriad of reasons have held e-books back from mass popularity over the years.

The most obvious one is that lots of people (and I’m one of them) prefer reading real paper books.

You can pack them easily, you can read them on the beach, you can scribble notes in them, you can knock them around, you can lend them to your friends, they don’t need recharging, and you never get radiation-induced eye strain.

But another big reason has been the lack of suitable reading devices. Sure, you can read e-books on your laptop or on your smartphone, but it’s not a lot of fun.

Enter the Kindle and the iPad. The former is a purpose-built e-book reader, and I would argue that the latter is too.

OK, so a couple of cool e-book reading devices are finally on the market. Does that in itself foretell a revolution in e-book readership?

No it doesn’t, but this does:

Amazon and Apple have sold millions of Kindles and iPads.

Not hundreds of thousands. Millions.

With so many people owning an e-book reading device, it’s only natural that they would want to read e-books.

And when they do, they might realise that although they still prefer paper books, e-books are actually quite handy.