If you’re going to be a writer, blog instead of writing books. It’s a long road to become a blogger, and making money online can seem really bleak at times, but it’s worth it. Starting a blog pays bigger dividends than writing books in the long run, and will likely also be more fun too. Here’s why.
Blogs can be systematized and scaled
If you’re a good fiction writer, your ability to be replicated isn’t high. Most people can’t outline a good story, let alone write one out to completion. Writing articles is easier, and people notice less when the author changes. When you blog and grow to a certain size, you give yourself the possibility of multiple authors or pseudonyms. This means you can create a corporation or business via blogging. It’s a lot harder to start a publishing company than it is to do this.
Blogs allow for constant, piece by piece collaboration
If you have a blog that has multiple writers and contributors, people won’t care. They likely won’t even notice if it’s a large site. This is provided your blog isn’t too personal in nature, and that it’s not considered a personal site. Even then, you can break down blogging into smaller chunks by having other people contribute in small peices. You can also stop blogging whenever you want this way. You aren’t responsible for employees.
Collaboration makes marketing easier
The collaborative aspect of blogging makes it easier to market your work and content. You can talk about your writing, and word of mouth should allow it to spread quite easily. If you have writers besides yourself, they should have a vested interest in promoting their work. If they don’t, it’s because you’re not providing any or enough incentives.
Writing a good book takes time
You can definitely mass produce books. But writing a book that you think is good is almost certainly going to take time. Writing a blog post takes no time at all. You can push them on social media instantly. It takes 100 blog posts to match a book’s length. You can get feedback on your work after one post. This might sound insignificant, but AI has sped up the process of writing books and articles, not replaced entirely. LLMs are not getting much better, and content will still have value even if the process is sped up by a factor of 8. Right now it makes sense to try to own the marketing engines and get as much money as possible. The really ballsy people right now are doing short video. If you do short video correctly, you can make a crapload of money. Basically, content creation allows you to get up to the minute feedback. It’s way better than spending months writing books that may or may not even get rated, let alone reviews.
Books are marketplace dependent
Most people buy their favorite books on Amazon, Google Play, or iBooks. This means that everything you write is dependent on other companies. Blogs give you total freedom. You host your product (the writing) yourself, and drive traffic to it via social media and search engines. You can connect your writing to an ecommerce store, affiliate product, or just use the site to guest post. The point is that you own the platform and get direct visitors. If you publish books, you’re dependent on the marketplace.
Blogs give you control over the marketing
Having your own website is a form of power. The largest websites in the world have recently made it harder to have your own website by consolidating the market. But having your own website is still a form of control. Because there are multiple traffic acquisition channels online, you have multiple options for marketing your blog. You don’t have to feel like you’re tethered to a given social media platform, because your blog will plastered across the internet. Control over your own marketing should make you feel secure as a business owner.
More value is moving to the internet
And having a blog is a way to own a peice of the internet outright, cheaply. The only thing it costs is your time. As of right now, even ecommerce is a bit expensive for normal people in a lot of countries to attempt. If you’re from a poor country, blogging is the way to go. Generally speaking, anything online is better than what exists in person, unless you’re sure of what you’re doing. Posting online allows you to build equity without investing time, money, or materials. This, combined with digitzation of money makes owning a website a no brainer.
Internet marketing is skill of its own
This means that once you have a successful blog, you’re in a league of your own. If you know how to be an internet marketer, you have the power to run a professional services firm of that kind, in the same capacity. There are many more salaried and contract-based opportunities in the world of marketing than there are in the world of publishing. You just often need a degree to access them. Educate yourself as much as possible, but stack up online wins.
Evolve with media
If you write books, it’s harder to adapt. With blogging, you can leverage technology to make books a part of your business. Get it? Evolve with the media and win big. Follow the trends to the extent that they can apply to your niche.
Learn multimedia
The internet is the future. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s 2025 and everyone is glued to their phone. Even people in prison are constantly on social media nowadays. Make sure you learn how to get good at random forms of social media and actually post. You don’t stand a chance without posting on social media.
Don’t write books. Writing books is a bad way to make money in the modern age. With a site, all you need is some traffic and a link. Once you realize this, you can’t look back from the world of ecommerce. It’s all about seeing what’s obviously in front of you.
Thanks for paying attention.
