Hypothetically, of course. Anything else might get me into trouble.

In my ebook, the Grymm & Epic Guide to Blogging, I talk a lot about figuring out what to blog about. A successful blog strikes a balance between writing about what interests you, and writing that helps you find and build an audience – the right audience. The audience that will go on to buy your art. And sometimes, that audience isn’t whom you’d expect.

A lot of artists get stuck in the habit of writing about the business of selling art. Often, they’ll get quite in-depth, writing epic 2000 word posts about their successes and failures at craft fairs, etc. These posts will be extremely useful for other artists, and they’re profoundly interesting for the artist writing them, because they offer the chance to put thoughts about business down in a cohesive way and analyse what is and isn’t working. But whenever I see an artist with a blog that’s all about running an art business, I wonder if the artist knows whom their audience really is.

Who wants to read a blog about how to run an art business? People who want to become full-time artists, of course. And yes, many people who are full-time artists want to support other artists and love to buy art, but they are a small slab of an infinitely larger pie.

Read On…

If you run any kind of business online, you’re probably attempting to capitalize on the aweosmeness that is blogging. And why not? It’s pretty cool having a loyal following of readers who eagerly await the next update from your life, and constantly send you cool emails filled with interesting facts. But if you’ve just set up your blog, you’re probably wondering how to bring people to it.

The truth is, if you want to give blogging a real shot, you need to dedicate a YEAR of your life to getting it started. That’s 12 months to write tons of content, find readers, meet other bloggers, and get a real community spirit going. After a year, you should be able to take a step back and look at your blog and say “yeah, I’ve got the hang of this blogging thing.” You can’t simply spam a few sites with your URL and expect to see an instant spike in traffic.

I know. Odin save me I know. I have received very few “lucky breaks” in my blogging career. I’m under the radar of my A-listers. I’ve never had a link that tripled my traffic overnight. I’ve worked my ass off for every single reader. This shit is hard work, yo.

So, if you’re blogging away in your little bloggy world, how do you get people to pay attention?

Read On…