Blogging: Charge readers FIRST — THEN invite them to your blog
By: Cody Smith
Tags: Blogging Tips, Writing, Blogging, Writing Life, Content Creation

Sounds completely backwards, right?

Who in there right mind would pay you BEFORE you invite them to your blog?!

That’s exactly how I felt before I realized there is a better way about going about this whole blogging thing.

Before the epiphany, I was like any other blogger trying to figure this whole thing out. I had a goal: blog about a thing I’m passionate about, build a following of people who are also passionate about my thing, keep blogging until the the traffic coming to my blog is significant enough that I can hopefully monetize the living crap out of it, support my lifestyle from it, and happily turn in my two week notice.

That goal fueled me. I remember every weekend sitting in a cozy coffee shop with my laptop in front of me. I would hear the quiet chatter of everyone as they enjoyed their coffee and the baristas working their caffeine infused magic. Meanwhile I enjoyed a sip of my signature cup of joe before cracking away at a post I was working on.

At first it was exciting but eventually that excitement soon fades when you don’t see any results from any of your post. I knew I needed to be patient but there comes a point where you really start to doubt the potential of ever seeing a dime from your blog. Soon you start to doubt yourself.

“Do I. . .do I suck at this?”

I was learning about SEO, Google Ads, and affiliate links trying to crack the code on driving traffic and capitalizing on it once it arrives on my site.

It all became very overwhelming and I started to resent working on my blog and I did something I wish I never did. . .

I gave up.

I took down my site and left it to die.

Years later I found out that I was going about this completely backwards. I found out how to charge readers for my content first before they ever see what I have to offer on a blog.

Crazy, right?!

The problem with going about monetizing your blog in the traditional sense is that blogs sucks at making money without massive traffic fueling it.

Let that sink in for a bit.

Here’s a simple truth: blogs are not built to make you money.

Blogs work great at sharing information for free which unfortunately means the inherent value of a blog post, no matter how great the info is, is zero dollars.

So it’s not the content’s fault.

It’s the vehicle (the blog) that’s at fault.

Your blog is like a slow boat moving across an ocean to eventually sell your goods (your content) to someone willing to pay for it. A boat that is fueled by SEO, social media followings, massive traffic to your site, affiliate links, and advertising on your website.

All that time and effort just hoping you get paid!

I suggest you find a different vehicle (the plane in the figure above) that will allow you to get to the (metaphorical) Paid Content Land much faster.

A vehicle that will allow you repackage the content that you’ve already made and turn that into money.

A vehicle that will allow you to repackage all future blog post and turn those into money also. I consider all future post to be future pay raises.

Wouldn’t you like to give yourself a raise?

I know I would and that’s exactly what I do.

Once I found a different vehicle to actually put a price tag on my content, it changed my life.

And I want it to change yours.

At this point you are probably wondering what heck is this different vehicle he keep blabbering about?

I’m not going to tell you just yet.

Yeah, that might upset you but I don’t care if that upsets you.

That’s not the purpose of this post.

For now I just want you to consider that there might just be another way of playing this game called blogging.

I’ll save the vehicle for another post though I’m sure it would be really freakin’ easy to guess what it is.

Full Transparency: I’m starting this blog from scratch to show you exactly how it’s done from beginning to end. I’m giving myself three months (until August 15th 2019) to post every single day and a month after that in September I’ll have my first paycheck. Follow me on this journey and let the games begin.

Question: How long have you been working on your blog?