Blogging – a respectable trade?

There’s a high chance this post will only be of interest to you if you’re working as a blogger, or would-be blogger. For anyone else then I apologise – I have a post about breastfeeding-friendly outfits for autumn if fashion’s your bag or you can read my top tips for a holiday in France if travel’s your thing. I promise not to write about blogging again for a very long time.

Now, if you’re still with me…

When people ask me what I do for a living I always tell them I’m a journalist. It’s true, I am. I mean, I get paid to write for magazines and websites and I have a Masters (distinction no less!) in Broadcast Journalism. But I’m a blogger too, and this blog along with Roost are both just as much a part of my day job as the other work. Funnily enough though, I rarely mention the blogging.

I’ve been thinking about why this is a lot recently. I guess it’s part of the naval gazing that went on this summer – pondering what I really want to achieve over the next year (when I wasn’t planning DIY house renovations or what type of wine I was going to drink later that evening).

Do I really want to continue to invest so much time in this blog and into being part of a community that’s changed so much since I began blogging five and a half years ago?

The answer is yes, otherwise I wouldn’t be here writing this. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t really debated the pros and cons of blogging as a job.

We often hear about the pros – you get to work from home (not always all it’s cracked up to be, trust me), you get sent lovely “free stuff” (it’s not free when you have to spend hours photographing and writing about it), you meet inspiring people and can make brilliant friends (for me, this is a huge plus of blogging). But there are lots of cons too.

You’re never really “off”. Whether it’s thinking about a funny anecdote to share on Twitter, what your next shot for Instagram’s going to be or who’s liked your Facebook page, bloggers are rarely “off”. We don’t get paid holiday or sick days, and I reckon if you tot up the amount of hours loads of us spend online the figure’s less than healthy.

Sure, we talk about being “off” all the time – I mean, how do you think the whole mindfulness thing got so popular if it wasn’t largely to bloggers pinning inspirational quotes like crazy on Pinterest? But when it comes to truly switching off the internet and just sitting down with a cup of tea, it doesn’t happen all that much (and when it does, the tea’s cold because it’s been Instagrammed like crazy).

And there are lots of other things too – the inevitable competitiveness of living by likes (she got more likes than you! You suck at the internet! You’re a total failure! Your life is crap! etc), the occasional pangs of loneliness working on something that’s yours and yours alone and the fact that so many bloggers cheat at the internet (come on – we all know at least one or two people who’ve bought all their Instagram followers don’t we?).

But with all of these things aside, I’ve decided I want to carry on blogging. Doesn’t mean it’s a respectable trade though, does it?

In many ways, earning your living by writing about your life on the internet is probably one of the most narcissistic things to do. And, for me, that’s the crux of why I often find admitting I’m a blogger to non-bloggers so embarrassing. Who am I to think anyone’s interested in what I have to say, after all?

But then I guess it’s not too different from a columnist writing about their opinions on things in a magazine. It’s just that someone else is printing their words. And not all bloggers are intent on becoming self-made celebrities, selling every portion of their life to the highest bidder.

Most bloggers I know in real life are genuinely inspiring people, writing honestly about life as a parent, sharing incredible photography, giving us ideas about where we want to go on our next holiday or what we want to wear while we’re there. Sure, we might not be saving lives or mending roads or caring for sick kittens, but so much of the content I read online these days is just as good if not better than some of the stuff I come across in print.

So yeah, I guess I’m kind of undecided. Is blogging a respectable trade? I don’t know – do you? 

 

P.S. I really loved this post Alice at More Than Toast wrote recently about working for herself. If you’re thinking of leaving your old job or are currently debating a change after Maternity Leave then this is worth reading first.

 

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