Distractions beginning bloggers don’t need

When I first became interested in blogging, it wasn’t for money. It was a way to get me writing regularly. Later it became about writing to inspire and educate. This is where Medium came into the picture, not the money but the potential audience and the lack of technical expertise needed to have my posts look good.

Ninety-nine percent of the blogging advice out there is NOT for people like me. Tom Kuegler listed 8 time-wasters for a beginning blogger. He’s right on target for both beginning bloggers and people who aren’t interested in making money from writing. I intuitively knew not to go down those rabbit holes. As for Twitter, I still haven’t posted any of my Medium stories there. Mostly it’s because I didn’t want to take any time from writing. Now that I’m in a writing slump, I plan to tweet my own articles and some by other Medium writers.

I wondered whether Facebook groups would be of any use. I’m glad I never bothered. The only reason I started a Medium publication was to house my 1-minute posts with no images. As for e-books, I don’t know enough about anything to write even a short one, so it’s nowhere on my writing radar.

August Birch often advises an email list, which I assume includes a newsletter. I struggle just to come up with two Medium posts each week. The pressure to create a weekly or even monthly newsletter would crush me.

I don’t want to or need to monetize my writing. Even though it probably has no meaning, I like to see my follower numbers…