Find a niche that you can credibly inhabit and stay there. Write specifically and often. One day a readership will find you. Money will eventually followI'm okay with everything aside from the last part. There are too many Blogs out there for them all to monetise successfully. And that's just counting those written by persistent, eloquent people who are in it for the long haul. To me the sentiment is little more than that nice but essentially unprovable hippie notion that if you just do what you love then the cosmos will somehow look after you.
The marketer in me certainly relates to idea of writing for a niche. Being someone who is known for knowing about sharks might get you a call if the other expert has his phone off when the reporter needs a quote. Being the recognised expert on hammerhead sharks gets you on TV whenever hammerheads make the news. If fate shines a spotlight on hammerheads then for that moment you're the only show in town.
Do you spend your energy trying to predict where the spotlight will shine or do you get on doing what you love and deciding that you'll be happy either way?For Bloggers the answer is pretty clear: learn to write well about what you love and see what happens. It's different for comics; the spotlight itself is the thing we love.
