Blogging About Blogging… Is it Cynical & Unethical?

As time has passed working on my SideGains blog, I’ve become aware increasingly of the slightly sniffy view that some bloggers have towards the “blogging about blogging” niche … of which my blog is clearly a part. I’m intrigued about this and want to explore it a little.

• What is it that drives some bloggers crazy about this niche?
• Are blogs about blogging adding value?
• Too many of them perhaps?
• Maybe they’re cynical and lowbrow?
• Is blogging about blogging just selling a dream?

Why Blogging About Blogging Drives Some Bloggers Crazy

Reading through this article by Tom Belskie here on Medium, I understand perhaps the most compelling reason why some bloggers can’t stand it.

Many uber-bloggers who blog about blogging, seem to be making a killing selling courses to people.

Some of these courses aren’t cheap.

Neither are many of them presenting special “secrets” that can’t be found online for free.

Furthermore, none of them are able to guarantee success… since there are no secrets to success other than:

• Hard work.
• Striving to do the best you can.
• Commitment over the long-term.
• Networking.
• Trial and error.
• Continuous learning.
• Timing.
• A large measure of good fortune (this one’s pretty important).

Of course, there are strategies people use that have a enormous value, but many successful marketing bloggers have documented these online for free on their blogs, in forums or on their social media accounts.

Tom says he finds blogging courses being sold for $500 as unethical… and for me it seems so too

Would I ever buy a course about blogging for this amount of money?

Probably not… unless I knew it was the absolute best advice money could buy, and even then it’s a massively steep investment.

So perhaps for me the issue isn’t bloggers selling blogging courses per se, it’s more about the outlay a student has to make, with no guarantee it’ll work out for them in the way they’re dreaming it will.

Let’s be honest about it, most blogs fail. In particular, those blogs expressly set up with the dream of making money. Most often this is because of unrealistic expectations: there are no short-cuts to creating a successful blog and it takes an enormous amount of sweat investment over the long-term.

Get rich quick it ain’t!

Tom also advises against buying blogging courses from bloggers and instead suggests visiting a library, listening to podcasts or buying books about blogging from Amazon.

I agree with much of what he says, since:

• I love libraries and they need to be supported.
• Nowadays there are hundreds of incredibly slick (free) podcasts providing highly useful and actionable information in the blogging niche.
• There’s nothing like a owning a nice collection of books to which you can refer whenever the need arises.

However… most people who commit to writing educational books or producing podcasts have to earn money. Doesn’t it make sense for them to try to do this through the medium in which they work?

If your educational books don’t sell, you can’t give up your day job to spend time focusing on writing for a living. Podcasting too requires significant financial investment in technology as well as time to produce lickety-split podcasts.

Shouldn’t people benefit financially for the value they provide?

Personally I have no problem with people monetizing blogs and selling courses, especially if they write well and deliver value. I also have no issue with podcasters recommending products and getting a kickback for it.

So the issue I have is expensive blogging courses that aren’t:

1. Doing a lot of heavy lifting for you;
2. Saving you time;
3. Teaching you something truly valuable.

Is It Wrong to Sell Courses on Blogging?

For me it’s a categorical no… but with caveats.

I feel it’s wrong to sell someone a dream based around a course that offers no real value above and beyond what you can find in a search on Google in minutes. This is especially true if the information is wrapped around a whole bunch of motivational fluff as padding.

This is a big no-no.

Neither do I feel it’s entirely ethical to sell expensive courses, unless they are truly exceptional and offer real value. I know that scaling up sales at $500 a piece makes sense if you’re aiming to get rich, but is any blogging course really worth that for the average buyer?

I’ve never bought one, so perhaps I’m just over-cynical and jealous. Perhaps satisfied students of some of these courses will take me to account and recalibrate my ignorance?

I’m happy to be persuaded by someone showing me REAL evidence an expensive course worked for them… I might even buy it myself in that instance.

What seems to be the case for some successful uber-bloggers though is they were in the right place at the right time and the strategies that worked for them at the time they started out may not work for you right now.

That’s life in any business… good luck to them I guess.

However, if courses aren’t adding real value to people right now, it makes me uncomfortable.

Will I Ever Sell Courses?

Probably at some point.. but I imagine it won’t be a subscription-type of affair and neither will it cost $500+, unless I bundle it up with some of my own personal time, like setting up WordPress or 1-on-1 assistance in some other way.

I appreciate this isn’t an entirely scalable model and unlikely to earn me a squidillion dollars… but that’s okay. I just want to earn a nice living doing something I believe in that helps people solve a particular problem.

The truth is I haven’t totally figured out the way I want to monetize my blog. Right now I’m trying to build up a valuable resource in this niche, which will take time. Established bloggers have a massive head start on me, the resources to continue advancing and huge follower numbers to keep the ball-rolling.

I’m also still cutting my teeth.

SideGains isn’t my first blog, but in past projects I’ve definitely been cynical about making money from blogs… and the truth is I HAVE made some money that way.

That isn’t how I want to play these days.

I’m aware some of the content I’ve produced so far needs to be reshaped to reach my goal. Some of it has an eye on search engines and some of it is written to try to increase reach. In time I’ll have to revisit and iron out anything that screams at me.

However, right now I feel I won’t be selling expensive courses about blogging, containing information that can be found easily with a few search queries.

On the other hand I have no problem with putting together ebooks that provide valuable advice and charging a fair rate for lightening the learning effort required for those who want to know what I know.

Perhaps as time goes on I’ll change my opinion about expensive courses. Perhaps one day you’ll see a review about my $500 blogging course being the best thing since sliced bread.

Then again… perhaps not.

Originally published at https://www.sidegains.com on March 5, 2020.