Sometimes the action’s in the comments. In my recent post, The Bass-Ackwards Method of Starting a Business from Your Blog, my friend and productivity ninja Dave Navarro just up and decided he was going to tell commentors they could ask me their toughest questions on blogging. I gave him a hard time about it, but really it was a great idea. The only reason I haven’t offered to take questions before is because Darren Rowse answers questions all the time and I wouldn’t want to be seen as a copycat. But since this was instigated from outside, it’s all good.
So Hunter Nuttall busts out with the best question ever:
So if I may, Michael, my question is this: What’s the best way to make it as a blogger? The way of the Jedi, or the way of the Sith?
That’s the best metaphor I’ve got right now, but by Jedi I mean one who focuses on providing value. Great original content, thoughtful recommendations, responding to comments, linking to PR 0 sites when appropriate, giving away some stuff for free that you could conceivably charge for, stumbling and digging only the best, etc.
By Sith, I mean one who focuses on tactics. Decent content written quickly, numbers in headlines, pictures of people jumping, promoting whatever affiliate programs pay the most, linking every decent keyword in your posts to your home page, not responding to comments, no unnecessary link love, charging as much as you can for everything you can, emailing everyone to ask for diggs and stumbles every time, etc.
I know this is a bit black and white, but what shade of gray is the answer?
Here is my response:
@Hunter - you already know the answer, Paduan: think of who the most successful bloggers are and ask yourself if they are Jedi or Sith.
The tactics you listed as belonging to Sith don’t seem terribly evil to me, just less effective than Jedi tactics. The real difference between the two is that for Jedi, it is the means which justifies the ends, and for a Sith, the ends justify the means.
So… what shade of gray is the answer? It would seem a very light shade of gray is the answer! 
In all seriousness: consider the most successful bloggers you know–which path do you think they took? Every single one I can think of (except John Chow) followed the way of the Jedi.
Do not give in to the Dark Side, my younglings.
PS - “younglings” has got to be one of the stupidest words ever.
PPS - The only good Star Wars films were episodes IV and V. Everything else sucked.
32 Comments
Funny how George Lucas considers V the worst of the lot. (And then look what he did to Indy …)
The Jedi way simply makes sense. Word of mouth/link love is the best way to generate interest, and the best way to get it is to serve up value over and help others.
John chow may have a big blog, but honestly it’s a bit of a train wreck to me. The first thing I see when I load up the page is a goofy image that says “Get Reviewed by this blog for $500″ and a photo of a sports car that screams “look at me, I need constant attention!” … and immediately, I know how this blog is going to treat me.
Nothing against John Chow, mind you, I’m just talking first impressions here. And they count for everything. I’m sure John’s a solid guy, but I have no desire to even dig into his blog. Yours, on the other hand, I’m sold on. (Without you having to sell it to me!)
For once you start down the path of the dark side, forever will it dominate your destiny …
To each his own,
Dave
@Dave - Lucas is out of touch. From what I’ve seen, Chow is totally a nice guy “for realz” even though he plays a “bad” guy on his site. His stuff definitely more about tactics than substance, though, so that puts him into the Sith camp.
There is no evil or good in the world. There is only what you make of what you have, and how you use what you can to achieve your goals.
A tactic is simply a tactic. A strategy is simply a strategy. It is whether you choose to use it to accomplish X or Y and how you use it that makes it evil.
Waxing philosophical…
I’m not sure that John Chow is the only successful Sith. Or at least there are other successful bloggers who are part Sith. (And as a mostly Jedi, partly Sith, not-yet-successful blogger, I’m not judging.)
Remember Skellie’s post about why great writing doesn’t matter online? Though it generated a lot of misunderstanding and controversy, it’s hard to deny that her point was at least partly true, no matter how you interpreted it.
As an example, she pointed to the most recent post (as of 3/9/2008) at Dumb Little Man and said:
“It’s just not good writing in the traditional sense, and the style is consistent throughout almost all the blog’s post, yet its readers — all 59,000 of them — just don’t care.”
I don’t read DLM so I’m not sure what it’s like, but aren’t there a number of blogs with consistently “not good” writing whose thousands of subscribers just don’t care? To a Sith, it would make perfect sense not to put care into your writing if you don’t have to.
By the way, how can anyone not love Episode III?
“Master Skywalker, there are too many of them! What should we do?”
“Eat lightsaber, dork!”
very cool, Remember “Teach him well Obi-One!!”
‘Use the ways of the force!!”
‘Luke I’m your father’ — Darth Vader
(IV and V were the best, you’re right)
Good answer to Hutter’s query. I use the same analogy in my profession of nursing, so it’s cool to see it applied to blogging.
I agree with you that reasonable self-promotion isn’t evil; in fact, if you have a great message then you sort of owe to your audience to boost your presence. If, however, it’s used to promote strictly inorganic and valueless content, then that’s a track down the dark side.
But Hutter gives us a very useful and simple metaphor. We all aught to aim to be Jedi, ‘cuz the Siths abound out there.
Laughing at myself. Michael I was so impressed with your reference to Padua, a center of culture and learning since, oh , forever…then I thought, ahh, it’s a Star Wars reference and I am so going to now have to watch ALL of them not just the two I know, and take notes, again….LOL. I think this is a wonderful analogy, and am so pleased that Hunter raised it. It’s up to us isn’t it, the how of what we want this landscape to be? We can strip mall it to death, or offer an oasis of quality. Hm. Guess which way I am leaning?
@Janice - We all know you are as Sith as they come!
Oh Michael!!!! Don’t make me come over there!!!I am too busy painting and popping popcorn for the Star Wars Marathon…er, doing research.
Sith, Hmph!
I see you laughing.
Definitely the Jedi way is the most enduring. I’ve done both over the years and still my Jedi material has continued to outlast my Sith material in longevity.
I *adored* Star Wars VI and really felt Lucas tied all the ends up very satisfactorily with Star Wars III.
I wrote http://www.barbaraling.com/starwars/jedi.html back in 1999 when I first started playing with Jedi and Sith ways….
Enjoy,
Barbara
Yeah I dont know about that John Chow character. He is pushing the boundaries and has a lot of enemies or people who just dont like him. But too him maybe this is good. Just like the saying is any publicity is good publicity !! He seems to have embraced this.
To me, well a buck here or there is not worth it because frankly I want to sleep well at night and not deal with the stress of having enemies to look back over my shoulder at !!
Anyway, nice Site you have here. Humour mixed in with good info. is a great recipe !!
Thanks
@Everyone - By all accounts I’ve run across, Chow is actually a really nice guy. Of course, we’re talking blog tactics, here. Chow got himself banned from google and his tagline is: I make money online by telling people how much money I make online, which I think is hilarious.
@James - Evil certainly makes for a better story. The problem with tactics or techniques is that people like to think they are divorced from content and reputation. They want to think, “just run this program or tweak this setting and you will get X results.” Not so.
If I could give one piece of advice to new bloggers who want to make money with blogs, it would be “YOU ARE NOT JOHN CHOW.” They’re not Darren Rowse either, but fewer seem to be trying to be.
I’m going to start calling JC “Darth Janice” now.
@Hunter, I think there is a wide misunderstanding of the fact that good writing and effective content are not the same thing. You can produce killer, useful, relevant content and not be much of a writer.
That was hard for me to accept, but I’ve come to terms with the fact that writing well is something I do because I enjoy it, and creating effective content is a different skill set (one which I hope I’ve also shown some mastery in).
I try to be Jedi, but part of me wants to become a bit more Sith.
I appreciate Blog Love and the comments I get. I try to return the favor, and visit other people’s posts and leave comments of my own.
But now small little blog group is growing. I worry that soon I might not be able to sustain this pace.
There are only so many hours a day, and I also need time to do my own original writing. I need to find the right balance.
What I need is a Yoda to show me the true way.
Mmm…strong in me, the force is!
@Sonia - “Darth Janice” does have a nice ring to it! You are absolutely right: nobody else is Chow or Rowse. Although you gotta have something to aspire to, sadly, most people only aspire to being a pale imitation of somebody else instead of really being themselves. And if people think their “self” isn’t something worth aspiring to, then job number one is to DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT. Be somebody others want to read. Do something worth blogging about.
@Friar - Mmmmm… Blogging Pack form, must you, if success and traffic you must have.
I am sooooo coming over there. Slightly adjusts saber thingy and
calls James Earl Jones for voice lessons….if am going to the dark side I want wardrobe over here. I can’t paint a thing through this damn mask… “Chow, stop laughing….I can too make money online”…(zaps him with out of control bright shiny laser) Now that felt good. “Who’s next?”
Darth Janice!!!! Hm, damn blogging pack.
I hear Yoda’s at the Gateway….Do. There is no try. DEAN!! Get over here.
Uh oh, I think we’ve created a monster . . .
Jedi = servant and teacher
Sith = exploiter and manipulator
@Mark - Short, sweet, perfect!
@Sonia, good point. I certainly agree that killer, useful, relevant content doesn’t require writing at the level of a CopyBlogger or a Man with a Pen. If you can do that, great, but unless you need to establish yourself as a great writer (for example, if you’re a freelance writer), I don’t think it’s necessary.
This is part of a comment I left on Skellie’s follow-up to that post:
“I blur the distinction between writing and ideas. To me, a person who writes beautiful sentences about dull ideas is a bad writer. If I can’t stand to read it, it’s bad writing (unless I just don’t like the topic).”
Maybe the DLM example applies only to the writing and not the ideas…I didn’t read that post, so I don’t know how good the ideas were. But aren’t there blogs out there whose popularity seems to be way out of proportion to their rating on the killer content scale? Of course, I’d never name names…
@Mark, but Anakin was a servant, and Palpatine was a teacher!
Though Anakin wasn’t a great servant at times, like when he planned to overthrow Palpatine in Episode III, or when he actually did in Episode VI. And Palpatine focused a lot less on teaching after his student signed on the dotted line.
@Hunter, if I let myself think too much about why Blogs I Don’t Get do so well, I’d be even more mental than I already am.
One possibility is they’re striking a nerve that doesn’t speak to me.
Another possibility is that they have sold their souls and will roast in eternal torment in exchange for their 6-figure subscriber numbers. Of course, I am much too evolved to hope this is true.
@ Sonia - I hope we’re one of those Blogs that You Get.
My theory? Groupthink. Timing and groupthink. Some blogs, like John Chow, got in at the right time, when there was plenty for the taking. They built up their audience and became big with garbage, because there was nothing else to read, really. (Read old archived posts - they’re horrible.)
And so the numbers grew. And then anyone who came after said, “5k readers? Oh wow, this must be good.” Subscribe. And so on until the proportions we reach today.
Hell, I had John Chow on my feed reader for six months while I tried to figure out why so many people read his blog. It wasn’t because it was good or funny or useful or anything… how many times can I read about where he’s eating? Why do I care?
Then I realized that I was trying to justify my groupthink and I unsubbed.
That make sense?
@ Hunter - Thank you for the kind words
@Hunter - ah, but in both cases, Anakin and Palpatine were not following their true natures either as student or teacher.
great post michael - i’d have to say i’m a Jedi that understands how Sith’s work and can use their own powers against them…LOL
and you’re crazy to think 4 & 5 were the best.
george lucas was crazy ahead of his time when he created the first 3.
please don’t tell me in another post that the new indiana jones was the best one.
you rock always michael!
I would do a lot better in this discussion if the analogy were to “The Lord of the Rings” instead of “Star Wars”, but I remember enough of the three Star Wars films I watched to follow along with the comments to a certain extent. I think that value to your readers is what matters most, and what over the long run will be most rewarding. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with trying to attract more readership to your blogs through white hat tactics (and I think that Jedis would agree with me here). We should all try to stay away from black hat tactics (you can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time).
Well, I like to think about myself as a youngling.
I told Hunter on his site that the reason I like him so much is that he is a Jedi.
The basis needs to be Jedi, then you can add Sith and promote yourself.
Me? I just don’t feel like I have much choice. If I tried to write using the “right” keywords or writing what would bring me more readers, instead of writing about what I find interesting, I wouldn’t enjoy blogging anymore.
@ James - I think every new blogger goes through that phase with John Chow when you first start blogging and signing up to other blogger’s feeds.
The same is true with Problogger, to some extent, and Darren Rowse has even said as much himself - that most of his new readers stick with him religiously for 3-6 months, learn as much as they can, then move on, only to be replaced by the endless wave after wave of other blog newcomers.
I personally think the only people who ‘get’ Chow - and this can be said for many of the MMO blogs, to be honest, as well as some of the other A-listers - is those that aspire to be like him. From what I’ve seen of Chow he seems an okay guy in ‘real life’ but as others have said above the content really isn’t there, certainly not when held up against his success.
But fair play to him. It’s easy to get too wrapped up in the ‘why?’ with a lot of the successful blogs; ‘why not?’ might be a better question, certainly given that many of them have been around for years, which gave them the opportunity to build a big user base when this was all brand new.
More importantly, they stuck with it, while many others did not (he says, bitter and annoyed at his own failure to keep his 2002 blog going.
)
Good approach to a subject we all think long and hard about, Hunter. I think, as you yourself suggested, for most of us the true path lies somewhere down the middle. As it normally does.
The answer is obvious, Jedi. Admittedly, you can make a lot of money going the Sith route if you stick at it, but the same is true for Jedi, and in larger numbers. Plus, I just like being nice, I could never be a Sith!
I loved reading these comments. Those who get it can read btw the lines and know what names people aren’t naming.
It’s like the popular kid in high school:
everyone follows the illusion of their greatness because they’re aren’t smart enough to know better.
Maybe the answer to the question is actually the REAL motive to starting the blog.
Jedi - “I started the blog because I loved the subject etc”
or
Sith - “I’ll pick a subject based on keyword values”
To me this makes sense, and will undoubtedly rule how you run things from that point on. I mean, why would you be a Jedi blogger if you own a sith blog? (only picked on keyword values etc) and why would you degrade a Jedi blog by blogging as a Sith?
Therefore to turn the question around. I think the real question is:
What type of Blog is your Blog; A Jedi Blog or a sith Blog?
@Reccemaster - I think that would reveal the motive behind creating a blog. Great observation! But then you can’t really turn the question around, because the blog is the product of the blogger. Jedi bloggers product Jedi blogs, Sith bloggers product Sith blogs.
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