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Well then pull up a stool, there’s plenty of room at the bar! I’ll get this round and let’s have a little chat. First, let me congratulate you on choosing one of the few blogging frontiers that’s still relatively uncharted. Sure, there are a few well-known dad bloggers out there, but as far as sheer numbers go, ours is still an intimate little group. I may be talking out my ass (but then again, isn’t that what blogging is all about?), but I’ll bet for every one of us, there’s probably 10 or so moms doing the blogging thing. What does this mean? A lot more opportunity.
Opportunity for what? For starters:
Traffic: We don’t
have to claw for traffic like other bloggers (especially those annoying “make
money online” ones!). Get out there, make friends with other dad and mom
bloggers and you have yourself a steady, growing stream of traffic (more on
traffic and network building in an upcoming post).
Recognition: Any
fish can get noticed in a small pond, and it’s certainly not hard to make a splash
as a dad blogger because you are not lost among thousands. If you have
something interesting to say, chances are you’ll be heard. Hell, chances are
your dad blogging peers will even help you get that recognition, which leads me
to the next item...
Friendships: Even
in this day and age, it still takes a special breed of dad to put himself out
there as a dad before anything else that may define him (e.g. his job, his
political affiliation, his sports allegiances).
This affinity for fatherhood for fatherhood’s sake makes for a strong
bond between dad bloggers.
Respect: This
one’s pretty unfair, considering our mom counterparts do the same thing we do,
but the fact of the matter is dad bloggers get mad respect out there. Again,
it’s because we’re embracing the fact that we’re parents ahead of anything
else. I guess society hasn’t really expected that of us. Ever.
Notice something conspicuously missing from this list? Yup.
Money. Starting a dad blog to make money is like moving to Los Angeles to
become an actor. I hope you derive intrinsic joy from waiting tables. So for
step one, get that out of your head. It’ll make your journey all the more
enjoyable. This is not to say you can’t make any money at all, but chances are
an entry level job will pull in more money than you could ever make dad
blogging. And this time I’m actually speaking from experience. I’ve been in the
online ad biz since 1998. Unless you’re pulling in at least 250,000 unique
visitors a month, your ad revenue will maybe fund a grocery trip per month or
so. And dad blogs are still too niche to pull in that kind of traffic. Someday maybe, but definitely not yet.
What’s the take away here? Do it for the love of it, do it
for the fun of it, do it for the friendships. That way if you don’t get that
book deal, at least the journey itself was a blast.
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