Webneetech.com is interviewing bloggers especially those who can share the secret of how to quit your day job and start making money by blogging. I am very jealous of people who make money in this fashion. If I am unable to do it, how can someone else do it – kind of jealousy. Or is that called envy? What’s the difference between the two? Anyway… they asked me about my first blogpost and why I started blogging in the first place.My first blogpost was on the Blogger platform. It was push button publishing and it helped me build awareness about my book. My second blog was born while I was working for FritoLay. It was about the People and Happenings at FritoLay and was one of the first Corporate blogs. Here is the first post for the FritoLay blog. The third blog was at the OD Collective – which was fundamentally a group of friends from the HR fraternity who would meet to discuss common HR issues (usually hosted by one of us in the office!). The group got Dave Ulrich to come and address the group. He spoke about the ned for our group to influence others through our writings. He suggested that we blog. Thus was born the first post called People Are Our Most Important Asses oops Assets. I had written for some othe sites as well. I participated in a contest called India Smiles that was hosted at Sulekha.com. It was a post called 15 Minutes of Fame. Needless to say I did not win that contest, in case you are wondering. Here is the interview…Q. What motivated you to start blogging?
It was 2005. I had written a book called Mediocre But Arrogant and wanted to promote the book which was being launched across several cities in India. Someone suggested I start a blog. So on 31 March 2005 I wrote a post called Summer of ’82. http://mediocrebutarrogant.blogspot.com/2005/03/summer-of-82.html
Initially the blog was only about the book and news related to it. I added reviews of books, movies, films etc.
I also started another blog at http://hrcollective.blogspot.com to write about Human Resources and management. The collective was an effort at getting a few likeminded professionals who were also friends to get together and brainstorm on common business challenges.
In May 2008 I moved to my own domain name https://abhijit2.spidertrainers.com
I also wrote for a few other sites http://www.dudseascrawls.com and more recently for http://tickledbylife.com
Q. What area or topic you generally cover in your blog, any special reason behind it?
I write about things I am passionate about. It has reviews, opinions and ideas on Human Resources, books – especially Indian fiction, movies (largely Bollywood), music and a miscellaneous section called this and that.
Q. Which blogging platform you are using (wordpress, blogspot, bloggers etc), any reason about it?
I use WordPress. A friend Jamshed Rajan, who is one of my favorite bloggers, set up the site for me. This blog now hosts most of my writings. He showed me how I could integrate my twitter updates, build audio links on it, post sketches etc. So the credit goes to him.
Q.How frequently do you update your blog? How many posts does your blog have at present?
I post approximately once a week. I try to stick to that discipline. Currently have 222 posts on the blog.
Q. What tools you use to increase your blog readership and bring people on your blog? Do you use social networking sites?
I am not qualified to answer that question. I hope what I write attracts the attention of readers. Yes I am on twitter and facebook. The posts get updated there. That certainly increases the readership of my writings.
Q. Any specific tips you have for new bloggers who want to make it in the blogsphere?
I am still learning so I do not have any words of wisdom. If you write stuff that appeal to readers, they will spread the word. Start a blog only after you have 50 blogposts ready. Else you start a blog and then updating it becomes a dreadful chore.
Q. Do you earn revenue through your blog? If yes, then how a blogger should monetize his / her blog? If no, then any plans in future?
I do not earn revenue from my blog. I wish I could! J Will you send me money after reading my blog? Seriously speaking… if I wrote more frequently, it would increase readership and then one could make a few bucks.
Q.What are your other favorite blogs which you follow, can you list the top 5 such blogs?
http://bookendslitagency.blogspot.com/
You can read the full interview by clicking here
