NBI: Why haven’t you started your blog yet?

It’s now May 13 and the Newbie Blogger Initiative has been around for 13 days already. Maybe you haven’t heard about this initiative before. Syp from BioBreak started the Newbie Blogger Initiative trying to encourage potential new bloggers to start blogging now. He invited those who have been blogging for a bit longer already to “sponsor”, that is, to help with advice, tips or answer questions that new bloggers may have. The official forum has lists of sponsors, new blogs, and a lot of advice already. Check it out if you want to know more! In case you already know about this initiative and you are interested in blogging: May I know why you haven’t started a blog yet?

Maybe you’d really love to “do something like that” but writing isn’t your thing? There’s more than “just blogs”. You may not be a blogger but what about doing a vlog? Let me link you to two examples: Angerina and TriggerSad – those two videos should be the first ones they uploaded. Maybe that can serve as an inspiration for you. :) Both have more than this one video up, so go check them out if you like! You can also see that they have different approaches. But maybe you don’t care about the visual part, then a podcast could be better for you. GuildMag recently started one. Or have a look at Casual Stroll to Mordor and their podcast. As you can see, there are lots of things you can do to talk about your passion.

But maybe you really love writing and would love to start a blog… if only you didn’t worry about so many other things. One thing that I’m pretty sure a lot of people are concerned about is whether the world needs yet another blogger. If you look at the forums and see how many newbie bloggers “checked in”, you can see an overwhelming 113 posts indicating that we now have more than 100 new bloggers. Do we need this many new bloggers? I say: Why not? For one, not each of those bloggers will stay active. Some will realise it’s not for them, others will sooner or later retire and concentrate on other aspects of their life (it’s the same with every hobby and people shifting their priorities). But that’s not the most important thing here. If you get into blogging because you want to have thousands of readers, then you may be disappointed. Get your expectations right before you start. You will not become super-famous and have a zillion readers immediately. Maybe you’ll never have many readers. At this point, I’m going to repeat what I wrote in my previous NBI post: Ask yourself why you want to blog! If you get into it and are happy with a few dedicated readers, then this goal is easy to accomplish. Even if we’re “a lot of bloggers”, there’s even more gamers and potential readers out there. So I’m certain that you will get your readership. Thus, saying there are too many bloggers out there isn’t a valid argument if you ask me. And let’s not forget that there are as many opinions out there about games than there are gamers. So, adding your opinion to the pool won’t be a bad idea at all! ;)

What I worried about most before starting my own blog (which only lived for a very brief time before I started Nerdy Bookahs with my boyfriend) was whether I am good enough. Now, after a year, my answer is: Yes, I am! And so are you! You will not be perfect just like nobody else is perfect. But there’s a great thing about us: We can learn from our mistakes! ;) The NBI comes with the aforementioned forum and I’ve read a lot of useful things that I hadn’t known or even thought about before. I certainly know that it helped me and it may even make me a better blogger… well, whatever a “good blogger” is to begin with. Maybe read Finding your voice at High Latency Life. We’re all different and we all have our own styles. So I’d say it’s really difficult to say one blogger is bad and one isn’t. Either I like somebody’s writing style or I don’t. But if you never start blogging even though you really want to, then you’ll never find out how many people will actually think you’re a great blogger and who want to read every post you publish. ;)

Also, I have found bloggers to be something like a “sub-community”. Especially on Googleplus, I’ve talked with several other bloggers (and now on Syp’s forum, of course) and so far, each of the bloggers I’ve talked to have been very helpful with giving tips or advice. I’m certain that even after this month, those who are current “sponsors” and those who are currently “newbies” will be around and help others get started (or just give general advice even if your blog has been around for longer). You just need to ask and I’m sure you can enjoy the vast resources that are available with the amount of bloggers around.

To sum it up, the worst thing that can happen is that you’ll give up again after a while. But in the meantime, you will probably have gotten to know a few interesting people or interacted with other gamers. So where’s the harm? ;)