Reader Question

Here's another great reader question I received recently:

Hi 4hats! I have a question for you.  I was thinking of starting my own blog but I am still a bit leary. I noticed that you have been doing yours for a few years now and slowly built up your readers, which is what I am looking to do. Did you have friends and family help you build it up, or did you follow some sort of other plan? Thanks for answering.


-Kelly

First off, Hi Kelly! Thank you so much for reading the blog and thanks for this question!

Well, let me start off by saying, I love the slow and steady pace I have been following here. I know some blogs pride themselves on increasing readership to thousands and even millions within months time, but I love that I had to work a bit for my readership. What can I say? I love a challenge.
Secondly, no, I haven't enlisted ANY help from family and "offline" friends. As a matter of fact, 99% of them don't even know I have a blog. Sounds weird, right? I know, it is weird. When I first started this, I wanted to make sure that I was doing it for me and could share whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Whether it's a nice so nice story about my sister or a good friend of mine, I didn't want to censor myself because I was afraid they would be reading. With that said, I knew that they could easily do a search and find the blog, but I just didn't want to throw it out there just to get extra hits from people that know me.
Also, once I focused even more on frugality, I figured if I have friends and family that don't care about such things, why even tell them about it? It just seemed silly to me.
I digress a bit, but what I mean to say is, if you can, try to start off by doing this strictly for YOU. Once you establish that, viewings of your blog will grow. Depending on what you want to focus on in your blog, frequent forums that pertain to that interest too. Everyone and their mama seems to have a blog, but the best part is, all of us want to see what the other is writing. Don't forget: If you don't like doing it, you can always just stop writing. No one will judge you for stopping and you won't feel obligated because you started it for you anyway.
I hope I answered your question fully! And if you ever decide to start a blog, please, PLEASE e-mail me a link. I'd love to see what you come up with.

Do you have a question you're dying to ask me? E-mail me at 4hatsandfrugal@gmail.com