Recently I suggested to a Facebook friend that she could convert her frequent, humorous, endearing posts to a winning mommy blog. She might even make money.
My friend wondered how that could be done.
Well, this post is for her.
And the short answer is, of course, story.
Those who read BwP regularly know that the heart of this blog is the power of stories. And the heart of a good mommy blog is, in my opinion, powerful stories.
I'm not necessarily talking about wrenching, emotional stories about ill children. It doesn't have to be that serious or difficult.
I'm talking about women who communicate in a positive, optimistic way the everyday joys and struggles of their (happy, not-so-happy, always interesting) families. Usually this is a nuclear family, one with a husband (in the background, supportive but not intrusive into the mom's life) and at least one child (usually photogenic, always anecdote-worthy).
The blog's cover page is attractive and inviting. The colors used are warm, the font rounded. Wit and fun delight your eyes in the title and subtitles.The mommy is humble, yet a great writer and an excellent, dedicated parent. You never get the impression from the blog that the mommy has got it all under control. But neither do you sense in any way that the chaos is about to take over.
The stories are often a bit like The Little Engine That Could, the ur-mommy blog story. Personal challenges are taken on and surmounted. Stick-to-it-iveness is emphasized. Qute qid quotes abound. When everyone gets the flu, the humor turns dark but stays sweet (like 55% dark chocolate).
There is honesty, but not self-pity. Pride, but not over-confidence.
Remember those annual Christmas letters we used to send? The ones about how we were doing and all our accomplishments throughout the year? So and so was promoted at work and Junior made the A honor roll and is captain of the tiddlywinks squad? Remember how we began to loathe them and make fun of the smuggest ones?
Mommy blogs avoid that pitfall by the power of the Internet. Truly, no one can condense a year's worth of living into one letter without it sounding self-congratulatory or at least self-involved.
But if a mom posts a state-of-the-family letter two or three times a week, measuring out life as it comes, readers see a fuller, truer, less edited picture of the mom and her family. The year-end story post then becomes a fond remembrance rather than a laundry list of accomplishments.
Some mommy blogs exploit angles: this mommy concentrates on food and cooking, food allergies, or weight issues. This one concentrates on knitting, weaving, yarn. Another on pets and animal rescue. Still another on families and politics. Not enough on teen parenting. And so on.
All of this can be written and given out for free, or you can make money on it. Once you have a large enough readership you can sell ads. You can do paid product reviews and product-marketing posts. You can write a book and sell that. You can consult. You can get a job writing something else based on your skill as a blogger.
I have no idea how much money mommy bloggers make. But judging from the number that have real ads on them, a lot are making something.
(Unlike mythology bloggers.)
All that said, it is one thing to write quick and delightful Facebook posts, quite another to keep up with an actual long-form blog. I'm sure most of us are content with sharing our lives (wittily) with our friends. And that's just peachy to me. My Facebook feed could use a bit more story and fewer of those pithy "I told you so" picture-quotations.
Happy blogging, all you Penelopes out there.
Wow - I'm flattered! You worked really hard on this. I'm definitely going to consider it, and check out the linked blogs. You make it sound doable. And don't worry, the pithy "I told you so" picture-quotations aren't status updates or potential blog posts - they are far more smug than that. ;-)
By the way, I think mythology bloggers are terribly underrated, and totally deserve ads too.
Posted by: FB friend/Penelope | January 21, 2012 at 11:41 AM
I have a title for you: "Penelope's got nothing on me." Subtitled, "A mom blog of mythic proportions." Just a thought.
Mythology bloggers... hey, dude... we're PURE. We don't SELL OUT to the MAN. We just blog because we like to post for the sake of posting. YEAH... 8>) lolz
Posted by: DF | January 21, 2012 at 08:44 PM