Success Stories: Darren Rowse

Many of you know Darren Rowse as the famous “ProBlogger“. I can tell you Darren is much more than the man behind the blog. He is kind, funny, generous with his information, and someone who I am proud to call “friend.” I met Darren last fall and he’s just as warm and genuine as you’d expect.

Darren has agreed to be FWJ latest Success Story. Here he shares how he got started as a professional blogger, how an idea for an ebook between Darren and another friend, Authority Blogger Chris Garrett led to the mega-successful ProBlogger book and so much more.

I give you Success Stories: Darren Rowse

Darren, you began blogging six years ago with your Digital Photography School blog. What made you decide to start a blog?

Actually I started my very first blog (it was called LivingRoom) just under 7 years ago. The reason I started it was that I stumbled on another blog one day and was almost instantly hooked by it. The guy behind the blog was living on the other side of the world but talking about stuff that was of interest to me. He was a fairly ordinary guy yet he had this ‘voice’ that enabled him to talk on a daily basis to thousands of people around the world.

Not only that, he was connected in a network like nothing I’d ever seen before – a network of other bloggers scattered around the world who were all talking about the same kind of stuff, building upon one another’s ideas and all benefiting as a result. I decided that I wanted to become a part of that and started a blog of my own that very day.

What was the “Aha!” moment when you realized there was something to this blogging thing?

I guess the first Aha moment was before I started blogging (as described above) – but after that there have been many. In the early days they were daily moments – when I got my first comment (the first one that wasn’t from a family member), when I got linked to from another blog for the first time etc

I guess the first time I saw the possibility that it could be more than a hobby was when I started my first photography blog (one that is inactive today). I started the blog thinking that it’d be a place to share some of the photos that I was taking with my brand new digital camera. I put some images up and also a review of my camera. The images barely were looked at but the review did really well in terms of traffic from search engines. Around the same time I started to experiment with the AdSense ad network. I only earned a few dollars the first week but it was enough to make me take notice.

I guess I had an ‘Aha’ moment at that point and began to wonder what would happen if I continued to write reviews of cameras and stuck to it over the long term. I saw some potential and began the very slow journey to ‘going Pro’ as a blogger’.

Many new bloggers, and blog network owners, think the traffic and revenue should begin flowing as soon as a blog is launched. What is the reality?

It is possible to make some money from day one of your blog – but the reality is that most blogs take considerable time to begin to generate enough traffic to make much money. Every time I survey readers of ProBlogger on how much they make from their blogging the majority say they earn a few dollars a month. Yes a few make a full time living – but they’re in the minority.

I get quite angry when I see people in the ‘make money blogging’ niche talk about how easy it is to make money blogging and how ‘passive’ the income from blogging is – the problem is that I not only see the hype I come across the burnt bloggers who tell me about how they quit their jobs to ‘go Pro’ without having realistic expectations. I could talk about this all night (and get fired up about it) – but the take home lesson is to not expect masses of traffic or money from your blogging too quickly. It takes a heap of work and a long time to build a profitable blog.

ProBlogger is the first stop for many bloggers each day. Why start a blog teaching others how to blog. How did you know you were destined to be a leader in this field?

I started ProBlogger simply because I was looking for a blog to teach me how to make money blogging. I’d been making a part time living from blogging for a while and was moving towards going full time (it took a couple of years) and I wanted advice, tips and to connect with others who were doing similar things. There were no other blogs solely dedicated to that – so I started one.

I had no real intentions of being a leader in the field or even being known for writing on the topic – I was writing more for myself than anything.

Many of FWJ’s readers are interested in the book publishing process. You and Authority Blogger Chris Garret wrote the bestselling ProBlogger book together. Can you tell us how that came about and take us through the process?

After I’d been blogging at ProBlogger for a while I had a couple of approaches from publishers wanting me to write a book. I was always interested in doing it but didn’t see it as something I wanted to do alone – partly because I didn’t have the time and partly because I wanted to work with someone else who might have a different perspective and set of experiences to bring to it.

Chris and I had been interacting for a while online (we had never met in person – and still haven’t) and out of that relationship we decided to write an ebook together. Chris was going to take a lot of the content I’d already written on ProBlogger and rework it into a more up to date and logically ordered pdf. There was never really any intention to write a hard cover book – but as we approached having it all together Wiley (the publisher) approached me to write a book. I shot them a copy of the ebook and they said that they thought it’d be a good start on a real book.

From there we decided that it’d be interesting to pursue it. We divided up the writing of the book and worked to get it finished. The process was quite long but in the end I think we came up with something that is pretty good for new bloggers wanting to get started and intermediate bloggers looking for a little inspiration.

What is the biggest mistake many new bloggers make?

One of the big mistakes is simply giving up too early. I look back on many of the bloggers I used to interact with 5 or so years ago and there are so few still doing it. We all had similar sized blogs and our blogs were growing at similar rates – but many of them got frustrated by the slow growth and gave up.

Longevity doesn’t guarantee success – but it does help a lot.

What is your advice for anyone wishing to make a career of blogging?

1. Don’t give up your day job…. yet. I know I’m coming across as a bit negative here but it’s worth entering into things with realistic expectations. I worked a number of part time jobs in my early days of blogging and only gradually gave them up as my blogging income increased. If you can do that kind of thing I’d recommend it.

2. Choose a topic you’d write about for free. Choose something you have an interest in and a passion for. If you do this you’ll be much better positioned to keep at it for the long haul (it’s hard to write a new post every day for years on a topic you don’t really like).

3. Lastly (and there’s plenty more tips I could give but I’ll limit it to three) – be useful. Successful blogs almost always meet a need, solve a problem or fulfill a desire that readers have. Do this and you’ll have people keep coming back for more and bringing their friends with them.

How do you define success?

For me it mainly comes down to whether I’m enjoying what I’m doing and feeling that it’s ‘giving life’. Earning money is a factor (I’ve got to pay the bills) but ultimately I want to be doing something with my time that gives me energy and that helps those around me. If I’m getting positive feedback from those I write for and keep feeling fresh and inspired about it I’ll keep doing what I’m doing.

What is next for Darren Rowse?

I’ve just launched a few new projects so I guess my next phase is more about getting them up to speed.

One is the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog work book – it’s a book with 31 daily tasks to help bloggers take their blogs to the next level.

Another is a new Twitter account – @probloggerdeals – a Twitter account that provides deals, discounts and competitions for bloggers

The last new one is DarrenRowse.com - a personal blog. In some ways I’ve come full circle and have been feeling a need to create a blog where I can talk about a variety of topics of interest to me.

There’s another new project that I hope to launch in the coming month or two but for now – those ones are more than enough to keep me busy!