What is important when self publishing online?

I’ve been self publishing content online since 1995, maintaining this domain since 2001, and even blogging since 2005. I’ve seen a lot of stuff come and go. I’ve also used a lot of technologies. I even have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA if that makes me more trustworthy or authoritative. In the 20+ years I’ve been doing things my way and helping others, I’ve formed some opinions and learned some hard lessons, so I decided to collect the best ten of them together in one place:

1. Make a commitment to post Quality, not frequency.
2. Timeliness and Timelessness are the two most important qualities to strive for.
3. Why is more important than “how” when it comes to self publishing online.
4. Choose an appropriate venue and content management system. I tend to recommend WordPress.
5. Know your audience: real people, search engines, news aggregators, your future boss, and potential mates.
6. Understand and leverage online communities and social networks.
7. Focus + Repetition = #winning
8. Learn to write for the web, people online don’t read, they scan.
9. Understand the difference between Impact and Influence.
10. Learn the jargon: blog, tweet, meme, #hashtag, CMS, SEO, etc.

Passion

Although I allude to it, my top ten list neglects perhaps the most important factor of all in determining long term success in self publishing online, passion. If you are passionate about a topic you will stick with it despite it not being profitable, popular, or trendy. Passion trumps proficiency.

Despite everything I still have some passion left for music, miniatures, and helping other people. Eric Sim has his own top tips for writing, especially if you want to master social media and grow your personal brand. He advocates telling a personal story with universal application. If you have advice on writing and self publishing online you can leave it below.

This entry was originaly posted on January 27th, 2012, it was last edited on April 22nd, 2024 and is filed under: Advice and tagged: Blogging, Quality, Top 10.