Blogging Truths Be Told: A True Story About Monetizing a Blog

Well, folks. I think I’m about to be transparent here . . . to a fault, even. I probably shouldn’t tell on myself, but I feel like my monetization story could possibly help someone else out there push through the difficult times instead of throwing in the blogging towel.

So, I’m going to give you some insight on my blogging experience with money.

Ready?

Okay, here it goes. In a nutshell, monetary growth has be snail-paced for Degrees of Maternity. That’s been my story for the past 3 years. But, let me start by saying that I wasn’t in a serious money-making mood from the onset.

It all started when . . .

Wait. Rewind. In all honesty, I started my blog with the intention of using it to grow an audience for my self-publishing career as an author. I started my writing career, envisioning putting out 4 or 5 books a year and skyrocketing to literary genius level as a book writer. THAT was my original plan and focus at the start of my content creation journey. And I’d just be blogging to help fuel the fire to my next book in the long line of books soon to broaden my creative works portfolio.

Blogging would be important, but it would be more of a sidekick to its assigned superhero, book writing. Therefore, my research started out full blast with all things self-publishing (as I knew early on that I didn’t want to go the “traditional” route), NaNoWriMo, AuthorTube, Kindle Direct Publishing, the mechanics of writing, and the like. I was on the Road to Authorship and I wasn’t getting off or focusing on anything else in the road.

Until . . .

I recognized that I REALLY loved blogging.

Writing, in general, has been the self-fulfilling prophecy that I stashed away secretly for many years but came out full force with in my middle-aged years of life. I envisioned book writing writing as my go-to; but come to find out, blogging writing was the creative outlet I wholeheartedly jived with.

Book writing is a total vibe, and I’ve appreciated the learning process every time I’ve gone through it. But with blogging, I could be myself. I could write on my own terms. I didn’t have to conform to a certain format of writing and be so formal and polished and proper. I could be free to be me in all my imperfections — unpolished and all. I could write like I felt. And if I missed the mark with my grammar etiquette, it’d be okay because I’d be flowing in my true-to-nature being. No need to have a professional proofreader and editor come behind me and tidy things up. I could be Jana — freestyle.

I absolutely developed a LOVE for blogging. It wasn’t love at first sight. The love grew over time. And it took that amount of time for me to realize that blogging was what I could see myself doing until I couldn’t do it anymore. It would also act as the command center for all my business ventures, extending from it. Essentially, blogging would become my business.

And when did I come into this realization? Well, I finally got a clue when I was almost three years into my content creation journey. In fact, I started blogging in August 2018, self-published Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult in September 2019, and opened up my Etsy store in June 2020. My Teachers Pay Teachers (TpT) store didn’t open until a year after my Etsy store. And it wasn’t until the second half of 2021 that the lightbulb actually turned on for me and illuminated the fact that blogging wasn’t the sidekick after all. It was the hero who continuously saved the day.

It’s been my bread and butter all along.

From the beginning, I had decided not to put ads on my site because I wouldn’t be able to control the ads that would come up. Plus, I heard that the amount of money someone with a small audience would make would be pennies on the dollar. And since my audience growth has been slow but steady (Slow and steady wins the race, right? That’s what I repeatedly tell myself, anyway.), I couldn’t possibly generate any notable income from this monetization option.

Sponsorships and brand deals were completely non-existent. Again, not much of an audience, so no draw from outside wheelers and dealers. Consequently, there was no chance in generating money from that direction. And really, my whole business mindset, at the time, was working against the money anyway. My mind was telling me to be slow to take on monetization strategies for Degrees of Maternity, because I wouldn’t want my site to be mistaken as money-grubbing. (There goes that self-deprecating money mindset again.)

Furthermore, I wasn’t doing much in the way of affiliate marketing as I didn’t think I had products I could recommend to my audience in a seamless manner without coming across as an overly-salesy sleeze. (Can anyone say self-sabotage?) And when I look back now, I missed so many opportunities to utilize affiliate marketing, even with the small following I’ve had.

As an Amazon affiliate, there were certainly products that I could have recommended on a regular basis in my blog posts — products that would have gone perfectly with certain timely posts I was cranking out. But again, my brain wasn’t looking at blogging as the income-generating go-to it should have been from early on. I was focused on the book writing and the creative side of being a creative entrepreneur. And on top of that, my personality was simply marketing-averse.

Having the wrong focus and a mindset that works against income-generating opportunities definitely leads to slow-growing progress in the area of creative entrepreneurship.

How did I finally come around? Well, I had to come into the knowledge of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in blogging business. That truth finally told me that it was okay to make money from your blogging business (It’s a BUSINESS!) and that output from an individual’s creative wares can have price tags attached to it without making it cringey. (You should read my posts about marketing cringeyness here and here.)

I simply got to a point where I was tired of my so-called blogging business being broke. And it was totally my fault. From the get-go, I refused to treat my blogging business like it was my livelihood. And I’m a business major! Go figure!

Yes, I’m a business major who planned on working for an employer until retirement. I never saw myself landing in the entrepreneur’s seat, where I’d be solely responsible for determining how, how much, and how often I would get paid for my work. So, it’s been a process to get to a place of wanting to monetize my blog and to see my blog as a business HUB.

I’m there now. And, I’m loving all the different ways I’m able to generate income. The income potential is budding. But remember, I’m trailing from behind, working feverishly to catch up to where I should be if I had initially been looking at my blogging efforts as my job. And now, I’m not ashamed to say that blogging (and the extensions from it) make up my purposeful career. And there’s no shame in earning money from said career.

Here’s where I’m at with all of this. I’m at the point where I’m regularly tying what I love/enjoy doing (writing) to my blog in order to make money. Not only do I love writing for the blog, but my actual content highly supports ALL THINGS WRITING (and reading). Check out what I mean below:

• I sell reading and writing tools and resources for children and adults on my Etsy and TpT stores and highlight both stores on my Degrees of Maternity blog through individual blog posts as well as on the “Shop Products (on Etsy and TpT)” page of the blog. I just love, love, love creating digital products. (I have a physical one, too.) Developing one’s writing skills is one area of focus I encourage with my product offerings.
• Work-in-progress: I’ll be writing up more blog posts, utilizing affiliate marketing, in the future. And I’ll also be highlighting my affiliate chops in my email newsletters to the DOMinators News family (promoted on the Degrees of Maternity blog). I write for my newsletters which encourage writing (among other things) and link back to my blog full of writing.
• I’ll continue to promote my self-published book, Playground Instruction for the Growing Adult, at Degrees of Maternity through my online stores, highlighted on my blog in individual blog posts as well as featured on the “Books” page of the blog. Creating a book requires a lot of writing. Need I say more?

I think you get the picture here. Writing it is! Writing is the thing I love that I can tie to my blog to help create a money-making living.

Oh and yes, I know that I didn’t quite bring the discussion around to the dedication, commitment, perseverance, patience, proficiency, hard work, consistency, long-term focus, and confidence factors I needed in order to get my blog to a place where I could finally monetize it. I’ll get to that story eventually — hopefully next week, perhaps. Actually, what I’d like to do is take the 5 points covered in last week’s post, entitled Blogging Truths Be Told: Monetize Your Blog the Obvious Way, and explain how I applied them to my own blogging experience. I think you’ll find it helpful.

We’ll see what happens.