What It’s Really Like to be a Blogger While Managing a Career as an Attorney, Wife, and Mother of an Infant and Toddler

What It’s Really Like to be a Blogger While Managing a Career as an Attorney, Wife, and Mother of an Infant and Toddler

We asked Jennifer Burby who is an attorney, wife, and mother, as well as a blogger at Champagne Supernova, to share her honest thoughts and stories about blogging for the WIRL Blogging Challenge. We’ve listed our Q/A session below for you to enjoy! 

 

WIRL Project: How much time do you spend on your blog each week?

Jennifer: The short answer is that I probably spend 15-20 hours a week doing something either directly or indirectly impacting my blog. The long answer is that having a blog isn’t just about writing a post and publishing it. It’s also about growing a readership, self-promotion, and connecting with your audience and other bloggers. I read somewhere that there are 153 million blogs on the internet. Readers are overwhelmed with the variety, and, in order to read my blog, people have to discover it and I have to offer something that they can’t get from other blogs. When I’m not writing and publishing my own post, I’m busy engaging in online “linky” parties, pinning on pinterest, locating and uploading news articles to my blog’s Facebook fan page, editing and adding photos to my blog’s Instagram account, and then reading other bloggers’ posts and commenting on them. It’s exhausting, but necessary.

I read somewhere that there are 153 million blogs on the internet. Readers are overwhelmed with the variety, and, in order to read my blog, people have to discover it and I have to offer something that they can’t get from other blogs.

WIRL Project: What do you wish people who don’t blog knew about blogging?

Jennifer: This is difficult. In addition to the amount of work that goes into blogging, which I detailed in my answer to the question above, I wish people who don’t blog realized that not all bloggers are self-obsessed narcissists. I think some, but not all, non-bloggers stereotype bloggers this way. In reality, bloggers just want a way to fuel their passions by highlighting their talents; whether it’s writing, making crafts and DIY projects, cooking and baking, or taking photographs.

WIRL Project: Do you ever feel frustrated about blogging?

Jennifer: Because I just launched my blog in January of 2015 and it’s relatively new, the answer is generally “no.” However, as I’m not tech savvy, I can sometimes get frustrated with uploading information on the blog or updating the blog site itself. I also sometimes feel frustrated by time constraints to publish a blog or events that are out of my control that preclude me from writing. For instance, sometimes I want to sit down and write a post, but then my three-year-old wants me to watch a movie with her instead. She will take precedent every time!

WIRL Project: What are insider secrets you could share?

Jennifer: When blogging, focus on the quality of your post, rather than the number of times you are posting. In other words, “quality over quantity.” When I first started blogging, I had an unreasonable goal of posting five times a week. Not gonna happen. As blogging isn’t my full time job and I am balancing it with a career and a family, it takes a couple days of research and being alone with my thoughts to create a quality post. Regardless of the number of times someone is posting, they aren’t going to obtain a regular readership if they aren’t posting quality material that people want to read.

WIRL Project: What makes you feel like your blog is “successful”?

Jennifer: Positive feedback. Even though I started my blog five months ago, I’ve already started receiving positive feedback from readers world wide who have taken the time to tell me about how they enjoy my posts. A couple months ago, a lady reached out to me concerning a post about the baby blues and motherhood. She thanked me for sharing my story because she went through the same thing and felt like a bad mother. While I would eventually like to significantly monetize my blog, receiving positive feedback has been a huge motivator.

WIRL Project: What’s been your biggest blogging blooper of fail?

Not finding typos until after the post has gone live. These are usually stupid mistakes or finger-slips like “want” instead of “what” or “form” instead of “from.” I fix them as soon as I see them, or as soon as someone tells me about them, and usually hope not too many people noticed them.

 

Join the conversation! Easily contribute your story here with the tag “WIRL Blogging”.

 


About the Author…

JenniferThis WIRL was contributed in part by Jennifer Burby at Champagne Supernova. She is an attorney, wife, mama, snot wiper-upper, choking preventer, baby booty-wiper, and Grand Poobah of her blog, The Champagne Supernova. When she’s not blogging, Jennifer enjoys traveling, pretending she’s a professional photographer, running, and laughing. She can be found at her websiteWIRL Project, and Facebook.

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