I don’t write about writing on an author blog for a good reason

A boatload of author blogs write about writing, the craft of what makes good fiction, their chosen genre, or a combo. These are stupid ideas. 

I’ll occasionally write a mundane post on genre fiction, which genres my books best fall into, or something along those lines. But I wasn’t about to make my author blog look like most everyone else’s.

I damn near fell into this trap once upon a time. Then I watched a video from the late, great Rich Piana. In it, Piana talked about meeting so many wannabe fitness influencers, and more than a few wanted to start their own YouTube channel.

The subject matter was about, you guessed it, fitness. But with the market so saturated with fitness influencers everywhere you look, would they really have broken new ground? Probably not, and they’d have been pissed off, discouraged, and left to wonder why their channels never made headway.

Piana then mentioned low-hanging fruit. Niches that boast high demand, but few people talk about them. He brought up soap and shampoo as examples. Yes, soap and freaking shampoo. But a fitness guy could go on YouTube, win the algorithm war thanks to nobody honing in on those products at the time, and bam, they could redirect viewers to online training applications, fitness and nutrition plans, etc.

And they would probably have about a thousand affiliate links featuring soap and shampoo. Not a bad idea, right?

Instead of writing about writing, I talk about the absurdity of public school

I could write a memoir on how dumb and useless my experience was across 14 years of public school. I’m libertarian, believe in unschooling, homeschooling, and market-based education. Pairing that worldview with my less-than-stellar time in public school, added to how poorly they’re performing across the board these days, I had a niche.

Note, that I’m not talking about education entrepreneurship. I’ll leave that to Kerry McDonald over at LiberatED. I’m also not often talking about how horrific standardized test scores are, how woke the modern-day curriculum is, or how teachers see parents as problems. Program design? Ron Paul Curriculum has it covered.

I’ll touch on those issues every now and again, and my older posts leaned that way. But as I found my niche, I thought, Why not just talk about how absurd public school is based on my own experience?

But I dug deeper. I wanted a unique voice, angle, and a reason to write this shit. Names like Pat McAfee inspired the voice, controlled profanity, and “regular-guy prose.” So now, you got a loose fucking cannon talking about how much public school sucks because he lived through the nonsense.

That’s more interesting than owning just another author blog writing about writing.

The challenge? Spinning it into a sale

Another thing I can’t stand about so many authors is this: A strong contingent are such candy asses these days they’re not man enough to step up and ask readers for money. That means making a sale. Every time they write an email, a blog post, or a Substack article, the goal should either involve a sale, or at least giving readers a reason to join their platform.

You don’t see it enough, but I can show you how to smooth the process. Ensure your blog niche, YouTube niche, TikTok niche, or all of the above at least relates to what you’re writing about. For me, it’s theme.

Remember, I already said I hate public schooling. But I’m also a Rothbardian libertarian who hates statism. That said, you’ll find libertarian protagonists, statist protagonists who become libertarian, libertarian-leaning settings, and communist-like dystopias.

And if you need a piece, check out my store at The Rebel Lore Vault, buy some series starters, and take notes. Notes on how I lean toward theme first and genre second, and how each book relates back to the public school absurdities, libertarianism, and the liberty movement. And yes, I said The Rebel Lore Vault, not Amazon, because my ideal readers also hate on Big Tech.