As you all should know, I have been running Fashion and Style Police for over 3 years now, and it has been a bit of a bumpy ride. I had to lay down some ground rules earlier on in my blogging journey, for my sanity sake and I still blog by those rules.
Here they are:
Remember Why I Started Blogging
I started blogging in 2012 to get busy. I wa spending a ridiculous amount of time online and on social media in particularly, so I decided to get productive and so I did. I set up Fashion and Style Police in October 2012, and I have not looked back ever since. Whenever I had a bad day, I remember why I started blogging and where I was at when I started, and that gets me through even the most difficult days.
More on why I started blogging in my soon to be released book, so look out for updates on Twitter for that.
Ignore the Trolls and the Negativity
If you a blogger and you are yet to have anyone disagree with your thoughts, opinion, outfits, posts, body, or your face, then you are not yet a BLOGGER, if you get my drift. Trolls and the internet come together, anyone can be a troll, it could even be someone you know, hiding behind a screen.
The good news about the trolls is that most of them give up and leave you alone, and go off to the next ‘new’ blogger, when they realise you are not going to feed them. They tend to attack the new bloggers the most, I guess to put them off blogging, or they see them as the weak ones. My trolls really came for me in my first year of blogging, and they said everything possible to put me off my blog, but I didn’t let them. I still do not let them.
The whole blogging/social media ‘thingy’ is still fairly new. Many have no clue how we make money or how much we make, so they hate on us or disregard us. It is human nature to ignore what you do not understand, so I get that, but what I don’t get is the hate and the negativity many non-bloggers/hobby bloggers have towards pro-bloggers, or bloggers that earn some kind of income from their blog.
I just ignore the negative people, who have no idea of how the digital industry works, and I hope they one day understand, but for now, their ignorance is my bliss.
Say NO
I have learnt to say no to any collaboration that does not benefit me. So I won’t just hop on a train for a press day in London because a PR said so, I won’t review every product I am asked to review, and I won’t accept every sponsored post request. There is no way I could say yes to all the offers I get anyways, so I take my time and weed out the non-beneficial ones from the beneficial ones, so I don’t waste anyone’s time.
In the early days, I was happy to accept almost anything, but not anymore. The tables have turned, kind of.
Enjoy Blogging
I enjoy blogging so much that I see myself doing this for a very long time. I find it relaxing and entertaining, and the fact that it has become a job now makes it even better. However, once I no longer enjoy what I do, I will stop. I won’t like it to be like my previous jobs, lol, but for now, I don’t see myself not loving what I do.
Ask for What I Deserve
Gone are the days when I happily took any offer I was offered. I know what I deserve and I go higher than that, to leave room for negotiation, just incase. I won’t write a sponsored post with a million links for $20, just like I won’t write a favourable review just because you want me too. Any review you read on this blog is 100% real, whether I buy the product myself, gifted the products or received a review fee. If the product is soooo bad, and I have nothing good to say about it, I won’t feature it as I won’t want to completely slack the brand. However in my 3 years of blogging, I am yet to come across such a product.
What blogging rules do you live by? What do you think of bloggers earning money from their blog?
