Author Topic: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging  (Read 7520 times)

CarDude

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Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« on: June 11, 2014, 11:30:37 AM »
This post came out of a discussion on the Shame subforum, where ottawa linked to a CNN quiz designed to tell people whether they had what it took to make it rich. Per the quiz, your odds of making it rich were basically a function of the degree to which you felt that hard work was all it took to make it to Oprah-like levels of wealth. So it got me thinking...

To take another stab at the luck vs. effort dichotomy, just think about blogging. How many millions of PF blogs were online before MMM? How many millions more have been created since this one took off? How many of them will ever make anything close to what MMM takes home each month from his blog, whether in terms of finances or in terms of hits? Do folks really believe that all of the other bloggers just haven't wanted it bad enough? That's silly. Yet based on the responses to that CNN quiz, you'd think people just needed to apply themselves enough and they'd join the super rich in droves!

On a more personal note, I've been blogging for a little while about car safety and make a tiny bit from it. According to this infographic, I'm above the 81st percentile, but well below the 98th percentile, which is about where MMM is. Do I think I've worked harder than 81% of the other 31+ million people blogging in the US? Hardly. It's mostly luck at this level. I remember when MMM added blogging to one of the 50 careers where a person could make 50k without a college degree. Is it possible? Sure. But to do so, per that infographic, you probably need to be at or around the 89th percentile. And while work is a part of what it takes to get there, you don't actually get there without being very lucky, near as I can tell.

Insanity

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #1 on: June 11, 2014, 11:43:45 AM »
There's a facet to blogging which is self-promotion, buying awards or buying social media friends (https://medium.com/i-data/fake-friends-with-real-benefits-eec8c4693bd3) that can pay off big time.  It also depends on your competition and if you have done something newsworthy.

MMM has a communication style and a personalty which people like and will follow.  Same with Oprah.  It isn't just about work, it is about charisma and relating to people.  Just having a blog won't do it.

CarDude

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #2 on: June 11, 2014, 01:16:29 PM »
That's quite true. A good example of that personality difference involves ERE vs. MMM. I read ERE back in the earliest days of his blog and enjoyed his work. However, Jacob's writing style is more technical and esoteric than MMM's, which is more relateable and uplifting. It's no surprise that MMM really took off when the ERE blog became a web of recycled posts.

Cpa Cat

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #3 on: June 11, 2014, 01:24:25 PM »
A good blog is a function of topic + writing style + message + personality - with an exponent of good webpage design.

You could also inject a multiplier for advertising yourself.


Dr. Doom

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #4 on: June 11, 2014, 02:13:01 PM »

>> Do folks really believe that all of the other bloggers just haven't wanted it bad enough?

I'll draw a sports analogy here.  Thousands of baseball players don't make it to the majors every year.  Maybe a hundred do.  Do you think the ones that made it to the show simply wanted it more?  Or is it something else?  Some of them luck out with scouts.  Someone sees something he likes in a kid at AA, and they're off to fill in at the major league level.  Others are physically gifted -- they have a genetic advantage.

Point is, no matter how you slice it, at the elite levels of performance, I don't think it's about heart and will and tenacity and hard work.  The people who don't have those qualities don't even make it to A ball. -- they've already been weeded out.  This implies that there are other variables at play -- every single person from A to AAA to MLB is already giving everything they can to be successful.



taekvideo

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #5 on: June 11, 2014, 07:06:19 PM »
If you're not good at blogging, then it doesn't matter how much luck you have or effort you put in...

Nords

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2014, 09:21:33 PM »
To take another stab at the luck vs. effort dichotomy, just think about blogging. How many millions of PF blogs were online before MMM? How many millions more have been created since this one took off? How many of them will ever make anything close to what MMM takes home each month from his blog, whether in terms of finances or in terms of hits? Do folks really believe that all of the other bloggers just haven't wanted it bad enough?
The longer you blog, the luckier you get...

PKFFW

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #7 on: June 12, 2014, 12:05:35 AM »
I will mention again a book I think any interested in the luck Vs hard work debate might find interesting.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

It discusses how what would commonly be called "luck" plays a significant role in many things.  It discusses how little instances of luck lead to significantly different outcomes.

One example is how those born in January, February and March dominate professional ice hockey leagues around the world and how those born in the last quarter of the year have virtually zero chance of making it as a professional and why this is so.

Gladwell does not dispute the fact that hard work and determination are necessary for success.  He merely explores the fact that other factors play a significant role.

johnintaiwan

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #8 on: June 12, 2014, 06:13:34 AM »
of course luck plays a role. But if you catch a lucky break but dont work hard, it is not going to payoff int he long run (unless you are playing the lottery). In terms of business success I think of luck more as opportunity. I also assume that while you are working hard, you are also talented (it doesnt really matter how hard you try if you still suck). You may catch a lucky break, but if you are not working hard, it wont really matter. It also seems that the harder you work the more "lucky" opportunities you find.


Dr. Doom

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #9 on: June 12, 2014, 06:37:03 AM »
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Yep, lots of good stuff in that book.  I love the section on Gates and the success of Microsoft.  Gladwell makes the point that although Gates is smart as hell and a workaholic to boot, much of the tremendous success of MS was attributable to serendipity, right-place-right-time-right-products-and-technologies.  Some of these ideas are definitely applicable to any Supersized success story.


tooqk4u22

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #10 on: June 12, 2014, 07:10:23 AM »

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"

MMM, a major league ball player, the 1% all probably had some natural ability that exceeded the masses, which may be the luck part, but if they don't develop, train and outright work hard to leverage those abilities then they won't be successful. 

I really don't like when people say it is all about luck because most of the time they are looking at a specific moment in time where the lucky event had occurred - was anybody saying MMM was lucky at blogging 3 years ago - probably not, but if you look back you will see that he created a blog, had a unique style about a relatively basic subject, and worked hard to deliver multiple posts a week of decent quality - that is not luck.





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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #11 on: June 12, 2014, 07:45:34 AM »

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity"

MMM, a major league ball player, the 1% all probably had some natural ability that exceeded the masses, which may be the luck part, but if they don't develop, train and outright work hard to leverage those abilities then they won't be successful. 

I really don't like when people say it is all about luck because most of the time they are looking at a specific moment in time where the lucky event had occurred - was anybody saying MMM was lucky at blogging 3 years ago - probably not, but if you look back you will see that he created a blog, had a unique style about a relatively basic subject, and worked hard to deliver multiple posts a week of decent quality - that is not luck.

But you can say that about thousands of bloggers who don't strike it big. Nobody is saying that it doesn't take hard work, skill, etc. People are just saying that it's not all that it takes.

tooqk4u22

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #12 on: June 12, 2014, 07:59:15 AM »
probably not, but if you look back you will see that he created a blog, had a unique style about a relatively basic subject, and worked hard to deliver multiple posts a week of decent quality - that is not luck.

But you can say that about thousands of bloggers who don't strike it big. Nobody is saying that it doesn't take hard work, skill, etc. People are just saying that it's not all that it takes.
[/quote]

For the starting a blog and working hard - I agree, but I would disagree that the unique style applies to 1000's of bloggers. 

there may be more to it than that but it is not luck and characterizing success as luck is just wrong.

Mr. Frugalwoods

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #13 on: June 12, 2014, 10:34:53 AM »
I firmly believe that hard work puts you in a position to take advantage of a lucky break when it comes your way.

When it comes to blogging, lots of good content is necessary but not sufficient to making it big.  The marketing is a lot harder.  Some of that is luck, some of that is hard work.

Also anyone who gets into blogging only looking to make money is probably not going to be successful.  My wife and I write our blog for the fun of it.  It's a lot of fun to join a blogging community of finance and frugality nerds.

Wildflame

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #14 on: June 12, 2014, 12:17:27 PM »
I have two blogs. They are inactive, contain no real content, and probably have had a hundred hits between them apart from me. If blogs such as those, or the one I maintained for a while in high school which had exclusively local and personal content on it, are counted in the long tail, then it would not surprise me at all that you would need to get past the 95th percentile to see any substantial (financial) success.

I suspect there are three fundamentals to blogging, in no order:
- Self-promotion
- Style / Marketing
- Output (effort, quantity, maybe quality).

Of these, effort is the most visible, easiest to learn, and easiest to control, so that's where most amateurs direct their attention. However, a blog with style attracts and retains readers far more readily than a blog with the same basic material, but that is incomplete, incoherent, pretentious, or worst of all - boring. And a blog which is thoroughly promoted will necessarily do much better than one that is not. I would suggest that good self-promotion can go a long way to compensating for lack of content or lack of style or marketing strategy.

Luck plays a factor which is unquantifiable, as it always does in every facet of life. However, luck mostly brings about opportunities to succeed - it does not breed success on its own. Effort is always required to convert the opportunities luck brings about into success - hence sayings such as "fortune favours the bold / prepared", "the harder you work, the luckier you get", etc.

If you treat blogging as a career, as online journalism or similar, and dedicate three to five years of full-time effort to it (or equivalent), and still don't succeed (ie making a living)? Frankly, I would consider you an anomaly. But most people don't dedicate anywhere near that kind of time or effort. There's still the misapprehension that blogging/vlogging/online media in general is the Wild West it was in the late 90s and early 2000s, which it is not; it has matured. Not to say you can't break through, merely that it's no longer possible for a rank amateur to slap together a webpage and have the world beat a path to their door waving Adsense dollars and affiliate links at them. How do I know? I have one. I had (have?) the dream too. Unfortunately, I am even lazier than my writing posts at 3:45am on a Friday morning would suggest. But I am absolutely certain that if I decided to write about personal finance from an Australian perspective with a healthy dollop of sarcasm, social commentary and political analysis, there would be people interested in that - and I could make money off it. But it's not as simple as "I'll write some shit down and make a million dollars".

Look at the infographic again: 9% of the survey, 90 bloggers, had 'freedom' to derive their main income from their blog. But 81%, or 810 of them, made less than $100 total from blogging. So if you exclude the amateurs, experimenters, weekend projects that got forgotten, and focus on the people who did actually try to make money blogging? 90 of the 190 who made $100 from blogging also made enough to get by. That's 47% of those who've experienced even minimal success. And there's no way of knowing how many of the 53% above $100 are on their way to 'making it' themselves. They could be anywhere from $100 total to $100 a month to $500 a month, which is an awfully large gap.

Or consider the survey at http://goo.gl/NX3Aqv. That survey found that 11% of bloggers were making over $1k a month, which I'd consider living money. Moreover, another 7% were between $500-$999 a month (in other words, getting there), and that 85% of those who were making $10k+ a month had been at it for four years, and a vague 'most of the rest' for three years.

It's just like the crowds of people who turn up to audition at pop-music reality tv shows without a day's vocal training or practice, or the every third or fourth person who thinks they have a novel in them, but neither read nor write regularly. There's always going to be a long tail of crap - Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. Or the Pareto principle: the value of many activities follows a power law.

So no, I disagree with the argument that a blogger these days needs to be 'lucky' to get by. I will definitely concede luck helps a lot (it can cut a year or more off your rise to modest success, or be the springboard from success to notoriety), but it is not a necessary precondition. It is far more important, as with all things in life, to have a purpose, to plan, and to execute ruthlessly and repeatedly until you get what you want.

I think it should be evident by now I've read too many self-help books, 'getting things done' books, and articles about self-empowerment and success. I think I'll go lie down and avoid writing my novel now. Fuck.

tganewbie

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2014, 01:33:25 PM »
Not being a blogger - my outside view is that putting in the effort is not so much a guarantee of success, but a requirement of it. I don't want to use the term quality - I think its too generic. Its more the amount of posts, the consistency over time and the thoroughness. Also, they are all consistent in their message and even if there are "aha moments" they are framed in terms of the overall picture.

I think the main driver of success of MMM is though what other people here have called style. I would describe it as "bold, successful contrarian" and I see this being similar to people like Alan Weiss and less so Kyosaki and Trump. If you think of any sort of interview with these people (including MMM) in Mainstream media the interview always ends up in the same style:

"Surely you must lead a poor lifestyle" - "No, you can actually be happier with less money...."

"Everyone needs a car" - "to the contrary...."

"......." - "No, its exactly the opposite..."

Readers are left with the impression that 90% of what people think is true is actually wrong (and in the MMM value system it is actually wrong) and that makes it so appealing.


eil

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2014, 02:18:22 PM »
In the overwhelming number of cases, success is a function of luck, talent, and effort. All three. We argue over the proportions of each, but it turns out this varies by domain. So for example a successful child actress at the beginning of her career might have had lots of luck and talent, but very little experience. But a software engineer needs little luck to be successful in the current market, it's almost all effort with some talent thrown in.

AssetGrinder

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2014, 05:45:40 PM »
To me quality content and self promotion have equal footing. If you have a quality blog people will come but more people will come with some promotion.
Luck to me can occur a few ways for blogs which are mostly out of your control
- Your blog being endorsed by more popular blogs or websites
- Your posts are of high quality and are featured on various other blog and websites
- New trends in the market make your blog more relevant.

Too me the rest is hard work of quality consistent content and equal self promotion on websites,forums, blogs and social media.

One can certainly make a living blogging but frankly the large majority will not.

I have a blog for fun right now as it is not monetized. I am new too blogging as I just started last month.The learning curve is pretty steep for me as my web skills kind of suck. My favorite blog sites dont seem to earn much more more than 1k in earnings and they are pretty popular. The vast amount of work they put in I cant imagine it being their main source of income. Seems to break into that for a living category of $3000+ a month plus you would really have to reach critical mass which in turn requires much more luck along with your hard work.

In Conclusion I think you can run a successful blog that could add some additional income but to hit it big luck is a big factor.


sheepstache

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #18 on: June 18, 2014, 04:45:50 AM »
OP, I've looked at your blog before and perhaps this is a good opportunity to humbly offer some suggestions?  I really like your breakdowns of car crashes but I have a hard time quickly grasping the basics of each case. 

For example here's one intro:
Quote
Who:
Reagan Lee Hartley, 22, from Willow Spring, was killed around 10:30 PM on 4/23/14 between Patterson St. and Wendover Avenue on I-40 in Greensboro, NC. Hartley drove a 1997-era silver Volvo C70 and was hit by Ronnie Fichera, 46, from South Boston, VA, who drove a 1997-era green Ford Expedition. Hartley was a senior at Western Carolina University, where she was studying early elementary education, and was due to graduate in May after completing her student teaching.

How:
Hartley was eastbound on I-40 heading to her parents.' She was impacted by Fichera, who was headed westbound in the eastbound lanes at an estimated 80-90 mph in an effort to evade police. He was reportedly impaired and carrying an open container of alcohol in his vehicle. Hartley died en route to the hospital, while Fichera was listed in critical condition.

But the "who" section contains a lot of "how" information as well and it's all in one paragraph.  So as a reader if I get confused while reading the main details of the accident, I can't use it as a simple reference to glance back at and see who's who.

Sometimes you don't list a "who," you list a "human element" section and then a separate section for fatalities so the reader has to jump back and forth to really put a face to the dead victims.

Other write-ups list the "where" separately.  Sometimes people are listed according to fatalities and injuries and don't say which car they were in.  Sometimes you list biographical stuff and then you list who was in each car at the end, making the reader think it's a one-car crash and then realize it's a multiple car crash.

I would make it consistent, for sure.  Then, I would view the who section as "dramatis personae," and simply list identifying facts in separate paragraphs.  Probably you want to start by listing the car. 
[Car]#1:
[Name][age][origin][killed/injured][any other bio details you want, e.g., veteran, teacher, etc.]
Probably you'll list the driver first.  Then for the next occupant you'll probably mention the relationship to the driver or to anyone else in the car (wife, child, etc.)  Then you list the next car and occupants, etc. 

Once I figure out the basics of the accident, the writing is clear and I feel like the interpretation of the crash is quite understandable even as it goes into technical details.  These suggestions are just about making it easy to quickly grasp the basics so it's easier to absorb a lot of posts.

The one other thing is a site navigation suggestion.  Where you list types of collisions I would have a link for all car crash reports and all posts about child seats. 

fallstoclimb

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #19 on: July 18, 2014, 03:14:27 PM »
Speaking of effort:  is it scammy to tweet at people when you link to their blogs in a post, or is it appropriately networky?  My blog JUST went live and has had like 12 visitors (I'm waiting until I get another week of content to even post it here), so it's not like I'm really doing them a favor by linking to them, but I do get that promotion is important.

EarlyRetirementGuy

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #20 on: July 18, 2014, 03:33:53 PM »
People make their own luck. If you never take chances, never try or quickly give up then the chances of becoming lucky are greatly reduced.

Luck can only take you so far though, The great thing about MMM and a few other high traffic blogs are that the writer's personality shines through. People like hearing stories from real people they know, not from marketing departments or strangers.

Nords

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #21 on: July 19, 2014, 11:55:58 PM »
Speaking of effort:  is it scammy to tweet at people when you link to their blogs in a post, or is it appropriately networky?  My blog JUST went live and has had like 12 visitors (I'm waiting until I get another week of content to even post it here), so it's not like I'm really doing them a favor by linking to them, but I do get that promotion is important.
Perfectly fine.  You can say "via @TheMilitaryGuid" or "H/T @TheMilitaryGuid" or just wholesale retweet the post as "Wisdom @TheMilitaryGuid RT..."

I've read (but have not verified) that starting a tweet with the person's Twitter handle restricts the tweet to just that person's account.  To avoid that potential trap, I start a tweet with something like "Reading:..." or "Thanks!  RT..." or any other text in front of their Twitter handle.

Bloggers should have trackbacks turned on, which will let them know when you link to their blog.  They should also be able to see your link in their traffic analytics.

webguy

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #22 on: July 22, 2014, 06:48:18 AM »
It has almost nothing to do with luck. Have you read other personal finance blogs?? MMM's content is a million times better and his personality a million times more interesting and entertaining. If your blog isn't successful it isn't because you're unlucky.

slugline

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Re: Luck vs. Effort As Applied to Blogging
« Reply #23 on: July 22, 2014, 02:06:00 PM »
Yes, my experience has shown me that there can certainly be a factor of luck involved. One day I wrote a dryly-written blog post that unexpectedly stumbled into an under-served niche. Filling that niche has been filling my IRA contributions ever since.