TWIC: how to- list, marketing and profitable blogging

Behance (via lifeblogger), has a list of 29 ways to stay creative.  The ideas are good but not profound.  The list shines in its presentation, which is one of my weaknesses.  The list covers a few things I am good at but mostly omits the work of creativity, which is another of my weaknesses.  #29 is Finish Something. The actual work of making or writing the dang thing.

A.C.F. Crawford, author of Sailor of the Skysea, has given me his book on digital format asked me to read and review it on Goodreads.  This is part of his marketing strategy.  Many authors are now offering a few of their first books for free to build up a readership before actually trying to sell one.  Scott Sigler (Wikipedia) is the one I'm most familiar with.  Even established publishers do this now with Baen offering the first book of several series' to get people interested in their worlds. Well, Baen is using the technique to re-introduce older authors and series. I like the idea except that it means even more work before seeing that first paycheck.  Self-publishing is a scary gig.

In the above two examples, I've discussed my aversion to work.  Colin Schultz's post appears, at first, to be more my style.  He describes how he writes each blog post in one hour and gets paid well for it.  On the other hand, he had to earn his chops (is that the right metaphor?) before he was offered a blogging position at the Smithsonian.  He specifically says that nobody he knows makes money with Google Ads and Wordpress or Blogger.

The core of his post is how to be successful at science blogging and this paragraph introduces all the elements:

Now, those two goals: to be right, and to be original, run smack into the biggest and most important constraint in this kind of quick turn-around blogging: time.