Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 314 posts

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#161

Post by the_arun »

xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

Your blog looks awesome!

a) People who copy blogs could copy anything public.. correct? That shouldn't stop you from blogging.

OR

b) By copying, did you mean they are forking your git repo & hosting it with a wrapper on top of your content?

I'm assuming it is (b) you are worried about.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#162

Post by floppydiskette »

I’ve created a lot of connections through my blog, learned a lot, and gotten many jobs because of it. (taniarascia.com). It has absolutely been worth it for me.

I’ve slowed down with it, though. I only make content when I feel like it, not because anyone else wants it. And the more advanced the problems I have to solve, the smaller the target audience of anything I’m solving is.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#163

Post by detaro »

TylerE wrote: post #159
xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

Quoted post unavailable.

> All blog content is all rights reserved.

What do you think this license specifically allows?

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#164

Post by parksy »

I'm highly self-critical so I'd go through phases where suddenly I'd decide I need to be on-brand and delete all my stories, musings, music, non-brand-related stuff. Only to get anxious later and think "now I just look like another self-promoting schmuck" and with my inner voice whispering "what worthy endeavour have you contributed to the industry to deserve the acclaim you're begging for", I'd delete and rewrite all that "narcissistic" brand stuff and post some quirky stuff for a while. Rinse and repeat.

Granted it's a very "me" problem but was worth it for me business-wise? Not really. I just found it made my anxiety worse. Maybe in the future I'll start up something small and low key and pseudonymous but I will definitely not be wanting to tie it in any way to my sense of self-worth, my work, or anything like that. I'm glad it works for many people but for me it's just not worth it on a personal level.

In terms of finding jobs etc, I just try and do a great job on my contracts, be honest and open with clients, be friendly and check in with people from time to time to see how business is doing. I get longer term and much more fulfilling work through the people I know and have worked with previously, granted it took years to establish a small network but none of the blogs or articles I wrote ever attracted any attention beyond my own obsessive self-doubts.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#165

Post by yusefnapora »

xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

Thanks for your blog! I've learned a ton of great stuff (especially about Nix / NixOS) and it's always fun to read.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#166

Post by cinntaile »

cableshaft wrote: post #124
xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

> people keep copying it, slathering it in ads and rehosting it Didn't occur to me that could be a thing, but of course it is. People suck.

Ad income without putting the work in, it's a dream come true for some.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#167

Post by Sholmesy »

xena wrote: post #107

I've found it worth doing. My blog (xeiaso.net, formerly christine.website) is the main way that I get employed at this point. It also helps that people link it here a lot. After 100 articles or so writing got a lot easier and now people rely on my blog for a lot of things. I think it's worth it, but I've also been exclusively self-hosting it. I currently have the code (and writing) open source on GitHub ( https://gi…

I was looking for inspo for my own blog the other day and saw yours as like the pinnacle of what a tech blog could look like.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#168

Post by lloydatkinson »

cauliflower99 wrote: post #158

This was answered for me a few weeks ago at work. I have a lightweight blog where I post things to show that I know about xyz. Nobody reads it and I don't expect anyone to read it in the near future. I'm not a particularly good writer (much to my shame). I have also given 2 presentations in my company about an Agile practice I am passionate about. Just 2 presentations - nothing more. In my follow up to the presentati…

What practice is it?

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#169

Post by thenerdhead »

Absolutely.

I started with a blog about technical topics:

https://www.jon-douglas.com/

This page somewhat acts like docs/reference for some obscure topics in mobile development and has quite a bit of views.

I then pivoted to be a more personal blog/brand:

https://jondouglas.dev/

It absolutely has helped me get noticed and people regularly use it to find me to pitch me something.

I learned plenty from creating it and posting regular content. I think nowadays everybody needs a personal blog or site of some kind to separate yourself from the masses.

I think the biggest mistake you can make is giving the power to other platforms like medium/dev.to/etc. It's not to say you shouldn't post to those places, but you should always own your own image and content and then syndicate to the appropriate places.

Re: Ask HN: Is having a personal blog/brand worth it for you?

#170

Post by darzu »

miscaccount wrote: post #157
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #117

From the hiring side, I always spend time reading people's blogs, Github, or social media if they make an effort to include it on their resume. 9 out of 10 times, blogs are extremely stale content from 5+ years back. A lot of people start blogging at the beginning of their careers and then just stop. This creates a weird frozen-in-time effect where what's shown on their blog doesn't match their current skillset at al…

The number of interviewers who even read resume, let alone a blog is very minimal. Even if they read it , i doubt people would be asked the same questions as one who has no blog. So in my opinion the return of investment in terms of hiring is close to zero. However it can be a great tool to document your journey or learning and how much one has evolved.

This doesn't match my experience. If a candidate advances far enough that 3-4 of us are going to spend a couple hours of our day interviewing and deliberating, we each will at least scan resume linked blogs.
Post reply on HN