There are two kinds of luck in the world: dumb luck and the luck you make. During the evolution of my humor blog, The Junk Drawer, I’ve experienced both.
Pick any success story, in business, Hollywood, or the literary world (vampires, anyone?) and you’ll find an element of luck. Hard work and creativity are at the heart of every big success, but you can’t discount that luck and chance always play a role. The same goes for blogging.
The purpose of this post is to share how and when luck played a role in the relative success of my blog and to show you how you can take advantage of dumb luck and put yourself in a position to make your own luck.
Let’s break it down.
Dumb Luck Events
One thing leads to another. About a month into blogging, I sought blog advice from Bill White, a columnist at my local paper. I liked the format of his blog and emailed him with some questions. That led him to start reading my blog, and in a few weeks, he gave me a shout-out at his place.
Another local blogger with a large audience reads Bill’s blog and happened to notice my blog mentioned there. So he started reading me. Months later, that blogger gave me a shout-out with a link to a post of mine that he liked. This mention was a pivotal moment for Junk Drawer, since it sent me tons of traffic—traffic that stuck. He also put me in his blogroll and has twice mentioned me in his blog. What cracked me up, and still does, is that he’s not a humor blogger; he writes exclusively about politics. That is the last place I would have expected a mention. Kathy, meet dumb luck.
Yet another blogger who reads both the above blogs mentioned me at a meeting he had with the chief editor at our local paper, which was looking to feature local bloggers. That referral led to my being included in the paper’s “Valley Blogosphere”. I don’t receive a lot of traffic from here, but I am honored to be included, and my presence there puts credibility in my back pocket if I need it later.
The loud Sun Chips Bag story. Eight months ago, I posted a video on Junk Drawer about how loud the new eco-friendly Sun Chips bags sound. It got a very good response on the blog, but it wasn’t until a Wall Street Journal reporter discovered it that things went a little crazy. She noticed the bags were loud and Googled to see if anyone else thought the same. She found my blog and my video and contacted me for an interview. I was quoted for an article that wound up on the front page of the Journal.
Though my blog wasn’t linked in the online version, I wasn’t terribly disappointed because it isn’t always about The Almighty Link. The story became a springboard for other things. Major news outlets began scouring the web for videos about the loud bag, and NBC included a snippet of mine in a piece they produced for the Today show, CBS News Radio Network called me for an interview and CNN did a piece about the bags on their morning program.
These two events—chance blogger connections and a reporter on a hunt for a story—illustrate that luck can come to anyone with good writing and creative ideas. We’ve all heard of bloggers making it big, and they all started out small like we did. A classic example is Julie Powell, whose blog about cooking all of Julia Child’s recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking became wildly popular. That led to a book deal and then a movie.
It’s interesting to note that her luck didn’t come overnight. She started her blog in 2002, got a book deal in 2005 and the movie wasn’t released until 2009. In my case, my lucky connections with other bloggers happened early on, but the WSJ article happened only recently, after three full years of blogging. Keep the faith.
The lesson there is you need to write as well as you can, put your best ideas forward and over time, you might get that visitor, popping up out of nowhere, who has the power to put you on the map.
You can’t plan for this randomness, (a source of frustration for many of us, right?), but you should know that it happens to enough other people that it can happen to you too.
The Luck You Make
The NPR Windy story. Longtime readers of Junk Drawer know I’ve been chronicling the status of Windy, the plastic bag stuck in a tree for over two years. One day, I corresponded with some blogger friends about how I thought the story had legs, but I didn’t know where to shop it around. I’d already pitched the story to CNN and a couple magazines. No bites. Then I thought about NPR, whose programming often includes both light & humorous pieces, as well as pieces about the environment. Bingo!
I sent a three-sentence pitch to NPR telling them Windy’s story and suggested that their listeners might like it for both its humor and environmental characteristics. In less than 48 hours, I got a response and was on the air six days later.
The story sent 7,000 people to my blog over three days, and it took all of my waking hours to respond to calls, comments and emails. What the experience showed me was that I had some power to get noticed outside normal blogging channels. If I hadn’t pitched the story, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
So What’s a Blogger to Do?
In my case, connections with bloggers of influence played a key part in getting my name out there, as did involvement with mass media. You can do a lot to help yourself in both areas.
Aside from blogging your best, creating connections means reading and leaving quality comments on a lot of blogs. People need to know who you are! Network, network, network. Capitalize on the power of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets to make your work easy to share. Remember the political blogger who sent me a heap of traffic? He only found me through another blog, where I’d made an impression on its author. There was no way to anticipate that. You need to understand that if you have interesting, well-written, and original material, word gets around.
As for media involvement, think of posts you’ve written that have wide appeal or maybe the “quirk factor.” Mass media loves quirk. In both cases, my media exposure came from off-beat stories that struck a chord with reporters looking for something different.
Consider submitting story ideas to news outlets, magazines, and newspapers. All will have contact links on their websites and will tell you whether they accept story ideas. Some take already-published material. And remember, I submitted the Windy story to CNN, but they didn’t bite. NPR did. Keep trying.
And don’t forget to think locally. Does your paper highlight local bloggers and give them links? Both of mine do. Poke around their sites and see if they accept blogger contributions or at least blogroll links.
If you get picked up by any media outlet, people might think it was dumb luck, but you will know different. It was the luck you made.
You know the classic quote, “Luck is when preparation and opportunity meet.” If you work your tail off to produce great stuff, when luck comes, you won’t be as surprised as you think. You will know that you’ve been working for it all along.
Next up?
Check back soon for another article I’m writing about what media buzz feels like, the good, the bad and the ugly.
