It's been a little over a year since I started writing on Far Beyond The Stars in October of 2009, and my blog has seen incredible growth. Since the CBS Evening News interview aired, I passed 7,000 subscribers, which is blowing my mind.
All of this happened because I did a few things that other people didn't, this is why I thought I'd dissect the anatomy of an A-list minimalist blog so that you can come to this place.
Now, maybe you're not aiming to launch an A-list minimalism blog. That's fine, I'm really only writing this for the people out there who are striving to inspire the world to follow this path.
If you're not into this type of post, I'd love if you'd skip it. Go get a coffee and enjoy your life.
If you are writing a minimalism blog that isn't quite getting traction yet (or if you're thinking of starting one,) maybe you need to read on.
How many readers do you need to be successful?
When I say A-list minimalist blog, I don't mean you need hundreds of thousands of readers. 1,000 true fans will do just fine, just ask Kevin Kelly about that.
If you've just started blogging about minimalism, maybe this can help your blog grow.
If you've been struggling with obtaining traffic to your minimalism blog, maybe this will finally give you the kick you need to get your blog off the ground.
If you've been thinking of starting, maybe this will help solidify your plans.
Not everyone will be successful.
Now, creating an a-list minimalism blog isn't for everyone. Not everyone is willing to live the lifestyle necessary to be a leader in this growing niche. It takes the courage of a leader, and a willingness to push the boundaries of society on a path that few seek to tread.
Are you up for the challenge?
I've collected my thoughts into 9 elements necessary for a successful minimalism blog. There are undoubtedly more elements, but these are the most important.
Disclaimer: Now, before you even think about email me asking for help making your blog a success, make sure you've implemented at least 80% of these rules. I get a lot of emails from people who want help, and 9 times out of 10 I'm just going to tell you one of these things.
9 times out of 10 the first element is the only thing I tell people to do, and they don't even listen to me -- and then they wonder why no one subscribes.
So listen first, then act. Repeat, until you've actually done some of the things that I've listed. Then email me asking why your blog doesn't work, maybe I can help you then.
1. Live the change you want to make in the world.
Over the last year, a few minimalism blogs have skyrocketed way past others in popularity. This rule distinguished them all from the rest.
If you're going to advocate for minimalism, you better damn well actually be living a minimalist lifestyle.
Simply talking about minimalism, while living in the status-quo, is not enough. No one will believe you if you're not actually living the life, they'll simply click over to my blog and subscribe here instead.
How do you live a minimalist life? Well, I went over that in a book I wrote. If you're still stumped, rent a dumpster and throw all of your stuff in it. Take your car to the center of town and light it on fire (but don't tell them I told you to do it.) Living with less than 50 things is a good benchmark for most people these days, if you're into counting your stuff.
I'm sorry, but you just can't have a raging minimalist fan following if you're living like a normal person. It just doesn't work that way.
2. Fight for freedom.
Humans weren't designed to sit at desks until their lumbar spine fuses irreversibly to their inner thighs. Humans weren't meant to eat meal worms (my codename for any product made out of processed corn) for breakfast. Humans weren't meant to drive around in solitary stupid people pods. Humans weren't meant to be popping pills every morning in a desperate attempt to find artificial happiness. Humans weren't meant to wander around fluorescently lit shopping malls being told what to buy by huge corporations.
If you're still doing any of the above things on a regular basis, no one will care about your minimalism blog. Is that hard to hear? Well, do something about changing your life first and then come back to writing about minimalism.
This means that the first order of business is for you to find freedom. In order to do that, see rule #1.
3. Challenge and be prepared to be challenged.
You can't be safe anymore, the stakes are too high. So many of the newer or perpetually smaller minimalism blogs I read are tiptoeing around the issues in an attempt to make everyone happy. You can't make everyone happy, the truth is that some people are living in a way that's keeping them in perpetual wage-slavery and debt for their entire lives.
If you keep approaching your encouragement from the angle of 'well, you could maybe make a box of stuff and get rid of it, if you want to.' Then people will continue to not care about you. Why? Because we need leaders who are willing to stand up and fight for the truth that we believe in.
If you stand up for something you believe in, you better believe that the status-quo will fight back. For every "omg, you changed my life" email I receive, I get another one from a confused person with a $350,000 mortgage on their house wondering why I'm ripping on their over-extended lifestyle. Why am I? because you're a slave to a system that originally bought you.
4. Be a human.
Every time I Skype with a blogger who wants to know the secrets of minimalist blogging success, the first thing out of my mouth is always. "Put a goddamn picture of your face on your blog's front page."
This is why I'm establishing a rule, as of today, that I will not Skype with any blogger who has not taken this advice.
One more time "PUT A PICTURE OF YOUR FACE ON THE FRONT PAGE OF YOUR BLOG."
If you want to know what a picture of your face on the front of your blog looks like, scroll up to the top of my blog and look over there ->
Why? Because no one is subscribing to your blog because they think it was written by a robot, that's why. There is so much junk out there on the Internet, and we don't want to read most of it. The easiest way to figure out if I'm not reading junk is to see a picture of a human's face that says underneath it. "Hi, my name is John Smith, I'm here to teach you about a specific thing."
Because otherwise we think maybe we stumbled onto something we don't want to read. If there's a face, there's a human connection.
So, before you ask to Skype with me about the secrets of blogging success, please put a picture of your face on the front page of your blog. Put your name under it. Make sure the picture of your face is actually of your face, and not like the top of your face, your face with your hand in front of it, your blurry face, or the back of your head.
No one cares about your creative use of photoshop, what we care about is seeing your beautiful eyes.
5. Link link link link, link one more time.
For those of you who didn't grow up reading A List Apart every issue since they were 12, allow me to give you the other secret of Internet success. It's such a secret that most of you have no idea what it is.
Wait for it...
You need to link to people. A link, as in Everett Bogue's Blog is Freakin' Brilliant.
It's called the World Wide Web because it's supported by an epic amount of links between resources. The pages with the most links rise to the top of the pile. Far Beyond The Stars has so much inbound traffic because there are a lot of people linking into it.
How did I get people to link to me? By linking to people of course! (that and saying things that matter, see rule #3 above.)
Check out the last post, I linked to Tammy Strobel, Chris Guillebeau, Karol Gajda, Colin Wright, Leo Babauta, Corbett Barr, Joshua Becker, and Adam Baker all in the same post. Robyn Divine writes at Minimalist Knitter.