Maybe you love to write. Maybe you hate it…
Or maybe you are brand new to blogging and you feel like you lack credibility.
Whatever your situation, the truth is that it’s still possible for you to build a wildly successful blog.
Let me explain…
By focusing on the right publishing model, you may feel reborn with passion to finally share your voice with the world.
This article will show you how to identify the right publishing model for you and why this is a critical part of your blog strategy.
A publishing model is the format you use to produce your blog content.
And not all formats are created equal. These different models show you that there are many ways to create content.
It can be done yourself, by others, co-created, ghostwritten, or even “borrowed” for free from others.
Whatever the path you take, there is a model for you.
So, let’s dive into the 5 publishing models…
The Journal
The journal model is pretty straight forward.
It is primarily a way to express yourself and/or document your journey.
You could already be successful or you could just be getting started, and the topics may be all over the board.
Self-expression and inspiration trumps blogging for business or to make money.
I admit. I should journal more.
When I am consistent with it, I have exceptional clarity and achieve more of my goals since they are in writing.
Even when it comes to problem solving.
I just open to a blank page and write. Usually by the time my hand gets tired, the solution appears to me.
But, what is even more powerful about the journal model, is the self awareness it brings from public accountability.
Let’s say you have a goal to lose weight.
By openly sharing your goals and documenting the process, you become a source of inspiration for your readers. They are there to support you, hold you accountable, and celebrate your victories.
I truly believe when you have nothing to hide, you become more committed to the process.
“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” ― John Wooden
This can be a great way to start collecting content to one day publish a book. Or, how Crossfit gyms post the workout of the day for their clients.
You probably fit the journal model if…
- You share random thoughts and maybe you are just doing it as a hobby
- Your motivations are purely self expression
- You want to document experiences and thoughts in your life
- You are not as concerned in monetizing your blog
- You may be building your email list, but you use it just to update your readers
- Most of all the thoughts come from you and you don’t care to have guest bloggers
Examples: Unfiltered.me, Mark Cuban, Crossfit Defined
The Expert
The expert model differs from the journal when money becomes the motivator.
In fact, many blogs that start out as journal blogs evolve into expert blogs when they realize they can easily monetize their efforts.
But, being an “expert” can be a controversial topic.
If you have kids or you pay any attention to pop culture, Macklemore is responsible for making it cool for your kids to shop at the thrift shop.
Macklemore recorded a song entitled “Ten Thousand Hours”, where he sings about is journey to success as an artist. One verse from the song that always hits me is where he says, “10,000 hours, I’m so damn close I can taste it”.
The song continues…
I observed Escher
I love Basquiat
I watched Keith Haring
You see I study art
The greats weren’t great because at birth they could paint
The greats were great cause they paint a lot
The whole song is based on a theory by Malcolm Gladwell from the book Outliers, where it takes 10,000 hours invested into a subject to become an “expert”.
Countless times I have held back at expressing my opinions because of a internal dialog of not knowing enough; worrisome of being judged and criticized by other “industry leaders”.
What helps me move past that every time is my intention. I’m not writing for them; I don’t care what they think and I don’t care to be a thought leader of my industry.
I’m writing this for you in hopes that this helps you and that is all that matters.
If Macklemore was paralyzed with fear of judgement from other rappers, he would not have changed the face of hip-hop with his positive music; voicing his opinions on topics of gay marriage, materialism, addiction and religion.
So, before you say “well, I am not an expert in anything”, realize that you likely already know more than your readers about a subject.
And in any scenario vulnerability will beat the “fake it until you make it” experts any day. And it brings you closer to your readers because they feel they can relate to you.
This means you don’t need 10,000 hour level mastery in order to build around the expert model.
Never become so much of an expert that you stop gaining expertise. View life as a continuous learning experience. ― Denis Waitley
You can become that “thought leader” of your niche by being the guinea pig much like Tim Ferriss does.
You probably fit the expert model if…
- You prefer to write everything yourself
- You are a wealth of information
- You can talk about a topic all day long
- You get fired up about teaching others
- You enjoy the spotlight and telling your story
- You want to turn what you know into a business
Examples: Kris Carr, Chris Mccombs, Tim Ferriss
The Host
On February 17th 2014, Jimmy Fallon ended Jay Leno’s 22 season run at the Tonight Show. Many including myself feel he knocked it out of the park with his humble opening monologue.
But, I want you to just put yourself in Jimmy’s shoes for a moment.
Imagine YOU are the one sitting behind that desk. Imagine it were YOU interviewing some of the most talented, dedicated and successful people in the world. Imagine it were YOU bringing laughter and inspiration to the world.
If you had the Tonight Show as your “platform”, what kind of connections and opportunities would open up for you?
The possibilities are endless, right?
Well, this is exactly what the host model is…
You get to leverage talented people for content by doing interviews like you would if you had your own talk show.
Sure, at first you must gain traction and credibility with your site, but once you do it will be a privilege to get on your show because who doesn’t want more exposure?
One of our Learn To Blog Insider students, Navid Moazzez, decided when starting his blog that the host model was right for him. He went from nothing to producing tons of traffic-pulling interviews with the top names of his industry in less than one year.
Here’s what Navid told me about choosing the host model:
“I started doing interviews with successful entrepreneurs because I wanted to connect and become friends with the influencers in my field. It’s also a fantastic way to build your brand by association, since you’re surrounding yourself with many successful people. I’ve found it’s one of the most powerful ways to build authority when you are starting out with no experience.”
The host model is a great way for you to create a lot of content fast.
Let’s say you decide to do use the host model. You can do a video interview, post the video on YouTube, create a transcript for a blog post, and strip the audio for a podcast.
This gives you three different traffic sources for your blog; all without having to be the expert on any topic.
You probably fit the host model if…
- You are great at interacting with people
- You are great at listening and asking questions
- You are genuinely interested in other people
- You enjoy spotlight, but don’t really need it
- You prefer to showcase others talents
Examples: Entrepreneur On Fire, Mixergy, Navid Moazzez
The Publisher
When you have others writing for you like a magazine, you are in a publishing model.
This is easiest achieved if one already has an audience or traffic. Since you are the “distribution channel”, the main motivation for people wanting to write for you is exposure and credibility.
The publisher model is one that is more scalable than the previous two if done correctly.
After six years of blogging, I have seen many blogs evolve. I have seen some evolve from journal to expert. Then from expert to publisher. Then even from publisher back to an expert model.
In the publishing model (and every other model for that matter), quality trumps quantity. There’s so much content on the web for people to filter through, that you are much better off focusing on fewer higher quality, research driven posts.
Rather than having a cattle call for guest writers, consider cherry picking writers by reaching out to them and telling them an idea of a article you are interested in, why they are perfect for it, and what’s in it for them.
You know what your readers want…
So, when you do your research on a guest writer, it’s much easier to get a response from someone when you plant the idea in their head, rather than making them think of the idea of an article that is going to fit your audience.
Your intent is to get a response like “oh, I could totally crush that topic”.
But, not all people do the publishing model right correctly.
I’m sure at some point you’ve asked Dr. Google about a health related topic and chances are that you’ve run across an article on the Livestrong blog.
You know, the little yellow bracelets from Lance Armstrong?
I don’t support a lot of the decisions he has made, but I do love the mans courage and ability to overcome adversity.
Sadly, he went from being the face of his sport to the black eye of it when he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, was stripped of 7 Tour De France titles and banned from cycling for life.
The whole Livestrong brand has become another dent in his image as it has become greedy content farm.
Their goal is to publish articles that rank for every health term possible, so that they can get tons of traffic and and ad revenue.
But, if you actually read the articles you will see the are lackluster at best. There’s a reason that the articles have no comments on them.
This is a perfect example on what not to do with the publisher model.
The smart move is to post fewer articles of higher quality and spending more of your time marketing those articles.
You probably fit the publisher model if…
- You are a networker and connector
- You like working “behind the scenes”
- You put experts to teach on your platform
- You have great ideas for content that spreads
- You’d rather promote guest writers
- Traffic generation comes easy to you
Examples: TechCrunch, Copyblogger, Young and Raw
The Curator
Picture this…
You are scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed.
You are curiously stopped in your tracks by a post shared by one of your friends.
The catchy headline reads something like, “This guy was cut off in traffic and you won’t believe what he does next…”.
It’s accompanied by an irresistible image that makes it too compelling not to click on.
Greeting you on the other side is a two-minute video that provides immediate gratification to your curiosity.
You, my friend, just experienced the curation model.
Curation is finding content that is freely available around the web and repurposing that content for your site. This model has flourished with the popularity of video sites like YouTube.
For example, you find a video on YouTube, embed it on your site and write a quick review on them.
So, is it a sketchy way to get traffic or is curation a legitimate model?
Pawan Deshpande from the Huffington Post says that “curators are subject matter experts who have a knack for finding, organizing, and sharing the best and most relevant content on a given topic.”
Curation is not anything new. Deshpande says that “museums and art galleries have been doing it for centuries”.
But, the barrier to entry is just so low for anyone to start publishing content online.
With so much noise out there, it is hard to cut through it all to find what really matters. So, naturally there will be more of a demand for curators as more content is published online.
Recently, our team at Learn To Blog have been testing this model as a experiment by launching Riseable. The goal is to help small business owners cut through the fluff and find the best free content online that will help them grow their business.
With only a few hours invested into the project, we generated 17 new email subscribers who joined the list for updates.
It’s nothing to scream about from atop the mountains, but the only cost was the purchase of a premium theme. We are growing our email list from free content and free social traffic.
We’re documenting the process of growing this site, so I encourage you to follow along so that you can learn from the experience.
You probably fit the curator model if…
- You are good at finding great content
- You want to quickly build a brand
- You are okay with not “owning the content”
- You are a great copywriter
- Traffic generation comes easy to you
Examples: Upworthy, GodVine, Book Cover Archive
So, Which Publishing Model Are You?
Now, if you made it this far, I can predict exactly what you are thinking right now.
“Do I have to choose just one model?”
Absolutely not.
The goal of this article is to help you pick a path that you feel inspired by, not be limited by a box.
I suggest that if you are going to combine models, that you focus on a primary model and compliment it with a secondary model.
For example, most of your content is expert and every once in a while you sprinkle on an interview under the host model.
Like I mentioned before, many blogs also evolve over time. Maybe you want to start with a journal model and crossover to the expert and eventually to a publisher model.
It all depends on the vision for your blog. The canvas is blank and ready for you to create your masterpiece.
But, I’m very curious of your thoughts on this topic.
1. What publishing model do you fall into?
and secondly…
2. Why did you choose that direction?
Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Great article Bradley! I like the curator model for my blog, expert model for the site, abbreviated journal model when it strikes my fancy.
Thanks Deb. Nice mix.
I’m enjoy and have more experience with being an “expert” but I’d love to play around in the future with all the models. This was a great read, thank you for sharing!
My pleasure Tammy.
Using your great advice to begin my own “host” blog. I watched your recent video cast on blogging and the ideas just keep coming! A great inspiration!
Thanks and that is great news. Hopefully you can follow some of the examples I gave in this article to help structure your blog.
I am most definitely a journal blogger, with the tagline “Random thoughts of a well-lived life”. I blog daily, and very rarely re-blog something that just knocks my socks off. Come see me at http://triggershorse.wordpress.com . – Fawn
Thanks for sharing @fawndemurlcarriker:disqus
In my experience as a site producer for business websites- those which intend to make money, including professional bloggers- I see the same mistake being repeated over and over again. The business owner often fails to select the correct business model for their position/ability/market. When consulting with clients, my number one focus is to make sure the business model and marketing model line up with their actual niche and their actual ability to execute.
So what you’re saying here is really valuable for people to hear. If one starts with a successful model that fits one’s style and expertise- and stick with it- that’s huge- it’s most likely to be in the 5% that succeed versus the 95% that don’t. Great perspective.
It’s like train tracks. Don’t look left, don’t look right…just focus. It’s especially hard in the world of the internet where there are shiny little objects everywhere that distract our attention from our main goal. Instead of trying everything…just focus on one thing.
There will be another post following this one that will talk about USP’s if I can get focused on it. 😉
Thanks for the insightful comment @bellasys:disqus.
Really enjoyed this post Bradley. I love to teach so I know my model but also intend to “sprinkle on some expert interviews” because not only do I love people watching & asking questions, as you say it’s a great way to build authority when you’re getting started.
You’d better watch out! You are on my interview list now :).
Did you find your focus and write the post you mentioned about USPs?
I am becoming an expert blogger with goals of becoming a Host blogger very soon… With the interest of creating a curators blog. Thanks for the info! Looking forward to learning along with you! 🙂
I think that is smart. These are like guidelines to help focus the creation and give you a path to go down. What is your blog about?
80% curator and 20% host…great article! thx Bradley 🙂
My pleasure @alenamunda:disqus
Bummer…I don’t seem to fit into any of these categories. I have an exaggerated family/humor blog so I suppose I’m just floating around out there, waiting for a category to fit me 🙂
Maybe we should add in a new category for entertainers @sharonuleryruggieri:disqus! 😉
Maybe it falls in the journal style mixed with expert.
I’d love a new category for those of us who tend to…exaggerate. Okay…lie for entertainment purposes at the expense of our families 😉
🙂
lol Sh!t my dad says came immediately to mind!
I’m thinking 60% curator 40% publisher, love doing the research and tweaking blogs or articles to suit my purpose and happy to stay in the background where the real control is. Great article.
I like the background too Mike. 😉
I have one blog where I am mostly the expert but with a little journal. The second one that I will launch soon I am mostly curator with journal.
awesome thanks for sharing.
I do a bit of journaling, and curating. I started the blog because I have a reluctance to open-sharing and am in the process of overcoming it. I spend most of my time reading [fiction mostly] and now seems to be the time to share what I know and am.
http://knightofthefaith.blogspot.ca/2014/05/cocooning.html
One problem I have is that people’s comments don’t show! So I share them to Facebook to see the comments. Is there a solution for that?
I see your google plus comments on your blog. Is that what you are asking?
I plan to do a mix of expert and publisher where I bring my resources and others expertise to my readers regarding lead generation and blogging.
Awesome. Do you already have a blog?
I have a blog on wellness and health where I curate 75% and the content I contribute 25 % of my own content around my nutrition products. I started a new blog that is still very new that will be focused on providing readers with tips to bringing their business online, lead generation and blogging.
Undoubtedly, I’m an eclectic writer aka expert-journal type person. I like to write about what I know to provide help to someone who doesn’t know what I know, but I also like to write commentary on issues that “need” my voice. But what I want to know now is I can’t even find the subscribe box on Riseable, which I think is both a great idea and is something I’d like to read regularly. Thanks for curating!
Hmmm, if you click on an individual post, you will find the subscribe box. That also means we get to do a better job making more visible subscribe boxes. 😉
curator would describe me! its nice to have a better understanding of my style. very helpful!
Glad it could help.
Great information! I am building a site where people can buy, sell, and trade. I also have a blog on the site. I am researching the type of content I should run on my blog. People are able to buy, sell and trade goods and services at dealdickering.com. I just launched it yesterday so I currently do not have many ads listed on it yet. I have not done advertising yet as I am still researching marketing methods.
So, what do you think would be the best type of content that your idea “Avatar” would like to read?
I am going to use the blog to post the best deals of the day, featured listings and share quality reviews of products and services as well as connect with users.
What a great article! Honored to be mentioned 🙂
Thanks @JohnLeeDumas:disqus. I love what you have done with Fire Nation.
Love the article! I started as a journal but have logged my 10,000 hours and now I’m an expert. Thanks for letting me call myself one! Looking to take it to the next level, glad I saw you on FB – just subscribed 😉 Go.Be.Love http://www.backrowfaith.com
Thanks @mindihuebner:disqus. Glad to be connected and to see you are channeling your inner expert. You have a big path ahead of you!
We are slowly but surely making progress with it. Thanks for your support.
I fall into the expert model. I chose this direction very early on when starting my training as a health coach. News media reporting about health care and wellness is not very good. I want to help health coaches sort through the morass of “information” and provide them with health-related actionable items they can use in their daily practice.
Thanks for sharing @francoistheberge:disqus.
Great info / I actively blog and enjoy doing so
Thank you!
Love the breakdown with all of these…. Thank you @BradleyWill:disqus
I am into the expert model ~ so glad to find my calling. Maybe my blog with inspire others ~
http://divinelightlove.com/
Thanks for sharing!
I think that I fall into the expert category. I have just completed studies at the Institute of Integrative Nutrition and feel that blogging is an awesome way to build my brand. Great Article. Can’t wait to dive more into the information you have to share!!! Love Kris Carr!!!
Love it. With a passion for nutrition myself, I can say we need more bloggers publishing the truth online. There is too much garbage information out there when it comes to health.
I don’t pretend to be an “expert” on anything, but I feel like I fall into all five of these categories. Possible?
PS – I recently joined the LearnToBlog.com Premium program. Taking it slow as I’m an “A” type and want to do it right which may be my problem or downfall.
@jodirabinowitz:disqus, you can mix all models, but it is best to focus in on your main strategy. You can always expand once you have a solid flow. Pick one or two and start with those until you feel like you have it dialed in. And you readers will then know what to expect from you.
Great content! Things to think about…
Thanks Tracy
Thanks for the article! In 3 days I will retire from a career I love in corporate America, and move to my home in isolated South Africa. I’ve considered blogging many times, but simply had no additional badwidth to fit it into my schedule. Now, viola! Free time galore! This article help to put perspective on a direction I have been wanting to take. I have a lot more to learn about something I know nothing about setting up, but, what the hell. Nothing stopping me now but fear and common sense (and, well, deciding what to blog about). Thanks again…… see you in the blogosphere. 😉
Yes! That’s great news. Look forward to supporting you in spreading your message with the world.
Definitely Curator with Journal… Maybe adding video content or a video of an interview of what I might be journaling about at that particular time…
Thanks for sharing @disqus_ZMDRieLEQh:disqus
Great article I fall under the publisher model with my online magazine jamaicandivas.com
Thanks @disqus_JTXCvgYuDJ:disqus.
Wow wow wow! Love these options and now the internet actually makes sense. 🙂
Thank you! glad it was helpful @disqus_wFHlgZKR71:disqus
I need to use three of the five as I have some information for family, I need to interview people for topics as I use many different peoples videos for my analysis. Some topics need to be addressed directly so as my web sites say Edvized, my advise is going to be the main theme as an editor. Thanks for the focus!
You are most welcome
Hi Bradley! Excellent article. I am new to the blogging side of things but I know this will be essential to the “brand” and mission that I am now on. What I am hoping to create is a combination model. Ideally, it will be partially journal style-as I am working on a passion project to help other foster children through public speaking, a book series and coaching, but I’d also like to have a curator portion to continue featuring others that are working to inspire or may be seeking inspiration. I have a very positive message so I am excited to see where this leads. Thank you for all of this information!
Thanks @disqus_lpqwovfXxP:disqus and thanks for sharing about your business!
Bradley, thank you very much for your time writing this informative piece. It is greatly appreciated and see myself starting as journal and transforming to video then finally, and hopefully the host.
Be well,
Chris
This was a VERY informative article! I got a ton of new ideas from it; for example, reaching out to top experts for interviews, and also curating online materials. All these can point back to my brand in a good way and help me grow. Thanks for this!
Looks like I am the Expert (wan-a-bee), great! I didn’t know that!
astana-asi.kz