Premium Subscribers Q&A – September 2023
How to get started writing online and coaching for software developers.
Hi all, and welcome to the first premium subscribers Q&A issue.
The questions are: How do I get started writing online? Do software developers need coaching? Plus, tips for head shaving!
Only part of this post is accessible to free subscribers. Refer friends to unlock complementary premium subscription tiers.
Before we begin, I apologize for sharing this later than promised. I’ve been under the weather, and it was all I could do to work on the previous post while juggling my day job and family stuff.
How do I get started writing online?
To start writing online, the first thing to do is get a URL. The second is choosing where to host your work. But a memorable domain and a fine-tuned publishing workflow are useless without writing to share on your site. So, let’s focus on how to actually get started writing.
Writing online can be daunting. There are so many great writers out there that one can’t help asking, “What’s the point in adding my voice?”
But your writing matters.
No one has ever written your version of those ideas that you others have already shared. Don’t discount your reframing of other people’s ideas. (That’s like 99% of what I do here). Don’t underestimate the difference it could make to someone who thinks just like you and will find your post at a time when they need it.
Another common hurdle to publishing online is getting used to translating thoughts into coherent sentences and then packaging them for others to read. Before starting your “official” blog, it might be helpful to practice in a publishing environment that has little friction and allows you to share less refined writing. For example, you could post tips on Reddit, business insights on LinkedIn, or knowledge-sharing pages on your team’s Notion.
Operating in an environment where you can publish fast will let you build up your writing muscles in preparation for your own publication. From there, it’s mostly a matter of putting in the reps and pushing your quality bar higher.
To start writing online, start writing online. Publish somewhere, anywhere, and look for constructive feedback to improve.
In the beginning, I mentioned domain and hosting. A few words on both.
Owning your own domain matters. If you don’t own the writing you publish by having it under your URL, you are liable to the whims of the platform that hosts it for you. The platform and publishing tech are irrelevant compared to the content you’ll share. Having your own URL will allow you to migrate platforms without losing your work.
The irony is not lost on me, given I’m publishing this advice on Substack under mokagio.substack.com
. In my defense, my home remains giolodi.com
, and Substack is merely a convenient way to send emails and do paid upgrades.
Once you have grabbed your URL, you must choose where to publish. There are so many options to choose from, each with its own tradeoff, to lock anyone in analysis paralysis.
Self-hosted WordPress* instance on Digital Ocean or static site on GitHub pages? Managed platforms with custom URLs like Medium and Substack or communities like dev.to?
The truth is that there is no best platform for first-time writers. It all depends on the writing and publishing experience you want. As a coding nerd, I built my own custom publishing system for my previous blog, mokacoding.com. It was a complete waste of time, but it was fun for me.
If you don’t know what to choose, look at what other writers in the same space are doing and copy them. Don’t sweat it; remember that the platform matters less than the content.
Happy writing!
Footnote about WordPress: Full disclosure. I work for Automattic, the builders of WordPress.com and one of the major contributors to the open-source WordPress.org. This post is not affiliated with my work there and you’ll notice how I have not endorsed one technology over the other and in particular mentioned the free, open-source version over the one my employer offers. To address any remaining doubt of being partisan, here are a few competitors you might want to look into: Ghost, Squarespace, Wix.
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