Is it OK to Start an Anonymous Blog Under a Pen Name?
If you want to become a successful blogger…
There is probably one big hesitation you have…
And that is…
Will people like my posts?
Will I add enough value for people?
Or will they hate me?
Will they ignore me?
These are some issues that every blogger faces when he starts his blogging journey.
I faced these issues a lot.
And to make sure that my content is loved and well received, I would often edit the articles several times.
And sometimes I would edit it so many times and still wouldn’t be satisfied.
And I would end up just saving the article and many articles like that have never seen the light of the day.
It has taken a long time for me to get comfortable with writing and publishing articles fast.
I have finally come to a stage where I can write an article and hit publish without editing it again.
This article has been published like that. No edits. No revisions.
This kind of confidence comes with years of writing practice.
And not just writing, but actually publishing it and distributing it to an audience.
Your first work might not get much traction.
You might get 100 readers if you are lucky.
You can spread your article on social media and within your personal network.
Out of 100 readers, may be 2 will leave comments on the article.
And these comments would be your motivation for writing more.
Take these positive comments as fuel to write your 2nd article.
And so on…
Nowadays, every article I write gets 50-100 comments.
And it fuels me even more.
It encourages me to write daily.
Now I am writing 1000+ words a day everyday.
That’s 30,000 words a month.
That’s like half a book per month, every month.
In a span of one year, it would be equivalent of publishing 6 books.
So that’s the secret sauce of bloggers.
They publish frequently, with less edits, with more confidence, and this is built over time.
But it is easier said than done.
Getting the first article out and letting yourself vulnerable to criticism is going to be a difficult task.
If you are a blogger and if you have been hesitating to get started, I know your pain.
That’s why there is a good solution.
You can start an anonymous blog under a pen name.
Many students ask me if that is legal and ethical to start a blog under a fake name.
It is perfectly legal.
There is no law that states that you have to be your true self when writing.
There are many authors who have publications in different verticals and markets.
They use a separate pen name for each market.
There is a marketer in US named Eben Pagan.
He also runs a dating advice business.
He has published ebooks, online trainings and also does live workshops under the name David DeAngelo.
Many people know that both are the same person. And many people don’t. And that’s OK.
If you start a blog under a pen name, then you can just start writing without worrying about negative comments.
If you get negative comments, you can ditch that blog and start new.
But there is a very less chance of getting negative comments.
Every blogger has a small percentage of haters, and that’s OK.
That’s the law of large numbers.
I get a fair amount of hate online.
But for every hater, there are 100 fans.
So I keep moving forward.
You need to get into that positive blogging loop.
Once you start getting positive comments and appreciation for your writing, you will be encouraged to write more.
If you can reach 1000 words a day consistently, then that’s blogging nirvana.
You will become a successful blogger, and no one can stop you.
So if you are having trouble getting started…
And putting yourself out there.
Start under a pen name.
Start an anonymous blog.
When you buy a domain name, you will be asked to enter your name and address.
But you can hide that information using WHOIS Privacy.
Every domain registrar will give you an option to enable privacy at a small cost.
Enable it.
Install a blog.
Start writing.
Note that there is no privacy available for .in domain names. (That’s India’s attitude).
I hope the government doesn’t ask every blogger to link their Aadhar number to their blog!
Anyway…
Back to blogging!
So that’s the idea.
Start a blog under a pen name and keep it anonymous.
Write a few articles and use it as a practice ground.
As you start getting some positive feedback, your confidence will go up.
You will know that even you can add some value to others.
Everyone has some unique ideas… and those ideas deserve to be shared.
Don’t let it die inside your brain.
As your confidence goes up, your writing output will go up.
With more writing, you will start getting more feedback.
And with more writing, your writing skills will improve.
And that’s how you become a better blogger over time.
If you want to take blogging seriously, and become a full-time professional blogger…
You need to Write, Write, Write.
And slowly, after a few years, you can start appearing on video.
If you have the confidence to become a video blogger right away, then by all means get started now.
But most of us, including me, won’t have the confidence to appear on video right away.
Once we have a tribe of fans, then we can get started appearing on video.
Because, in the long term, showing our face on video is very important.
Video helps us:
- Create more content faster
- Leverage the huge audience on YouTube who don’t want to read posts like this
- Build trust with the audience
- Create different types of content like humour, video interviews, experiences etc which is difficult to do with blog posts and words.
So that’s the idea.
Blogging is a marathon.
And you will eventually come into the top 0.1% of the bloggers…
If you keep writing.
I’ve been writing online for 10+ years now.
And that’s what has made me a “good blogger.”
I am still not sure, if I am good enough.
That feeling is always there… its just that I’ve learned to ignore it.
And that feeling of “I am not good enough” is good.
Because that feeling will keep pushing us to be better.
Because there is no limit to how good you can be… there is always a next step to it.
May be 5 years later, if I write this same post, it would come out much better than how it has been presented now.
People who think they are the best… usually are the worst.
And the come across as arrogant.
So you already have all the ingredients of blogging success inside you.
You just need to get started.
All the best!
Cheers,
Deepak Kanakaraju