Imagine you started a brand new magazine last January. A year later, you’ve managed to attract 30,000 subscribers, and at least 200,000 people are picking up individual copies at the newsstand, with many hundreds of thousands more paging through your publication at the checkout line. Not only that, the magazine is already in the black. And all without mentioning a certain pantiless pop star. Sound far-fetched? Not if you’re Leo Babauta, the author behind Zen Habits, the rookie blog sensation of 2007. OK, it’s not a print magazine. But in this brave new world of online media, it could very well be the next best thing.
Babauta, a veteran staff and freelance writer, started the blog at the beginning of 2007 as nothing more than a personal journal about simplifying his life. At first, family and friends were his only readers. But word about the blog started to spread. Visitors stopping by for a look found themselves getting hooked on his soothing prose and insightful advice. Other bloggers started singing his praises. The numbers kept mounting. And by October, Zen Habits had achieved the near-impossible: It cracked the Technorati 100, the list of the most popular blogs in the world. Today, the blog is in the Technorati 50. (For those who’ve lost track, there are at least 100 million blogs out there. And counting.)
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Over 30,000 people subscribe to the Zen Habits RSS feed, and that number will surely rise — it’s already up from 24,000 a month ago. In December, Zen Habits received 800,000 unique visitors, with 200,000 of those returning more than once. (For comparison, the Drudge Report received 1.3 million unique visitors that month, according to a recent article in Portfolio.) The blog, which makes money off advertising, is doing so well that Babauta, a modest, 34-year-old father of six who lives on Guam, is now quitting his job as a legislative analyst to devote himself full-time to the blog, as well as to a new online business venture, and … drum roll, please … a brand, spanking new book contract.
mediabistro.com caught up with Babauta to ask him how he went from being just another Joe Blogger to one of the leading Internet scribes, and a self-supporting one at that — all in a single year.
How did the idea for Zen Habits come about?
I had a great year in 2006, making some amazing life changes, from quitting smoking to training for and running my first marathon to starting to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to getting my life organized to eating healthier and simplifying my life to doubling my income and starting to eliminate my debt. Accomplishing goals like this, and creating a series of new and positive habits, it’s something you want to share with people. So I created a blog, most of all to post my goals and hold myself accountable for them, but also to share what I learned along the way with others. It turns out that there were a lot of people like me, looking to make similar life changes.
When you started, were you trying to create something that would have a wide readership and would become well-known? Or were you just creating something for family and friends?
It was mostly just something for myself, and family and friends, but there were points in the beginning when I was reading other blogs and thought to myself, “I can do that!” I mean, I read some great blog posts, but they weren’t anything that I couldn’t write. I felt I was as good a writer as most bloggers out there, and that I had a lot of things to share too. So I wrote some early posts with the desire to learn the new medium of blog writing (which is different from other forms of print journalism), and to see how well I could do it. When I thought I could do it well enough, I started to share links with others, and it just took off from there.
At what point did you realize the blog was becoming bigger than just one guy’s personal journal?
There wasn’t one point. The few early visitors to Zen Habits just loved my posts, and it encouraged me to try more. The more I wrote, the more people came, and the more positive the reactions were. I mean, these were extremely positive, praising reactions. It was very encouraging.
What did you start doing differently, once you realized you had a real audience out there?
Every writer, if he’s good, writes for an audience. That might be an audience of one or one million, but you have an audience with certain interests and backgrounds in mind. With new visitors came a new audience, and I began to feel them out, based on their comments and
emails, and to start the process of discovering what they were interested in, and to write with them in mind. Writing is a conversation, and as new people came into the conversation, my writing changed. I’m still going through that process, and probably always will be.
What specifically did I do differently? I think I began exploring the form of writing on blogs that’s a cross between a feature magazine article and a memoir. That is to say, they are often how-to articles that address a particular reader problem, written in a more conversational style. I’m still experimenting with that form now.
How did your readers find out about you?
Well, in the beginning I had to tell them I was there, otherwise no one would have found me. I posted a link or two on other blogs, just letting them know about a related article I’d written. I also posted on some forums now and then. Those links would bring in perhaps a dozen readers. But those readers would stay, and some of them would post a link on their blogs. From there, things grew, a little slowly at first, but they snowballed. Bloggers link to me, and other bloggers
read those blogs and then link to me, and so on.
There are a jillion blogs out there, and a bunch of them focusing on self-improvement. What about your blog stood out from the rest and led to the following you’ve built?
That’s something I’m trying to figure out myself. Based on what my readers have told me, it seems that I offer very practical, rubber-meets-the-road advice, as compared to more generalized advice you might find on some blogs. I’ve also been praised for my style, which people say is humble and down-to-earth. It’s hard for me to judge whether that’s true or not, but I’ve heard it enough times from readers that I can’t discount it anymore.
But just as importantly, I think I’ve tapped into something that many other people haven’t. Specifically, I focus on simplicity in a world where others focus on doing more. They are worried about getting things done with new technology, while I’m more concerned with scaling back in the face of the chaos of our technological world. I don’t eschew technology, but instead advise that we don’t have to do everything, just because we can. There is more information available than ever before, but we don’t need it all. We get thousands of emails, but don’t need to respond to all of them. That has turned out to be a powerful message that appeals to a lot of people like me.
How much do you think using the word “Zen” in the blog’s name and its visual design (with its soothing white space and gentle gray font) has played in the blog’s appeal?
The word “Zen” and the uncluttered look of the blog tie in directly to the message of simplicity that runs throughout my blog. The name, design, and content are in unity, and I think that’s incredibly
important. It’s easy to talk about simplicity, but it’s harder to actually do it. The simplicity of my message that’s implied in the name Zen Habits has hooked into a consciousness that rarely has an outlet in our online society. I think that’s helped my appeal tremendously.
How is the blog doing financially?
I make more money blogging than I do at my day job these days. In fact, I’m quitting my day job.
You’ve said on your blog that you’re conservative in the number of ads you accept. How has the blog been able to meet your financial needs, if you aren’t taking as many ads as you could?
You have to think about the reader first. When I go to another blog and there are a lot of ads on it, it turns me off, and I don’t come back. My fear is that I’m going to overwhelm the reader with too many ads, so I’ve tried throughout the year to limit how many ads I have on there, to keep it relatively clutter free, and to use the ad networks that really work.
Having a bunch of ads does not guarantee revenue. What really brings revenue is traffic. So what you really have to focus on is attracting readers — ads don’t attract readers, great content does. First, build up a destination. The readers will come, and if the readers come, the revenue will come — not the other way around.
| “The reader is the new editor.” |
In addition to your day job, you’re also a freelance writer. Historically, freelance writers have been at the mercy of the traditional media establishment. Newspaper, magazines, and books — run by editors and publishers — were the only ways a writer could get their work out, and make a living. But blogging is changing that. With blogging, a writer can get their work out and generate income all on their own. How is this changing the equation for writers, or changing the balance of power between editors/publishers and writers?
Going from freelance writing to blogging is incredibly, incredibly liberating. I’ve always been at the mercy of an editor. I can propose topics for articles, but in the end it’s their call. I can write articles with unique angles, but in the end, if they don’t like it, it doesn’t fly. I can put in my personal opinions and anecdotes, but more often than not they will be cut out. So my creativity is
stifled by the traditional freelancer-editor model.
As a blogger, I can write about whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. The pressure of deadlines, of meeting someone else’s expectations, of being limited to a certain kind of writing, it’s all gone. The need for an editor is gone.
I’ve been an editor. I know the value of an editor for a newspaper or magazine. But for a blog, it’s completely unnecessary. In the end, the reader is the new editor. The reader will decide what he likes to read, and if a writer isn’t good, the reader will go elsewhere. The reader’s choices are the ultimate edits.
You made a somewhat controversial decision recently to make all the content on your blog copyright-free. Anyone can use it any way they like, though you’ve asked folks to credit you if they do use it. Why did you decide to give up your copyright?
It highlights the changes that are happening in the publishing world. It’s definitely a change in the mindset of traditional publishing. Copyright was necessary when publishing and distribution was limited and expensive. But nowadays distribution is unlimited and publishing is extremely inexpensive.
I see the new business model being completely different. Now, the more people who know your name and know your brand, the better. From a business standpoint, if someone wants to share my content with friends, and they share it with more friends, you might say you’ve lost revenue … but from my point of view, I haven’t lost revenue because I never would have gotten that revenue anyway. But this way I’ve gained more readers, and the model of the future is to gain as many readers as possible.
What’s in store for you in the year ahead?
First is just to continue to improve Zen Habits. That has become my greatest joy in life.
The second thing is my book [The Power of Less, to be published by Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff publisher Hyperion]. That is going to be a major accomplishment in my life, one of the biggest things that has ever happened to me. I want to do a great job with it.
I’m starting a second blog, called Write to Done. It’s a blog for writers. I’m going to cover everything from writing your first novel and selling a book to writing great blog posts and the business side of freelancing. I’m not really doing it to make money but to write about stuff that I’m interested in writing about. If it eventually makes money great, but if not, it’s a great outlet for me to write about things I want to write about.
And I’m starting an online business with a partner, Glen Stansberry of the LifeDev.net blog. We’ll be selling a series of short ebooks, guides to doing different things on the Internet. It’s a way for me to share some of the things I’ve been learning online. The online market is really growing. People are just starting to get into writing blogs, even to get into reading blogs. The audience for these kinds of things is going to be greatly expanding in the next few years.
So you get to the end of 2007, and there are at least 30,000 people out there who think you’re a rock star. How about your wife? Does she think you’re a rock star? Or just the same old guy who can’t manage to get his dirty socks in the hamper?
[Laughs] She definitely thinks I’m a rock star. She’s been so supportive and so excited about my success — more than anyone else, with the possible exception of my mom. Every time something great happens, I call her up or instant message her to share it.
Tips for creating a blog with mass appeal
1. Be useful
“Figure out what problems people face in their lives, and write incredibly useful articles that help them solve those problems. The more useful info, the better.”
2. Write great headlines
“Headlines are the most important words the blogger writes. They are the only thing people see when they read your blog in an RSS feed reader. They see a bunch of headlines and decide whether they’re going to read more based on your headline. I use magazine covers as a model — whether Cosmopolitan or Men’s Health — they have a bunch of cover lines that are designed to draw readers in.”
3. Sell yourself
“Promote your brand by networking, by writing great guest posts for other blogs, and through social media such as Digg and del.icio.us.”
4. Integrity builds loyalty
“Always, always, always remember that the readers must come first and must be central in everything you do. If you have things on your blog that are about your blog’s promotion, or about promoting anything else, and are not there for the reader’s benefit, remove them.”
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