How My Blog Has Gone From A Hobby To A Job

It’s been seven years since I started blogging. During those last seven years so much has changed. When I made the decision to start a blog it was actually born out of boredom.

I had an accident at work. I fell from a ladder one day doing my job as a painter and decorator and I broke my wrist in four places. Consequently this meant I was unable to work for approximately six weeks.

My wife who already had a blog suggested I start one myself, and I thought why not. At the time there were very few dads giving their perspective on parenting and of course it would give me something to do while I was off work.

When I started blogging it was purely as a hobby. I never thought in my wildest dreams that all these years later I would be earning a living as a blogger/influencer. What changed was the rise of the dad blogger/influencer and that is something that has happened across blogging and also across social media channels such as Instagram. Instagram dads are now an important part of the influencer market.

As I have said I started blogging purely as a hobby, but after a couple of years I was named in a Top Ten Dad bloggers list and that was the moment that my blogging life changed. I was instantly more visible in the world of influencers than I had ever been before and all of sudden PR companies started to noticed me and pitch to me to promote brands on my blog. In the beginning this was quite scary because they would ask my fee for promoting a brand and to be totally I didn’t have a clue what to charge. Thankfully I had built up friendships with other dad bloggers so I was able to seek advice on what I should charge.

It was a very different type of blogging to what I had previously done. Before I was able to please myself about how often I wrote and what I wrote about. As I’m not being a trained writer I now had to deliver blog posts that were promoting a brand and make it interesting to read, and in keeping with my particular niche for my blog. Initially that something I found very difficult, but as the saying goes, practice makes perfect.

When I named my blog DIY Daddy it was with the intention that I wanted to write about the subject DIY, but also combine it with my experiences of being a dad and this is something I believe I have managed to do reasonably well.

The last five years of my blogging life have without question at times been a whirlwind. I have been lucky enough to be invited to many press events and as a family we have been very fortunate to experience some amazing adventures and create some wonderful memories.

Seven years after starting my blog I now earn a very good living from it and I guess I’m what you would call a dad blogger/influencer which is a strange title for a job.

As I have already said it’s been seven years since I wrote that first blog post and now I have written several thousand blog posts, and it’s possibly had a little luck in my success but the truth is, it was hard work and dedication to writing the best I can and make my content as engaging as possible which I hope I have done and if just one person has been helped by what I have written then it’s all been worthwhile.

So from a fall off a ladder at work and boredom at being stuck at home for many weeks my blog was launched and I couldn’t be more grateful. It’s been wonderful and so much fun.

This is a collaborative post.