A lot has happened since I began blogging last year. Perhaps the most surprising thing is the amount of people I have met. Who’d have thought that sitting in front of your computer would get you doing so much? As part of the blog’s birthday celebrations, I thought I’d share some of its highlights and encourage some new people to blog.
To quickly summarise my life in the past year: I graduated from university, took a couple of unpaid internships, moved to London for a paid internship then stayed there for three more months looking for my next job. After finally realising that London was just too competitive and too expensive, I moved back to Manchester. A month later I got my job in a B2B (business to business) scientific and technology PR agency and have been there for four months. The blog has been a constant thing all the way through and it kept me busy when I was really down about applying for job after job and getting nowhere. Of course, I wouldn’t be blogging when I’m busy and happy if I didn’t enjoy it!
So, how can blogging get you a job? Well, it’s not an instantaneous miracle for sure. First, you need a theme, one that you’re interested in and one that you can write about for a long time. If you don’t think you’re much of a writer, take photos or draw instead. Second, you should spend a bit of time investigating – what blogging platform to use, how to spread word about it and so on. Expect a lot of changes along the way. If you look back at my old posts you’ll see there used to be a very rigid ‘weekly list’ structure, which meant hours of writing and a lot of skimming for the reader. The getting a job bit comes after a lot of patience and perseverance. Having something that you are passionate about and willingly spend a lot of time on for free is a good trait in a potential employee.
Rather than give you a long chronological passage saying ‘this happened, then this happened’, I’ll quickly run through the high points of Sophie’s Japan Blog and some goals for the 2012-2013 year!
- Being approached by Yatta Magazine to repost my blog
- Interviewing voice actor Vic Mignogna at MCM Expo
- Writing an article on the Takarazuka Troupe for Diverse Japan
- Taking part in Tokyo Podcast
- Interviewing Peter Payne of J-list
- Getting a press pass to Hyper Japan and writing a review in Cosplay Gen magazine
- Receiving an email from a reader in Russia saying how much she enjoyed the blog! 🙂
Goals for the next twelve months…
- Actually go to Japan and blog about my trip!
- Interview some more voice actors (dream candidates are Troy Baker and Patrick Seitz)
- Feature some more guest authors on the blog
- Go to a Japan convention elsewhere in Europe (suggestions below!)
If you’re thinking of starting a blog yourself, go for it! Also, if you’re already a blogger, please leave a comment below and share your own story.
Next week’s post … we’ll be rounding up Britain and Japan in the Olympics! Don’t forget to enter this month’s special giveaway if you haven’t already.
You’re doing a great job, Sophie! I know from experience how hard it can be to keep going with a blog sometimes, but you’re writing interesting and original content which I genuinely enjoy reading. Good luck for the next year! 😀
*Smiling* Reader in Russia can say it right now, actually 😀 Or you need email none the less? 😀
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