After blogging for a little over 2 years, on 10/10/2018 evening, my medium blog’s views per month hit over 100k. Thanks to Medium, those who share with me the journey, and you (Yes, you view this page and made the number).

And you know what? If I, a nobody in Android community can do it, anyone can do it. So I’m sharing what I did, in case you want to try it out.

Blogging needs passion

I love writing… well, I lied.

Like most developer, I don’t fancy writing. We hate boilerplate codes. We love to write shorter codes that achieve more. That’s why we like Kotlin, and not Java. (Yeah…❤️ Kotlin )

But I like collecting stuff. I like building something and collecting it. When I’m free, I glance over my collections. (Sorry, a little self-admiration)

And I like numbers. I like looking at graph and trend that means something to me. It doesn’t have to be 💰, … I’m just a number nerd 😝.

Well, what I’m trying to say is, to blog, you don’t need to love writing. Just look at what you are passionate about and link it to your blogging activities. You’ll be surprise the fulfillment it brings.

Blogging needs discipline

Yes, discipline… 🏋️‍. It is hard work.

Well.. it is hard, but it is also the easiest thing to do as a tech guy, to produce something.

Think over it, as an App developer, which is easier and have quicker turnaround time, while you could contribute to the community?

1. Write a good App?
2. Write a open source library?
3. Write a blog of what you learn?

I have tried all 3 of them.

The easiest would be to write a blog. You could come up with new one in a shorter interval time. The maintenance support of it would be lowest. And at times, you could produce it within minutes!!

But there are already so many blogs out there, what else to write?

Well, you are unique!

You read other’s blogs, if you think there are deficiency e.g. no example App, or lack of some explanations, or it took you some effort to understand it… something of your version might help.

I have trouble understanding Daggers, even though there are so many blogs out there… how I wish there’s a dummy version of it. So I wrote one.

Of course I combine with what’s latest (i.e. Kotlin… again!) and made it different, which helps further.

Blogging needs focus

If I am Barrack Obama, or Donald Trump… or Martin Fowler or Jake Wharton, whatever I wrote will be gold.

But I am not. I am a nobody. Just a simple Android developer who is keen of learning and sharing.

So I can’t write everything under the sun in my blog post. People only follow me because of the subject I wrote, and not because of who I am.

Because of that, I need to be focus on the topics I wrote, mainly about Android, with Kotlin as what I advocate for.

Within each topics as well, I notice at times, I get off focus of the message I tried to bring to the readers. I tried to cramp everything into that blog. This is not ideal, as blogging is not writing a user manual.

So focus, focus, focus 🎯… and…

Explore the adjacent topics

Having said that, I do wrote a little things that are not Android or Kotlin… e.g. a little in iOS, a little on AI… just to test out adjacent fields of interest. It’s good to explore adjacent things around a little, as nothing last forever.

Well, I know this blog you are reading now is not Android or Kotlin, and not technology at all. Thanks for reading this far. 😊

Blogging needs ecosystem

There’s a story…

Before Isaac Newton discovered the Law of Gravity, someone else in a country call Malaysia discover it. Unfortunately he discovered it after being hit by a thorny fruit called durian instead of an 🍎. And he died after that. Nobody knows his discovery.

Like any invention, you could blog the best post and most interesting one. It’s as good as writing on your private diary, if you are the only person that gets to read about it.

So we really need not just a system, but an eco-system that helps share your blogs to the right audience.

Here I personally thank Medium and Medium Staff again for providing such a great platform linking to readers of similar interest. Also thanks to Kotlin Weekly and Android Weekly, for featuring some of the articles.

Not forgetting all my followers and readers out there, who has willingly share, and even translate some of my blogs for others.

I hope this post would encourages you to blog and share your knowledge as well. Hear from you your side of story one day.

Follow me on medium, Twitter or Facebook for little tips and learning on Android, Kotlin etc related topics. ~Elye~