In my 'old' days (say the 1980s), I was on the review list of virtually all the big book and directory publishers (McGraw-Hill, Prentice-Hall, Dow Jones-Irwin, John Wiley & Sons, and so on). Every few weeks UPS or the USPS would deliver 10-20 pounds worth of great business books (in the spring and fall, the deliveries would be every week).
My 'job' would be to read and make a nice comment on the work so that the publishers could use it on the dust jackets (man, am I getting old--anyone remember dust jackets?) as they would appear in the bookstores. Of course I wasn't paid, nor could the publishers 'force' anyone to make a comment--or even read the work--but many of the authors of the books I knew personally and did comment. Yet here was an interesting fact...
We All Must Find and Write In Our Own Individual Voice
No one matches you in uniqueness--no matter what the subject. As blog writers, we often consider ourselves 'authors' of our content--much like authors of books and magazine articles. We fear someone writing about the 'same stuff we are writing about.' In my book shipments, for example, every year I received at least two books with the title such as "THE Definitive Guide To Selling" or variation thereof.
Of course it became dicey to write about any two 'definitive' work on a subject when I knew both authors. This was true in many, many business subjects--real estate, training, consulting, selling, marketing and so forth. The authors would call and complain that they heard 'someone else' was writing on their subject with their own book coming out at the same time and they worried themselves silly. Christian authors do not escape this feeling by the way. It's simply a human trait.
Frankly, the first year I did reviews I was concerned,too, but when both titles ('definitive' or otherwise) proved to be marketplace successes, my fear level went down and my confidence level went up.
Then I started to experience it myself with my own reports. At one time, as I mentioned before, we had five authors writing on marketing professional services, including myself, and I was personal friends with three of them in the Washington, DC area. But the fact is that we all had good businesses. We found out that many of our customers also bought each other's work. It was an amazing feat.
What Does This Have to Do With Finding My Blog Voice?
Very much indeed. If you look at writing as a daily habit--even if you only spend a half an hour a day or so on it--you will find your own voice and things such as 'writers block' will be very much lessened.
This is why we need to be passionate about the ministries we choose to write on. It takes about two months or so for the search engines to absorb our keywords, so we need to be vigilant (passionate) about our subject. Once comments come in, that only encourages us. Plus, NO ONE can write about your passion ministry like you can! Period. End of story.
Once you have a list of followers (my choice would be that you buy a good piece of autoresponder software (more on this coming when we launch our resources box) in which to keep your own list), you may feel pressured to write more. And that pressure is what usually produces writer's block for you.
It is just like having a passionate goal--a goal 'pulls' use while clients and other pressure pushes us. A big difference. Writing every day gets you in shape and greatly lessens any pressure that you would feel.
No one writes like you. No one speaks exactly like you. No one cares exactly like you. Look at Moses--when he felt God's Big Assignment, he wimped out with Aaron (not unlike we all have done at times)--"he's a good talker, Lord."
As I've already mentioned, we know whether we are at our best writing or speaking. A blog allows us that platform . And you are reflecting any glory you receive back to God, yes?
If You Write It They Will Come--Or Not
Your 'voice' is your brand. The brand is what people 'buy'. People 'buy' you. I thought I was a pretty hotshot writer back in the 1980s and early 90s on business subjects because early on I would hear from my customers that had purchased previous reports of mine,
"Hey, Steve, why don't you keep my credit card on file and hit it when your next report
comes out. I really like your stuff and don't want to miss anything you write."
Pretty heady stuff. I really tried not to get a big head over it. But then I was at an 'exclusive' conference of other small publishers and to a person they told me pretty close to verbatim of what some of my folks told me! Bubble popped. But I trust my 'voice' point it made.
You are unique. God made us each that way. If He put an 'itch' in you for a ministry, rest assured that you can reach people that no one else can, OK?
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