Victor Agreda
DIY Life
DIY Life
“To blog successfully you have to be passionate
about something and stay true to it.”
about something and stay true to it.”
Are you puzzled by projects such as making new plants from cuttings? Or do you need to know what to do to get rid of the stench of a defrosted freezer or smelly sink drain? Do you know whether you should use coffee grounds as fertilizer, and with which plants? Can you really paint your car for www.diylife.com $300? Answers to these and related questions—as well as lots more completely unrelated questions—are free for the reading at DIY Life, a blog that delivers a steady stream of tips, ideas, do-it-yourself projects, how-tos, and pragmatic info such as product reviews and safety recalls. The blog’s categories include Home & Family, Home Improvement, Hobbies & Crafts, and Tech—with coverage of everything from crafting and power tools to home interior and mechanics. DIY Life’s editor, Victor Agreda, has an interesting mix of education and experience that is probably ideal for blogging on a mix of subjects. He has a degree in English, and went to journalism school and film school. He has worked for a cable television company and in a music library, where he was first exposed to things like Mosaic, HTML, Archie, and Gopher. Today Agreda teaches college-level English, as well as hands-on multimedia subjects. Working primarily in an administrative capacity, Agreda doesn’t get to blog nearly as much as he’d like, but he finds working with over a dozen bloggers mostly agreeable.
Victor Agreda’s experience across multiple blogging subjects proves that you don’t have to stick with one subject as a blogger. If something new attracts you and you are a fast learner, it’s possible to change your role in blogging. No matter what your subject, the following basic axioms and attitudes apply:
- Blogging for free on your own may win the attention of paying blogs.
- Participation in other blogs is one of the key elements to success in blogging.
- The major challenge for bloggers today is to find fresh, original material that is not simply an echo of what other blogs are doing.
- You must write on subjects about which you are passionate. If you are not passionate, it will eventually come out and you’ll lose respect and, along with it, readers.
- Participate in the community of blogs and other entities involved with your subject.
- Just about any sort of experience or education can be useful to a blogger.