Naming my website Salmon Apple Pie should tell everyone that this entire project is supposed to be fun. I don’t know a blogger who wouldn’t want to make some money from blogging, but I don’t see the point of doing a whole bunch of stuff that I detest just for the sake of monetizing my blog.

This winter is a good opportunity for me to put my focus and effort into my writing and photography businesses. A big part of that for me is to educate myself about some of the best practices used by people who are already successful at the types of things I want to do. Of course, that means wading through the advice that isn’t worth the time it took to read the article.

I can’t continue to beat my head against the wall of bad advice and try to run my website the way the “experts” say I should. Lately I’ve put too much time into reading things like “the ultimate about me page for your website” and “gain 9 million subscribers by buying our proven formula” and of course the ever popular advice to find my niche (which I already ranted about in this post).

That doesn’t mean I won’t follow advice that makes sense, but I am going to stay away from the fads. Like the ones that claim it’s best to write epic blog posts of 5000 words or more, or to use single sentences as paragraphs – or worse, use both of those pieces of advice at the same time and produce something completely unreadable. A couple years ago the hot advice was to write as much as possible in list form, though now “listicle” is derogatory (and I normally never use that word, because it sounds too much like testicle – make of that what you will).

While I am serious about building my own business, that doesn’t mean I will focus on business to the exclusion of everything else. There’s that little thing called quality of life, and that means having some freedom in the work that I do. Which means I can skip taking on projects that are really offensive.

I recently joked to a friend that as a professional photographer, I can refer to watching the sun set or wandering the beach on a frosty morning as “work.” Over the years I’ve conditioned myself to believe that work has to feel like work. It has to be something I’d rather not do, and that’s why I get paid for it.

That it’s possible to get paid to do something I enjoy is a new concept. But that’s the reason I want to build my business. I want to choose to do what I enjoy, on my own terms, AND get paid for it.

That means I can try new things like looking online for remote worker jobs that require not much more than some spare time and an internet connection. I can post gigs on Fiverr (need internet research done? I’m available – click here.), and of course, I will continue to take photos (which, as always, you can check out on Fine Art America). If I revise my definition of work, that means I’ll put in even more hours now than I did with a real job.

Since I’ve decided to reject the advice that doesn’t make sense, it means I get to avoid a few things that I don’t want to do. That means I have more time to spend on taking photos and even blogging. And climbing up on my soapbox to rant about how everyone can be more creative…