The day was Tuesday 21st November 2017 and it was my final day working as an Independent Distributor for retail company Kleeneze. I decided sales wasn’t the role for me and instead I wanted to pursue my writing, media and journalism skills further. Therefore I took the plunge, registered to WordPress, subscribed to the personal plan, created a domain name and my blog was born.
On Friday 8th December 2017, after 2 weeks of building and customising, Rock For Disability was launched.
Today it is celebrating it’s first anniversary and what a year it has been. The blog has reached over 7000 page views and gained over 1100 followers.
I have written 100 blog posts plus reblogged other bloggers posts, produced guest posts and shared my freelance writing for Disability Horizons.
In July, I upgraded my blog to a premium plan which allowed me to use monetising features including WordAds and payment button.
I came up with the idea of creating a donation buttton in order to fund money for my blog and save up for a business upgrade. In addition, I wanted to contribute some of the money raised to disability charities. So far in the past 5 months, I’ve raised a total of £175 with 20% going to 5 disabled charities. Thank you to everyone who donated.
Why did I become a blogger?
I’ve always enjoyed writing from a young age and have had aspirations to become a journalist since the age of 11. For the past few years people have said to me that I should write a blog but with my studies and other personal engagements, I did not feel I could commit to it on a full-time basis and have the right content to share at the time.
However, when I graduated from university in 2016 and was struggling to find employment, I had to find a way to keep my mind busy and my days productive. Plus my mental health had declined rapidly and having this blog has been a lifeline and a great source of therapy that has allowed me to express my feelings and emotions.
My aim for this blog is to share my experiences of living with cerebral palsy, being registered blind and trying to live an active lifestyle. Also my dream job is to be a music journalist. Therefore I’m eager to share my love of music, support and promote new and upcoming artists and demonstrate my skills of writing music reviews and conducting interviews with bands and musicians.
Why the name ‘Rock For Disability’?
The name of my blog ‘Rock For Disability’ was decided almost instantly. I thought it was strong, bold and creative. It signifies that I am a lover of rock music who happens to have disabilities. Also it gives the message that we should embrace our disabilities and celebrate them by going out and rocking the disability lifestyle.
What tips would I give to beginner bloggers?
- Blog about something you’re passionate about. For me it is all about lifestyle, disability and music.
- Plan a regular schedule. For example I do music blog posts on Mondays and lifestyle/disability blog posts on Fridays,
- Regularly share your blog posts on social media. I use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & LinkedIn but so far I have found Facebook to be the most effective, especially when it comes to blog, disability & music Facebook groups.
- Follow and interact with other bloggers. You have to give something to gain something. This is the same for blogging. If you share their post, they’ll share your post. If you follow their blog, they’ll follow your blog and so on. Plus in some cases this could lead you to gaining contacts, guest blogging opportunities, paid opportunities and even friendships.
- Blogging is a marathon, not a sprint. When you first start blogging, your only readers are likely to be your parents, siblings, partners and friends. However the more you work on it and you continuously share, your audience will grow. The most important thing is to enjoy it and have fun!
Thank You’s…
And finally, I want to thank a few people from the blogosphere:
- Glen Turner from Well Eye Never for nominating me for the Sunshine Blogger Awards and giving me a mention in your abseil fundraiser.
- Shannon Weston for letting me write a guest post titled Mainstream vs Specialist Education on her blog Little Sea Bear.
- Larree Carnes from CreativelyAble who backlinked my Broken Biscuits blog post on her blog post Bad A$$ AnimalsAlso thank you for letting me including your blog name in my Disability Horizons article What is acceptable disability terminology?
- Georgiana Lupescu from My Beautiful Trauma who was my first guest blogger with her post Hep B and letting me guest post on her blog with my post 10 facts about CP.
- Pippa Stacey, a community officer for the disability charity Scope, who invited me to be a guest blogger on their community blog for their Christmas feature. My blog post will be published soon.
- Andrew Dex from Stencil PR for letting me interview bands and musicians for my music content.
What’s coming next?
Over the next 4 weeks I will be posting some annual blog post roundups plus some festive content. Then in the new year I aim to continue blogging twice a week and also create myself some blogging resolutions for 2019. More details of this coming soon!
Thank you to everyone who has viewed, liked, commented, shared, reblogged and donated to this blog over the past 12 months. I appreciate all the support and looking forward to next year’s blogging adventure!
Merry Christmas and a happy new year!
The time soon flies doesn’t it? Happy anniversary, and thank you for the shoutout! Hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year! 🙂