Slave to the (algo)rithm?

This week, I published a post on LinkedIn that talked about how I’m moving away from promoting my copywriting and ghost-blogging services.  That I want to focus on writing as myself for a while.

Whenever I dreamed about being a writer, I was an author or a journalist, not an SEO copywriter.  I started my writing career in 2016 thinking I’d just do a little bit of copywriting until I became the next Hilary Mantel or Caitlin Moran.

Spoiler alert: the copywriting stuck.  So did the ghost-blogging, and the general telling of other people’s stories.

For the most part, I love it.  I get to meet some amazing people and learn about weird and wonderful things (tip: copywriters are fantastic pub quiz team members!)  But my own writing – the writing I do just for myself – has definitely got worse as a result.

The reason for that is… well, it’s this. Blogging to promote my own writing services.

I used to blog just for fun. 

My posts were nothing special.  Most were a bit rambling and silly, and occasionally absurd, but I genuinely enjoyed writing them.  My blog even generated a small band of followers: one of whom commented that I was “the female David Sedaris”.

(I’ve never had a better compliment than that!)

In 2018 a selected collection of those blog posts were turned into a book, called Procrastinations.  It’s a bit rough and ready, but the book is an ode to a period of my life that I enjoyed writing about, just for the love and the fun of it.

“I miss the days of just sort of feeling like you could create a community by talking in a sane and cheerful way to the world.” (Neil Gaiman)

But blogging for business means writing to sell.  So my blog went all tipsy and how-to-y, because you can’t write a business blog without “sharing some useful information with your ideal audience”.

Before long, I couldn’t write anything without sharing a little tip or a bit of unasked-for advice somewhere within.  When I worked on my novel, I realised I was unconsciously breaking the chapters up into “bite-sized chunks, to make it easier for time-poor readers to skim.”

(Incidentally, just like I’m doing here.  If you’re a time-poor reader, give me a wave!)

I’ve started to think that, in the mess of algorithmic concerns and customer-attraction strategies, I’ve sort-of forgotten why I loved writing so much.

So I’m re-claiming my words.

 Well… some of them, at least.  I’ll be ditching my own business blogging for something more personal.  I’ll soon be sharing my first novel with the minuscule part of the world who might be interested in reading it.  I’ve started a Substack newsletter that talks about writing as the humans we are.

I’m still doing my client work, by the way.  Just a little bit less of it, and only for people I really like.

I’m also branching out into writing-and-freelance-writing mentoring.

I already do the first part and I love it.  Helping others write something they’ve always wanted to write, but they just didn’t know how, is amazing.  But I also love mentoring because I understand the power of it.  Two different mentors helped me as I tackled the planning and first draft of my novel, and their guidance was invaluable.

I want to mentor would-be freelance writers, I’ve decided, because I’d have loved to work with one myself when I was starting out.  I didn’t have a clue, and an avalanche of well-meaning people kept trying to put me off.  Even my then-web designer (not the amazing Northsouth Design!) told me I was mad, because there were “too many writers already out there”.

I’ve since learned – mostly by accident – that just being good at writing isn’t nearly enough to survive as a freelancer.  So if I can make the process of starting out on one’s own less hairy and less scary for another writer, I’d be honoured.

So there you have it.

I’m breaking free of the algorithmic shackles, and it already feels intolerably good.

I’ll still be here, though this website will soon be changing to reflect all of the above.  Exciting times.

I hope I’ll see you around somewhere soon.