Ask HN: Experience Starting a Blog

[hintoftime]

Hello HN,

What has your experience been in starting a tech blog? I want to start one as a way to explore and express my interests, which currently include HTMX, Django, Python, and data engineering. I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback. Was that something that you pushed through when starting? Did starting a blog lead to a new job?

Thanks!

[sph]

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback.

Then don't. Don't add a comment section. Unless you have built an extensive community around your site, having open comments just invites drive-by criticism or generally people demanding, rather than stopping by to say nice things.

What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end, where one can directly write to me, and I can respond via email. There is no promise of being published, which discourages spammers and drive-by snark, requires a valid email and promotes 1-on-1 communication which is much healthier and personal than the average Web 2.0 public comment widget.

---

But, in general, do not write for an audience. Write for yourself. Write to get better at writing. Write because someone might find it useful, without having any engagement target. In that frame of mind, who cares if one doesn't like your content? The worst that'll happen is one will scroll by. They'll click the link, skim, and move onto the next shiny thing. We mindlessly and compulsively scroll down our social media apps until something piques our interest. This is the default mode of navigating the internet for most of us. If one stops by, spends time to comment on your post, it means they cared enough to.

[TrueGeek]

> What I am thinking to add on my personal website, though, is a "send a reply" box at the end

I just list my email address. FastMail's spam filters are good enough that I rarely get spam so it hasn't been a problem. Occasionally I'll get an email from a dev asking following up questions or if I can help them with their code. It's nice to know that it's not just my mom reading the site.

[jaw]

I do this too—every post has a footer telling people they can email me with feedback, along with a mailto link. I maybe see one piece of spam every few months because of it. And once in a while I get feedback that I really enjoy. As the top-level comment mentioned, there are advantages to 1-on-1 communication.

[victorstanciu]

> I just list my email address.

That's what I did too. I added a mailto: link to the Hugo post template that also prefills the subject line with the title of the post when you click on it. The interactions I've had with this method feel much more meaningful to me than the average comment thread, for all the reasons @sph already mentioned.

[reactordev]

Analytics could tell you that without exposing your email address to the world.

[TrueGeek]

But analytics wouldn't allow me to respond to the people asking for help.

The site has been up for over 20 years, I think I added the email address about 10 years ago. If it was a mistake and would result in massive amounts of spam surely I would have felt the effects by now.

[throwup238]

Did you obfuscate the email in any way or is it a mailto link?

[TrueGeek]

Nope, just a mailto:

https://truegeek.com/contact

[derekzhouzhen]

If you don't want negative feedback, don't publish anything. You need the negative feedback; what you don't want is toxic feedback not aiming at you, but at other readers, and try to steal eyeballs for themselves.

[Ayesh]

I wanted to echo all the comments here saying to turn off comments is a great tip. I have quite a few blogs/personal projects that I write weekly or more frequently.

My tips would be:

- Use Markdown. It makes writing so much more faster and takes away the focus from markup.

- Do not focus too much in the technical details. Content is still the king.

- That said, make yourself familiar and follow great typography patterns in your blog. Use legible fonts faces and sizes, clear separation, hierarchy, etc has the best impact.

- Have your email address visible. I find it be more effective than contact forms. You will get all sorts of feedback, but you can still decide if you want to respond to them. In my experience, people who take the time to compose an email tend to provide constructive and generally positive feedback.

- Decide a "tone" that you want to follow. For example, I have my technical content separate from personal, and travel content separate from the rest. It's sometimes refreshing to be able to speak in different tones.

- Be open about what you expect from the blog as well. If you hope to land in a better job, saying it openly won't hurt.

[muhammadusman]

As someone who has had a blog for almost 10 years, with varying amounts of attention put towards it, this is what I can tell you.

- You're probably overthinking starting it. Just sign up for a blogging service, don't try to set up your own thing unless you're going to use that experience and write about it. I have had a blog in plain html/css, a PHP-backed one, a self-hosted Ghost, a self-hosted Wordpress, and ultimately, I settled on not self-hosting a Ghost instance and it has been the best way to write because paying $9/mo is a lot easier for me than to update deps or manage bugs when I'm trying to write about something on my mind.

- Don't worry about the negative feedback. If or when someone leaves negative feedback, this is your blog, delete it. It's the easiest way to get rid of it. Some people just have negative attitudes, don't let them bring you down too.

- And another comment on feedback, most people will take time to leave feedback that's positive or encouraging because they want you to keep writing.

- Write for yourself, like get someone off your chest, think through things in your head, don't let the wider internet audience be the judge of what you should be thinking about or writing about. It will help you grow as a writer and hopefully as a person too.

If you see this, I hope you go out there and start writing.

[zerojames]

Share your blog! I was literally writing about starting blogs 10 minutes ago (https://jamesg.blog/2024/01/06/the-web-is-yours/).

You can take your blog in whatever direction you want; you can write technical, professional posts, or write about anything else that interests you! No matter what you write about, there is probably someone out there who will be interested in what you have to say. If you share your blog I'll take a look. Now you already have a prospective reader :)

I am unsure the extent to which my personal blog was weighed when I applied for my current job, but generally having a technical blog is a plus. Being able to point to blog posts where you have at least one post on a project you worked on, a bug you fixed, things you have learned, how you solved a problem, etc. is incredibly valuable.

[RobinL]

Fellow data engineer here. I started mine because I felt I was making the same arguments again and again at work, often ineffectively.

I found that by taking time to collect my thoughts and write them down made them clearer and more persuasive. An unexpected side effects it that I started to have greater influence beyond my immediate team, with random colleagues emailing me about posts. Though it hasn't directly found me a job it has resulted in people asking me to apply to positions.

Later I added more technical content and tutorials about the problems I was immediately working on, partly just as a way of documenting things I'd found out and helping myself to understand them.

Overall I think it's been extremely valuable in terms of self development and my career (but this is heavily influenced by the fact I enjoy doing it)

I would say don't think too much about your audience to begin with and just write about things you're personally interested in. I've literally never had negative feedback/trolling (probably because there's no comment section). I have virtually met a number of people interested in similar topics who've contacted me after reading the blog.

Fwiw, by blog is https://www.robinlinacre.com/

[1268]

I started in May last year and it's been a blast so far. I find that writing about subjects makes me look at them more deeply then "just" working with them.

Putting the first few articles online was nerve-wracking though. I would recommend getting them out of the way as quickly as possible.

Also, finding the right post length can be challenging.

My blog/articles about Go dev: https://www.willem.dev

[selfishclouds]

I love your website design! When I opened it just now I said “oh wow nice” out loud.

[1268]

Thanks! :D

[aspenmayer]

I second that! It's a very clear and concise site, it feels personal in voice and tone, and yet it is to-the-point without being pushy or stuffy. Great job.

[rchaud]

Your worries about negative feedback are premature. It's hard to get anybody to read a blog regularly. At best a post will make the FP of HN and get ~50 comments. Maybe you'll get an email from someone who subscribed by RSS and thus gets your content updates. That's not so bad, is it?

[soared]

You can write blogs all day and just never post them to social media/anywhere. Then the only way people find your content is if they’re searching google for the niche keywords. It’s an excellent way to get your feet wet and only have very interested people read your content.

[netruk44]

This is what I do. Though I will admit, I don’t receive much traffic to my blog at all (obviously). So it’s discouraging in just a slightly different way haha. I think I (and perhaps OP) might prefer it that way though.

[syndicatedjelly]

Just write for yourself. Turn off comments, ignore “feedback”. Keep reading books, articles, blogs that you like, and eventually you’ll develop a writing style. If English is a second language, get help from a proofreader. Happy to proofread anything you send my way if you need one.

I would avoid AI tools like Grammarly. They have a very prescriptive style that they think is the single correct way to write. You end up sounding like everyone else writing like that.

You will always have at least one reader of your work - yourself.

[debadyutirc]

I have got several BigTech interviews as well as jobs through regular posting long form posts on LinkedIn.

One of the best framings I have learned is to teach yourself by writing. Think of it as a conversation with your friends and you are learning together.

Take the negative comments as a motivation to improve.

Go for it.

[dustincoates]

My question is how do you go from posting to interviews/offers? I've been blogging for years and I do it for my own sake, but I wouldn't mind these fringe benefits.

[aspenmayer]

Write a short synopsis/summary/teaser to blogs posts that are germane to work areas/technologies/languages that you'd like to work on at a future employer. Post these to LinkedIn with a link to your original long form blog post. If you know anyone who works at employers you're interested in, ask if they could pass these along as well as inquiring about what kinds of content they think would be of interest to them and others inside the organization. Do the same as above with content you discover is relevant to insiders; if you haven't already written such content, plan to make future posts on these topics, as you already know you have a target audience for such.

I'm working on this myself, for myself, as I hope to become self-sufficient and not dependent on any one employer, and also to increase the reach of content for its own sake for the benefit of all, not just a single team/group/org.

[Ayesh]

> how do you go

Well that's the thing... You don't. It's a very passive approach if you are actively looking for a job.

Posting solutions to interesting challenges you come across has a lot of potential getting asked to interview for jobs that solve similar problems. A generic article about "top 5 Gen AI projects" will be fruitless, but a post about how you practically "abused ramfs to make database tests 5x faster" might be.

[pocketarc]

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback. Was that something that you pushed through when starting?

Yes, that can be a bit scary. It can be difficult to take criticism, depending on how you handle it. I know that if I submitted a post to HN and everyone was hating on it, I'd feel awful, but only because I have a lot of respect for this community's opinions. If it was a random person? Who cares.

But it's so good being able to get your thoughts out. And I don't mean just how it benefits your career, but also in personal terms. You'll meet great people who share your interests, and when someone meets you, they'll see a ton of interesting stuff about you.

That's how I feel when I look at someone's blog.

I'll also echo sph's warning not to add a comments section. But don't be afraid to publish.

> Did starting a blog lead to a new job?

Even better, I met my co-founder and got VC investment because of one of my blog posts (which got picked up and mentioned by a16z).

[dewey]

You are overthinking it. Don’t fall into the trap to let that prevent you from writing. Don’t over optimize your blogging setup and just get writing.

Slightly related to the point of negative feedback: https://social.jvns.ca/@b0rk/111687674935331566

[yetanother12345]

Agree 100%

Also, worrying about negative comments is counterproductive. If you get even one single comment in the first year or two, negative or positive you should be glad. I have blogs that have ran for 10 and 15 years with a comment field but without a single comment*

* except the spam of course, which made me write a spam filter. That was a nice little project.

[freedomben]

If you're writing anything useful, then you will get some negative feedback. IMHO the key is to use it to your advantage. I treat it like a game (maybe similar-ish to chess), basically I made the first move, and here's a counter-move. It's now up to me to use my critical thinking skills to determine if the criticism is valid or not. If it is valid, I can change my thinking and grow as a person. If it's not valid, I can still grow as a person by identifying any fallacies and really figuring out why it's invalid. Win/win.

[yetanother12345]

> will get negative feedback

I strongly disagree. The most likely feedback will be zero, zilch, none. So, you should clearly write for your own sake only.

Also: I'd bet that 95% to 99.9999% of your visitors the first three to five years will be bots only.

Do it for your own sake, if you feel like it. Otherwise don't. Blogging is not anything to be afraid of, and you should really not think that your blogging matters to anyone but yourself until you have proof of that.

[lewiscollard]

As Todd Snider once said, "I might share some of my opinions with you over the course of the evening. I'm not gonna share them with you 'cause I think they're smart, or 'cause I think you need to know 'em; I'm gonna share 'em with you because they rhyme.".

You don't need to worry about negative feedback if you don't have a comments section. I implemented my blog myself with Django, and the reason it doesn't have a comments section is because I didn't write it, because I am lazy. But a side-effect of that is that the minimal effort it takes to open up a mail client and write something to the email address in the footer tends to weed out the lowest-effort shitposts & flames.

As for me, I started one (link in bio, as the kids say these days) thinking that it might become a tech blog, because tech is what I do all week, and probably what I know most about. And then it actually became me mostly writing occasionally about my car projects, because that is what I love. Don't worry too much about staying on topic, is what I'm getting at. "Be yourself" is a silly cliche (arguably not really a meaningful concept, either), but like, be yourself; regardless of the topic I can always read someone who writes about the things they are really passionate for.

[danielovichdk]

Listen my follow internet friend.

Write, Write, and then Write some more.

What you will find is that when writing with your heart and not trying to write what others want to read, then you will grow into a better you.

But don't ever write for fame or status. It will swallow you whole and leave you with nothing else than hollow texts that you have no attachments to.

And read more too. But don't read things that you work with. Read masterpieces. Read and use what you to your advantage ti write more.

But write. Please just write.

[heywoodlh]

I will echo the sentiments of writing for yourself as the intended audience. Write content that would benefit and interest you — especially when you solve problems that aren’t super well documented yet. I also just put an email address on my blog and let people reach out to me that way.

I would say my last three job positions I got because of my GitHub and my blog. I do not have a degree, so my GH and blog are where I am able to demonstrate my technical know-how. My most recent job interview, the people interviewing me used my blog (which was listed on my resume) as content for questions about my skills and interests.

Regarding negative feedback, I would say that you may encounter some, however, in my experience, people just won’t read your blog if they aren’t interested. Additionally, you likely will only get people who really care about your content if they have to email you — and everyone who has reached out to me via email has been thoughtful and constructive in their feedback to me.

Additionally, many people in my real-life circles don’t really find what I blog about as that interesting. That’s why writing for you and nobody else is critical.

If curious, you can find my blog in my HN bio, and my GitHub handle is the same as my handle here :)

Good luck!

[batterylow]

I used to write long and technical blog posts. I think it's unlikely someone will go out there way to give you negative feedback, i.e. not constructive.

My motivation came from my younger days where everyone (including myself) had their own little corner of the Internet, made with things like AngelFire and GeoCities. I missed that.

Nowadays, I prefer to make short posts, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. Of course, before I started, I had to write my own static-site generator... It's been years since I've ran my Patreon and I don't post on YouTube like I used to, so there's little to no engagement - which is OK with me.

[1] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/different-adjustments-for...

[2] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/my-pen-plotter-setup/

[3] https://shahinrostami.com/articles/colours-and-patterns-whil...

[jspann]

> What has your experience been in starting a tech blog?

I made one in 2014 (Blogger) then got bored and stopped. I tried again a few years later (Bloger, Medium, Wordpress), then got bored and stopped. I recently got interested in another attempt (BearBlog) which I'm looking into now. The issue for me was not a lack of topics but the opposite - I'd start writing about one thing and get side tracked and start writing about something else. A blog is a great way to explore your interests but it is important to stay focused on what you want to write about. I put too much emphasis on having a consistent output schedule and high standards on what I should write about, which eventually ended up with nothing.

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback. Was that something that you pushed through when starting?

I used to be worried about this too and usually consulted my friends or some writing assistants at my undergrad. I think this goes away the more you write.

> Did starting a blog lead to a new job?

No but some people saw my posts and remembered them when they saw me in real life later.

[cpach]

I try to write blog articles mostly for my own sake, my main purpose is to record my thoughts/ideas/experiences and to improve/maintain my writing skills.

I haven’t been active in promoting my blog, so I have not received much feedback at all (:

I imagine getting people to read one’s articles might involve quite much work and promotion. Could still be worth it.

[bensonn]

The main navigation on my site is: Thoughts/Ideas/Stuff. Thoughts- serve no purpose, brain dump so I can stop thinking about them. Ideas- I wish I could make but can't. Stuff- things I have made, mostly pointless and stupid

My mom said my website was fantastic. Other than her I doubt anyone has ever seen it and that is fine.

[zerojames]

I love your website design, cpach. There are many cool links to click, too!

> my main purpose is to record my thoughts/ideas/experiences

Mine too!

[cpach]

Thank you!

I must give credit to Kognise though, the style is simply their formidable water.css layout. It saved me a lot of time and anguish when I was about to get my blog started.

https://watercss.kognise.dev/

[claytonwramsey]

I started blogging this year, and so far, it's been a lot of fun! Most of what I write is a mix of personal projects and opinions. I recommend keeping a target audience in mind, ideally someone you actually know - in my case, I write for my friends from undergrad. I can't guarantee that you'll get job offers from your blog, but I've certainly received some nice emails. I got an offer because of a project I did before I started a blog, though.

I've gotten a little negative feedback, but that's by far in the minority. Most people on the internet are very nice and I've gotten lots of friendly emails from people I've never met. Definitely give it a try - I would suggest doing a github.io page to get started, but you can of course go the self-hosted route if you're into that sort of thing.

[awanderingmind]

I recommend writing for the sake of writing. Posting content can be scary, but as others have said: just don't add a comments section. You'll avoid the majority of the unhelpful 'your writing is awful and you suck' type responses if you add even the tiniest barrier to giving feedback.

I've had a blog since May 2021, although I haven't posted much: https://www.awanderingmind.blog/. Sometimes people send me nice emails. It hasn't helped in the slightest with getting a new job, but that's not why I write.

[gavinhoward]

No job interviews for me. I never intended for it to lead to that, so I am happy with that, but if you want it to, be aware that you need to self-censor. That said, if you do, a blog can be a good in for interviews.

Yes, I got negative feedback, and still do, and I pushed through. However, that is because my blog was not just a tech blog. Keep it tech only, and the problem will be minimized, even if it doesn't go away completely. And as for the rest, just realize that those who are negative are louder than those who like your stuff.

Should you do it? Absolutely. It will make you stand out against others.

[dkwr]

My experience is: As long as you don't write about something really controversial you won't get negative feedback. Frankly, in the beginning you may not get any feedback at all

So, beside of disabling comments I'd suggest to start writing about something where no one can have really strong opinions. This will give you a good feeling about blogging.

I get sometimes feedback via mail and sometimes hints about bugs in the presented code of a posts. Which I'm really thankful for. Blogging is a great experience and people are really friendly out there. Try it out!

[XCSme]

I want to start one, because I often encounter problems and find solutions that I can not find online, and I think posting them will help others.

Meanwhile, I created my own plain PHP markdown blog, where you just write markdown files and it uses PHP/Apache to display them on your website: https://github.com/Cristy94/markdown-blog

[hyperific]

I was nervous/hesitant to start my blog last year for the same reasons. Then I figured that probably no one will ever read my blog so why was I worried? I ended up just doing it for the writing practice. I'm a few months in and it's already got me in a groove of thinking about side projects I can work on and then write about. My readership is mostly me making sure the formatting looks right and sometimes my brother when I share my musings with him. Based on what I get out of it I'm happy with that.

[laeri]

The hard part is to stay consistent and take your time researching so the blog actually has some depth. Negative feedback is not a problem without a comment section. I don't even know how many people visit my blog apart from a few friends that I know of as I have no tracking at all. The question is what's your goal. Mine was to have more opportunity to write and to actually force myself to finish and release my writing.

[KomoD]

> I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback.

You most likely will get some negative feedback, but just ignore it. If you want to start one then do it

[hackitup7]

Just write, and remember that it's your choice whether you want to read the comments. We have a blog and while we get all sorts of commentary, I've found that the overwhelming majority of commenters are positive. For direct mail commentary to our email address it's 100% positive or positive leaning.

The hardest part of blogging is not giving up, I'd work on that.

[night-rider]

Good writers know everything's already been said before in different ways, but not in different ways /by them/. In other words, we all have a unique voice and style, and it's useful for humanity if people hear that voice and style. So blog. Get out of your own way and share your voice.

[siamese_puff]

I just made one last week (revamped) and started tracking analytics using self-hosted Plausible.

It’s pretty neat, I’ve been able to get thousands of views due to a couple popular articles. I added comments as well to get any feedback. Link in bio.

Dev wise I just wrote it from scratch and ship minimal JavaScript for a better UX.

[superkuh]

If you only care about profit (getting a job) then don't bother starting a blog. It'll just clog up search with more crap. Do it if you want to share something you're excited about with the world. And in that case, no one else's opinion matters at all.

[Zenul_Abidin]

If you're scared of getting negative feedback just turn off comments. They are also a big magnet for spam if the site has any kind of SEO traction.

[sevagh]

Comments are a rare occurence. In fact even getting negative feedback is an indication that you have engaged readers, which is a big deal.

[podviaznikov]

if you are worried - have a blog with no analytics and no comments(as other suggested).

that way you would write to yourself.

if people like your stuff - they will email you.

people who don’t like your stuff wouldn’t email you - too much effort and harder to write nasty things over email.

[kugurerdem]

> What has your experience been in starting a tech blog?

I published my first blog post about a year ago and within the last year, I've written around eight essays in total. Most of them didn't receive much interest, with only a few of my friends reading them. However, two of my blog posts managed to make it to the front pages of HN.

One problem I encountered when starting a blog was designing my site. I knew that if I aimed for a very aesthetic website, the design and development process would consume most of my time, potentially preventing me from publishing any posts and resulting in a state where I give. So, instead of aiming for the best UI and such, I initially preferred my blog to be functional and easy to maintain. This decision led me to come up with a simple blog where, initially, the only things on my blog were the posts. I have built my blog using Hugo, a very simple static site generator that provides almost all the essential tools you might need for blogging.

I believe my essay writing skills have significantly improved since I first began. If you're not a natural born writer, it's most probable that your first attempts at essay writing won't be perfect. But, the key to better writing is practice. Which means you have to be prepared to write some imperfect essays to improve.

Just remember, your progress could be hindered by perfectionism if it stops you from writing out of fear of not living up to your own high standards.

> I want to start one as a way to explore and express my interests, which currently include HTMX, Django, Python, and data engineering. I am afraid of sharing though and getting negative feedback.

I recommend that you just go for it. I would not worry about any negative feedback as long as I try to respect people's boundaries, stay humble, and avoid making baseless claims. That being said, bear in mind that some people might try to discourage you, no matter how good your work is. For those cases, just keep in mind that the problem is most likely not your work being bad but them being a negative person.

Feedback can either be helpful (providing possible improvements for your writing), or it can be unhelpful (and even contain demotivating phrases). At times, it can be both. Focus on the helpful aspects of the feedback and ignore the unhelpful ones. If someone takes the time to give feedback on your content, it's often a sign that they see the topic worthy of giving time.

> Was that something that you pushed through when starting?

It is not something that I pushed through.

I often find myself explaining topics I'm interested in to my friends. I thought it would be great to write my thoughts and experiences on some of these important topics, so I could easily share them with my friends. I also find myself writing things down primarily for myself for solidifying my thoughts and providing guidance for later.

I already had enough reasons to write before starting to write publicly, I just realized that I could easily make these writings public with just a little effort. So writing a blog is more of a hobby of mine than a task. I won't write if I don't have the time for it. It's not something that exhausts me, as long as I don't do it with big expectations.

> Did starting a blog lead to a new job?

To give it a short answer, no. At least, not yet.

It's not really a problem nor is it something I aim to achieve through blogging though. If your ultimate goal is to secure a new job, it would probably be more beneficial to explore other alternatives.