Blogger Spotlight: Benjamin X. Wretlind

31Oct 2021 by Luke Harkness No Comments

In today’s Blogger Spotlight, we’re shining a light on Benjamin X Wretlind who writes books, does art and photography but also has a blog. His blog features short stories, articles on Kindle Vella, a regular newsletter and much more!

Blogger Spotlight Benjamin X Wretlind — Pin me to Pinterest!

What made you get into blogging?

I’ve always been a daily writer, and blogging seemed like a natural extension of that effort (at first, anyway). I’m also a learning and development consultant in my “day job,” which means I love to teach and build course material that helps others learn. My first blog was in the old LiveJournal, which I started back in 2003 or 2004. The current iteration of my blog was started in 2012 to coincide with building a following for all the books I intended to write at the time. Life happened and the blog sputtered but didn’t go away.

What’s your most successful post?

I wrote a three-part series recently explaining what I knew about Amazon’s Kindle Vella (What is Kindle Vella?) and tried to answer the most common questions I’d heard in writers’ groups and online. I think the recency of the platform–which allows authors to serialize novels and publish things quickly–made those posts a little more successful than any of the others. In the two months since I wrote the series, the visitation was higher than the next highest post written in 2018.

What’s been your biggest uphill battle with blogging?

Traffic! I think that may be one of the biggest uphill struggles for most bloggers. I’ve read many articles on how to increase traffic and yet I still struggle in that area immensely. I have a plan to post about three or four times a month now, but for a while I let things slide as “life” got in the way. Recovering from that slide has been extremely difficult. Now that I have a book coming out early next year, I’ve been hoping to increase the number of subscribers to my newsletter, but it hasn’t been easy.

What are you most proud of about your blog?

I am most proud of the articles that teach and are shared by others. That may sound egotistic, but referring back to my day job, training is a passion. When something sticks in a writer’s mind and they pass that off to others, I get a sense of accomplishment.

What one tip would you give to people looking to start a blog?

It’s not a sprint. Building a following, getting the SEO right, advertising–these are all things that take time. Don’t give up after a year or two and say no one is listening. Even if you get through to one person who needs to hear what you have to say, you’re a success.