As the title suggests, this is a book about blogging as a Christian in a world that seems to rate sensationalism over truth and quantity over quality. The two authors provide a compelling case for more purposeful blogging from Christians. Neither is a megablogger. Instead, they are both average people, like you and me.
They are not promising instant fame and fortune if you follow their method.
Instead, they say almost the opposite:
In other words, if you’re blogging (or considering blogging) to earn easy money, you’re misguided because that’s not how it works for most people. And if you’re blogging for the wrong reasons (especially money or platform), then it will become too easy to give up when you don’t immediately succeed. (And you won’t immediately succeed.)
Rather, the authors encourage us to believe in our calling to blog, and to continue serving God by delivering quality content.
The book also asks bloggers to consider who we are writing for, serving God and our readers (not ourselves), and the all-important issue of promotion: is it godly to promote ourselves by promoting our blog? This was definitely one of the stronger sections:
They then move on to addressing some of the practicalities of blogging: what to blog about (and what not to blog about), what platform to use, and how much it will cost in terms of time and money.
My one issue was that book seemed to end abruptly, at the 67% mark on my Kindle. The book then included three lengthy appendicies. The first was a series of quotes from Christian bloggers answering the question, “Is blogging dead?”. The second was a glossary of terms bloggers should know, and the third was a range of other quotes from bloggers. These appear in the text of the print edition but for some reason they couldn’t format the quotes as pull quotes in the general text of the Kindle edition, so they appeared at the end. There was also an extensive references section.
This was all valuable and useful information, but it did affect the pacing of the book.
By the halfway point, the authors had covered a huge amount of information. I wondered what the rest of the book would include, as it felt like it was slowing down. Then it picked up pace again, before an abrupt conclusion and the long appendicies. Reversing the final two chapters may have improved the overall pace and offered a more satisfying conclusion.
Having said all that, the book’s benefits definitely outweigh the weaknesses. Vibrcek and Beeson have clearly outlined many of my own beliefs about blogging as a Christian, and provided a solid biblical backing for those beliefs.
I definitely recommend this book for Christians who blog, or who are considering blogging. It will help you decide why you’re blogging, and will challenge you to blog (and promote) with the right motives.
Thanks to the authors for providing a free ebook for review.
About Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World
7 Reasons God Hates Listicles
Bloggers publish millions of posts each day, many written by faithful Christians who want to honor God with their words but struggle to know how. Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World guides Christians through the basics of setting up a blog—everything from affiliates and algorithms to widgets and WordPress—but also how to be a godly landlord of your internet real estate.
If you are a Christian blogger, you likely oscillate between burnout and apathy, with thoughts like “I must post NOW!” and “Who even gives a rip?” If you’re at this point, you’ve likely lost the plot. But you can get back on script. Authors Benjamin Vrbicek and John Beeson explore where the spiritual stamina will come from to serve a small readership faithfully and how to steward attention in a way that honors God in a world that celebrates chasing profit and pageviews.
Find Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World online at:
Hi Iola, Thanks for sharing your review. Our motivation for blogging is definitely worth examining plus our expectations as bloggers. I really like this quote from your review:
“Rather, the authors encourage us to believe in our calling to blog, and to continue serving God by delivering quality content.”
I have a lot of material I would love to use for a blog, however it often addresses controversial ideas in this world of polarised thinking. So I always avoid trying to blow the Internet up, and think to myself if I wrote honestly and carefully with these different ideas, I would possibly be doing a damage to the kind of fiction writing I do. There are a lot of intolerant readers who would hate to think that I held any ideas that did not fit into a neat little box, And the punishment would be they would reward me with one stars review or negative reviews on my fiction even though that may or may not reflect the other ideas that I Perhaps would blog about. It is a conundrum. But I do toy with the idea of thorough in-depth discussion on certain topics that are cause for such heated debate, and cause so much pain in relationship because there is never a listening ear but often an attacking attitude. There is So much that needs to be thought about carefully and addressed kindly to find the heart of God in an issue, and I wish that that was as simple as it sounds. But even the heart of God might cause trouble if one ventured into an area of controversy.