Sidin Sunny Vadukut, now in his after-youth, is a humor blogger and freelance writer from India. He attended couple of India’s finest technology and business colleges before deciding to write full-time. Often touted as India’s first famous blogger, he credits his blog for his success as a freelancer. He blogs at Domain Maximus, which for the statistically oriented, has over 700K visitors and 1250 subscribers. After stalking him for a while, I caught up with him on a Sunday morning, unclean and unshaven, more candid than humorous.
Who is Sidin Vadukut?
I am an engineer-MBA, who did the entire usual good boy education and career things before veering off track in January 2006
How did it all begin? How did the blog happen?
I wrote my first piece of any significance when I was about 7 years old, a piece for the school mag. I kept writing a little now and then, mostly school mag material. I started doing more humour, essay and satire material at engineering college.
When I graduated, I continued to write a weekly email newsletter to many friends - Movie reviews, jokes, observations about life and such like. Many people read the newsletter, around 40 or so at its peak. In October 2002, I discovered Blogger by Pyra Labs and figured it was a more efficient way to communicate to people without stuffing their Inboxes, and voila!
One day you decided to write full-time. Did the success of your blog have a bearing on the decision?
Absolutely. The blog’s success and the experience of writing regularly for the notice boards at IIM Ahmedabad helped. The feedback and appreciation I got from people really convinced me that I could do this full time. That appreciation gave me the self-belief to take the leap. End of 2005 I figured that if I needed to give this a shot I had to do it when I could afford to take the risk. So that even if I screwed up I could always go back and get a regular MBA job again. When the equation made sense, I jumped.
How easy was the decision, considering that people from your college seem to be making an insane amount of money?
It gets tougher as they continue to make more!
However, no, I am thrilled now. I write a fair amount - several newspapers and a portal. The blog is doing better than ever before. I am doing better as a writer, creatively and professionally. So, absolutely thrilled and of course paying the bills and all.
Good to know that writing pays bills. Two years since you took the plunge - What do you think of it in hindsight? How has the journey been?
I set myself a set of goals when I started out and a timeline to achieve them. I wanted to have my first book out by now. Otherwise it’s all been ahead of schedule.
When are the book(s) coming?
Books! One will come early next year - the one with collected essays and blog posts. Do not want to speculate on the next ones yet.
Tell us about Hafta, Jam and your other projects
JAM is ongoing. An alumnus of IIMA and a very good friend owns it. I deputy edit the magazine and do a LOT of work for the online properties.
Hafta is pretty much on hiatus. I do not think the model works unless I can find much more time for myself. The non-compensated writer model is tough to pull off without a core team with lots of time and energy.
Is it true that at REC Trichy, you used to take novels to exam centers?
Ok that is a popular rumor online. I never read a novel during an exam. I did take a few with me into the hall so I could immediately pack up and go to the airport or something after that. But, yes I did most of my novel reading during exam times. I would go buy a bunch the week before exams. Helped me concentrate when I studied I think.
Favorite authors?
Dave Barry, Bill Bryson, Martin Cruz Smith and Umberto Eco
Do you read a lot of blogs? What keeps you wanting to come back to a blog?
I read a fair number, but very irregularly. A combination of style and content. Latter more than the former.
If you had to choose five favorite bloggers, who would they be?
Joel Achenbach, Scott Adams, Krish Ashok, Indiequill and Prem Panicker
How would you describe your blogging style? What do you think sets your blog apart from other blogs?
For a time I did not know because, there are funnier blogs and more regularly written blogs and so on. Now I think it is the humor, first person narrative and general honestly of my style of writing. A lot of people tend to identify with what I write
Do you earn from the blog?
Directly I make enough money off ads to pay for my domain and hosting comfortably. But I don’t really work on the Adsense part as much as some people do. But indirectly it has got me almost all of my writing work.
How do you go about promoting your blog/writing, building the ‘brand’?
The first thing I did was moving to my own domain and giving it a unique look and feel. I make sure the domain goes out in all communication: bylines, email signatures and so on. I try to communicate with the readers a fair bit, who pass out the domain themselves and I make it really easy to stay in touch: feeds, emailers and so on. No overt marketing, so to speak.
Is it true that a successful writer/blogger has an awful lot of time on their hands?
Alternatively, as in my case, very very little sleep!
All you want to say to bloggers looking to go freelance
Develop a unique combination of content and style. Polish it well. There are enough ‘good’ writers out there clamoring for space. Have a unique proposition. Your blog helps you do all that. And then, attack!
Final question, WordPress or blogger?
WordPress all the way. Don’t know how I managed without it.
An Interview with Alan Johnson (theratingblog.com)
April 30, 2008 by Nishu
About a month back I mailed some questions to Alan Johnson from The Rating Blog. The reply was prompt but we were not able to publish the interview because gawky schedules made follow up posts nearly impossible. I suppose with this post we are going to put BaB again in full throttle mode. Hope you will enjoy this interview.
Q. Alan, please tell us our readers about yourself as a person and blogger. and as a blogger.. And we are actually interested in knowing about you (reference to your about page)
First of all, I’d say that raising two wonderful children and having a wife I would do anything for, is definitely my most important accomplishment. I am a person who, throughout his existence, has worked hard for everything. I never wanted to win the lottery, I never wanted to win money I knew I didn’t deserve. Mand my better half always felt the same way. With this attitude, I have managed to secure the lifestyle my family deserves and, if I were to start over, I wouldn’t even think about changing it.
Q. When did you get into blogging? and when did u get into making money through blogging Can you provide links to your projects so that we can trace evolution on Alan as a entrepreneur, investor, blogger, writer, webmaster.
I earned a living by running a brick & mortar business and I will still be doing it until my children are ready to take over. I always believed in being my own boss and it has been quite a long time since I had a regular job. I have had a lot to learn from my experience and my attitude towards being an online entrepreneur has reflected that right from day one.
As far as online activities are concerned, I have developed my share of websites and have sold all of them prior to launching TheRatingBlog.com, so that I can give it 110% in order to maximize results with what represents a solid business model with huge potential.
Q. How does it feel when you make your first income from your online efforts online?
It always feels great when you start out and receiving receive my first online paycheck. I felt just as good as seeing my brick&mortar business become profitable.
Q. At what point, you realized that you know enough and now you are ready to share your knowledge and experience with on blogosphere?
Basically, I knew that my experience as an offline entrepreneur as well as my online experience as an online one was worth sharing and, as such, blogging was a natural next step.
Q. What was your aim with “the rating blog”? The name surely doesn’t sound like just any another money making guru’s blog.
TheRatingBlog.com also represents a reaction to all of the self-proclaimed gurus out there. I always hate seeing all sorts of clowns putting together a website and promising instant riches to anyone who buys their overpriced and over-hyped product. I and have decided to do something about it.
In most cases, they seriously over-charge for an ebook which that only contains a few pages of useless information. As such, I have written “The Online Business Handbook“, a 200-page moneymaking guide which puts any guru-style product to shame. and I am offering it at a price they can’t beat: $0
The same way, I strongly believe in providing value on a regular basis through my articles and podcasts. And in helping I like to help my readers understand that looking for shortcuts is not the way to go and that working hard is simply a must if you are serious about long-term success.
Q. It is seen that you comment very aggressively on many blogs. What motivates you for regular socialization?
A word of advice: “When doing something, do it in style and stand out.”
I could have limited myself to simply commenting here and there, but going by unnoticed is not an option. As such, I have maximized results with blog commenting by being the ‘top commentator’ on over 40 blogs.
I was an active member of each and every blog? community. and I have always done my best in order to help others. Results? Traffic, brand awareness and, of course, the fact that I made more than a few good contacts.
As such, I was then able to move on to phase two, guest blogging and you’ve guessed it: By being a guest blogger on over 10 great resources, I am, as always, doing it in a way which makes me stand out.
Q. You recently had a break through in your feed subscriber. How do you feel about it?
Seeing the results of your hard work is indeed great, but letting yourself become blinded by success is not an option, always giving it 110% is the way to go.
I’ve managed to gain over 1k RSS subscribers in as little as 4 weeks. That is definitely impressive, but, on the other hand, let’s just say that this is only the beginning.
Q. Alan, Tell tell us how you got your first feed subscriber.
I got my first feed subscribers as a result of hitting the Digg frontpagefront-page on the very day of the launch. Oand, of course, that which made it clear that TheRatingBlog.com has huge potential.
Q. Do you think if other bloggers will follow you step by step, they can achieve the same goal? If yes then how many feed do u expectsubscribers to read :O..
As long as you are able to provide value and as long as you have the determination do keep giving it 110%, no matter how out of reach your goals may seem, then you are indeed on the right track. In the end, it’s all up to you: it won’t be easy but it definitely isn’t impossible.
Q. Tell us about the blogs you read.. and tell us? do you have some favorite readers of the rating blog.
If you, as a blogger, manage to convince me that going through what your resource has to offer in terms of information is time well spent on my part, then I will definitely consider following your blog on a regular basis. As always, it all boils down to providing value.
Q. Any shout outs or guru mantras for other bloggers?
I’d like to end this interview with a few words of advice:
Never make the mistake of believing all sorts of self-proclaimed gurus who would like to trick you into thinking that making money online is a piece of cake. You can be certain that each and every one of them has a hidden agenda. and, As such, you can either understand that, whenever something seems too good to be true, it most likely is or you can find out the hard way.
Every day, entrepreneurs who think that they have found the easy path to success try their luck, and then you can rest assured that their results will not exactly be worth bragging about.
Always be willing to work hard, never give up. And, as I previously stated:
“When doing something, do it in style and stand out.”
Posted in Interviews, Meta-Blogger | Tagged Alan, blog, comment, feed, Johnson, rating, socialization, subscribers | 5 Comments »