6 Malaysian bloggers who amazingly had the same formula for success

How would you like to make a living while working from home, in your kain sarong, sambil makan kangkong? Well, as a bunch of overpaid writers here at CILISOS, let us share with ugaiz TWO tried and tested methods: 1) By freelance writing with CILISOS, and… 2) By creating your own blog.

Blogging? Serious ah CILISOS. How to do that, and boleh cari makan ka?

Well, on the technical side of things, you can check out this super-helpful e-book called ‘The Unfair Advantage Guide to Blogging Success’ written by our sponsors at WebHosting Secret Revealed (WHSR).

It’s FREE to download and has all sorts of tips to help new and experienced bloggers 🙂 From getting a domain name to purchasing a web host, designing your blog to making it profitable – everything is in it. It’s a gem, so bookmark it, print it out, marry the guide if you must. (P/S: as tech people ourselves, we vouch on how thorough this guide is.)

The second and more interesting question is, can you really turn it into a viable business? According to WHSR, international blogger Pat Flynn made USD109,743.83 in March 2016 alone! But that is an extremely succesful example la hor, orang puteh earning US dollar summore.  Let’s hear real Malaysian stories!

So with the help of our friend at WebHosting Secret Revealed, CILISOS interviewed 6 prominent Malaysian bloggers to learn about their blogging journey, and these people are… *drum rolls*

Aman Firdaus from Amanz.my, Joyce Wong from KinkyBlueFairy.net, Kak Red from redmummy.com, KY from KYSpeaks.com, Paul Tan from PaulTan.org, and Sue Lynn from BangsarBabe.com

And turns out our local bloggers over here are not doing too shabby either! Some of them have turned the hobby into a brand, while others have grown to become small companies with their own team of staff. And their secrets of success are unknowingly similar with each other, including…

 

1. A stone-age history and a very humble beginning

Interestingly, a lot of the people that we interviewed started their blogging journey way back in 2004. That’s more than a decade ago!

“It all started by “jumping on the bandwagon” when blogging became a fashionable thing to do back in 2004-05. A lot of my friends started writing online so I did as well. Never imagined it’d have more than a few dozen friends reading my blog like it is today.” – KY from KY Speaks.

Amanz.my and Joyce aka KinkyBlueFairy also posted their first entry (on their first blog) in 2004. Heck, Joyce even used Xanga uh-kayy. For those who have never heard of Xanga, you might have also never heard of Live Journal, TypePad, and… Geocities – the pioneers of free blogging and DIY websites. The good, old days.

Joyce’s first entry might have already ceased to exist from teh interwebz right now, since the original Xanga has shut down. But we did dig through paultan.org’s archive and found an entry dated… 29 September 2004! The title sounds as ancient as the date itself, which is… “True Account of a Proton Iswara user“.

You know what else happened around 2004? Blog was made an official English word!

 

2. Articles that are written with Malaysians in mind

If you have read our interview with Malaysian blogger Hong Kiat last year, he’s one of the very rare local sites that made it HUGE worldwide. His site appealed to an international audience, where most of his visitors came from the US and India. However, for other local bloggers, the Malaysian audience is where the focus are:

“The first principle (in writing)... is whether it is relevant to the local audience. Because sometimes, a particular technology introduced to the Western market may not be available officially in Malaysia. We also strive to feature various local startups and put them as a priority over any other news.” – Aman Firdaus from Amanz.my.

Even PaulTan.org first took off because they were “filling the gap”, since no other publications covered the Malaysian car scene as extensively. Now they have grown so much that they’re even catering to the Malay and Chinese-speaking audiences too. And then of course there are countless food and travel blogs such as Eat Drink KL and Kampungboy Citygal that received lots of visits through Google search alone.

And not to mention one very interesting AND super educational website that covers local current affairs exclusively… (hint: it starts with C and rhymes with with ILISOS). #syoksendiri #noshame

 

3. Haters! Haters! Haters! #ihateyou #godosomethingelse #koingatkosape

When we asked our top bloggers on the challenges that they face, one common theme among the lifestyle/travel/food bloggers is this. There are always the people yang tak puas hati, from commenting on the way the bloggers dress…

“Readers/the public will always have an opinion on how I should dress, what I say, who I date, where I go, or how I do things. I take their comments with a pinch of salt and don’t get worked up like how I used to in my mid-twenties.

I’m just sharing my stories and experiences, in the hopes it will inspire others to look at the world and life differently.” – Joyce Wong from KinkyBlueFairy.net

…to their working style.

“I guess my biggest challenge would be how I’m perceived. It’s impossible to please everyone but somehow, people form opinions way before they even get to know me in person. I’m actually nice (seriously) but when it comes to work/blog, I’m no-nonsense. Those who think I’m difficult don’t get the brand principles.” – Sue Lynn from BangsarBabe.com

In fact, some even kena sued!

“Macam-macam cabaran ada, dari hate comments, blog down, no internet access so tak boleh update blog, dengki kianat pun ada. Eh macam-macam la 🙂

Saman menyaman ahaks… but yang haters semua ni tak pernah akan habis so akak ignore jer, been there done that, apa kita buat pun orang menyampah so kita tak yah pikir, baik ler pikirkan hal anak-anak and family.” – Kak Red from redmummy.com

Even niche sites like PaulTan.org have this problem, although they’re not in the form of haters. It has more to do with being neutral when it comes to making reviews:

“[The challenges are] figuring out how to pay a team of like nearly 40 people on a monthly basis 🙂 and of course getting access and exclusives with car companies. Because we’re impartial, sometimes our relationships with the car companies go up and down.” – Paul Tan from Paultan.org

The bottom line is, you simply can’t please everybody. But you can still say ‘please’ to somebody when asking for a favor, because that’s just polite. #lawakHambar #ihateCILISOS

4. A very disciplined and rajin publishing schedule

Knowing how many articles these blogs publish everyday makes us at CILISOS feel… underachieving. From a single blogger, PaulTan.org now has a team of 12 writers that cover 3 languages, and they can write up to over 30 stories a day! (Ok lah, granted CILISOS only has 3 full-time writers so our minimum of 1 feature article per day isn’t too bad, hopefully.)

As for Amanz.my, their core team of four writers can publish up to 20 articles a day, not to mention that they are creating video content as well. And if tapau-ing digital media isn’t enough, Amanz Media recently formed a partnership with Karangkraf to manage the monthly Majalah PC, a long-loved computer magazine in Bahasa and the only one of its kind. That’s a lot to juggle weh…

As for lifestyle, food, and travel blogs, they seemto be a little more flexible with their editorial schedule. KY for example, prefers to keep it fun and casual:

“I try to update about twice a week, and my focus is usually on food or travel. Every now and then I do touch on different topics as well, basically no hard and fast rule. It is a personal blog after all.” – KY from KY Speaks

5. A yearly revenue that’ll make you feel sad you’re reading this on your office laptop O_O

Back in school, were you ever asked to write your ambitions and rank them as nombor satu, nombor dua, and nombor tiga? At that time, we bet none of you wrote ‘blogger’… and neither did any of these peeps:

“I started blogging just like how anyone who started back in 2004 did, by signing up on a platform (back then I used Xanga) with my first blog post consisting of 3 sentences. It was all for fun and the love of writing and sharing photographs, and naturally I had no idea it would change my life the way it has.” – Joyce Wong from KinkyBlueFairy.net.

Yet none of them could predict they would be as big as they are right now. In 2013, PaulTan.org earned RM6 millions in revenue, and according to the founder, their 2015 revenues were around a WHOPPING RM10.8 million! That’s a jaw-dropping number, yet not very surprising for a niche site like PaulTan.org as it are one of Malaysia’s most visited local websites.

But how about lifestyle bloggers such as KinkyBlueFairy, Red Mummy, and Bangsar Babe? According to Joyce (who is one of the most otai in the scene), her sales revenue for 2015 alone is RM600K @_@ #whatarewedoingwithourlives #iquitCILISOS

“The majority of earnings under KinkyBlueFairy come from the Blog and PR… Our sales revenue for 2015 was about 600K. I’m cool telling you cos we just paid our taxes haha.” Joyce Wong from KinkyBlueFairy.net.

We have never heard of ‘taxes’ and ‘haha’ being used in the same sentence before.

 

6. Dongibab, kipidap and most importantly…

This might be the most clichéd advice ever, but indeed when we asked if they have any tips to the new bloggers…

“Buat blog bukan sahaja untuk suka-suka, tapi kena ada minat. Bila ada minat barulah kita ada motivation untuk update blog tanpa perlu disuruh-suruh dan juga tanpa bayaran :)” – Kak Red

“Jangan menulis untuk duit. Tulis kerana minat, dan duit akan cari anda sendiri.” – Aman Firdaus

“Know why you want to blog and stay true to it. Passion and dedication may take longer to see results, but when you get there, you know it’s worth it and you earned it.” – Sue Lynn

“Keep it up, do what you’re comfortable with and if nothing else, you’ll get to improve your writing skills, which is always a huge plus!” – KY

“Don’t blog what everyone else is blogging, blog what YOU want to talk about. Blogging is about spreading your ideas, voice and vision online. Do it in a way that is true to you, and not trying to copy what everyone around is doing.” – Joyce Wong

“Focus on content and readers… everything else will come into place.” – Paul Tan

And as writers ourselves, we can tell you that it’s really difficult to craft articles day after day, if you don’t have the passion for what you’re doing.

 

So all the success stories are here… now go and create good content

As an online publication ourselves, we at CILISOS are always amazed at how these individuals managed to create a sustainable brand throughout the years, especially when back then, most of the traffic to their websites are organic (not paid traffic.) Of course money alone shouldn’t be the sole measure of success. Sometimes, it’s good enough to be able to pay yourself so you can keep on writing, and keep on giving back to the audience, as Aman Firdaus put it:

“Kami menjana wang yang sekadar mencukupi untuk membayar gaji untuk 6 tenaga kerja dalam Amanz.”

And all this are much easier than before, with affordable Facebook ads and social media. All you need to do is build a blog… and start creating good content… maybe with the technical guide from this free e-Book 🙂 (K now go say tengkiu at their Facebook page! Huhu)