People ask me all the time what it takes to become a successful blogger. For years I struggled with that question, because there were so many different things that made one successful in blogging. But over the years, I have found one aspect of blogging that every successful blogger I know from Seth Godin to Linda Ikeji possessed early on when they started. It is an aspect that has made them as successful as they are now and it is one that every upcoming blogger needs to adhere to. It is it to me the best blogging advise of all time and it is this:

If you write a blog post and nobody comments on it, keep writing…
If you pour your heart and soul into a blog entry and nobody retweets it, keep writing…
If you craft the perfect blog post and nobody facebook likes it, keep writing…
If you write the best blog article ever and people tell you it is whack [Including your Mum], keep on writing…

Because success in blogging is not determined by the amount of comments, retweets or likes that you get, but rather by the passion you have for blogging. And provided you keep on writing…you passion will pull you through to success!

Wishing You Extreme Success,

Have a question for Ofili? Leave a comment below. Ofili strives to answer every question he is asked.

As you know I am always harping on the importance of having a banging book cover. So I thought I would share with you the book cover evolution of my latest book How Laziness Saved My Life. It was a lot of frustration, disappointment and sleepless nights before we arrived at a working book cover. But the journey was worth it!

#1 The Safe Bet

This was the safe bet, the back-up as I would like to call it. It was an exact replica of the How Stupidity Saved My Life cover. Except that I somehow forgot to smile during the photoshoot. And I am glad I did forget, because if I didn’t I would have probably ended up using this cover. I even went as far as trying to convince the graphic designer to photoshop a smile into the picture (true story), but even she could not work that sort of miracle. I guess the moral of the story is to always say cheese…cheese…

#2 Going Cartoon Networky

So after finding out that the lean on words ideas above was destined for a colossal failure, I began pushing myself hard to find a different cover design concept. I knew I wanted the book to stand out on the book shelf, so I decided early on for some weird reason that my book cover was going to be yellow…not just any yellow…bright fluorescent yellow. I also wanted to showcase the fact that this book was different and that it had sketches in them. So utilizing the cover idea from IGNORE EVERYBODY by Hugh MacLeod I decided to draw a book cover…I began working on this cover design one Friday night. I did not finish till the next morning (mainly cause I could not get the right color of underwear). When I finished it, I sent it out to a bunch of people. The reaction was at best 50:50. People that liked it…loved it. And does that did not like it…hated it. The main complaint was that it made the book seem unserious and also (despite my poor attempts at concealing this fact) that it looked very simlar to what Hugh MacLeod would do. That promptly killed of that idea and put me back to the drawing board HP laptop.

#3 Yellow Fever

Still addicted to my love for yellow (oh did I mention that yellow is the most easy to spot color in the world, which is why Taxi Cabs are normally yellow!) I decided to tone down the sketch idea a bit and actually utilize an actual picture of myself. The picture was taken in Houston Texas by the talented JP. When we did the shot I did not have an idea how we were going to use it. I knew I wanted something to depict laziness, but the picture seemed too limited especially since the background was white. I tried various ideas but it just did not work, but while at work one day, I realized that if the background was made transparent I would be able to play with a variety of colors. This was a mighty Eureka moment and I rushed home during lunch to begin drafting my idea, that weekend I stayed up for 18 or so hours straight without showering working on the book design. The background color was off course a bright yellow (inspired by the book UNSTUCK)! The general consensus was that everyone loved the concept. What they did not like was the yellow…which ironically is what I loved the most. I was really frustrated at this time and I even thought about supporting Manchester United ignoring my instincts and just releasing the cover from concept #1 without the smile. That was about to happen until I got an email…

#4 Brown Paper Lunch

After much push back on the yellow cover idea. My brother sent me an email suggesting that I go back to the drawing board and come up with a completely different design. The whole point of this to me was simply to have a second option for people to look at. My whole goal was to design something that sucked so that people would pick the yellow cover. My subconscious inspiration for this next cover came from the book UNMARKETING. In that book a brown paper background was used. This was a sharp sharp contrast from the bright yellow I had been messing around with. I found a brown background on shutterstock that worked and of all the designs I had messed with, this one took the shortest time to complete. The final result actually impressed me, so much so that it became the final cover for the book. The funny thing is that my brother actually ended up hating this one! But hey…I love it.

Conclusion

What I learnt from this journey is the importance to seek and listen to people’s opinions. To keep pushing and pushing and to never be afraid to start from scratch. Hope you like the cover as much as I do and if you don’t at least you enjoyed a great COVER STORY.

Been working non-stop on completing my second book How Laziness Saved My Life zzzzzzz. What I am really excited about is not the publishing of the book itself but the fact that the book will be available on some mobile devices in Nigeria. To be honest this is nothing ground-breaking, but in a country where ipad and kindles are still a luxury and online purchases an enigmatic enigma…getting the How Laziness Saved My Life directly on the phones of people will be quite awesome. Look out for more updates.
 

Editors, Writers and Bloggers, which is correct in your opinion style 1 or style 2 (notice the comma after the egg):
 
STYLE 1: John went to the store to buy bacon, eggs and milk.
STYLE 2: John went to the store to buy bacon, eggs, and milk.
 

In Nigeria I was taught to use the first style. But after having my “How Laziness Saved My Life” Manuscript edited by Cathy Reed (awesome editor) she changed it all to style 2. I started doing a bit of investigation and found out that there is a huge controversy between the styles. What are you thoughts and which of the styles do you use?

Malcolm Gladwell’s Principle of 10,000 states that the magic number for genius is 10,000. In other words, for you to become a genius at anything you have to spend at least 10,000 hours doing it…
 

So if you want to become a genius at painting you have to have at least done 10,000 hours painting.
If you want to become a genius at scoring free kicks you have to spend at least 10,000 hours practicing free kicks.
And if you want to become a blogging phenomena you have to spend at least 10,000 hours blogging.
 

The more time you spend doing that which you strive to be successful at…the greater your chances of success. Turns out that genius is not a natural skill but rather a repetitive talent. All you have to do is keep on doing and doing and doing and doing and doing and doing…

Your day has been crazy busy at work. You can barely get space to breathe or relax…your clients are driving you insane and the world seems to be crashing on top of you. Your only avenue of escape is the very same source of your problems…YOUR COMPUTER! You calmly and swiftly log on to the internet in search of something that would take your mind away from the madness. You stumble upon a great blog and like an office-ninja (via Geekapedia: A person who is adept at reading social media sites at work without getting caught) read it while looking around to make sure that nobody is watching your illegal activity. You find the article fun, funny and thought provoking. You agree with everything the writer has to say, you feel her pain and you have an urge to post a comment. You go back into stealth mode composing your response…you pour your heart out but just as you are about to finish you hear a gun shot! But you calm down as you realize it is the copy machine get slammed by one of your many annoying co-workers trying fervently to un-jam a peice of paper from the copier. Finally you finish…and you hit ENTER feeling relieved but then you get this:
 

The title of your book is far more important than your book’s cover. Too many times I see authors focused only on their book cover, they want it to be creative, sheek and sophisticated. While there is nothing wrong with have an amazing book cover, the focus should be having an even more amazing title than the cover and here is why…When you begin marketing your book, you first instinct is to harass your friends to buy it place it online and in bookstores. In those places a resplendent bookcover is critical to grab people’s attention. But that is where the marketing effects of a great book cover typically stops, the remaining promotion of your book will travel by what I would like to call

Writing is like sex, sometimes you are in the mood for it and sometimes you are not…either way you have to do it to give birth to your ideas. Unfortunately there is no viagra for writing (trust me I’ve searched) but there are unique conditions that help stimulate the writing juices of different writers. For some the rising of the sun is what stimulates their writing senses, for others it is the dead of the night when no one can hear the groans and moans of their thoughts. Some love to do it in bed, while others enjoying do it on the couch while watching TV. Some are able to do 2 articles at the same time, while others prefer just a single article at a time. Some do it with slow music in the background, while others do it with no music at all. Some love to do it in public places, while others love to do it in the privacy of their homes