The effect of blogging — Salman Rushdie cost me a project

Jan 07, 2009 Comments

Yesterday, a client was on the verge of giving me a big assignment when he asked, "are you a fan of Salman Rushdie?", and I enthusiastically said, "yes!"

"Then we cannot work together," he replied.

"But shouldn’t ideologies and business be kept apart unless something really sinister is happening?" I asked.

"No, I cannot work with you if you endorse his views and protest against the fatwa against him," he said.

After that we exchanged a few messages and then stopped talking (we were using Skype).  He was interested in knowing how I was building backlinks and somehow discovered my posts where I had lamented the ban on "Satanic Verses", the fatwa and praised Salman Rushdie.

It happens many times that I don’t get a project due to various incompatibilities but it is the first time that it has happened due to something that I had written on my blog. I know there have been many people who lost their jobs or even got subjected to persecution (mainly in Arab/Muslim and communist countries) due to their blogs so I wasn’t really taken aback, but it was quite fascinating actually talking to a person who supports the beheading of a writer simply because that writer holds a different view on a religious book.

I wanted to talk to that client more about religion and religious beliefs but I thought maybe he won’t understand so I refrained myself.  Somewhere he said that religions that don’t protect themselves and don’t eliminate their enemies vanish easily. I wanted to tell him that only scared and unsure religions react in such a manner.  Take for instance Hinduism.  It is not an extremist religion and there is lots of scope for analysis, argumentation and counter argumentation.  Nobody comes for your head if you question fundamental Hindu beliefs.  It is one of the major religions of the world and there are still thousands of people converting to this religion every year.  Okay, this is an ancient religion, so let us talk about Sikhism.  Sikhism is just 300 years old and it is getting stronger every passing day without fanaticism and extremism. Sikhs don’t raise a hue and cry at the drop of a hat.  They never feel targeted, marginalized and victimized and their religion is never endangered, and they are practically all over the world. There is a funny saying that crows and Sikhs are everywhere.  There are some random acts of extremism here and there but then they are present in every religion, even among the Buddhists, perhaps the most peaceful and embracing religion in the world.

Anyway, I also remember telling him that I am not going to be apologetic about what I had written on my blog because I firmly believed in that.  Is it the right way to do?  Should I have downplayed my blog post and tried to convince him that I didn’t mean what I had written on my blog?  I don’t think so.  Just as his belief stopped him from working with me my belief stopped me from  working with him; again, why would I work with a person who supports the call for the beheading of another person simply because he has different views?  Wouldn’t I be then working for a psychopath? Fine, even someone among my past and existing clients could turn out to be a psychopath (clients, please accept my apology, I’m just saying this to put a point across) but there is a saying in Hindi — I’m not sure whether it exists in English or not — that you cannot swallow a fly knowingly.

Things I want to accomplish this year

Jan 01, 2009 Comments

I’m never very good at making New Year resolutions because frankly, I don’t believe in making New Year resolutions simply because I think whenever you want to do something, you want to bring about some change, you should simply do it and shouldn’t wait for a new year to come by.  But anyway, I think the beginning of a new year is a good time to move on and make some plans — planning always helps.

There are many things I wanted to accomplish last year and they remained neglected due to lack of time (okay, you can say, commitment).

• Develop a system to keep in touch with existing clients: Recently I was going through my old folders.  In the past 4 years I have worked/interacted with more than 500 clients. Among these, I think there have been just 20-30 clients who gave me repeat work. They remembered me, they tracked me down on their own when they required my content writing services.  There must be many more clients who may often need my services but hire other content writers simply because they have forgotten about my services or they can’t recall  whom they hired last time. This is a big waste especially if they liked my services.  I have already signed up for a mailing service and I’m definitely going to use it regularly to keep in touch with my clients.
• Increase my traffic: The traffic on my website is appallingly low.  It is only a miracle I get enough work and I know miracles just can’t keep on happening all the time.  Sooner or later I will run out of work due to lack of traffic. The traffic on my website is so low that I need to increase it to more than 500% in order to ensure continuous supply of work.  I have been neglecting this aspect simply because the current amount of traffic keeps me financially comfortable.
• Expand my network: Very few people know me on the Internet despite the fact that I have been active here since 1999. People came a year ago and became celebrities.  No, I’m not crazy about becoming an Internet celebrity (I would rather become a singing sensation) but knowing more people is not only rewarding intellectually it also helps you generate more work.
• Set up a dependable team of writers: Although I love writing and till now I have had practically no problem delivering assignments to my clients I won’t be able to grow much if I keep on writing on my own.  I will have to take up bigger assignments in order to grow my business and this can only happen if I work with multiple writers and outsource work to them.
• Start singing professionally: My singing teacher thinks I’m ready to perform but I am going to wait and practice more for the next 5-6 months because I think I need a more powerful and expressive voice.  So far I’m quite happy with the progress.

There are many things on the personal level that I would like to achieve/change by the time 2009 ends but professionally I think these are the fundamental things I need to achieve in order to solidify my financial stability.