I won’t lie I’m tired. You might even say burnt out. But something compels me again and again to sit down on evening and weekends in a regular ritual bashing away on a keyboard crafting words together.
Does one do this for validation?
No, I would have given up years ago if that was the case.
Does one do this for profit?
That’s an amusing thought.
No matter how tough or busy life gets, something compels me to to share my thoughts and ideas, even if no one ever asked for it.
On Saturday night, I sat in my chair without aim. Intention was good, ideas were in my head or in incomprehensible note form, but the ability to translate this into anything meaningful failed.
As I tried to force myself into productivity, I felt my eyes fade, with a vexing sigh, I gave in on getting a post drafted and watched a few Pitch Meeting videos on YouTube instead to give me a much needed laugh.
My wife placed her hand on my shoulder, peeking over at my screen while telling me she was heading to bed. I didn’t follow far behind.
The next day my eldest daughter unashamedly was fiddling with my phone – I don’t know how she’d unlocked it, but there she was mashing away at buttons hoping it would bring up something fun.
I confiscated the phone from her grasp, noticing loads of notifications from WordPress telling me my posts had linked out to something – what had she done?
My heart sank when I realised what had really happened.
Six of my posts, great posts, posts about me, posts about my thoughts and ideas stolen – just like that.
A perfect crime, expect the blog using the bot to rip a persons hardwork off, hadn’t done a thorough enough job to remove all traces to the original site, so I got a backlink telling me my post had been linked to from another blog site – all words that were mine!.
My ideas, ideas I’d spent hours thinking over, researching, writing, rewriting, starting again, stripped within a matter of seconds.
These posts were more than mere seconds to me – they were many days sacrificed with my family, or doing something else with my life. Now it was just mass uploaded content, without a care about the human behind the screen who put his sweat into it’s conception.
Now it was mine, it was “Written by Jack”.
Well “Jack” here’s another post I dare you to steal.
Everyone asks how to make money blogging.
No one is asking how to make timeless content.
No one is interested in making something good anymore, they’re more bothered about tricking the algorithm – whether it’s getting to the top of search engines, or getting viral on social media.
They don’t get the process behind making art – and yes a blog post like many forms is art.
It’s made up of a person’s values, research ideas, reflection on a period in their life, that they will never have again.
As an author I can write it, and feel something.
As the consumer you can read it, and feel something completely different.
Interpretation – that is art!
People like Jack, don’t get that – they’re the ones who want the money, the attention, without ever earning it. They don’t know what it’s like to create, because they just take the work of others and stick their name to it.
It’s easy to forget, but behind the words of any blog is someone, someone with commitments, fighting to navigate this life, and for whatever reason they decided to write something and post it.
I’ll repeat it because I’m so angry right now…
Everyone wants to make money blogging.
No one wants to make a blog that is timeless.
That is why the Internet is awash with crap content, people trying to game the system, get the attention and make a quick buck –
When you create timeless content, you’re making something the reader can go back to again and again.
They’ll add it to their favourites, send it to loved ones or even print it out and put it on a wall.
Stop asking the wrong questions, focus on doing something right, and maybe one day you’ll make something people care about.
A final message
Appreciate this post is an uncoordinated rant – I write this in a difficult place, this year has been tough.
In a post pandemic world, my kids are at a challenging age, I’ve had illnesses, injuries, a new career, and struggled to find a way to balance my blog writing around the day to day challenges – it’s a bitter thing to take, as the outlet used to cope with this adversity gets pillaged.
Being plagiarised is such a blatant manner, made me question whether this was all worth it – if the Jack’s of the world can come along and potentially steal away years of the life, why bother?
There is a lot of mental battles writing a blog posts that those who don’t do this will realise. Having the confidence to put yourself out there is one – there is a reason most people in my real life don’t know I do this, because I’ve never got round that barrier!
The one saving grace to this is the lessons learnt:
Make sure to put in lots of backlinks to other posts
This makes it harder to edit out, and increase chance you’ll find out if you’re work has been copied.
Create unique images and put your domain in
It doesn’t link out, but it shows any reader where the content has come from, and will help them realise something isn’t right.
Use lots of personal anecdotes
Referencing myself by name makes it harder to steal without lots of edits.
Adding personal stories that happen to you are also harder to claim.
Add a copyright signature
I admit I never saw the point of this until today, but seeing a bot able to copy all my words and images in seconds helped emphasise the importance of being able to put as many digital footprints in place as possible.
Conclusion
With my struggles I don’t feel in a great place with my writing, the whole experience has killed my enthusiasm to blog.
I don’t think I’ll stay like this for long – I have a couple of copyright claims to make, then I’ve got some holiday coming up, so I hope to return in a better frame of mind.
If you want to support a real authentic blogger who writes his own stuff, doesn’t do this for money, and writes quality content out of sheer love, then check out these posts that were apparently good enough to steal!
I Switched Off Social Media For 31 Days: How Did I Survive
Always Giving Yourself To Others?: Why It’s Okay to Put YOU First!
Thinking About Changing Your Career? Here’s How To Do It!
How The Wright Brothers Found Success Against All Odds
The Internal Struggle of Living Up To Greatness
A Few Observations On Engagement and Blogging
Wishing you the best in your success James @Perfect Manifesto
Copyright © 2023 James M.Lane perfectmanifesto.com
Copyright © 2022 James M.Lane perfectmanifesto.com
Perfect Manifesto 
🙂 I have had my content stolen more than once.
I did a DMC takedown; it resulted in the removal of the content from the content thief’s blog.
Those lazy people should write blog posts of their own.
My suspicion is that some of the content thieves are teenagers and that they are unaware of the consequences of copying other people’s posts and publishing them on their blogs.
By the way, I view myself as an authentic blogger.
My blog is not monetized and I publish high-quality blog posts on my blog for everyone to read (I take pride in my work).
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Thanks for commenting- really sorry to hear you’ve experienced this too Renars, it’s quite frustrating!
I’ve been doing a read around since this happened and have been told alot of people who do this know its a short term thing with the intent of making money – though I don’t know how that works!
I like authentic bloggers! It’s good to hear from people who pursue it as a passion and take pride sharing content for people to enjoy.
Perhaps I’ve become jaded but there doesn’t seem too many about at the moment.
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Wow, so hard to believe people do such things, but unfortunately on the internet everything seems to be fair game! So sorry that this happened to you. You couldn’t be more right in your opinions about what blogging really should be about. Wishing you lots of success in the future!
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Thank you. The positive is that I’ve written something worse stealing! Sharing my work unfortunately means the chance someone will claim it as their own!
Thank you!
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I’m sorry to hear about the plagiarism; I guess it’s one of the downsides of putting your words on the web. But you, and people who know you, will know the truth.
And I’m like Jack in a way: I want to make money from blogging, and I haven’t created anything that is close to timeless!
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Thanks Jim. It was a blow at the time but I’m just accepting the practicalities that this can happen when you share anything on the Web.
I wouldn’t say you’re like that – all your content is your own for a start!
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your suggestions for fighting the problem are useful.
and no one would want to copy my content!
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I’m sorry to hear that you’ve had someone or something steal some of your blog posts, James. I’ve had many blog posts stolen as well.
Fortunately, I often use pingbacks to my own posts, and I always add a copyright notice at the end of all my blog posts. However, it doesn’t stop every one or everything from stealing content. I’ve even had eagle-eyes bloggers inform me that my posts have been stolen, usually when I inserted a pingback to one of their posts in the post that got stolen.
I have an old post about actions we can all take to try and stop our hard work from being stolen online. Reading your post has prompted me to get it updated and republished.
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Thanks Hugh, I’ve always figured this happened, at least on a small scale, it was just a shock to see a notification for a dozen ping back links from my other posts linked in pop up in a matter of seconds.
It put a lot of things in perspective, notably how much time and hardwork I’d put into the content, just to have it all taken so easy.
It’s good to have bloggers who are looking out for you with stolen posts – I’ve wrongly assumed that I was always a low target for theft being a small scale blogger, but guess I was wrong!
On the positive I’m just viewing that I must be doing something right if my posts are good enough to steal.
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Over the time I have blogged, I’ve heard so many bloggers say, ‘it won’t happen to me because my blog is too small…,’ yet some of those not only went on to have content stolen, but some also ended up being fined for downloading copyrighted material when reblogging another blogger’s post, James. It can happen to anyone as soon as they publish that first post.
I’m still amazed at how many bloggers do not copyright photos. Of course, they may not be concerned that somebody else can steal and use their photos, but knowing how protective many bloggers are about their content, it still amazes me how many still don’t do it.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear you’re now in the process of copyrighting all your posts. I’ll link to this post in the upcoming post I mentioned earlier.
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Again, sorry this has happened to you.
Thank you for your tips to stop it from happening to anyone else; especially the copyright signature.
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Thanks Rachel – I figure the copyright signature at least shows who the real author and site location is if its a bot copying word for word.
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Thanks for sharing those tips.
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Oh man. Who is the jack guy? Can it be reported?
I love reading your posts. But I am a bit awol/Mia these from blogging.
I glad you had your rant, I learnt stuff . Blogging is a labour of love in away.
I hope Jack the bot are able to be stopped.
Hugs
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Thank you Bella!
I feel better for getting all this out – it did make me feel like what is the point of all this.
I’ve looked into reporting, I can see the site is running ads so I can try to damage the income stream.
The posts seem to have been removed now.
I’m trying to take the positives from this
1) my stuff is good enough to steal
2) experiencing this has helped me deal with feelings of loss and that anytime a bot could steal many years of hardwork at anytime.
3) the thief’s won’t be successful as they expose themselves as frauds.
Thank you for your support – it’s thanks to people like yourself that I keep going at times like this 😀
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Your posts are great. Don’t let this stop you
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Thank you 😊
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