Answers from Tofugu's Koichi

So about a week ago I had the opportunity to email Koichi, the writer of popular Japanese culture blog Tofugu and online Japanese textbook Textfugu (plus an English culture blog written in Japanese, Koichiben). He's a pretty experienced blogger, a really cool guy, and definitely a big name in the J-blogger "industry." I asked him some questions about blogging, and here's what he had to say:

Q: First off, I know that Koichiben was created before Tofugu. What blogging platform did you choose to use, or how was Koichiben built?

A: I use self-hosted Wordpress for everything, and I host on Dreamhost. Wordpress takes the nasty backend out of blogging so you can focus on content.

Q: Did you have any previous experience blogging prior to creating Koichiben?

A: Nope

Short and sweet, I like it!

Q: What inspired you to bring Tofugu into the professional world?

A: By professional world do you mean as my actual job? When I was making enough money to live off it, I suppose.

Tofugu just became Koichi's full-time job in tandem with Textfugu.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers regarding how to get a start?

A: Network and get to know people - doing what you're doing right here isn't a bad way to do it, actually.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers in the J-blog niche?

A: Get active on Japansoc.com and get to know the other bloggers.

Q: How did the knowledge required to write Tofugu come to you? Did you spend a lot of time on research, or did your passion for the subject bring the information to you?

A: I try not to let information get to me, to be honest. I feel like it saps creativity and I'll accidentally copy someone / repost something. My goal is to post pretty original stuff, so I usually just write about the things I'm interested in learning. I figure if I'm interested in it then some others will be interested as well, and that's worked out pretty well so far. I do spend a good amount of time researching for a lot of posts, though. I don't want to be the kind of blog that posts someone else's content and then has a three line comment on it.

Some great advice!

Don't forget to check out Tofugu if you're even remotely interested in Japanese language or culture. It updates regularly and presents information in a fun-to-read way that's sure to keep anyone's attention. Koichi has a really unique "voice" and certainly uses it to full effect in all of his writing endeavors. I was linked to Tofugu first a few years ago and I'm glad I've been following it ever since!

If you're interested in learning Japanese, I also recommend you stop by Textfugu and take a look at what they have to offer. Expect a full review when the book catches up to my level... but until then, I've been reading every post and I'm still learning new things. I'm trying especially hard to follow along with the Kanji section--Koichi's method is the most painless that you'll find out there. He also recommends some of my favorite language-learning applications that I use as an aspiring linguist. He definitely knows where to go to get the learning done, and I'm glad he's writing his own material now. Textfugu is constantly updated, meaning the material will never become irrelevent or stop at a low level. Plus, if you order the full package, you get these updates free forever. Some teachers have even started using Textfugu in their classes! But hey, I guess that's all for another post, right? I want to write a good solid review of this thing, cause I love its content.

Hope you all enjoyed that little taste of Koichi! See you next post.