About

[Updated: 26th Apr 2023]

Hello! 😀

Welcome to my blog! This blog was started in October 2010, when I was working for someone else and decided there had to be more to life than just slogging my years away in a well-paying but unfulfilling job.

In 2011, I quit my S$114,000 job (click here to read more about how and why I did it), the CEO of the company was not at all pleased that I was blogging (read about his response here) but I couldn’t care less.

So I began my blogging journey.

In 2012, I first heard about the Singapore Blog Awards and decided to take part. I was fortunate enough to be picked out of hundreds of nominees to get a Top 10 placing for ‘Best Individual Blog’. I didn’t win the title though.

In 2013, I decided to try again. And win I did. 😀 Read the shortest “acceptance speech” ever here.

In 2014, two of my best students took part in the Singapore Blog Awards and one won the Best New Blog award (travelledpaths.com) and the other – who is 67 years old! (and blogs at retiredowhat.com) – beat hundreds of other nominees to be a Top 10 Finalist in the Best Individual Blog category! I can’t be more proud of them! 🙂

Now I am also a published author (of the book ‘Blogging For A Living’) and I conduct workshops on the craft of blogging. Want to attend one? 🙂

Since this blog started out as an ‘interview blog’ where I interviewed celebrities, millionaires and entrepreneurs regarding their “secrets to success”, here are some questions (using the 5W1H method) I put together for, well, myself, to answer YOUR questions. 😀

Q&A With Grace

1) Who would you most like to interview?

Well, I’ve interviewed just about everyone I am curious about, from my favorite comedian Michelle Chong to the son of Warren Buffett.

I’d probably like to interview my own daughter when she’s able to speak and give her (uncensored) opinions about how awesome I am as a mother. 😀 #kidding

2) What is the likelihood of you returning to a full-time 9-to-5 job?

I’m totally not considering it. I’ve honestly had enough of a poor work-life balance, temperamental and uncaring bosses, the stress of commuting via public transport, and I’m enjoying my current lifestyle too much! 🙂

3) When did your blog start making you money?

Sometime about 6 to 8 months after I started blogging. I was happily interviewing people without caring about dollars and cents since they allowed me to interview them for free. Then I began getting emails from people who wanted me to interview them. Most of the time, I didn’t know who these email senders are, but once I decided that their businesses are legal, ethical and moral, I interviewed them, but for a fee.

4) Where do you see yourself in 5 years’ time, and do you think you will still be blogging then?

I am no fortune teller, so while this question is one of those that interviewers LOVE to ask, I have to say that sorry, I can’t possibly hazard a guess as to what I could possibly be doing in 5 years’ time. Maybe, changing my baby’s diapers? [UPDATE: YUP!]

And I definitely have no idea whether blogs will still exist 5 years down the road. But I believe that social media enthusiasts will continue to change with the times, and learn to invent and re-invent themselves. Whatever the future of blogging is, I do believe I’ll continue writing as it’s my passion.

5) Why use a free wordpress.com blog instead of purchasing your own domain name? 

Well, I have purchased my own domain name, gracetan.com. But I think it is useful to make a success out of a free blog and demonstrate to people (you, you and you) that you don’t have to spend money on a website in order to be successful online or win a blog award.

6) How can a newbie blogger “survive” in a blogosphere so saturated with blogs, much less win a blog award?

Firstly, I do not think that the blogosphere is saturated with blogs. I mean… books have been published since a long, long time ago and I STILL managed to author and publish one. Shouldn’t the list of book titles and topics be exhausted by now?

As long as you have a brilliant idea, and you fill a gap in the blogosphere (or bookstore, in my case), your blog will be most welcome.

Want to know how to win a blog award even if your blog is barely 3 months’ old, you have hardly any blog followers, and you have no idea why anyone would even want to read your blog, then join me at one of my blogging workshops and full-day courses. Click here.

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2014 has been pretty incredible:

1) Featured on The Sunday Times

2) Winning BRAND’S blogging contest and receiving a prize worth S$2,000

3) Invited to be a Maku Store Singapore Preferred Blogger:

4) Invited (and paid) to speak at the Singapore Writers Festival – It was such an honor to be invited, and I didn’t know before this that speakers get paid too!

5) Winning the influr blogging contest despite turning up late at the launch event (due to a timing clash with another event) and missing the entire brief about products etc!

*I also had fun organizing the international gift exchange – post 1 and 2. 😀

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Interview Requests

If you’d like me to interview you, drop me an email at gracewwg at gmail dot com. If you’d like to interview me, send me an email too.

Friends from MLM or NM companies

Please note: I do not wish to be affiliated with any MLM (NM, or by any other name) companies so kindly refrain from contacting me. Thank you for understanding.

Love,

Grace Tan

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