What’s This Blogging Business?
These tips from the editor of Writers Digest, Maria Schneider, may seem too basic but it gets to the core of what keeps a blog successful.
I’ll add something to the mix. Perhaps the biggest reason people stop blogging is burnout. It can be daunting to come up with a post and keep a steady stream of entries after a while. It starts to feel like chore. I felt the same way a few weeks into my Sound blog and Words blog. I started both with a lot of enthusiasm and drive but they fizzled when coming up with relevant content was becoming a drag. I had started emonome at Blogger in 2005. When I’d started blogging with the two above-mentioned blogs I had no intention of writing regularly for emonome. I wanted to create ‘professional’ blogs and build my way up. Personal blog didn’t make me feel professional.
I can’t quite pinpoint my ‘fuck this shit’ moment but it was towards the end of 2006 [around the time of this]. I realized I can’t stick to a one or two subjects and keep my blog going. When I say this blog can be defined as emon @ random I mean it. I did not want to restrict myself from blogging about practically anything that I felt like. Blogging allowed me to bring two of the most important aspects of my being together, learning and sharing. I had to share what I’d learned, therefore had to be learning and sharing regularly.
Nah, I shouldn’t say two - there are other elements brought forth from blogging as well. One of them - leaving bread crumbs of my life so one day, when I’m old and senile, I can go back and trace my history. Although I’ll admit that there are days and nights when I want to give up blogging because not much traffic is coming my way and not many readers are burning my feeds, this is what keeps me coming back for more. Blogging for traffic is similar to playing a favorite sport for sneaker deals. You have to love doing both. Unlike other well-known bloggers who consistently write well within their refined areas of interest, I tend to be all over the place; free, I guess. This is not the sort of behavior a traffic building blogger should participate in. There are bloggers who’ve started two hours ago and have built more traffic and subscribers before I finished writing my previous sentence. But it’s up to me to decide how I ought to measure the success, whatever is there. Most of my favorite bloggers have blogged well and have built well within a short time. I envy their focus, talent, and writing skills. That doesn’t mean I should pout and find some excuse to give up.
I have to keep doing my thing. ‘Doing my thing’ is not readily accepted. We are told to do like others, so a whole bunch of other others can do pie charts about us. I want to be that +- something % margin of error in their stats.
You know what I’ve realized my blog can be best described as? A glorified bookmark.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Emon, just thought I’d drop a line to let you know we’re out here, man. I catch your blog occasionally through my subscription to your feed via google reader.
I’ve been trying to get myself to blog regularly for over a year now but I always hit the wall. Other shit - life - always seems to get in the way. Your blog is an inspiration and lets me know that kindred spirits are out there, looking at the world with curiosity and originality and recording bits and pieces of it for the rest of us. That’s always comforting and seeing your posts always puts some of my existential anxiety at ease.
You talked about trying to get more serious about professionalizing the blog - dialing in on one specific subject area and going in depth. And that can be useful and profitable, or so folks say, but dude, I like your style of blogging on emonome. And your photography is dope too. This style of blog is way more personal and honest, and consequently more engaging, authentic and ultimately much more interesting. Of course, I don’t dig every single post, but why should I? It’s the occasional gems you share that make it worthwhile and that’s how it should be. Nothing takes the fun out of blogging like trying to please everyone. Keep on doing what you’re doing.
If anything, I take away from this post a renewed faith in the idea that when it comes to blogging, doing your own thing is also doing the right thing. Thanks for the refreshment.
January 16th, 2008 at 10:12 am
Thanks, man! Always always happy to find kindred spirits. There are days when I’m sure everything is figured out and then there are days when I question my sanity for being that confident. You’ve nailed it with two words: existential anxiety.
Here’s to finding more of us and doing our own things.
January 16th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Yeah, I sometimes get the “fuck this shit!” moments, but then I think about the whole slew of nice people who drop by regularly, just to see what I might have written, and that re-energizes me.
January 16th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
You know my ‘fuck this shit’ moment wasn’t long ago when I decided that I’m gonna drop blogozine for something that is more “Me”. My problem wasn’t that traffic wasn’t coming in nor readers not burning my feeds… but things got to the point where it felt like work that I didn’t want to do.
I started with personal blogging for about a year.. then I decided I wanted to go pro. You know only few few bloggers got away with blogging personally and professionally at the same time. and by personally I mean blogging about whatever may come to their minds at the moment, including what they had for dinner.. and still are classified as A-list bloggers. So I had to create something that would please more people. I wanted to be an A lister at some point.. but not anymore.
The best advice I ever got was from you Emon, when you told me to write for one. That’s exactly what I’m doing right now, and it feels great
January 17th, 2008 at 12:49 am
Jim, I treasure those moments when people drop by and leave their thoughts…or just drop by.
Dee: It’s very cool that you’ve started the personal blog again. Happy I had something meaningful to tell you. I’d recently read about Douglas Kirkland, the famous photographer, now in his 70s. He says that even after all these decades of taking countless pictures, he still can’t wait to go out and shoot every day. Now that’s love.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:28 am
Emon, you have been among the most valuable guides to the world of new new media I have been fortunate enough to meet. Keep up the fine work. I’ve never come across a post or photo by you that I didn’t enjoy reading or seeing.
January 17th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Thank you, Paul! Coming from you, it’s a badge of honor.
January 28th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
[…] Couple of weeks ago I’d talked about not getting enough traffic - meaning really not enough traffic - but did talk about the realization that my blog is not at all mass-appealing, which in turn made me feel a lot better. I am happy to have a smaller group of very important people visiting my blog whose opinions, thoughts, and voices mean a lot to me. It was my ‘why am I blogging?’ moment of clarity, if I may. Seth Godin reflected on that today. I don’t look for validation…but I guess I just did. […]