I've been blogging for about a year now and it still feels like sending a message in a bottle into the ocean or maybe sending a paper airplane off a skyscraper, so I was interested to see the article in the N.Y. Times Style section Sunday about the large number of bloggers dropping out of the blogosphere.
The Times story cites a Technorati estimate that only about 7.4 million of 133 million blogs were updated in the past 120 days. That's a huge failure rate and it's safe to say that people stop blogging because they're busy, they're tired and frankly, they're a little discouraged.
In my case, I'm sure my blogs aren't taking off because I haven't promoted them and because I'm writing about journalism in one and parenting in the other: two prosaic and (yawn) boring subjects to lots of people I'm sure. Maybe I have to do something more edgy.
I also haven't gotten the proper tone: personal, snarky and humorous. I try for humour sure but I sense that I'm not hip enough or maybe that's just the insecurity of a 50-year-old journalist/mom with one foot in 2009 and the other back in the 20th century when we had typewriters and simple computers and jobs.
I have admittedly been inconsistent about posting and clueless about finding an audience. I get the theory and I think it goes something like this: you write a marvelous, literary, fascinating blog that everyone wants to read. People start reading it and they can't get enough. Soon you have an audience of gazillions and everyone is beating a path to your door. A major magazine wants to run your blog. There's a book contract and a possible movie deal. Yeah right.
My dear friend Tracy Schroth and a few other people have worked on a blog about local politics called The Secret News in Emeryville, Calif. and they've been very successful. They've gotten a huge audience, they've been quoted in the New York Times and politicians are apparently quaking in their boots. So the blogging thing can work but it's tough going for most of us.
I'm still slogging away despite it all. I suspect that I have to do a lot more to get my blog noticed. Maybe nude photos? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. This blog thing is like some giant mountain I have to climb and seriously I'm just a short-distance walker. But you never know.
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A good reason to continue is for the writing practice, no? The more you write, the more you write, and knowing somebody might be reading it pushes you to do it, and do it better.
ReplyDeleteA blog can be a resume bullet-point, too.
Actually, I think parenting is a subject a LOT of people would read a blog about. If they could read while driving. (Just wait, that'll be next.)
I feel your pain; I have dear friends and family who use the computer a lot but just don't read blogs (not even mine, unless I nag.)
And you're right, you've gotta promote it, and I think you should.