I haven’t written anything in a while, partly because nobody reads my crap anymore, and partly because I can’t really figure out how I can write anything of substance on a daily basis. Yet if I’m to succeed in turning my writing into a career, I’ll have to find a way, somehow.
The reason I’m making this my goal now is because I read a study that the more popular a blog was, the more content it dished out on a regular basis. The average seemed to be about one post a day before the numbers start to level out, so I guess that should be my objective: one post a day. It doesn’t have to be epic obviously, but it should be engaging enough to attract the reader into coming back for more. If only I lived the kind of lifestyle that could draw the audience in and help develop a community around my crazy adventures, but I don’t. At least not now.
Instead, I work the most mind numbingly boring job in existence, a government job that saddles me with absolutely vacuous drone work and groups me in with shriveled up seahags, most of who have the mental acuity of a brain damaged snail. It’s a miracle that I can still manage to find my way home after ten years of this insanity.
Coupled with the fact that I have no social life, and thus my life is void of any drama (which is both good and bad), I haven’t been able to come up with much in the way of blogging fodder.
Most professional bloggers though simply resort to writing bland, forgettable content and follow a specific format. For one, they use bullet points to emphasize certain points under the assumption that their readers are complete morons. And they’ll often title their posts with phrases like “29 Ways to Travel Light” or “18 Tips to help You Save Money during your stay at Disney World.” Why? Because that’s what the experts tell them all to do. It’s a writing structure that makes it easier for readers to scan your content before they click away to read something else. Most users online have a limited attention span, so bloggers are instructed to present their content in such a way to make it easy and quick to read. It’s the nature of the Internet, and honestly, there’s really nothing inherently wrong with taking this approach.
Except the fact that 100 million other aspiring bloggers all do the same thing.
See, I can’t write like that. My writing only seems to hit its stride when I focus more on telling a story rather than informing the audience on the virtues of not forgetting to pack your underwear when you’re taking a trip somewhere. Unfortunately, my writing style is not a consistent money maker, so I can either adapt and be like everyone else, or go my own way and be poor.
And yes, as stupid as it sounds, I would rather be different than be rich. That’s just how I roll. It’s why I buck social norms and do virtually the opposite of what everyone else does. When most people take their vacations in the summer, I take it in the winter so I can avoid the crowds. People go up, I go down. They go to Disney World, I go to Bob and Mike’s Funsie-Fun Amusement Park, when the kids are still in school.
I’m an off-season kind of guy, and I like it that way.
well, you do have 60 subscribers – that’s not too shabby. So they might just be reading – not commenting. I think the wonderful world of blogging is a back and forth game. You have to read and comment to get readers and commenters. At least that seems to be working for me! You just can’t expect the readers to come to you. The more you are out there commenting on blogs the more people will come (the owner of that blog as well as others reading the comments!)
I don’t think posting every day is a “requirement” I’d rather read a blog that has one good post a week rather than “fluff” every day. And with feed readers it really makes it a lot easier for us to know when I blogger has new content!
Your country is falling apart so since you don’t have a life, why not contribute to something greater than you? You might just create a real life in the process.
Love you.
Erika, actually the one post a day isn’t meant to draw readers but to dramatically improve SEO. The more you post, the more frequently Google and other search engines indexes your content and ranks you better. More content generates more search engine traffic, even if it’s the most crap writing you’ve ever seen. It’s the nature of the beast.
I think the best thing I can do is build up a queue of quality posts spanning two weeks, so even if I’m going through a writing drought, my blog will still be dripping one post a day for 2 weeks before the queue empties. That way my writing doesn’t suffer but my posts are still being published regularly. :-D We’ll see how that goes.
@RovingPoet: You must think highly of me if you think I can save the country from itself. Weeelp, I’m just man enough to try. *sniff* *pulls up pants*
That’s more like it, Buddy! You can bring Bailey for charm factor.