It's a relevant question, and it's a question I have to answer, so I'm going to work through the problem, here, in public because this, writing it out, assessing and analyzing both sides - the cost / benefit of the equation - is the way I work.
A blog is an investment of time and creative energy. Some require intimate knowledge of their subjects and some don't. Mine is a little blog. Intended to divert and entertain, nothing more.
Most mornings I enjoy doing it. I wake up and I'm energized and interested. Other mornings it's a chore because on those mornings I haven't the first foggiest clue what to write about, and then I'm scratching and picking at anything, hoping for a miracle.
However, no matter if it's a pleasure or a chore, it is an investment of time and energy. Quite honestly, it's a sink for my creative juices because what I expend here is not available over there, in my other writings. By the time I finish this, I almost always have nothing left in the tank.
I have maintained this every morning since I began last month. It usually takes me between forty minutes and an hour between the writing, the editing / revising, the posting and the re-posting on Facebook and Twitter. It's a commitment but, most honestly, it seems to be one without return.
There are blogs of every stripe available. Pet blogs, travel blogs, investment blogs, hobby blogs, blogs about blogs and ones like mine so the two related and pertinent questions are:
With so many blogs available out there, why would anyone read mine?
Is expending the limited time I have on a blog that no one reads worth the investment of time and energy?
In answer to the first, beats the hell out of me. I don't generate controversy or promulgate argument or ire. You may not agree with some of the things that I say, but I apparently haven't risen to the level of giving offense because no one's left a comment telling me, in politest terms of course, where I can get off. In the past forty days I've received two comments - neither of which were anything more than a variant of 'good on you but don't let other things slide'. So why would anyone read mine, day after day? I don't know.
Second, the reason I started this in the first place is that I am planning on self-publishing a book later this year and it's a widely held belief among writers that having a blog creates interest. You get your name out there. You create a following. Ergo, people will buy your book. Seeing the stats on this I'm not so sure.
I think I would have better luck creating interest by standing on a street corner for the forty minutes to an hour this blog usually takes, and engaging strangers in conversation. As it is now, I feel like I'm standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon shouting into the wind, hoping for someone to shout back. It's okay that they don't, but it is a lonely exercise.
Perhaps it's a chicken / egg thing. Perhaps, for some people who have large families and lots of friends who will spread the word and encourage others to drop by it's a good exercise that pays dividends at publication. Perhaps, for people like me with few friends (long story associated with that, but this is neither the time nor the place), whose family is scattered and out-of-touch, who can't build a following via a blog, it isn't the place to start. Perhaps for someone like me, getting the book out there and then creating the blog - the experience of publishing, of marketing and selling and pushing and all the rest - then the blog creates and maintains itself to a degree.
Or, could it be that I've said I would post certain things and I haven't and the few people who've peeked in are disappointed or disillusioned? It's possible. Not at all likely, I don't think, but it is within the realm of possibility. And I'll admit, I said I would but I've been spotty on those - that's my problem but it's not as if I committed to a date certain. Is it that? I don't know.
All I know is that in the past month I was averaging a whopping twelve to fifteen views a day (and I don't think they were mine because I told the hosting site to ignore my computer). The past couple of days it fell off that cliff at the Grand Canyon. Four views on the day before yesterday and two yesterday. It's discouraging and it's made me re-think this entire process.
On the plus side, it is a good exercise. It's almost like writing letters to my Mom - I approach this in much the same way as in my letters to her. I used to type them up on the computer and print them to go into the mail because she didn't have a computer. We finally convinced her to get one about ten years ago (she passed in 2013), and it just wasn't the same. There was a feeling of satisfaction in sealing the envelope, addressing it and dropping it into the mail. But I digress.
On the negative side, it is a big investment of time and energy. Most mornings I sit here scrounging for things to write. It's almost painful - it's not pleasurable when it doesn't flow readily and easily. I put it down, edit and revise and re-edit and then send my 'baby' off into the world where, by and large, it's ignored. So is it worth it?
Not to the general world out there. That's patently obvious. If I stop, I know no one would miss it, but will I? I'll have to think about that. I'll keep you...er... posted.
All the best~
Philippa
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