Why am I not blogging full time for a living? Why, after all these years on the interwebs, am I not as successful as say Matt Walsh, or Young House Love or Doughmesstic? Why do they get thousands, if not millions of readers and I do not?
They are just three examples of people who have turned their blogging into professions. They’ve done so successfully. They’ve been committed to the project, learning along the way. But what makes you want to read them?
Content.
Matt Walsh wrote last week:
That’s because the point of my blog is my writing. Nobody goes to a blog for the scenery. They go for the content. That’s it. That’s all. That’s all that matters.
I will admit that I changed the image on my blog yet again this morning. I also updated the about page.
But Walsh is right. That’s not why you’re here. If you’re here at all.
The content of this blog has been all over the place. I started years ago as a political blogger, writing mostly under a pseudonym and that because of the day job. I wrote later under my own name at Bearing Drift and a couple of other locations. Those were my highest readership days, and also the days I made a tiny bundle with my CafePress shop. But I’ve realized after some thirty years that 1) I’m not going to make a significant political difference and 2) politics will never help me meet my long term financial goals.
That’s why the content here has been sort of a gumbo of ideas, thoughts and links. Things which occasionally get your attention, but rarely find you saying you must come back and read what I post tomorrow.
That doesn’t mean that if you come back tomorrow, which you certainly should, I will have published a life-changing missive. I might actually do that. There are no current plans to do so. You’ll just have to come back and see.
I hesitate to give a list of what future post topics might be. After all, this is my “home” on the web where I write about things that get my attention, things that stir my emotions. You’ll find posts about writing, about acting, about family. And yes, sometimes still about public policy.
My task, whatever the subject, is to make the posts readable and filled with content that will actually hold your attention.
I’ll continue to write elsewhere for my clients as well as at Examiner.com where I write about faith, life and performing arts. I also have my event production blog still in development. I’ll get there.
Walsh is also right when he says he can’t tell writers how to develop good content:
I’m not you. You’ve got something to say — that’s why you’re starting a blog — and whatever you want to say is not what I want to say. You have a voice, and your voice is not my voice. Anyone who comes along and says, “here’s the formula for good content” is either lying, or they don’t understand good content because they’ve never produced any themselves.
For now I’m off to research how to set up a content plan for this blog. I can’t expect to get up in the morning and immediately know what I want to write. Some days I do. But I learned from 365 Things I Believe that I need a little more inspiration than the need to write a blog post.
Still, I have things I want to say.
If I’m doing my job, you’ll want to listen.
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Interesting. I started out with the purpose of shouting from my little soapbox about economics and politics. I threw in “and stuff I like” to cover everything else. For a while there, I was getting 25-30k hits a month. But keeping up enough content to seem relevant takes a lot of time. These days, I’m mainly of the same opinion as you about having any sort of impact on the economics and politics part – I’m not gonna have one. I’ve mainly shifted over to the stuff I like, with the occasional rant about the political stuff. If you’re not going to make your living there, then there’s probably no point in getting bent out of shape over how many people come to see it. Some still do, so I guess I’m thankful for that.