The Reason I Blog

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If you walk away with one thing today, let it be this message, shared by Michelle Davidson Argyle from her publishers at Rhemalda:

Your writing is not going to fail or succeed because of your blog.

I've been involved in online communities since before forums and message boards, let alone blogs, Facebook, or twitter.  Since before AIM, ICQ, or even IRC.  I started interacting with others on bulletin boards.  I had a 300/1200 baud external modem that I used to dial in to BBS's that were mostly run out of guys' houses.  This wasn't internet.  This wasn't on-line.  This was me downloading message content and running applications on a computer in a guy's house, and he was downloading messages and content from a bigger computer in someone else's house.  I met some really great people, made come good connections, learned some things, developed some interests.  The next step, once I got internet e-mail (still pre- most of those other things I mentioned) was e-mail list serves.  I met more people, developed some more interests.

This is the background I bring to social media.  I used it to make a few friends, exchange ideas, engage in sometimes witty banter, and create opportunities.  At least one internship and my entire masters thesis research project are direct results of my use of these tools.

When I started to blog and engage with the internet as a writer, that's the context I was in.  I'd never even heard of building a platform.  I wasn't looking for support.  I wasn't looking for an on-line crit group.  I wasn't looking for an outlet for my writing.  I was trying to meet people, exchange ideas, engage in some witty conversation, make some connections, and maybe make some opportunities.

While I know that in the modern world, an active blog and Twitter presence may help my cause in advancing my professional presence, I don't blog to make myself a successful writer in any way.

Then why do I blog?

One look at the comments on yesterday's blog post shows one main reason.  I threw up a post about a personal reflection, and several of you chimed in with your own thoughts on the topic.  I love that.  It's the main reason I blog.  Your comments.  The exchange of ideas.  The interaction.  That's my the my thing.

Another reason I blog and Twitter is this sequence:

I read Misha Gerricke's post on South African braai food.

And then this takes place on Twitter:


CNNevets
Read this if you're hungry or prepared to be! @MishaMFB TCoML: South African food, Part 1 http://bit.ly/qYGvXe

JakeHenegan
My country's food.RT @cnnevets Read this if you're hungry or prepared to be! @MishaMFB TCoML: South African food, Part 1 bit.ly/qYGvXe

MishaMFB
@JakeHenegan @cnnevets Another South African. Hello! ;-)
about 10 hours ago via web in reply to JakeHenegan

JakeHenegan
@MishaMFB @cnnevets Another South African that writes fantasy. *follows*
about 5 hours ago via web in reply to MishaMFB



Voila.  Networking.  I love this stuff.

That's it.  I just wanted to share my silly excitement.  No real moral.  If you want a moral, go back up to the top and re-read the tip I opened with.  But for me the tip is incidental.

.Nevets.

The Blogosphere Isn't Broken: It Never Existed in the First Place

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photo by Blue Plover

If you ever see or hear me use the word blogosphere again, please throw ice cream in my face or something.

Why?

Because there really is no such thing as the or a blogosphere, and using the word perpetuates the myth and compounds the problems.

If you follow many writing blogs, you've probably notices a lot of hub-bub this week.  From responses to negative reviews, organized punking of supposed trolls, and controversies over  bogfests -- it seems that a great number of blogging writers this week have expressed their sadness and frustration with the blogosphere.  Some find it too given to a mob mentality.  Some find it too cliquish.  Some find it shallow.  Some find it cruel.

But the truth is that the blogosphere does not exist.  From a practical perspective, blogs are not contained or bounded in any way.  They are linked to one another, but they are also cross-linked with Facebook, Flickr, Panroa, YouTube, CNN -- everything else on the internet.    Sure, there are trends among similar blogs, but that's not surprising.  Bloggers with similar interests are going to show trends.  A trend is (essentially)  a coincidence of membership, not a delimiter of membership.  By using the word blogosphere we create the false impression of a bounded space, like a message board, a BBS, or an old-school AOL / CompuServe / Prodigy community.  It's nothing like that.

But more importantly, people refer to the blogosphere as if it were a community.  From an anthropological perspective, I'm here to tell you, it's not.  Not really.

Now, hold on.  Don't misunderstand.

I'm a huge believer in the power of social media and virtual relationships.  Skype let me talk to my brother-in-law on Christmas, even though he's at war overseas.  One of my oldest friends is someone I met on-line and have never met in person.  My wife and I, while most of our relationship developed face-to-face, had several important conversations in our relationship -- both serious and flirtatious -- through AIM.  Through Twitter and this blog, I have met several people that I consider great friends.  And, yes, through them, I am part of circles of friendship.

So don't think I'm saying something I'm not.

On-line relationships, both personal and professional, can be very helpful.  Very beneficial.  Very satisfying.  And very, very real.

But that does not mean that a bunch of blogs constitute a community.

In social science, an articulation is a point of contact.  There are several people with whom I have articulations on multiple blogs.  It's kind of lack having class with a lot of the same kids.  You can form relationship with some of those people -- though, in many cases, they are context-dependent relationships, and if you take away the context (the classes or the blogs), you also take away the relationships.

A community, though, is a social group, and there's more to a social group than points of articulation.  There's no simple definition of a community -- or of a social group -- but for the sake of ease I'm going to focus on aspect: in a community, the different people and their different relationships, serve different functions and perform different roles for one another, contributing as a sum to each member's overall life and well-being (or lack thereof).

Blogs aren't like that.  They cover a limited scope of interest, and impact a small piece of life.  Most people play pretty much the same role.  And everyone except the blog host/s occupy the same structure.  At it's worst, interconnected writing blogs are a a club.  At it's best, a peer group.

Anyone who has been a teenager knows that peer groups can be great, but they're not the same a community.

There's a last point to be made, too.  Blogs are not bloggers.  Just as you do not know a celebrity because of her performance, or an author because of his writing, or a band because of their songs, you do not know a blogger because of her blog.  You can learn about the blogger.  You may even use the blog as a launching point for further development of a relationship, in which you do know the blogger.  But knowing someone's blog really well, is not the same as knowing them.  I may get along with you great when you invite me to share a meal around your fire, but when you put the fire out and walk away, you feel no further relationship obligation to me.  My relationship is with your food and your fire, not with you.

Here's the point of all this:

Many of us expect too much out of blogs and out of bloggers.

1. Blogs are not part of a closed or even a defined system.

2. Blogs are not a community.

3. Having a relationship with a blog does not give you a relationship with the blogger.


If you want relationships with people you meet through blogs, that's awesome.  I am all in favor of using blogs as launching pads for meaningful professional and personal relationships.    But if you don't take the time to make a one-on-one relationship, you don't really have a relationship.  There's no social role or function to create the relationship like there is in a community.  The only way to create relationships is to seek them out, build them, and nurture them.  One on one.

.Nevets.

The Holy Grail: Blogging for Readers - You Can Be Perceval

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As I mentioned  in this post (go comment now -- there's a contest!), I am interested in blogging for readers, not just for other writers, though I appreciate all the writers who stop by and I hope even more do.  I think for many authors in the blogosphere this is held out as the unattainable dream.  We want a presence that attracts readers, we're told we need one, and yet we're told readers don't read author blogs.

I think it's doable, and I'm about to give you some tips, but first here are two more tips that may relieve some of your stress:

You really don't know how many readers are reading your blog.  I happen to know I have several readers who check my blog pretty regularly, but just never comment and don't sign up as followers.  They just bookmark the page or click through Twitter.

But if they read, why don't they comment?  Many authors track their success in terms of followers.  Some track their actual hits.  Some count comments.  Why would readers show up almost only as anonymous hits?

Writers write.  Readers read.  Yep.  You've read it hear first.  I'm being glib, but it's also true.  As writers it seems natural to express ourselves in writing.  For many readers, that is not the case.  Maybe this will help you.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has 2,451 reader reviews on Amazon.com.  Sounds like a ton of reader feedback, doesn't it?  Only... The book has sold an estimated 30 million copies.  Let's say 1% of those copies were sold through Amazon: 300,000.  May not be accurate, but it seems reasonable, given that their huge and increasing market share.  The 2,451 reviews would be less than 1% return on reader feedback.  If I get 2,500 visits a month, maybe that's 125 hits per blog post, and if I know that 75% of those are writers, then maybe I have 32 readers checking out each post.  And 1% of 32 is less than 1.  So if I never get a reader comment,  it's still within the percentages.

Don't get too caught up in the numbers.  The point is this: You may already have readers, and you may just not know it, and until you're famous and generating gabillions of hits, that's not surprising.


But, that said, there are some things that I have done and will be doing to increase my readership among non-writers.  You all can do these things, too


1) Be proactive about showing your well-roundedness.  I know a lot of writers who blog about broader topics of life and popular interest.  A couple of them use photos and tags in a way that might generate a few accidental web hits.  That's a bit of the battle, but here's the real secret to doing this: get out of the writing blogosphere.   Go read and comment on blogs associated with other hobbies you have and other interests of yours.  Be active outside of writing, and your readership will over lap.  Andrea Eames is excellent at this and she has one of the most diverse blog readerships I've come across.  She's a writer and she's into vintage clothes, and her blog is a place where the two communities overlap.

2) Be a font of cross-over information.  In case you're not, Clarissa Draper's blog overflows with information about the broad field of forensics, compiled for her own research and then posted for the public to use as a great starting point.   Every Monday, Lydia Kang features a new medical malady, condition, or procedure, each one crazier or more obscure than the last.  In both cases, most of the blog readers seem to be readers, but I always see a few comments from non-writers who just find the insight fascinating.   If a few are commenting, probably even more are reading.  These aren't accidental web hits, these are people who stay and return because the font of information appears predictable and bottomless.  I anticipate LT Host having similar success as she continues to develop her series on horses.

3) The internet is more than the blogosphere.  Maybe you don't "get" Twitter, or you see Facebook as a time-sink.  That's all well and good, but those are both great ways to reach out and make new net friends and contacts beyond the bubble.   I'm just now exploring how to use Facebook optimally, but most of my contacts there are and will always be most readers, several non-blogging writers, and a few from the blogosphere.  I've begun extending my Twitter chat out beyond the strict writing world and have made contact with people in comedy, martial arts and other areas of interest -- and they sometimes check in on my blog, and will be potential readers when I release stories.


4) Don't look for readers.  Just look for people.  Stop thinking about your writing career for a while.  Stop trying to enlist readers.  Stop trying to build awareness among potential reading populations.  Stop trying to build a dang platform.  Just.  Go.  Out.  And.  Meet.  People.   Seriously.  Check out of the writer's mindset, and just meet people.  They'll figure out that you blog.  And they'll check it out.  But stop trying to make it happen.  Just be yourself.


You really are pretty/handsome, and you're so smart and funny; if you're just yourself, I know they'll like you.


.Nevets.

Soundtrack for writing this post provided by Eric B and Rakim.

Reader Feedback Time - With Prizes!

 All---

I've deleted about four blog posts that I feel unprepared to actually write tonight, as much as the topics are weighing on my mind.

But I've been thinking about asking some questions anyway, so I figured that this would be as good a time as any to ask for feedback on a few different questions.  And, to make it even more fun, I'm offering prizes.  Two prizes, in fact: one, an item from the CafePress store; the other, a custom printed and autographed story, Nevetsizing the Aesop's Fable of your choice.

Here are my questions -- one entry counted for each question you answer in the comments here, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

1) White writing on a black background, as I have it on the blog: how is it for you as a reader?

2) Most of the people who follow the blog are writers.  I'd love to get some ideas from non-writing readers on what might encourage them to follow a writer's blog.

3) Right now, I know I have followers who visit my Blog from the US, Canada, the UK, Denmark, Australia, South Africa, and India.  There are probably a few others I know that aren't coming to mind.  But my stats also show pretty respectable number of hits from a few other countries like South Korea, Brazil, Netherlands, and France.  My instinct is to think those others are bots or spam trolls.  But if you're checking my blog from somewhere other than one of the countries in bold, I'd love to hear from you!  Even if you want to stay anonymous, a quick shout-out would be awesome.

4) Which of the flash fiction pieces posted on Nevets-QST.com is your favorite -- and why?

Yes, that's up to four entries!

Yes, I said I will Nevetsize an Aesop's fable of your choice if you win.

And, yes, that is the Mandarin chorus version of Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" that you hear playing in the background.

.Nevets.

Think Twice

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Think twice.

Think twice when you say something on your blog.  Especially if you're trying to be controversial, ironic, or counter to prevailing wisdom.  Make sure you understand  how your words might be interpreted, and then make sure you're okay with that.

Successful agents, think twice about your jaded perspective on the publishing industry and how difficult it is for you to find material you want to publish.  Often the best artists are the most sensitive.  This is as true for writers as it is for other art forms.  Do you really want to discourage the best writers from getting their material to you, by feeding into their fears and insecurities?

Published authors, think twice about your cynical commentary about what it's like to "make it."  I know you think you're giving us a reality check.  I know you think you're being clever.  I know you think you're giving us tough love.  But really, you're just puking all over our dreams.  Telling us they're either unattainable or not worth it.  Is that really what you want to do?

As-yet un-agented authors, think twice about what advice you give.  I think many of us have insights on the craft and process of writing, and maybe even into some parts of the business side.  When you get right down to it, though, we're still un-agented and so the one thing we are not qualified to talk too much about is how to get an agent or what agents like/dislike.  We may think we've learned a lot and that we want to share that with others, and there's a safe way to do that, but we need to be careful about misleading others in our same position by speaking with too much authority about something we only know second- or third-hand.

Okay, that's a bit more of a rant than I usually like, but I'm in a weird spot right now with my writing (for reasons entirely separate from these issues) and I felt like just growling for a bit.

Next time, peace, love, and applesauce.

.Nevets.