Why blog?
It used to be that a blog post talked about what you had for breakfast and walking the dog, for example. Today that uninteresting trivia (well, maybe it’s interesting to your neighbors, especially if you leave the poop on their lawn) is relegated to Facebook (FB manages to cover the whole spectrum from domestic trivia to the Occupy X City news, from a pet peeve, i.e. complaints about your pet, to the Arab spring uprisings, and so on). Blog posts should be, and now usually are, more substantial. They truly are op-ed, i.e. opinions, about something.
The something can be almost anything! This post is about writing, a particular form of writing. You’ve all read op-ed in a newspaper—that’s usually politically or economically motivated. Most of my posts here are similar to those commentaries on current events. If you like, you can say I have an ax to grind. (Some people become very upset about my opinions, so I generally allow comments, as long as you keep them clean. I call it “Join the Conversation” on my “Steve’s Writing” page.)
However, whatever I write is usually longer than a description of the domestic trivia mentioned above. You can’t say anything worth much in Twitter’s 140-character limit, but I can usually make a point (or several) in 800-1200 words. That’s about the length of a short-short story (some people call that “flash fiction,” but I reserve that term for more off-the-cuff writing with very little editing, if any—like the difference between real chess and speed chess). From the perspective of the writer, though, the important thing is that creating such a post is writing—in fact, it’s very creative writing in the tradition of the great essayists of the Renaissance.
I’m no Voltaire or Rabelais. I don’t pretend to be in their category. However, I admire them. My real blogging hero is Vonnegut. Like him, I have roots in the Midwest. Like him, I consider myself a cynical old curmudgeon. And like him (at least, relative to what I read in A Man Without A Country), there are many things going on in the good old U.S. of A. and the rest of the world that really piss me off. So why not write about them? I have a whole gang of muses that prods me—a few of these ladies motivate me to write blog posts, a few more short stories, and a whole she-wolf pack spurs me on to undertake novels. (I even have a few for poetry, but they haven’t had much success.)
You say, “What do you gain?” In this world of rarely doing anything just for the love of doing it, skeptics will tell me that writing a blog post twice a week (I used to do one three days per week) is a lot of finger cramps and butt sweat to invest for very little gain. Consequently, I suppose it’s my duty to counter the skeptics…and also answer the new writer’s question, “They tell me to write a blog…but why?”
Internet marketing fact-of-life #1: If you have invested time and money into a website (if you’re serious about writing, you have), those search engine bots like new content. Blog posts are new content. They might be in the form of a serialized novel or short stories (I don’t know about the bots, but readers love freebies). It used to be that the website administrator (you, the author) salt and peppered web pages and posts with the bot-lovely keywords—I don’t think the bots give a rat’s ass about them now—they just look for significant change.
Internet marketing fact-of-life #2: Did I already mention freebies? Blog posts are freebies for every visitor to your website. Related to freebies are sales. If you’re a writer, you can announce in a post about your new book a sale for it, via a Smashwords coupon, for example. Those short stories and serialized novels are also freebies, but even the old op-ed blog post is a freebie. Think about it: you spend a little time coming up with something free that draws readers to your site. That’s priceless.
#3: Shared links with other blogs or websites can be placed in your posts. Remember those search engine bots. They like links too. The more you have, the better. I tend to forget that myself, but links are easy to add with most blogging software. You can even make explicit deals with other bloggers that they return the favor when appropriate. That’s the net part of internet. The bots will love it.
#4: Intellectual stimulation can result from reading a blog post, as well as from writing it. Maybe some of the nature versus nurture argument is appropriate here, but I think anyone can learn to write an interesting blog post or comment on one if he or she practices enough. And that skill you acquire will serve you will elsewhere. Moreover, the topics themselves might really be a turn-on—one that gives a lot less addictive high than banned drugs.
#5: Name recognition (fiction) or expert-status recognition (non-fiction) can be a natural consequence of writing a blog. Many people read my blog who apparently don’t give a rat’s ass about my fiction (if each one bought my books, I would be rolling in a bit of dough). That’s fine. I still receive the benefit of name recognition. That blog reader might comment to a friend, “Hey, there’s this old curmudgeon who writes op-ed about current events, just saying it like it is.” That friend might like my books. (My books, in general, share one common theme with my blog posts, by the way. The books are painted on the wide canvas of the coming social singularity—the Occupy Wall Street Movement is but one manifestation of this. So are my books.)
If you’re an expert on something (Martian space modulators, for example), posting about them and answering technical questions about how to install them and use them will establish your expert status. This, of course, is also name recognition. Both fiction and non-fiction writers can take advantage of this. Word-of-mouth marketing is alive and well on the internet.
Finally, you blog because it’s fun. When I first started blogging, I was scared. My type of blogging is a bit like getting on a soapbox in Central Park. I’m on exhibition a bit. However, with time, I found this form of writing just as rewarding as any other. And, like all aspects of indie publishing, I am my own editor. No one tells me what to write. It’s a wonderful life.
In libris libertas….
Ebook holiday sale! See “Steve’s Writing” page for a Smashwords coupon for Full Medical ($2 off)…now you can have the entire “Clones and Mutants Series” for $5.98 (Full Medical + Evil Agenda). Also check out my other eBook prices…all under $10.00, at your favorite eBook online retailer.
