Thursday, January 08, 2009

Why am I doing this?

So, my friend Lauren's food blog, tastytype, is officially famous. She was featured in the Austin American-Statesman yesterday! That's so cool. I know her. And her blog is fantastic - she makes the best food!

But I must admit, it makes me wonder why I'm bothering with this whole blog thing. Hardly anyone reads it, and almost no one comments, so why am I bothering? I realize I don't have a "theme" - like motherhood or food or politics. But I know other blogs that don't really have a theme either and they have tons of readers. Like "The Lost Hawaiian." She just blogs about what's going on in her life, and she has readers from all over the country and even the world. She recently suggested it might be time to retire the blog, and people came out of the woodwork begging her to keep writing. I'm not sure anyone I don't know personally ever even reads mine. Clearly I'm not as entertaining as she is.

So, is this just to have my own little soapbox? Because I could just vent to J if that's the case. I thought people might be engaged by different topics or enjoy getting a shout-out and get a laugh out of some of my stories. But I don't think I really grab anyone's interest. And I guess I can just keep up with people via Facebook, so I don't really need this as some kind of vehicle for keeping in touch with people. So, maybe I'm the one who ought to hang up her keyboard.

5 comments:

Judy said...

What am I????? Hello????

I understand, though. There are times I think about shutting my site down to simply be done with it, especially with FB now. But, it is an easy place to write and record even the most mundane of occasions (such as reproductive talks over omelets), so I keep plodding along. :-)

Johnny Austin said...

Baby!!! Don't do it for the people, do it for yourself first and foremost! Your weBlog is a journal of your very own, that you can send new people too, and like me, we can go back to 2005 and read what you were thinking and feeling about VY's legendary season... It was one of the coolest ways for me to first get to know you deeply... And as far as readers, there is an art to getting people to a blogg, and that should never be the writers focus, if you want to hire a PR team I'm sure we could get you in the Austin American Statesman... Not that I'd want to be featured by the super liberal paper myself... But if that's what you want, we can gitter done...

Keep on writing baby, you are amazing!

Your J!

Anonymous said...

Hey! First, thanks for the comments on my blog and the shout out about the Statesman mention. But I have to say, officially, I wonder all the same things you mentioned here. I started my blog just to give myself assignments because I knew that otherwise, I'd never really take the time for myself to work on the photos, the writing, etc. And it's worked. It's been really good exercise, if nothing else. As J mentioned, you gotta just do it for you. I just recently started tracking my "numbers" and have realized that I need to learn more about search engine optimization to find out how to "get it out there." Maybe we could learn together? I also have to confess to being terribly guilty of enjoying your blog all the time and not taking the time I should to comment and give more feedback. I know others are the same. Your blog cracks me up all the time. I find myself sitting here nodding my head thinking, yep, what she said. J's right. You gotta do it for you, but also, know that there are lots of folks silently enjoying your work, even if they don't say so. I'm usually one of them. So I hope you'll keep it up!

Sluggin' Beauty said...

Girl! I totally read. You've been my connection to Austin since I've been away! don't stop!

Anonymous said...

So, yes, as a matter of fact, I am ALSO one of those silent readers, most of the time. And I'll admit that I often get behind in reading your blog, too. BUT... I look forward to the days when I know I've got some catching up... "ooh, I have like 2 weeks worth of Suzanne's blog to catch up on... sweet!" That's a good Saturday right there. Please don't stop your blog. And I'll try to comment more. But, you're right... you need non-friend readers. You can always count on us to read, but it would be very cool for you to have a bunch of readers who don't know you at all but simply enjoying reading. I've said for a long time that you need a paper column like Kelso! So find ways to put it out there!