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At this year's BlogHer Conference and all around the blogosphere afterward, the age old question reared it's pretty little head: Are you an artist and do you blog just for the sake of good writing or are you just in it for the Benjamins, baby?
On the art side of the equation we have the pure, ego-less creator of quality writing who doesn't care about traffic and rank and statistics because that's only for the freebie-happy money grubbers. Right?
On the commerce side of the equation we have the charlatans who read something about Dooce making $40,000 a month and got in the blogging game for the certain easy money and promise of a free Swiffer® and who do nothing more regurgitate press releases and spam Twitter with contest entries. Right?
Megan at Velveteen Mind wrote a post-BlogHer post in which she posited a somewhat radical notion: Writing Well Is *Not* Enough Anymore. Damn It.
Because, here's the thing: neither of the caricatures I drew at the beginning of this post are true, fair or accurate.
And Megan nails it with why we should all care about whether or not people know about and can find our blogs. It is not just those in it for the money who need to care about publicizing and promoting and figuring out enough about our audience so that we can build and maintain it regardless of the size.
I know it’s not fair. Writing well should be enough. Just hitting publish should be enough. People should be psychic.
I love you. I love your writing. But I’m not psychic.
Help me find you first.
Because writing well isn’t enough anymore, damn it.
While I do think it is well and good to do a bit of soul searching and figuring out where ego-feeding comes in to play, I would contend that when we publish in public it is because we want someone to read what we've written for some reason. Maybe that is for feedback on the writing, maybe it is because we believe we have delight to offer in the stories we write, maybe because we seek community and support and to be heard, maybe it is because we think someone might appreciate the insight we can offer when we share a review of a product, a service, a movie, an experience, or maybe it is because we hope someone will click our ads, enter our contests, and grow our traffic and media empire so that we can create a business that helps keep us and our families fed, clothed and sheltered.
Let's stop the disdain of those who take a different path. Monetize, don't monetize, whatever but you have some reason to believe people want to hear what you've got to say or you wouldn't put it out there on a public blog. Your voice is powerful whether or not it comes with ads in the sidebar. Being afraid to let people know what you are up to or believing that it is distasteful or beneath you (imagine me pressing the back of my hand to my forehead and crumpling to my Divan) is just as counterproductive as measuring your sense of self-worth by the number of page views or comments you receive or mocking stat-checking and SEO as only for sell-outs.
You are blogger, let me hear you ROAR!
Related Reading:
Glennia Campbell at The Silent I: To Blog or Not to Blog? That is the Question
I have said before that I like to think that my blog is one long love letter to the future, to my son and his future children, who will inhabit a time and space I won't know. I want him to know that his mom was an ordinary woman who lived a life that was anything but ordinary. I want him to know that I lived an extraordinary life full of optimism and hope, that sometimes gave way to despair and anger. I want him to know about the joy and sorrow I've experienced in my life, and what informed and shaped who I am. I want him to know that I watched, I learned, I participated, I hoped, I dreamed, and I acted. Ultimately, that is my personal brand, the mark I leave on the world.
I've decided to go back to my blogging roots. To tell the stories of my travels, whether to the top of the world or to the corner store. I'll write about the people, the places, the food, the experiences, the things I
