I've been neglecting the blog again.
While I've thought about posting a number of times over this break, the fact that I didn't is evidence of my ambivalence about the blog. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with this blog (with more hate than love). I cycle between wanting to give up on it entirely and desiring to be "a better blogger" and post more regularly. When you make something you enjoy (in this case reading and talking about books) into work, it tends to become a lot less enjoyable.
I started this blog in 2006 because I was encouraged to do so. At first I found the writing of it both novel and fun, later I became more serious about posting what I thought of as "proper" reviews. For ages, though, it seems that I've been in this place of profound ambivalence about the blog. I don't get many comments, but I don't feel like I have the right to complain about it because as a blog reader I comment infrequently (but in the absence of comments its impossible to know whether anyone is actually reading what one writes). I don't have many followers, but the market for book blogs is over-saturated and I really haven't made a concerted effort to gain followers (my explorations into regular weekly follow memes yielded a reader overcrowded with blogs I didn't particularly want to read and few new followers). During one of my periodic blog-subscription weedings (when I was actually posting regularly), I was shocked to see that someone who hadn't posted in over a year still had easily ten times more followers that I did.
The point of this post is just to communicate a bit of what I'm feeling about this project and to see whether it engenders any response. I'm not giving up on the blog entirely yet and I do intend to get back into a regular posting cycle, but I'd appreciate hearing from those of you who read the blog (when I do post) even if it's just an acknowledgment that you do read my posts every once in a while.
Now I'm off to read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest, which Russell picked up for me at the library today. I'm looking forward to it.
I'm here. :) I'm like you, I don't comment all that often on the blogs that I follow. But I'm always reading!
ReplyDeleteI'm still here, too. If you want to shut down and use West of Mars Rocks and Reads whenever you want to post about books, go for it. It's not pulling in huge traffic right now, but I always meant it to be a loose, free-for-all book review blog where the basic rules go, "Do it your way."
ReplyDeleteThanks, ladies, I do appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteI have given up trying to figure out why some blogs get lots of followers and others don't! I post regularly but still think that I am very much a small fish in a large pond.
ReplyDeleteI think it is important to do whatever you want. If it is that you don't want to do all books all the time, that is fine. Otherwise it becomes a chore, and who wants to do something that is a chore all the time!
Marg, thanks for this, both the observation (the blogosphere is indeed a very strange place) and the advice.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Jenny.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading! I think a lot of the hugely popular blogs are young adult and with a slightly different audience. I look at some of the comments and often they seem a bit pointless "nice review" or "come see my blog" types. It's better to have a smaller following of loyal readers who pay attention to what you have to say. Outside of YA or genre blogs, I think there is a lot less commenting going on but when you do get comments they are more meaningful. I know a lot of people that read my blog never comment but sometimes they'll say something to me in person or on a social network that makes me realise they are paying attention.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. And, like I mentioned above, it's crazy for me to complain about not having lots of comments considering how little I comment myself. I do most of my blog reading in Google reader and rarely click through. Sometimes I try to make a concerted effort to click through and comment on the blogs I read, but I usually run out of steam fairly quickly.
ReplyDelete