Funny, I was just going to write one of my usual whiney columns about the continuing lack of traffic growth of
my blog, when
Atrios posts something on the very same subject. Of course he's not whining, he's one of the
UberBlogs who gets several thousand times more hits than I do.
And according to everything I've heard, the way to really get your blog going is to a) keep at it and b) write stuff that people find interesting.
I wrote the following in the
coments section dealing with the post:
- All I know is that I've been doing my current blog since September 2003 (and the radio show for about a year), and still maybe get about 100 hits a day or so. They tend to go up when I post here or at Kos, but since I can't seem to get any regular readership going, I guess I'll just have to accept that what I have to say just doesn't seem to matter much to a lot of you.
Doing a blog takes a lot of time and constant work to keep up, and I don't always have that time, especially when I have to look for work and do the other things I do politically, like working with election reform groups or the local Democratic Party. Face it, there's a lot going on these days, and it's easy to suffer from brain overload.
Does it hurt? Yes, of course it does. I'm not writing just to myself, nor am I talking just to hear the sound of my own voice. I want people to read my site, and to listen to the show. And I'd like to spend more time posting here and at other sites to make more people aware of what I'm doing. But reality often intervenes, and I can't do as much as I'd like. It may be harsh for me, but that's the way it is.
You know, I'm very happy I get the readers I do. Really. Do I want more? Certainly. Like I said, I'm in this to be read, for my words to have an impact. But the truth is that, for the most part, I'm pretty much out of the loop as to what makes something popular and what doesn't. Yes, I'm a regular working guy, but I tend to have an elitist attitude about some things, and I happen to think that's a good thing. I think people need to open their minds a little more, and not everyone really wants that. They just want to hear what they want to hear, and I don't necessarily want to give them that.
This is not to say that I'm satisfied with what I have. If I didn't have an ego I wouldn't be doing this. For the record, I get most of my hits (that is, hits not from comments sections) from the White Rose Society. Ben Burch hosts the Cup O' Joe show archives there, along with many others. I also started this XML thing in the hopes that Ipodders will be able to listen to the show. And of course any of you out there who wants to link the site, that's great. If you do, let me know, and I'll reciprocate.
But no more whining for me. I am what I am and this is what I do. I post and do a show when I can. If I don't get more people, it's because I don't have the time to do the publicity. And if people don't think what I have to say means anything, well, sorry. I'm not gonna be a second-rate Atrios or Kos, I'm gonna be a first-rate Joe Vecchio.
Cup O' Joe - Blog Of The Working Man!