Friday 5 December 2014

So Many Orphans- I'm Talking About Blogs

I just celebrated a year of blogging.
 This was not a venture I entered into lightly. Though I write a little every day, a blog was something I had not thought of at all.  It was a friend who mentioned I should give it a try that got me started.
 First I did research.  I read a lot of blogs before deciding how and what I would be able to focus on for my own.  I like the idea of writing daily as part of a warm up so I knew right away that I would attempt to do that. I had to have a blog where I could write about different things to be able to accomplish a day by day entry.  I knew I didn't know enough about say birds, or dogs, or cross stitch, or quilting to make just one of those my daily blog focus
 Coming up with a name for my blog was surprisingly difficult; in fact perhaps the hardest part of the whole process.  I thought of lots of cute ones but they were all taken.  Likewise play on words types or bits of sayings.  It turns out lots of people a lot more creative than me had beaten me to the punch. 
  I recently decided to do a little blog review again as a way of checking out how it is going in the blogspot world.  I mostly looked at blogs related to my interests- needlearts, sewing, cooking, etc. Many, many of these writers began their blog with the news that they hadn't blogged in awhile and in fact, checking the dates for some it was months and for others years between posts.  They usually included an apology with sometimes a reason why they were 'away'; I was surprised by how many had been involved in illness, either themselves or a family member.  Understandable absence for sure.  This was followed by a promise to do better and publish more often.  Checking these dates and more often than not, they hadn't been able to keep that promise which made me wonder how they were doing.
Also surprising  is how scanty some of the posts were; after many months away I would have thought more would have been happening craftwise or life-wise that would be worthy of writing about. I was dismayed by how many people pad their blog with the same photo repeated several times in one post. 
I was surprised too by how many blogs have now become 'commercialized'.  So many peppered with ads and pop-ups.  It seems a lot of crafters have opened Etsy accounts and are now selling their wares and offer links on their blogs to other crafters on Etsy.  Many are touting a certain fabric, a tool, yarn or the like with links to how to purchase these items.
 Not that there is anything wrong with that; in fact collecting buyers through blog readers is probably a clear way to get and keep the creative juices flowing.  And I myself love Etsy and enjoy checking out the hand made items.
I've read a whopping 95% of blogs become orphans. Maybe introducing the commercial element ensures longevity because it seems the successful blogs are doing just that.
 But I wish and hope it doesn't always have to be that way.
 

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