I never expected to find myself in the pantheon of Blogdom and I sure never got there, but the crash in readership over the last 2 weeks is a little disheartening. Now it is true that I don't write to attract readers, I write to express myself and maybe have some small effect but doing it for as many folks as would hear me shouting from my front porch leaves me feeling a little disinclined to spend much time on this. I'm going to plug along for awhile longer but this isn't so much fun that I'd do it for no audience at all. I don't know, maybe I'm just whining, I probably ought to just hit the delete key for this post.
Nope, I've been favored with a pretty consistent readership and they've almost universally been great commenters so I'm going to ask a favor of them. Hopefully you've got friends, passing along the existence of this blog might help with the numbers which certainly would help with me feeling like this has some point. If I've become so boring that the little time required to peruse my scribblings is a waste I need to stop doing it. I completely understood the low numbers when this thing was starting out and I understand a fall off with the vacations and nice weather of summer, but this is startlingly bad. I'm a guest blogger at some other sites with much larger readerships and letting this one go would give me more time for them and I've shorted them trying to keep this one fresh.
I'm not looking for pats on the head or sympathy, I like doing this but I do need a certain amount of justification for the time investment and that justification is that I'm reaching more than a handful of people.
11 comments:
Internet bloggers tend to preach to the same people all the time and most have small audiences. I've gone with the printed media for a long time. My problem is with editors of small town newspapers. They rarely cover things of importance nationally or when they do it's easier to down load an editorial from a large newspaper which tend to have a left leaning agenda. Number of words is all important and they will hack what you say even if they cut out the point. Weekly newspapers do a better job of covering oppinions but have low readership.
Your post today in Central sanity is good. The local daily wouldn't allow it because of length but the weekly might print it. You would have a hard copy in front of some people and might reference the blog. They tell me soon they will be on line.
I've sent you a few articles that you posted but I write for newspapers and they are usuaually printed some where.
Point is if you have it written you might as well submit to the print media. Wouldn't hurt for other bloggers to do the same. Most people who are only involved at the margins read the letters to the editors just for the entertainment.
Lou Dobbs tonight is cutting edge as far as television goes. Issues there will lead the mainstream media by days , weeks and sometimes months before Fox News or the blogs get involved.
Ok. I'll see if I can send some readers your way.
I read about 30 Net newspapers both mainstream and alternatives, in the morning, than I go to Blogs..your's is first blog I read in AM, than I respond if I think I might have something to offer.
To be fair you have been busy and not been able to give us some meat to bite on. LOL Truth is: you have a perspective I go with. Gun--toting liberals are hard to find. I despise the lefties as much as the righteous right. I could care less who I vote for, as long as they are a moderate. Look at the mess of finding a conservative to unseat Smith? The almighty lefties have no conception of how to Do it.So once more Smith will be the odium on Oregon for another 6 years.
Word verification keeps getting harder.
The politcal left can't do a damned thing about Gordon Smith but the right sure can and Smith knows it. That's why he all of a sudden decided that borders were important.
Fred sent me over to bolster readership while your regular readers are on vacation.
Our numbers are down this month as well, but I think the nice weather we had this last month kept bloggers outside. In the winter, bloggers like to stay inside, sip a cup of tea or toddy and hang out and blog.
P.S. Fred sent me over to your blog, too. My husband and I are active democrats locally here in Humboldt County and are members of the California State Democratic Central Committee,too.
Thanks for the nice words. I don't know if it was the whining or what but by noon Sat the readership had passed full day totals for the preceding week. I watched with wonder last year as the readership climbed almost daily and that was, frankly, flattering. The post election fall off was small compared to what some others experienced, that fall happened in the spring and may have been due to some slacking in my posts, but the last two weeks saw a 60% drop and no recovery. I really am not egotistical enough to think the survival of my little endeavor is of great consequence, but I like doing it and hope I have some small effect.
for what it's worth, you're on my blogroll. it's great to have progressive voices coming out Eastern Oregon/the 2nd District.
(and i enjoy your writing.)
also, fwiw, i don't bother tracking who's reading my blog, or how many there are. i don't get many comments, so it's probably a readership of 5 or 6 ;), but i occasionally end up stirring a bit of a sh*tstorm and getting some traffic.
Maloney, you have a nice looking blog and the writing is good, so I've added you to my Links. Thanks.
thanks Chuck.
in addition to enjoying your blog, i have a lot of respect for you personally for running last cycle for the nomination in the 2nd District.
I know there are Dems out there, and getting Walden out of Congress would be so great. I'm bummmed that it's probably not going to happen until after reapportionment and the redrawing of the districts.
Keep on keeping on!
You're not seeing a ton of hits from certain readers like Bloglines or Google Reader....
I enjoy your posts, whether I agree with them or not.
Keep on, keepin' on!
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