I could never understand blogging

All blogging and published books like novels have in common is words. They are generally different in motivation, content and intent. I could not blog my novels or publish my blogs--any more than I could exchange either for my chat logs, emails to my mother, posts on this forum, of exams written for my students.

I blog because I want to blog. My one blog was to help authors not get ripped off during the epublishing wild west years. Another is to share random feminist opinions that would otherwise not be expressed anywhere. Another is to help people learn about a specific kind of antique. They are websites. They do the things websites can do. Just like various books do the things book can do.

It's not about money, it's about community and sharing. Bloggers don't feel it's a waste of their time.

If you're an interesting person with interesting things to share blogging is great. People blog about all kinds of things not just blathering about their daily life. I've read blogs by writers, agents and editors talking about the industry (useful!) blogs on budgeting blogs on cooking blogs on tv shows and art. Reading about their experiences can be insightful and educational. Blogs totally have a point. But if you've nothing you want to say don't bother and focus on your book.

Hublocker add the word blog to your search and you'll find lots of good stuff. There are some fantastic ones on hiking and writing. Don't know about the other ones, but I'm sure they are there too.

Blogs usually have a comment section where you can add what you know or ask questions or whatever and the author will comment back.

Hublocker said:

Well I'm a working journalist.

I don't have time to waste writing for nothing.

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Many best-selling working novelists have blogs (Neil Gaiman, Ilona Andrews). They do not consider it a waste of time, they consider it marketing or a release. By the way, most bloggers have full time jobs.

Hublocker said:

Well I'm a working journalist.

I don't have time to waste writing for nothing.

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I started blogging in 2002.

Blogging has gotten me gigs, including book gigs, as well as writing for magazines, and web sites for pay, and yes, blogging for pay.

Blog if you want; don't if you don't.

Yep. Blogs are to books as TV is to movies. Or maybe substitute YouTube for TV. Free to the audience, but sometimes they pay the creator through ads. And just like those garage bands, some might be hoping to be discovered, some are just doing it for the love of it and for their fans.

Hublocker said:

Well I'm a working journalist.

I don't have time to waste writing for nothing.

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So don't. Or is what irks you that someone is asking you to?

Welcome to the sharing economy. At first it seems objectionable on principle to work without pay, but if you embrace it, it can actually benefit you.

Same thing exists in my profession: software. Open source is huge. You don't get paid to work on open source, but if you are a contributor to an open source project, that can get you recognized as an expert, which leads to high-paying jobs. Or if you're a really big deal, you write the book on the project and do consulting gigs for I don't know how many thousands of dollars.

It's getting to be almost a requirement. Prospective employers are asking to see your github account. Just deal with it. Considered it part of the cost of doing business. I know most salaried employees don't consider themselves a business or think they should have any costs to outlay to get a paycheck, but the world is changing.

You're writing for nothing right now on this forum. And I'm going to guess that you do a few other things to educate yourself or just for fun during the average day. Blogging is what some people do. I don't see the great mystery.

Hublocker said:

Well I'm a working journalist.

I don't have time to waste writing for nothing.

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I blog, blather on about nothing and everything, don't earn a penny for it, don't expect to, but I enjoy it and my readers seem to, also.

Blogging isn't for everyone, just like anything else.

I blog about all the fun little bits of history and history-related items I run across that I can't use in my books, partly because it's fun for me to share because I'm a huge history geek, partly as a not-too-in-your-face way of advertising my books and myself, and partly to (I hope) communicate that history can be a huge amount of fun and not the soul-sucking waste of time that so many people who had rotten teachers think it is. If I could monetize it, cool--but I'm too busy with other stuff to look into that.

Why do you post here? Do you get paid for it? I don't understand why people post to forums if they don't get paid.

Lol @Shadow_Ferret

I blog because I have things to say, and I don't want to clutter up Facebook with my crap and Twitter's 120 character limit isn't enough. XD

Edit: Oh, and because I get to use my art and (shit) design skills on some website to make it totally personal.

Hublocker said:

I can't see why anyone would waste their time writing in a blog to reveal all their thoughts to the world when they could be writing for a paying market.

Or did I miss something?

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If you think writing a blog is a waste of time, then yeah, you're missing something. It's just too bad you don't know what it is.

Hublocker said:

Is there money in it?

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Blogging isn't about writing for money. Blogging is about writing and writing isn't about writing for money either.

“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”

― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Hublocker said:

Or sure, I've seen the occasional TV commenter or "authority" on one subject or the other blather on on TV and I suppose they got paid for it, but what about the other millions of non-celebrity bloggers in the world?

Why do they do it?

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Because they have something to say?

Hublocker said:

Or is it like the thousands of teenage rock rock bands toiling away in basements and garages and competing in talent shows hoping to be "discovered"?

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No. It's really not like that.

Hublocker said:

Well I'm a working journalist.

I don't have time to waste writing for nothing.

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I'm a journalist who isn't working in journalism any more, but I'm still a writer. Most writers aren't journalists, but it doesn't mean they're wasting their time writing for nothing. They're writing for something. They're writing because maybe they're not very good and want to get better or because they are very good and want to get better than they are.

Getting paid to write is cool, but money is not the end-all and be-all to writing. I love journalism, but the current state of journalism is not healthy. I know more ex-journalists out of the business than I do working journalists. If you are blessed to be in a situation where your job is secure and the paychecks are deposited in your account on a regular basis, congratulations.

However, not all working journalists are working in such serene settings. The business side of journalism sucks. Ad revenue is down, print is dying a slow death, at least urban newspapers are, and going online has not been the magic bullet it was passed off as being. There's a lot of terrific, talented journalists not working, not getting paid and not writing.

I freelance and I contribute and every so often I even get paid, but even when I'm not being paid, I still write and as long as I can I always will. I'll write for free and I'll write for me.

Even if it is "a waste of time."

I started blogging because I needed something that would drive eyeballs my website's way every now and then back when I didn't have a webcomic yet and natural updates (new books) were few and far between*. Now I have that and it's a lot like blogging: I put stuff up for free and the pay-off, except for some add revenue that got so crappy the ad service discontinued it, is mostly social. Every now and then, I wrap those comics into printed books and sell those, but I did that before I blogged, so no big difference there.

Except that in the long periods between books, I don't get the feeling that I'm doing this for nobody but me.

I'm still writing that blog but I'm thinking about relaunching it into something more... searchable. More practical. Or maybe a book. I've got enough written material there, that's for sure.

I started tweeting for pretty much the same reason.

Altogehter, it's true (in my case) that there's no direct financial pay-off from blogging. There's quite a lot of indirect pay-off, though. My being present online has led to some great peer interaction (with people who wouldn't be my peers if I hadn't been in the same line of non-business), collaborations like a comics anthology that almost won one major German comics award that one time, sales at cons I wouldn't have attended had I been all alone working on my stuff, to people ho wouldn't have heard of me otherwise etc. Not all because I started giving stuff away for free, and more because of the comics than the text blog, but it's all contributing factors.

Or is it like the thousands of teenage rock rock bands toiling away in basements and garages and competing in talent shows hoping to be "discovered"?

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No. It's really not like that.

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Actually, it's a bit like that. Minus the 'discovering' part because nowadays, bands make their own business on social media and Bandcamp and the likes.

I wouldn't have come into contact with several fellow writers if not for my blog--including a loose writing circle I belong to. I wouldn't have a place to talk about random things on the Internet without my blog, including talking up my fiction, which is something I do get paid a minuscule amount for. I like having a place for comments and discussions and a place to post things about whatever I'm working on, etc. We don't all write for the same reasons and we don't blog for the same reasons either.

Different writers approach blogging for different reasons.

My own is part of a professional writer's site, intended for selling my books. This includes sample beginning chapters, a few free short stories taking place in the universes of my series, and some background info that would bore most fans who read the books, but a few may enjoy. There's a BRIEF bio about me, with emphasis on my work in the aerospace industry because a lot of my books have such a background.

The home page is a blog titled NEWS. I rarely post anything personal there. I post stuff that I find interesting and think many of my readers will also. Lots of it is announcements of new books by other authors, links to YouTube videos previewing new movies or TV shows, and so on. Here is a sample of the links to such posts.

I started blogging in 2006 as a way to keep in touch with a handful of students and it turned into a following which turned into a book, so it is now a paying market (not the blog but the books it spawned). I had NO intention of writing of writing a book when I started the blog but I might hit 6 figures in royalties from the book this year (if not this year, then close to it or next year). So I guess it's been a paying market for me.

Personally, I blog because I find my blog a place for me to let go and just biatch about everything and anything. Here I can say whatever I want and no butt-hurt and not be afaird to hurt people' feelings, and even if I do, well sucks for you, no one told you to read it.
So I don't do it for the money, I do it for me. I love writing and blogging helps me with that.

My website/blog is designed to help sell my books, just like my author Twitter and Facebook. I write funny things that people enjoy reading for free, so they might decide to pay for a whole book of funny things I've written. I know it works, because I've done it as a reader.

I used to write a gardening blog about my life as a professional gardener. Firstly I enjoyed writing about it; sharing my experiences and knowledge with a friendly audience was straightforwardly enjoyable. Secondly, at the time I was considering whether garden writing might be a career direction I wanted to take and my blog allowed me to practise that type of writing and potentially be able to point to it for examples of my work. Since then I've come to the realisation that I want gardening and writing to stay separate. I've also moved jobs to a private garden and so I'd have had great difficulty continuing it without invading the privacy of my employers and the blog is now dormant.

Now my writing blog is really the larval form of the author website I one day intend to have. Really it's a platform for a handful of my stories and poems and not much else at the moment but I have the domain name libbyscribbles.com and it's sitting there waiting for me to get off my arse and develop it.

Hublocker said:

Well I'm a working journalist.

I don't have time to waste writing for nothing.

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Who's paying you to post here?