Flash Fiction Blog - Worth It?

Hi Everyone,
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but since people here write flash fiction, I'm hoping to get some opinions.

My goals are to self-publish my fiction rather than go the traditional route. I am working on revising and writing some novels. But I've read a lot about how keeping a blog is vital to help draw followers and readers for self-published writers (and, it seems, all writers now). I've been struggling with this. I'm not interested in keeping a personal blog (my life is pretty uneventful so there is not much to blog about and no one would be interested anyway). I’ve tried to come up with ideas for a blog topic that is sort of related to my writing and about something I am interested in and even wrote some blog articles but it just seems like a chore and a lot of time taken away from my writing and revising and since the topic is not all related to my writing, I feel like I might be wasting my time.

Someone suggested to me that I might start a blog of flash fiction as a way to draw followers and possible readers. I’ve written short stories and have quite a few gathering dust on my computer. I have written only a few flash fiction pieces, but I liked writing those pieces. It seems to make more sense to me to have a flash fiction blog because it would give people a sample of my writing style which might make them more interested in buying my fiction when I self-publish longer works.

I’m wondering, though, how much a flash fiction blog might help me, though. It’s hard for me to imagine that there are people who follow flash fiction blogs from writers that are unknown, so I’m wondering if my energies might be better put to use in exploring other marketing and promotional techniques once I am ready to publish. I will of course do this anyway, but if I have a flash fiction blog, I will be putting a lot of energy into that which would take energy away from other marketing and promotion. I still have a lot of research to do as to what those techniques will be.

I know that having a blog, whether flash fiction or a writer’s personal blog or whatever, is no guarantee of a following, but I would like to hear from people here who might be keeping a blog where they post their flash fiction and how you feel doing this has helped (or not helped) you gain a readership for your work.

I do love writing short stories and I think I would enjoy writing flash fiction and I’m willing to put the effort and energy into keeping up a flash fiction blog, but I would like to know if it might help me with my self-publishing goals also.

Thanks!

Djuna

Thanks, Cary. I think I wrote on another thread in the Blogging forum that I was looking for some information on writing flash fiction and came across your book and your flash fiction collection on Amazon, which I plan to check out. I do see your point about sending things out for publication, but that seems like it's much more time consuming that simply posting on the blog. I have to think about that. My ultimate focus is on novels, so I might be spreading myself out too thin if I try to tackle publication of flash fiction/short stories too.

Of course, the last time I submitted anything for publication was in the 1990's :-D. Very few publications had an email address and even less allowed email submissions. So I have no idea how the market is now. Maybe it's much easier to submit online now, with online forms or emails, so it's not as time consuming.

Djuna