I was just lamenting to myself a few days back that one of my favorite bloggers (who blogs about blogging), Paul Chaney, had been a little quiet recently on his blog. Today he posts a blog titled The Joy of Blogging which might explain a little of why we’ve been missing his words of wisdom recnently:
‘As I’ve lived my life out on the blogosphere for over two years (I started in December 2003), I found it to be something very pleasurable. It started out as a hobby, then morphed its way into a business. Somewhere along the way, blogging ceased to be fun and started to become more like work. When it did, my posting slowed down dramatically….’
He goes on to outline four ways to help if your blogging has become more of a chore than a joyful experience:
- Blog about what you have a passion for.
- Read other blogs.
- Take a blogging holiday on occasion.
- Set regular times to blog.
Another tip that I’ve been considering lately on a couple of blogs that I don’t really enjoy any more is simply to end them. In fact last night I ‘retired’ a number of blogs that had not been going well both from a perspective of traffic but also from a perspective of my own joy and interest in them.
Of course ‘retiring’ a blog is probably a last resort and I’d suggest you take some of Paul’s advice before getting to that point. I’ve also written quite a few posts on battling bloggers block – many of which might help a little with recapturing some of the joy of blogging.
I know the feeling well, and at the first of this year I pulled myself from every on-line project that I wasn’t absolutely excited about…the result is that the projects I’m still working on are much better because of it, and I no longer dread sitting down to blog about something I just don’t care about any more.
Sometimes we just have to figure out what does and doesn’t work, and have the courage drop what is no longer important to us, or perhaps no longer successful ;)
I occassionally take a break from posting on my blog. I’ve always wanted by blog to reach business level, but now I’m not so sure.
There must be something in the air. Toni and I have just started reviewing every aspect of our business from our cash flow right through to the people who work for us.
We have been extremely busy for so long that we stopped looking at the big picture and have just let things happen. Now we want to take control again so it’s time to start looking at facts and figures so we have a clear picture of what is working and what isn’t and who is performing and who is really only making more work for us.
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Hi Darren
Your new pic is nice
I dare not appear in such a hairstyle
Excuse me for the irrelevancy of the comment
BYE
Even if you retire a blog it still has the potential to earn some revenue. I have seen some people completely delete sites they’re not maintaining anymore. Unless you’re totally embarrassed by a site (and it will still show up _somewhere_ in an archive) then leave it up. One of my sites that is no longer maintained still pulls in visitors and revenue – probably not as much as if I were still maintaining it, but some articles are still working for me, plus it links to some of my other sites and has a good PR.
Its an interesting concept, I’ve not heard it called ‘retiring a site’ before, but it somehow fits.
One of my sites, which had become hardwork to keep upto date on a daily basis has slipped to monthly updates. Its not a blog as such, but fresh content was its lifeline, or so I thought. Having slowed the updates down to a managable level without shutting it down completely, it still brings in a high number of visitors – in fact I’ve seen little or no drop in the numbers at the moment. Whether this will remain once google figures out the content isn’t as fresh as it was will be interesting.
Its a difficult decision sometimes to stop working on a site you were once passionate about, but if the returns don’t outweigh the costs, you sometimes have to decide with your head and not your heart.
Being a newcomer to the blogoshpere, I haven’t really been too bored with my subject; it’s something that I really love doing. Hopefully I won’t get burnt up anytime soon, I have a lot of great ideas.
Darren: I don’t know which sites you are referring to, but have you thought of inviting other people on board to write for them, maybe with some kind of revenue split?
It might be that the subject just doesn’t do well for you, either in visitors or revenue, but fresh blood, fresh ideas could breathe new life into a site, and if it’s one that you were going to drop anyway, you might find it easier to give away some control over it.
Just a thought.
yep thought of that Andy – however to be honest the sites I’m talking about are sites with very little traffic and very little income. It’d be hardly worth anyone’s while to continue with them at present.
Hehe I bet they get more traffic and revenue than my sites though :)
Well if you change your mind and they’re interesting subjects…
[…] Stay Tuned For More Originality… Hopefully! Written on March 26th, 2006 by Vince Chan :: One of my motivations for starting AmBlogger is to hopefully contribute original thoughts to the Blogging community. As such, it is not very often that I use the daily stuff I read to generate new Blog ideas. I mean, I try my hardest not to. I wanted to sound in about blogging with passion, referring to Paul Chaney’s “The Joy Of Blogging“, but Darren has already done it. […]