Sorry about the lack of content around here of late (thanks to Jeff for stepping up and posting some reviews). I have just not been in the mood to write book reviews. On top of that I have been reading more non-fiction which is harder to review and I have read a couple of ARCs that have not yet been released and I was holding my reviews until closer to the pub date.
I was also trying once again to revive Right Reads (both as a web page and as a Twitter account). The idea was to have my reviews here focus on fiction and my reviews dealing with faith, culture and politics land at Right Reads. I was going to try for niche blogging.
One small problem: I didn’t have the time, energy or focus to make it work.
So. I think I should stop trying to kid myself. I don’t have the time or focus to write serious non-fiction reviews nor to keep content going on two separate blogs. Not. Gonna. Happen.
It seems better if I just let Collected Miscellany be just what the title implies – a variety of content from all over the map. In other words, I think I will just make CM my one and only blog. And stop worrying about it.
Will this have much of an impact? No, as the vast majority of traffic here is from Google searches anyhow. But allow me to keep pretending people read this blog OK? Thanks.
The bottom line is that there will be no niche. Just whatever books I happen to read.
Carry on.
Blogs, Blogging and Comments
by Kevin HoltsberryImage via Wikipedia
There used to be a rather hearty debate online about what exactly defines a blog. What sets a blog apart from a webpage or magazine or other online format?
This is not one of those posts. Instead, it is just my pixelated version of asking the question: to be successful at blogging do you need to read and comment on blogs?
I think if you want a certain amount of traffic and influence the answer is yes. And this has presented me with a more and more pressing dilemma.
Because I don’t really read a lot of book or literary blogs anymore; and almost never comment if I happen to stumble upon a post. Basically, my free time has been squeezed by work and family and I have a limited amount of true free time. Since I love to read, books take up a chunk of that time.
Much of the time I have left gets eaten up by social media; Facebook, twitter, etc. In fact, any blog reading I do will usually come from links found at these sources. Add in the fact that I have a wide variety of interests (I not only read a lot of different genres plus non-fiction, but I also focus on issues like sports, politics, and faith. This means a lot of people to follow and information to process which creates a dangerous time suck.
More and more this means very little blog reading and no commenting to speak of.
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