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What To Do With This Blog

Time for some honest reflection about this blog.

I started it for a college class. I moved it to my website to help my ranking in search engines.  But it has never gotten the following or engagement I hoped to find.

I won’t remove it because…there’s a TON of content here.

But, I’ve gone to posting once each week (and scheduling these posts as much as two months in advance), and I’m still not getting engagement. There’s not a niche this fits.

So, I’m going to change what I do with this blog. I’m also going to remove it from the “main page” of my website. It will return to a “blog” page (that is currently blank).

This Month

This month, I’ve re-purposed content from a Bible study book I published a couple of years ago into a “class” of sorts.
What do you think about that for the future of this blog?

I would start the month with a video (this month’s was first featured in my Facebook group). Then I’d follow that up with other sections from the book (possibly including comments from “real” students who participated in my online class).

Even though I’ve pretty much decided that I won’t do an online course again (because it’s taking a lot of time I don’t have away from writing), I’d still like the experience.

After all, teaching is one of my gifts from God, and I’ve learned to enjoy doing it via video (and I think I’m finally getting better at that).

After That

Do you remember me talking about a nonfiction book on grief? I did it here.

Well, I’m considering posting some of the content from the book in my blog and sharing it widely in circles where people who might want to read it could find it.

Mostly, this is another test. I want to know if people are interested in my content. If they think it’s valuable.

Also, the class I took on writing nonfiction book proposals discouraged me for completing this project. According to that agent, if I can’t prove to a publisher that I have a “ready made” audience, they won’t publish my book.

Would you be interested in reading that content here?

My Dilemma

The real problem is I don’t have enough hours in a day to do all the things I’ve undertaken. In October, my first collection of Christian romances will be available in print. This is a self-published project even though my publisher owns the digital rights to the stories.

In November, I begin the push to get REFLECTIONS noticed and purchased. This series is one hundred percent self-published, and every time I work on it I’m reminded why I want a publishing contract.

In fact, I’m generating so many reasons, come back later for a post on that.

Even when I don’t go online at Fiverr, I’m getting new orders. I’ve had to mark myself “out of the office” the last two weekends because I’d been getting two to four new orders every Sunday. I don’t even WORK on Sunday!

What am I doing on Fiverr? Mostly writing, but I also go to critique my first fiction chapter in August. It was GREAT! The author left a nice review and said my critique helped her focus on what needed changing. I hope it spurs more such orders.
I also recently ghost-wrote a short ebook on cannabis. Yeah, not really a subject I know much about (or wanted to) but during the research I realized my ignorance wasn’t very attractive.

Who knew hemp was among the oldest cultivated crops? Not me. I was vaguely aware that hemp rope was the best for seaworthy tasks, but I didn’t really think much about how it was made. Or why it was so amazing.

If you’re wondering about my Fiverr business, I wrote more about it in earlier posts.

The bottom line is that I don’t have time to take a day off. I don’t know why I’ve given myself busy mornings when that can be my most productive writing time.

And most of all, I wonder “What am I doing writing blogs? No one reads them anyway.”

But here YOU are. You’re reading this post.

What would you like to see on this blog?

4 thoughts on “What To Do With This Blog”

  1. You need to write what you feel led to or directed. Maybe the blog posts should only be twice a month unless you are caught up in a subject that could be 4 posts, for a month. It makes sense to use content that you are writing elsewhere. I miss your photo blogs. They are a nice way to be stay real with your readers!

    1. Yeah, I planned to do a “watching Shana” post with pictures, but that didn’t happen yet. I hope to get some photos of Glacier NP, too, and then I can do a photo post of that. I’m thinking my blog will become a travel blog some day when Jeff retires and we are RVing around the country. I have fun writing travel posts, but I haven’t gone anywhere this year :O

  2. In my experience, blogging is like sowing seed, and there’s a lot of stony soil out there!

    I’d say if there’s something you’re passionate about doing with your blog, something you’d enjoy, do that. Don’t feel you have to keep changing what you present until the internet suddenly bounces up and down and shouts “yes!” because a) that might never happen, the internet being the overcrowded world that it is, and b) long-term consistency is necessary to build a big audience.

    That said, I’ve been blogging for over six years and my daily stats are single-digit as often as not. So if what you’re looking for is numbers, I’m probably not the person to take advice from! But then, my consistency is in my voice, rather than one specific subject area – I’m not “the writing blog” or “the handwork blog” or “the book blog”, I just write about what engages my mind and interests.

    1. Great advice. At the moment, most of my writing feels like work and not much of it brings me joy. I am re-evaluating things now, and may even nix the project I planned to write in November. This blog may become even more sporadic until I figure out a new purpose for it.

What do you think? Add to the discussion here.