July 16, 2009

Some Bloggers Feel the Urge to Quit

  admin   3 Comments

Earlier this week, a blogger I know confided that he was feeling like quitting his blog, and it has been on my mind ever since. I have often found great stuff on his blog that I have linked to and written about, and was surprised that he felt this way. However, I have experienced the same thing from time to time. While there are folks who get paid to blog, and blogs which bring in enough income to support the blogger, most bloggers do what they do for reasons other than money. I think many of us (I know I would) love to see out blogs become self-supporting, but it isn’t the primary reason for doing this. So, how do bloggers stay engaged with their blog, even if it isn’t growing or performing like they want?

I don’t have any answers to that really. The times I have experienced it, I have used a few things to keep posting:

  • I have reminded myself of whatever subject most interests me, and written about it.
  • I have reminded myself that I committed to do this for one solid year before getting too caught up in evaluating if I’m being successful.
  • I have gone back and read over any comments I can find where folks thank me for blogging.

Usually digging into and writing about a subject that I really care about does the trick. Bloggers out there:  how about you? Do you ever experience this, and what do you do about it? Blog readers out there: what would you do if your favorite blogs went away? How important are blogs to you? If your favorite blogger was feeling like quitting their blog, what would you say to him or her?

If you appreciate reading my posts, would you like to thank me with a coffee?

Posted in: general
  • http://blog.mattalgren.com Matt Algren

    For me, the problem is usually ego. It really ticks me off to think I’m doing something better when someone else gets links and hits, or if someone starts a blog and starts getting popular.

    Of course, that’s unreasonable and I have to step back for a few days and remember why I’m doing this. Everybody wants to be popular or well regarded, but that’s all gravy. If I can get my perspective out there with some semblance of coherence, that’s good enough.

    • http://thomascwaters.com admin

      Oh, how much I can relate! There is one site out there, where the blogger has been blogging less time than me it seemed and the site was growing huge in comparison to mine and it was really irking me. But they had blogged before, so already did have some following easy to pick up, and without a doubt they have found a sweet spot where they excel. So, I return to remembering that having more visitors than [fil in the blank] is not why I’m doing this. And I breathe and go on.

  • http://www.pghlesbian.com Sue Kerr

    I’ve been blogging for over 3.5 years and have had multiple moments of wanting to just shut down the site. Sometimes it stems from the comments and sometimes it stems from feeling like I’m spinning my wheels. I just take a break. I always come back. I have no clear criteria for measuring my impact. I have a sort of internal sense of how I can best make an impact and try to stick to that agenda, even when others disagree.

    I recently changed the commenting feature on my blog to require registration. I resisted for awhile, but what turned the tide for me wasn’t so much the anonymous comments as the people constantly criticizing LGBTQ people for being anonymous and devalueing their perspectives. So now they make up a user name and get a little credibility. That’s led to a large drop off in comments which may take years to reset. Ah well …