Opinions and observations on movies, music, books and life in general. Basically whatever catches my fancy on any given day.
I drive school buses to pay the rent. I write, blog and podcast in my spare time.
My hope is to be able to blog full time
I’ve always kept a journal but blogging gave me an opportunity to journal online. It’s more socially oriented than book writing. People can comment on your thoughts which encourages active communication. I have a lot to say and unlimited space on my blog to say it.
Just over two years. I started blogging June 2005.
In the beginning no one. These days I have no idea. I have a couple of loyal readers who comment and I comment on their blogs but I never keep up with stats. It can make a person obsessive. I have a feedburner feed but I don’t check it much. I prefer not to know too much about that, actually. It keeps me real. I don’t want to blog just because lots of people are coming by or blog just to get lots of traffic. I prefer community building (finding new and interesting blogs to comment on) over simply driving traffic to my blogs.
If people like what they see that’s great! I love that, but even if they don’t, no sweat! It’s cool.
Not yet. I used to have an elitist (and rather silly, narrow-minded) attitude towards monetized blogs when I first started blogging. I was like “Why do people have to inject money and financial gain into everything? Ughh!”
I have several blogs and a podcast now and I have a more mature view of blogging. I’m planning to place ads on some of my blogs in a few weeks. I love writing and reading. Why not make a little change from it? I’ve been studying other successful monetized blogs recently and hopefully I can learn a thing or two from them.
At this point it’s successful in the sense that I blog regularly and I have more readers than I did when I started. I don’t know if they will make any money. But even if I’m not financially successful, I’ll always blog.
If you like opinions on movies, music, books and the occasional blurb about goings-on in my life you might like my blog!
About two to three hours a day.
Because I keep it fresh! There are too many blogs out there that drift in internet space without any content posted for months or even years.
No matter how interesting or inane my posts are I care about what I write and I write regularly. If I’m going to be away for awhile I post about it. If you subscribe to my blog you will get regular, often very opinionated content!
I’m also a pretty good writer!
Communicate with other bloggers. Find new blogs to comment on every few months. Don’t just stay in your comfort zone or around your usual blogging clique. If others take the time to read your content and comment on it respect them and reply. There have been too many times I’ve encountered hosts of small blogs like my own who don’t even acknowledge your comments. Replying to comments and commenting elsewhere only helps you to build community and readership. It never harms.
Find interesting, well-designed templates and one or two widgets for your blog to add value and interest. Be sure to update regularly whether it is monthly, weekly or daily.
Personal unique content and communicating with other bloggers is most important. People will come back to an ugly looking blog if you have something passionate, opinionated or humorous to say, or if you speak on your subject with authority, especially if it’s well written.
You don’t have to be a great writer (Lord knows I’m not), just be you and keep at it. There’s nothing worse than people who jump into the fray and start a blog, following a trend and then after a few weeks just leave it hanging.
Be patient. Building community with others will reap benefits tenfold!
This blog can be visited at http://vargasminutiae.blogspot.com
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