Recent Blog Entries
Writing For You
Written by Scrivs on January 30, 2007
Within the 9rules Forums, there is a fascinating discussion going on about who do you write for when you own a site. When you start a site I think most people fall into the category of writing for themselves because they feel they have something worthwhile to say. After some time though I can see the transition being made to writing more for your audience. Thinking about whether or not they will be interested to read what you write or what type of entry you should write to get the most comments becomes part of your thought process.
The ironic thing is you built your audience by writing what you wanted to write so in theory they should have no problem with the stuff you write, but yet I know some of us still fall into the trap of wondering if they will like what we put out or not. In all honesty that isn’t a problem at all because as our sites mature they stop becoming a one-way communication medium and start to become a community on their own.
This does not mean that you have relinquished power of your site, but if you open up comments you are indirectly saying I care about what you have to say. If someone invests their time to write a comment on your site you can believe that they are going to feel they have become a small part of it. This may not happen after one or two comments, but if they are commenting on all of your entries don’t be surprised if they begin to feel like this.
Never though write about something you aren’t happy with. It will reflect immediately in your writing. They may like it or they may not, but at the end of the day what matters is that you are still enjoying what you are doing. If your current audience doesn’t like it, there is a good chance there is another one out there that will.
January 30th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, most of the time it really feels like I’m writing for others though, plus I’m new to the game.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:45 pm
The evolution of my site has been interesting as I’ve found the content of what I’ve been writing develop as just my writing in general. Over the last few months I’ve noticed that my community of people start to develop. Great post.
January 30th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
[...] Sometimes it isn’t about the actual point that matters, more so if you’re a personal blog with no niche. It’s about how you felt free to express your point that people come back to. That’s what being natural is all about. It doesn’t matter whether what I write sounds boring or not. If I think it’s worth blogging about, I will and I sure as hell will have the enthusiasm to back it up. It’s who you are that people will come back reading. So you might as well give them their time’s worth. Update: What do you know? [...]
January 31st, 2007 at 10:14 am
To play the devil’s advocate here, although I fully agree with you, Paul.
Ever since around 1994, I’ve seen too many sites “mature”, becoming average in the process. What were once sites that were outspoken and at times severely critical, satirical or whatever became mundane and boring, started plastering ads all over their design and started a) listening to and living by comments and b) making money.
These two don’t always go hand in hand, but for me, personally, I made the decision NOT to at least not fall into trap a).
The consequence of that is, of course, especially if you write in a niche about as small as an IKEA wardrobe, that it takes tons more time to attract those (few) people who look for that kind of stuff. The casual reader, of which I have many, might be turned off by opinionated posts, overly long ones or ones that are too enthusiastic.
Having gone through several iterations of my site, mostly narrowing the focus more and more, I noticed that what I had online a few years ago was more readily accepted because I followed the mainstream. More readers, more hits. But, I’m also beginning to notice that my relatively young site is gathering speed, attracting a regular audience. In my case, many people do not comment (at least not on the site), and many of them I’ve come across on the various music forums that they prefer to use as their outlet, but they are there and I can see them on my site regularly.
In fact, it gives me a good feeling to see that they return although I might have stepped on their toes or despite knowing that elsewhere they have disagreed with my opinion. Still, they come back to see what kind of stuff I cooked up.
The above probably only applies to what I do and cannot be transferred to other sites, especially sites that deal with much more common or popular topics.
January 31st, 2007 at 4:02 pm
very beautifully written. And i agree. I find myself writing for specific people in my audience now. I even ask for their advice, as if they were my real friends. But the true me is the one that is always coming out in my writing, because as you said, we built the audience with our care free “writing for ourselves” stuff, but now we just have other poeple in mind when we are writing. Its a great thing.
January 31st, 2007 at 6:25 pm
i think it’s an issue that crops up it’s head to almost every writer – I’d hesitate at saying every – to a varying degree. I totally agree with the starting out then things changing. I think often it’s maybe an instance of a reaction to that ‘one time’ where something was written and some reaction happened. I guess it’s a bit of a pavlov’s dog writing reaction. Something gets a positive or negative response so the temptation is to not / or do it again. It’s yes about being true to yourself, something I think a lot of crowd pleasing writers need to be more aware of. The showboat writers are a bit like side shows – wow the audience in and then when it comes down to it the bearded lady is just some girl with a fake beard. In the end audiences will vote with their browsers online so it’s only yourself you are damaging if you aren’t true to your voice. It may take them longer in some cases but bandwagons move on.
February 1st, 2007 at 5:09 am
Nice article, I was just in the process of discovering that I enjoy writing for other people and not just for my interests. I try and find the more interesting news from around the world and package it in easy to read articles with lots of links for more info.
Seems to work so far, I am getting nice thank you notes from readers even though my blog is only 3 weeks old.
Cheers
A
February 1st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
I couldn’t be on anything other than my own individual wavelength…
February 1st, 2007 at 5:42 pm
“When you start a site I think most people fall into the category of writing for themselves because they feel they have something worthwhile to say”
I originally started a blog to get away from the same old same old live-journal dead journal format where friends were reading everything I wrote so none of this applies to me.
Looking at news blogs, I think people who are starting blogs now a days, at least most of the blogs I read as recent stat-ups, right off the bat go for trying to get readers via a variety of routes before they even develop a style or a following or really have anything to say. This makes for pretty bad blogging. IMO.
I can only see this as wise only if one is starting an e-zine of sorts aimed at a particular group pf people.
I think if you are not a business, and you write only what people want to hear, you are just blogging for a different reason than I am and maybe a different reason than most of the people who started blogging more than a year two ago. I don’t see how writing for you audience is a good thing.
If you look at any of the places where a lot of bloggers gather, all trying to get hits or whatever, you will find an overabundance of bland blogs, or news copying sites, all mimicking each other, none wanting to step on the toes of anyone else or offend for fear they will then lose readers.
If people would write only for themselves it would be a lot more interesting.
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:47 am
[...] Because of the model we have setup here at 9rules we are able to fully utilize the Long Tail because we do not depend on the size, traffic, or revenue of our sites. If you are a business that tries to do both large sites and the long tail there is a good chance you will just fall in between, which is akin to an abyss. If owning your own site and writing content you own is about passion, then let’s keep it about passion and not what numbers you need to reach to stay alive. If you wish to make that big payday with your site as well there is nothing wrong with that. You won’t make it with FM Publishing until you make their traffic quota because it doesn’t make sense for them to work with little sites. So until then (hell even after) you might as well write for you. [...]
February 2nd, 2007 at 3:11 pm
I would agree with writing for yourself. There are a handful blogs that concentrate on the authors’ vanity or promotion. These usually run in to a wall; “Write like on one is watching” creates the best effect and projects passion.
February 3rd, 2007 at 5:55 am
“If people would write only for themselves it would be a lot more interesting.”
The problem is that most people who started out on blogging tends to have at least either a decent amount of visitors and comments. I mean, bloggers who write a topical blog does want to be read, and no matter how noble one is, the fact is that you have to consider your audience and sometimes think about who are the people that reads your entry.
If you start up a blog and have no comments and simply write what you want without being bothered and influenced by others, you will start to think if you are doing the right thing. A common fault that we often forget is that no matter how much we want to write for ourselves, we are constantly influenced by what we read and I am already influenced in the way I am reading this thread.
Thoughts come from everywhere. Why should you block off the possibility that writing for others might be a joy of its own, especially when you gain more knowledge with people commenting and springing off ideas for more interesting news?
In my opinion, I do not like to stay in the ivory tower. Yes, I do have some entries where I write purely for myself but there are some in which it is the encouragement, advice and comments of other commentors that makes me write certain other entries. They in fact turn into one of the more popular topics that is touched.
I think if they write only for themselves, it feels a little delusional to the extent that you are like in an ivory tower, without any want to listen to your readers. A blog to me is a participatory culture in which social networks and communication can be formed. If you simply want to write for yourself and enjoy that, a blog sounds like the wrong purpose. Just make a private diary.
I believe that there is no one paradigm that should be correct. This is not a dichotomous thing. A balance is the best way to go in order to preserve your views, yet still allow contribution and thoughts for others who read your blog.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
My opinion is somewhere in between impzie’s and cooper’s, and more aligned toward cooper’s. This applies to writing a personal blog or a a niche blog such as mine, and is probably irrelevant for blogs which contain tutorials, news, advertisements, business material etc.
Since a blog is usually open to the public, some things ought to be done for the readers. In particular:
1. The posts should be easy to read
2. Navigation and cross-listing should be fast and efficient
3. The “comments” section is, more often than not, written with the readers (commenters) in mind. To the extent possible, the comments should encourage the discussion, or lead it to interesting places.
That said, the task of writing a post, which is at the center of blogging, is for oneself. The uniqueness of a personal, non-business blog is in its signature style of writing, in its signature choice of topics. I doubt that this uniqueness can be preserved intact, if I wrote a post based on what my readers would think about it. A cavalierly individualistic blog runs the risk of becoming too obtuse to be read by anyone, but it is a risk worth taking IMO.
For most individual non-commercial bloggers, a blog is an electronic vehicle to implement E.M. Forster’s suggestion in Howard’s End, “Only connect.”. Then, isn’t it better to be connected to a few people who read you because of your own special perspectives and choices and style, rather than being connected to all and sundry?