Blog no more

Let me let you in on two dirty little secrets of blogging. First, for every blogger, there is probably a handful of readers.

That's right. Just because you put a Web log in front of the hundreds of millions of people with Web access worldwide doesn't mean that most, many or even some of them will read it. Hell, they may never know about it.

New figures from the Pew Internet and American Life Project bear me out. Pew finds two-to-seven percent of adult Internet users write blogs, and only about eleven percent read blogs.

Eleven percent, you say. Not bad, considering how many people are on the Internet. But think again. Those eleven percent aren't reading every blog, most blogs or even many of the blogs authored by those two-to-seven percent. They're mostly reading blogs of friends. Not yours.

Assuming you'll find a mass audience simply by doing a blog is akin to assuming your Great American Novel will reach best-seller status if you throw it on a Manhattan sidewalk.

Sure, blogging is a new publishing mechanism (sort of). But it has more in common with wanna-bes who self-publish deathless prose through vanity presses, or pre-teens who pour their hearts out into diaries with flimsy locks, or little old ladies who write poetry with quill pens to read to their cats and store in the sock drawer, than with actual, grab-your-audience-by-the-hair (or other body parts) and get 'em to think writing.

Writing is not really writing without third-party validation and an audience. Validation comes in the form of filters. Editors who want to take a risk with your stuff in their publication. Publishers who are willing to pay you for it. Essentially, people who think it's worth their reputation and pocketbook to have others hear what you have to say.

As to the need for an audience, a writer without an audience is like the Zen tree falling in the forest. The tree may make no sound if no one is around to hear it. A writer makes no point if no one cares to read it.

Now, there are individual bloggers who attract huge audiences (some of whom write damned well -- Paul Andrews, Glenn Fleishman, Chris Pirillo). But you'll also find that many of these already had built-in audiences from other media or online work they've done. And there are industry, business or group blogs (like the TV and technology news site Lost Remote, media insider blog Romenesko, the PR site MediaMap, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's good blogs) that do well, but these draw audiences from existing bases or are heavy into promotion. There are, of course, exceptions much like there are self-published writers who go on to follow in the footsteps of Stephen King. But an exception does not make the rule.

In most cases, blogging is nothing more than a very public form of self-important self-abuse.

The late Robert Heinlein once observed, through one of his more outspoken science-fiction novel characters, that someone who reads his poetry in public probably has other bad habits, too. Today, that someone would also be a blogger.

Oh. The second dirty little secret about blogging? It's very time consuming to do it right. "Doing it right" means doing your homework. Finding the right topics. Finding a voice and perspective. Then doing more than just slapping text on a page -- finding the right resources to link to.

On the plus side, of course, the availability of blogging tools meant I was able to write this little rant while I was traveling and post it in less than 30 minutes, start to finish.

Still, I no longer have the time to keep updating a personal observation blog. And lack of time is the primary reason I'm abandoning Byte Me's companion Random Bytes personal blog and will shortly take down its archives. As Glenn Fleishman himself has noted, his own personal blog waxes and wanes depending on how busy he is. I'm very busy for the foreseeable future. I also suspect (hell, I know) I'd have more readers by just submitting some of my ramblings as a letter to the editor in Pocatello, Idaho. (Ever read Random Bytes? Didn't think so.)

I will keep writing the Byte Me Web newsletter and blog, the main reason for Byte Me Online. Byte Me has a history and built-in small yet appreciative audience based on its genesis as an e-mail newsletter more than a decade ago and subsequent eponymous newspaper column and TV segment.

But personal observations?

Just as buying a Mac, laser printer and PageMaker in 1984 didn't make everyone into instant media moguls, signing up for Internet access and a Blogger account won't make everyone into popular pixel pundits. Publishing -- paper or digital -- still continues to be about not just the quality of the ideas and the skill with which they're expressed, but the ability to distribute that content and promote it effectively to draw an audience that appreciates it.

Me, I'd prefer to keep my self-abuse to, well, my self.