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Monday, May 31, 2010

Writing Succesful Blogs

I have been writing for about four months now and I still have no followers on my page. I am not complaining. I really have no desire to have followers. I write mainly for myself. I want to have all of my ideas presented in front of me so I can go back to them again. But I figured I can at least write on the internet than in private because other people can benefit from what I say. I write what I write entirely for myself with no concern for anyone else. Thus, I could not care less why I have no followers. I know that some people read what I write from time to time. They try to challenge me in what I say. Thus, I know I was not entirely unread.

But the question is why I have no followers? There are two reasons that I can think of. The first one is that I am uninteresting. Perhaps I write in the most boring or incomprehensible way, I realize I write sometimes excessively long posts. But I doubt it. I seen more boring and incomprehension posts by others and they have more popularity than I have. The second one is that what I write about does not interest people. I think this is what is likely. Even if you disagree with my point of view in my posts you have to acknowledge it is for the most part an intellectual post. Some of the ideas I write about I have heard in other places and I repeat them in my own words here because I find them interesting and important. While other of my ideas are original, at least to me, I have not heard anyone say them anywhere. For instance, my post on "Altruism vs Self Interest" is partially original. Part of what I said can be found among Adam Smith's works and others. But my explanation of where the hatred towards our self-interest comes from I made up myself by comparing it Nietzsche's works. I am not just trying to show off my super amazing intellect here (I am not humble as you can easily tell and quite arrogant) but more importantly I am trying to explain why my posts are oriented towards the intellect and philosophy.

It seems that people are uninterested for the things I write about. If I wrote about mathematics, my best and favorite subject, I will have no views at all. If I write about religion and skepticism I will only have a few atheist viewers. If I write about political philosophy, my favorite kind of philosophy, I will probably lose a lot of my atheist viewers because my posts clearly have a pro-liberty, anti-state, conservative right-wing bend to them which alienates secular liberals from my pro-atheism posts. While a religious person might be interested in my political philosophy he would be discouraged from my negative views towards religion. Thus, it seems that from my content it is hard to find people who can find interest in what I write about to actually follow me.

I can understand why I would be unpopular for the above reasons. But I cannot understand no matter how much I think how typical average blogs get more popularity than I do. Most blogs are written about everyday life. Wow, how amazing! Why would anyone care to read boring stuff like that? Or if some guy who writes about his Jewish gay battles gets followers in the dozens. Or a person who writes pro-gay marriage blogs. Seriously how much is there to say in support of gay marriage? And besides the arguments are not very interesting, it is the same arguments used by many people before. Where is most of the intellectual content? This is what I cannot understand. Why they are more popular than I am?

Do not misunderstand me. I am not complaining. I know people have different interests. But I am still confused and cannot understand why. I am not against gay Jews who write about their daily experiences, I am not against typical authors writing about their average typical day, I am not against authors writing only posts on gay marriage with no new interesting material to add. I am just confused to why this is interesting to people to read. It is the average, typical, and no new intellectual content is added.

11 comments:

  1. I've been following quietly for a few months now. You're now on my blogroll. I wish you more luck in the future, and remind you to comment on ex-frum blogs like Formerly Frum, Unpious, etc. to get you more readers.

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  2. You're a good writer, Skeptic...

    And after seeing what you had to say on Heshy's blog on a number of occasions, I am now interested in reading you regularly.

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  3. I write a post about how I get no followers and the next day I get a follow. Hmm, I wonder if there is a causal relationship between these two events. But I do appreciate the subscribtion.

    And thank you for that compliment Tova.

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  4. Some tips to improving your hit and follower count:
    1) Comment on as many blogs as you can. People are often curious when they see a new name and link back to the source blog.
    2) Write shorter. Your pieces are very well written and quite comprehensive but the most successful blogs put up short pieces that pack a quick punch. If some only has a few minutes to check his favourite blogs long essays are a turn-off. What you could do is write one long essay but intersperse shorter posts in between.
    3) Find some psychotic loser with no life other than his blog, enrage him by pointing out the obviously flaws in his thinking and then sit back as he obsessively attacks you providing you with more free advertising than you could ever ask for. Worked for me!

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  5. People have short attention spans. You have to grab their attention immediately and then not lose it. Start with your conclusion and then justify it as concisely and entertainingly as possible. Make the conclusion surprising or offensive when possible. :-) And give your post a grabby title.

    Allow me to critique this post. I know you can take it. :-)

    It's kind of an unusual post because your conclusion is that you don't understand. That's okay, but you don't get to it until the final paragraph. You should make it your title and lead with it. "I Don't Understand What Makes a Blog Popular." Or, even better: "People Like Stupid Blogs."

    Throughout the rest of your post, you make 3 or 4 points, but they're buried in dozens of meandering sentences and exploration that really should have happened in your head before you wrote the post.

    Maybe you should write an outline.

    Paragraph 1: People like boring blogs. That's because it's hard to read more intellectual ones like mine.

    Paragraphs 2-4: Examples of great posts I've made versus the latest lame argument on some other, more popular blog.

    Paragraph 5: Conclusion: People are too dumb or lazy to read my blog.

    If you really want to add that you really don't mind that people don't read your blog, then you can devote one 2 or 3 paragraph sentence paragraph to that. But only if it's true.

    After you've written a draft, go back and delete every word that is unnecessary. I think this post should be about 20-25% as long as it is. Do not repeat yourself, except perhaps in your conclusion.

    The occasional long piece is fine, as long as it's well-organized and tightly edited. Readers aren't going to put up with being jerked around as you do your thinking while you write.

    Now to address some specific claims you made:

    It seems that people are uninterested for the things I write about. If I wrote about mathematics, my best and favorite subject, I will have no views at all.

    SO not true. The best idea is to pick your favorite subject or two and write about them. You'll get a small but passionate following.

    Don't you realize how many more people there are interested in math than are interested in Jewish atheists and skeptics? If you wrote a good math blog, it would be much bigger.

    \If I write about political philosophy, my favorite kind of philosophy, I will probably lose a lot of my atheist viewers because my posts clearly have a pro-liberty, anti-state, conservative right-wing bend to them which alienates secular liberals from my pro-atheism posts.

    And this reveals a HUGE misunderstanding of how blog audiences work! :-) The most loyal readers and posters will disagree with you quite strongly.

    For example, me. I'm most motivated to respond to you when I disagree with you. You can look back on my comments or on our email history and see that it's true. The blogs I visit every day are ones I strongly disagree with.

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  6. I also agree with Garnel's #1. Best way to get new readers.

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. I chose to post here rather than the original post location, which is here: http://www.frumsatire.net/2010/05/28/beware-of-the-us-census-bureau/. Due to ongoing harassment by a us census worker, I spent 4 hours researching this subject online tonight and I'm informing you that I appreciate your posts. I'd also like to share that I have concluded that providing the number of people living in your household on the us census information request form is adequate. However, I have also concluded that the people answering no more than the number question are being harassed by us census workers. Many harassment victims seem to be concerned about the fines that may be imposed and how those fines may be enforced (a question you posted). I'm temporarily at ease because currently there is apparently no agency assigned to enforcing us census fines. Although, I predict big bro will continue to dig for more household info, and I anticipate that resistance to such digging will continue to grow. I plan to revisit this research subject as able and I hope to find time to post an update here. Thanks again for your posts.

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  9. Jewish Atheist: Thank you for those ideas. But I will ignore some of them because as I said I write my posts entirely for my own selfish reasons. I am happy to know that people benefit from them but I write so I can read in the future and tell myself, "what a great idea you have" (yes I speak to myself in second person because my arrogance and lack of humility is beyond imagination). You got me interested to start posting math related content. I would certainly start doing that if I can find a way to enable LaTeX on Blogger. I think there are ways to do it but they seem to be a little complicated which is why the math people all moved to WordPress which is LaTeX friendly.

    I have already changed my layout (black and white) because one viewer told me that my original layout was to painful to read to the eyes.

    I do comment on other sites also. I do it to comment and also to get people to link over to my site and read what I read. My ongoing battle in the Census article in FrumSatire's webpage seems to have raised attracted some people over to my side.

    AJL: I still have no idea what happens to people who refuse to pay census fines. This is an important question to answer, saying, "nothing happens" does not make too much sense. It may very well be that nothing happens at the moment because there is no agency in charge of census fines, once one is put up something will definitely happen.

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  10. I agree that once an agency is assigned to enforcing us census fines, "something will definitely happen". Meanwhile, I do not say "nothing happens" now because of the ongoing harassment I am receiving from a us census worker, which I do not consider a non event. It will be very interesting to see how this issue develops and how the populous reacts if/when the fines are enforced. I'm also researching what may happen if/when mandatory health care insurance fines are enforced.

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  11. "It will be very interesting to see how this issue develops and how the populous reacts if/when the fines are enforced.":

    Nothing much would happen. It would probably be done in a more secretive way. That is my prediction.

    "I'm also researching what may happen if/when mandatory health care insurance fines are enforced.":

    The left somehow thinks it is not enforced. Or otherwise by some strange reasoning conclude that it is justified.

    The left did not complain about mandatory health insurance. Al fortiorti, it seems that they would not complain about mandatory census fines.

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