Today’s first blogging session is on pursuing your passion. Here’s the agenda description:
BlogHer’s recent survey data indicated that the majority of women bloggers have been at it for three years or less. Do you see yourself blogging for life? And if so, how will you escape blogger burnout or, perhaps worse, boredom. Join some women who are in that rare pantheon of bloggers who have been at it five, six, seven, even eight years and more. We all know it’s best to blog what you feel passionate about, but as your life changes, do your passions? According to these bloggers, you can always adjust your blog to match the passions in your life. Maggie Mason moderates a discussion amongst long-time bloggers like Melissa Summers, Evany Thomas and Sarah Brown, and uses their stories to offer practical advice on how to make sure you’re always publishing what is best for you to give, not what you think others want to receive.
Here goes.
Moderator Maggie: Are you surprised with where your blog has gone?
Sarah: Sarah started her blog when she was laid off (copywriter). She wanted to something to keep her writing every day. Eventually everyone found out about it. “It’s completely changed my life and my career.”
Evany: Evany said she was surprised with how many people she has met because of her blog.
Melissa: Melissa started her blog when her kids were little and she was depressed. She didn’t have any good mom friends. It helped open her up, since she was shy. “I didn’t expect it to be a job.” She’s gotten free stuff and trips, so that has been a huge gift for Melissa.
Maggie: “I was surprised that anyone read it at all.” She was a managing editor at a web magazine, and met the founder of Blogger.com and it was shocking to find someone with a blog. It was a real experience to realize other bloggers were real and aware of her and her blog. Coming from the print world, she has realized she doesn’t need the print world; there is so much you can do on your own with the community and conversation. “I’m really happy with online as a medium and it’s a good fit for me.”
What’s the difference between you and people who abandon their blogs?
For me, I would do this on paper (collect scraps from magazines) and have loved translating it to online.
Melissa: Melissa likes writing and the act of blogging. Her readers have changed. It’s always going to evolve and she has to enjoy it for what it is.
Maggie:Have you ever wanted to walk away from your blog?
Evany: No.
Sarah: There are times she is less interested in her blog, but she never wants to completely leave it.
Evany: Evany will drift away for a few months; when it’s new you don’t want to go away from it (it’s like a baby chick; you want to nurture it). It’s like joining a gym, where you get into it and it drops off.
Maggie: What do you do when you’re not inspired?
Evany: Sometimes there’s such good inspiration for writing all around you (like at BlogHer).
Sarah: “The biggest lesson I’ve learned is whenever I don’t feel like writing I don’t make myself do it. When I feel like writing again, I will.” When she doesn’t have anything to say, she doesn’t write.
Maggie: When Maggie doesn’t have anything to write she links to other people.
Audience: A member of the audience said that as a new blogger, she is scared of not posting frequently.
Maggie: Maggie said it depends what your goal is. If it’s monetization, you should post frequently. If it’s to be creative it doesn’t matter.
Evany: If you stop writing you don’t give people a reason to come back.
Maggie: Maggie said she hadn’t gone a week without writing ever.
Audience: Do Feedreaders change the fact that fewer posts slow traffic? Another audience member said that it depends how you use Feedreaders. Another person in the audience said that many people just read via Feedreaders, so would it count as traffic?
Maggie: How have your boundaries with your audience evolved? There’s an unspoken etiquette that has evolved over the years.
Evany: Her first experience with this etiquette was in bashing an ex-boyfriend and not getting any response. Writing about falling in love, too, can get you in trouble.
Maggie: Maggie sees people on Twitter sharing too much.
Sarah: When she first started writing, she wrote for herself, and wrote more personal things. She doesn’t write so personally now with a larger audience.
Melissa: Melissa loves her readers, and her boundaries have changed in that writing personally, you have to accept that a lot of negative feedback will come. When she is upset about something, she can’t write about it or readers might comment and make her feel worse.
Audience: Do you go back and read your own writing?
Maggie: I do read my own work. I evolved differently. Flickr made me more create a scrapbook of my life. She shared her photos on her blog, which helped her open up on her blog.
Sarah: Every once in a while, she will find something in an old post.
Evany: Sometimes she goes back and searches for a topic that is relevant to now.
Maggie: We’ve all been through big transitions online. Do you worry that these transitions will keep readers from following you?
Audience: An audience member asked how the panel can walk away from the blog once they’re done writing.
Sarah: Writing online is a part of her career, so she can separate it from her personal life.
Maggie: At first, you’re very excited and make blogging you’re entire life, but once you get saturated, the shininess wears off and you have to pick what blogs you read and how much time you spend.
Audience: An audience member shared how writing for first-time moms changed as her kids grew up. She wondered: are readers still into this phase or will new moms keep coming back?
Maggie: Maggie’s blog went from writing about being single to being married to having babies. She still writes about the same thing, but wasn’t sure if she should write about being a mom. Many people left, but many more came on as readers.
Audience: An audience member shared how she blogged for fun until she attended BlogHer two years ago. Then she lost her passion because she focused on traffic.
Maggie: People who are stressed about traffic easily lose their passion.
Have you worried about writing about what your readers want? Do you write to get a lot of eyes on your post?
Sarah: It’s tempting to do when you’re having a dry spell. Sometimes she does it, but “it feels dirty.” If you’re pursuing your passion, stick to that. She writes because she needs to write it.
Melissa: She said she never knows what will get her readers excited. Sometimes she beats a dead horse, but she does it because she needs to work through it.
Evany: She keeps what she writes about as what she cares about. She loves Twitter because you have to condense what to say in 140 characters.
Audience: An audience member said she stopped caring what people thought of her posts and was surprised to see she quadrupled her stats.
Sarah: There is a fetish for any weird thing in the world. Whatever thing you’re into, there are people out there who are happy you’re writing about it.
Audience: An audience member said not all traffic is good traffic. She was happy to see that her small readership stayed with her after some negative links to her blog.
Another member asked how the panel feels about blogs that are written for other purposes than just for the writer.
Maggie: Maggie’s blog was written for other people. She writes on her blog the way she talks to her friends. She said the beauty of self publishing is that you write for yourself, but you find people who respond well to it.
Sarah: You have to write for yourself first.
Audience: A member of the audience asked the panel if they find passion in blogging via the people they meet through their blog.
Maggie: Friendships are great, but when you’re friends with a writer, friendships become sitcoms.
Audience: It’s odd when people treat you as a character because of your blog.
Evany: People know really personal things about Evany through her blog, and when she meets them in person, it’s awkward to meet the people she’s communicated with online.
Audience: A member of the audience said she comes from the print world, where people would walk up to her and complain about what she’s written. As a blogger, she feels online is a safer environment, and she feels she is more comfortable.
Another audience member, a new blogger, said that coming to BlogHer is about connecting with people in a real way. Communicating online is still disconnected. She enjoys the rich relationships she’s developed in blogging.
Another audience member talked about finding friends on the internet. She said it’s hard to find friends, so the internet really opens up your possibilities. She said that’s what motivates her to blog.
Maggie: When people come to BlogHer to meet each other in person. It’s odd to have a geographical span for so many people you’re close to.
Audience: One audience member said she has gotten to the point of overload in reading blogs, and asked the panel if they still find new people to read.
Melissa: Melissa has formed a core group of blogs she reads, which is how she builds who is important to her.
Evany: Evany said she is always finding new bloggers to read. She likes to have friends that are bloggers so she can get a different view from an event they both attended.
Susan Payton is the Marketing Eggspert, and owner of 
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