Blogging/writing

[Seraphim]

I admire people who can maintain a blog for long periods of time. I enjoy writing and photography, but having to commit to a schedule - producing on a regular deadline, isn't something of which I'm fond.

So, how do you bloggers keep yourself motivated, and what started you blogging to begin with? Is there a technique to maintaining motivation, or am I just too unstructured (read as lazy)?

 

[dragonflyinthesky]

Good question. I wish I could keep up the momentum. Part of my reason for being sporadic is I feel like a fake, I'm not on the road much yet. I am trying to squeeze in weekend trips close to home, where I'm shackled.

 

[decodancer]

I'm with you Dragonfly. I don't think people want to read about my daily life as much as my travels. I will add a few things about being a rec director here at the campground but once I get on the road I'll have some real stories.

 

[rvwandering]

I read all of your blogs! I think that reading about the hows and whys of getting ready to fulltime is of interest and value to other people who are on that path. The same with working as a fulltimer. A lot of people have no idea how to get ready or how to get a work camping job afterwards. And beautiful photographs of where you've been are wonderful even if there's not a lot of text. Keep blogging!

As far as blogging regularly - that's a tough one. I started a blog in 2008 for friends and family. I'd post every couple of weeks but I never knew if anyone was reading it or interested at all so it was hard to get motivated to write anything. When I started my new blog I had a lot of reasons for doing it - making a resource for handicapped travelers, helping other RVs find interesting and inexpensive things to do and places to stay, keeping a record of where we'd been and want to go. It's a little boring and dry compared to other blogs but I have fun playing with it and consider it more of a tool than a daily journal.

It seems that the most popular blogs are one that grab peoples' interest with something that's a little different - Tioga George, To Simplify, RVSue, etc. I noticed that these bloggers get some of there income from the readers, through GoogleAds originally but now more often through Amazon, so that's a big motivator to blog often. How to get enough people to actually start reading your blog so that it can be a source of income? I have no idea -lol.

 

[Seraphim]

When we travel, I post photos and updates to Facebook regularly, so friends and family know we're OK. Before retirement, I tried blogging for a few months but - as mentioned above - we weren't traveling full time.

I'm not interested in income from the blog, just need some mental focus in my life. Need some goals to work towards. Some structure. I guess it doesn't matter if no one actually READS the thing.

Sorry. Going off topic lol. Perhaps if I blogged once a month...

 

[WheelEstate USA]

I also began blogging for friends and Margie's family. I was also sending blanket emails to her family (I have no family), and most of my friends read "wazup" on other forum chat posts....pics included in emails and chats.
It felt like I was telling everything too many times and I guess blogging took back seat to the personal approach. Plus, I wanted a nicer looking blog and didn't know how to do that.
I'm going to try blogging again and hope I can get more readers going. Like Karen, I wasn't sure the world was interested in what I wrote.

I'd like to add a little income, but that doesn't happen quickly thru blogs, from what I understand.
From what I read, affiliate programs, like Google Adsense and Amazon go thru an approval process and they like to see a track record of fair consistency, good content, and at least 700-1000 word posts...with good readership numbers. I read that readership grows slowly as the web crawlers begin to pick up on a blog and others find it more and more. If the content is interesting you pick up followers.

I'm still unclear on some of the aspects of the affiliate programs. I know Amazon pays a "commission" on things people buy thru blog links...even if they buy another item going thru the blog's link. I don't think Amazon pays for simple clicks on their links. (Bob would know)
I haven't checked all the Adsense pay facts yet.

I've noticed a lot of bloggers post about once a week, whereas, those into making a buck seem to post more often.
I think Karen (love her blogs) pretty well covered some good reasons to blog.

 

[Seraphim]

It seemed to me there was also a social aspect to blogging - you follow me and I'll follow you...

Maybe I was imagining it.

 

[WheelEstate USA]

Sure, lots of bloggers follow each other much like Facebook, but your blog won't have all the FB crap. Its about what you choose to post and comments from your readers, which you can respond to below the content.

Technomadia did a video chat last Thursday about blogging after I brought it up on another site. Its on Youtube...


Settle back for this video...its about an hour long.

 

[Starlight]

I was thinking that as you travel and meet people and make friends (friends who share your same interests, like RVing) -- you find it easier to post to a blog to keep in touch with them when nothing else quite suits. Sometimes it is just a casual friendship and sending personal emails wouldn't fit the situation. Blogging requires no return message or comment -- unless one feels so inclined.

And then... friendships can build over distances after just a casual meeting. Blogspot, Wordpress, are good. Blogspot is googleads, the free wordpress is no ads, I believe. If I start a travel blog I doubt that I will have a comment section. Comments sections are good for people to get to know each other through a blog, and draw others to their own blogs -- but I don't think I'd want to mess with it. If I make friends, they can talk to me from their blog instead of my comment section, or send an email now and then.

If I decide to have comments, I may just post a link to wordpress, where it is set up already for comments -- and keep my basic blog free of it. I'm leaning towards no comments, though.

 

[Seraphim]

Sure, lots of bloggers follow each other much like Facebook, but your blog won't have all the FB crap. Its about what you choose to post and comments from your readers, which you can respond to below the content.

Technomadia did a video chat last Thursday about blogging after I brought it up on another site. Its on Youtube...


Settle back for this video...its about an hour long.

Thanks for the link. I'll sit down and watch it when I have an hour available.

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I was thinking that as you travel and meet people and make friends (friends who share your same interests, like RVing) -- you find it easier to post to a blog to keep in touch with them when nothing else quite suits. Sometimes it is just a casual friendship and sending personal emails wouldn't fit the situation. Blogging requires no return message or comment -- unless one feels so inclined.

And then... friendships can build over distances after just a casual meeting. Blogspot, Wordpress, are good. Blogspot is googleads, the free wordpress is no ads, I believe. If I start a travel blog I doubt that I will have a comment section. Comments sections are good for people to get to know each other through a blog, and draw others to their own blogs -- but I don't think I'd want to mess with it. If I make friends, they can talk to me from their blog instead of my comment section, or send an email now and then.

If I decide to have comments, I may just post a link to wordpress, where it is set up already for comments -- and keep my basic blog free of it. I'm leaning towards no comments, though.

A good point about keeping up with causal friendships; but FB seems to easier to me. I keep up with several people here on FB - it's good knowing they're doing OK, and they don't have blogs. They or I can do a quick post and that's all that's necessary. No content or entertainment value necessary. The nice thing about a blog , however, is that the author can remain anonymous, to a degree. FB requires trusting a person with more information on a personal level. More caution is necessary.

---

Good question. I wish I could keep up the momentum. Part of my reason for being sporadic is I feel like a fake, I'm not on the road much yet. I am trying to squeeze in weekend trips close to home, where I'm shackled.

I don't see a problem as long as you're honest about it. One reason Flight of the GyrFalcon didn't stay up - working too much getting ready for retirement left no time for travel, and Ii resorted to telling old travel tales rather than new ones. It felt like I had nothing current to share.

 

[K1ngN0thing]

I started a blog dedicated to handheld/portable video games back in Feb 2012. As these things go, I stated out very gung-ho and enthusiastic, but over time it's waned. I used to have others contributing and in return allowed them to place their personal affiliate links within their works, but due to low traffic most didn't stick around for long. If I ever have the funds, I'd like to hire a couple of regular writers to breathe some new life into it. Right now 90% of my traffic at minimum is from google/reddit. I'd be surprised if I had more than a few regular readers. At the moment I'm only posting one article per month, as well as a competitive Smash Bros tournament which has brought in some Patreon supporters. http://www.portableplatypus.com for anyone interested in taking a look. It's visually a little sloppy but that's not exactly a priority at the moment.