My name is Amanda and I’m a Serial Blog Starter (“SBS”). It’s been about a month since I’ve started my last blog.
When I set up a new blog, I get very excited about it. I’ll take time designing the blog, planning future posts, drafting, write posts for a few weeks, and then the excitement wanes. After the honeymoon stage, I get distracted or discouraged, and the momentum falls off. Then I start a new blog!
What types of blogs? You name it, I’ve had a blog about it. I created several teenage angst blogs get me through high school and college. I’ve started healthy eating blogs, gardening blogs, unhealthy desserts, fitblrs, and more weightloss blogs than pounds lost (and I’ve lost a healthy amount of weight in my life). I’ve tried a couple of freelance writer blogs (excellent how tos that became sorta-good-ideas), group-blogs, legal blogs, etc.
But now, I’ve finally discovered the key to a successful blog. It’s not rocket science. If you start a blog about one specific topic, you’re limited to writing about that topic. Sure, you can take a little creative license, but typically it should be related to whatever your blog topic is. So, the secret is to start a blog with a theme narrow enough to define your blog but broad enough to allow you to branch out into a bunch of different areas.
In the modern age, blogging is essential for writers. Blogging gives you the ability to write often, to publish mini-works, to engage potential readers in your work, to build a platform for each individual work, and to review other similar writers’ blogs for tips. Just like a serial entrepreneur who skips from business to business without ever giving one business enough devotion to get off the ground, serial blog starters don’t give their blogs enough of a chance to build a readership. The benefit to having a single, long-term blog is that readers can really get to know you. They can give you true, constructive feedback for your plans and ideas. You can benefit from your readers as much as they benefit from following your blog. So give yourself a chance, and your readers a chance, by devoting your time to one blog. After the honeymoon stage wears off, your true readership will still be there. Grow with them, and develop your writing with them on a more intimate level.
