My experience with blogging

[8letters]

In November 2014, I had had good success with my most recent story and I decided to start a blog about my writing and stories that I'd liked. I meant it as an additional way to communicate with my readers beyond comments and PM's. I'd thought I share the story behind my stories, where I'm at on my next story, LitE stories that I had recently read and enjoyed, and maybe bullshit with people who commented on my blog.

So I created an introductory post, posted the extended author notes for two stories and waited for people to come to my blog. And I waited. And I waited.

One problem was the challenge of informing people that I had a blog. I put it into my sig for the forums. I tried to add a link to my blog to the end of my next story but that led to my story being rejected for having a link to an external web site. Eventually, I put at the end of my next story the note, "See my Literotica profile for extended author's notes ". My Literotica profile then had the link to my blog.

During November 2014, I had 18 visitors. December, I had 13. January 2015, I had 11. I don't think I had any comments. Not what I had envisioned.

In April 2015, I published another story. My number of visitors jumped up to 41 for the month. I got 55 in May and then it went down from there until August, when I published yet another story. 136 visitors for August.

I didn't publish anything for a year. I got a steady stream of visitors, typically 30-50 a month. But I think most of them were visiting for the wrong reason. I had written reviews of several stories I'd like. A couple of them were stories where the whole family had sex. When I looked at the search terms people were using to find my blog, most of them were searches for family sex stories. At first, I thought such people might stay, read my blog and then read my stories. It didn't seem to happen. I felt like the people looking for family sex stories were skewing my visitor stats so I eventually deleted all of the posts that discussed other people's stories.

I'm using WordPress for my blog and it doesn't provide me with much in the way of understanding about the people visiting my blog. Sometimes, WordPress while provide me with the web page the user was on when they clicked on a link to go to my blog (a referrer). Knowing that people used Google to get to my blog isn't helpful without knowing how they used Google to get to my blog. Sometimes, WordPress provides me with the search terms, but not often. To pick a date at random, on 12/04/16 I got 8 visitors. 7 of them used some Google variant to get to my blog. As for how they used Google to get to my blog, WordPress tells me that 3 of them used "Unknown search terms". And one person got to my blog from my blog.

In August of this year, I published two stories that were very popular. I decided to try something new and I put at the end of the stories a link to extended author's notes that I had published on the "Story Feedback" forum. From there, people could get to my blog by clicking on the link for it in my signature. I got 247 visitors in August, which was almost twice as much as my prior best. Readership has fallen off since to 95 in November.

Sadly, I've not got the many comments that I had envisioned. I've gotten 12 comments in two years. 4 of those were from one user asking about a sequel to one of my stories.

Because I've gotten so few comments, I have no idea what is a good post for a writing blog. I post stuff that I find interesting, but have no idea if anyone else does.

I have had several comments and PM's that say that they really enjoy my extended author notes and my blog. It's not a lot, but it's enough to keep my blogging occasionally.

If you decide to blog about your writing, I wish you more success than me.

 

[hylas_]

Maybe team up with a couple of like-minded writers and have a blog together?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Blogs are all about content content content - as you have found from your comments about search terms. If it ain't interesting to the masses, they're not going to come.

If you find a niche to blog about, followers will straggle in. But you gotta have worthwhile content.

In a completely different life I run a blog on a niche subject matter (techno babble stuff not remotely related to erotica) - depending on the search terms used I'm on the first page of google. I steadily get 50-80 visitors a day, but it took five years to get up to that traffic. It generates 100% incoming enquiries for a micro business I run, costs me $140 every three years. It turns out I have more street cred in this particular niche than I ever knew, to the extent I'm a subject matter guru for some folk. But it's a niche in an already niche space.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Many years ago, circa 1980, I managed a one hour radio network affiliated with the US ARMY-MARS radio system. The network moved messages from overseas ARMY posts and USA destinations. Satellites had come a long way but cell phones didn't exist, nor the internet, etc. Sometimes we were busy, sometimes not, but I always had plenty of army stations to keep me company.

To keep army operators alert I performed a 'blog' of sorts with interesting topics done in 5 minute installments. Army rules required clear pauses every 5 minutes. And my network became popular because of the discussion topics.

Like this one, DID YOU KNOW THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS MEMORY? All know that's nonsense but it happens to be true. We mistake recognition for memory.

 

[Hypoxia]

Promote yourself. Back in the day it would have been with Usenet newsgroups and email lists. (My daily UFO-paranormal-conspiracy newsletter and blog had vast readership.) Nowadays, visit relevant forums and blogs and leave comments with your blog linked. That's how I'd do it if I was so inclined.

 

[TxRad]

From what I've seen and heard, blogs and facebook eat up more writing time than they are worth.

 

[SamScribble]

From what I've seen and heard, blogs and facebook eat up more writing time than they are worth.

I think blogs are useful if you have a purpose.

I'm running out of steam now; but for 15 or so years, my blog got me consulting assignments. 'This guy seems to know what he's talking about. Let's give him a call.'

If you are just blogging for traffic, I'm not sure that it's worth it.

 

[TxRad]

I think blogs are useful if you have a purpose.

I'm running out of steam now; but for 15 or so years, my blog got me consulting assignments. 'This guy seems to know what he's talking about. Let's give him a call.'

If you are just blogging for traffic, I'm not sure that it's worth it.

You make a valid point but since we are talking promoting writing, I don't think it helps enough to be worth the time. If you already have a name, it might generate a few sales and pump up the fans but at the Lit level not so much.

 

[8letters]

Blogs are all about content content content.

The content I'm producing are the stories I publish here on LitE. Whenever I published a story here on LitE, my traffic on the blog has increased. I don't think I can or want to create enough interesting content on the blog that it would draw people to the blog by itself.

I'm going to keep blogging. The main reason I don't write is that I 'm not excited about writing. I post to my blog things that make me excited to write. And people see it. It might be only a handful of people, but I am sharing with my (tiny) fan base.

The most disappointing thing about blogging has been the lack of comments. Like I said, I had viewed the blog as a way of interacting with my readers. That hasn't happened.

 

[TxRad]

With the small amount of comments most people get on the stories here at Lit, why would people comment on a blog?

I'm not knocking your blog but... I don't see the logic here.

Now if you could figure out a way to make your blog go viral...
This is where 50 shades of crap won out.

 

[ChloeTzang]

The most disappointing thing about blogging has been the lack of comments. Like I said, I had viewed the blog as a way of interacting with my readers. That hasn't happened.

Took a look at your profile and blog. Now I've only been here a bit more than a year so I'm no expert. I do get comments - usually a run when a story first comes out, then one or two every now and then. Rather more emails and a few readers I have ongoing emails with.
Suggestions.
- make your profile bio more chatty and actively ask for comments and feedback. Tell readers you like talking about your stories and they will hear back from you. Heck, go copy my profile (not the bits about me lol).
- add a chatty comment at the start and end of every story and tell readers u love to hear from them. At the end of my last story I asked for ratings and told readers why I wanted them. 1 in 30 voted rather thN the usual 1 in 100 - that's a huge jump.
- Blog. You need a bit more visual impact. I will come back and add some suggestions tonite.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm using WordPress for my blog and it doesn't provide me with much in the way of understanding about the people visiting my blog. Sometimes, WordPress while provide me with the web page the user was on when they clicked on a link to go to my blog (a referrer). Knowing that people used Google to get to my blog isn't helpful without knowing how they used Google to get to my blog. Sometimes, WordPress provides me with the search terms, but not often. To pick a date at random, on 12/04/16 I got 8 visitors. 7 of them used some Google variant to get to my blog. As for how they used Google to get to my blog, WordPress tells me that 3 of them used "Unknown search terms". And one person got to my blog from my blog.

What about using statcounter plugin? I'm starting to setup my own blog (a friend of my partners is hosting it for me on his Hostgator account and he's giving me a few lessons on blogging ... so I'm speaking without any real practical experience here except for what he's run me thru as we start setting up my blog). There seem to be a lot of wordpress plugins you can use for stuff like that.

Also, taking a look at your blog, there's not much to draw readers. I'd say post your stories there as well to start with, otherwise all you're getting are readers from your existing stories - and people hitting our blog at random with no context, which is a bit of a waste of time. Visuals as well. Images seem to be the one thing books on blogging emphasize - you need that visual grab. Myself, I'm taking a look at some of the more popular authors at there and I'm going to more or less copy someone elses layout and approach who gets lots of hits and whose popular. Why waste time trying to reinvent the wheel. Find a good blog and copy the layout and format. It is a lot of work tho.

 

[KindofHere]

..............

 

[ChloeTzang]

You write incest stories ... how much traction can that get?

Get over yourself. Stop thinking people want to talk about it as much as you do.

Normal people don't. Normal people don't want to fuck their sisters and the people who read it, don't want to admit it.

And you posting and pasting comments from Lit to your blog probably pisses more people off than makes them want to talk.

You write incest, so your scores are +1 ... and it's the second highest category, so +2 ....

Have you read what you wrote?

You are a 3 at best.

Edit: how do I know ... I wrote a long incest story with fuck ups and all and it got a 4.74 ... and it was shitly written,

Oh there are readerx, but u need content. Comments on stories on anothe r site aren't content. Readers will come, see no stories and leave.

 

[KindofHere]

.............

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Don't see an Incest story in your submissions page

You write incest stories ... how much traction can that get?

Get over yourself. Stop thinking people want to talk about it as much as you do.

Normal people don't. Normal people don't want to fuck their sisters and the people who read it, don't want to admit it.

And you posting and pasting comments from Lit to your blog probably pisses more people off than makes them want to talk.

You write incest, so your scores are +1 ... and it's the second highest category, so +2 ....

Have you read what you wrote?

You are a 3 at best.

Edit: how do I know ... I wrote a long incest story with fuck ups and all and it got a 4.74 ... and it was shitly written,

 

[KindofHere]

..........

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Wasnt trying to get on your case; just wondering.


B][/B]

Because I had another name 'quiet please' and something else, I don't remember, I was drinking (am drinking) to much then .... I wrote two ... one was titled "Too Close' and the other was titled 'the three f's' .... three f's had the better score ... it was pure sex.

I lost the three f's ... gone, no longer to be found and laurel warned me that could happen ... cause I was going through a moral thing.

I still have too close ... you can find it on that way back machine.


Edit: Too close was my first story ... had a 4.37 and most people said it 'wasn't incest' ... so I wrote The Three F's because I was pissed (I was also drunk) and it was 17 pages of sex and it got the 4.74 and I got some disturbing emails that went into strange detail of how I should write the followup story - the story was done .... these people could have printed their own story with the emails I was given.

 

[KindofHere]

..............

 

[8letters]

Also, taking a look at your blog, there's not much to draw readers. I'd say post your stories there as well to start with, otherwise all you're getting are readers from your existing stories

I don't think you're understanding my point.

I write content mainly to draw comments. I've had great success getting comments by posting incest stories on LitE. I've had very little success by posting stuff to my blog.

Given that, it makes sense to spend a maximum amount of time working on stories I'll post on LitE. Anytime spent on my blog isn't productive in terms of drawing comments. The only time I should spend on my blog is writing stuff that motivates me to write more on the stuff I'm going to post to LitE.

That's my experience. YMMV.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I don't think you're understanding my point.

I write content mainly to draw comments. I've had great success getting comments by posting incest stories on LitE. I've had very little success by posting stuff to my blog.

Given that, it makes sense to spend a maximum amount of time working on stories I'll post on LitE. Anytime spent on my blog isn't productive in terms of drawing comments. The only time I should spend on my blog is writing stuff that motivates me to write more on the stuff I'm going to post to LitE.

That's my experience. YMMV.

Gotcha. LIT comes with that ready made pool of readers. How do you convert that into readers and commenters on your blog. Short answer is content and SEO. You need 2 or 3 posts a week to raise your profile and you have to reach your target audience. Look at other authors sites is my suggestion

 

[MyrtleBeachFanatic]

One of the best blogs from a writer on Lit that i've seen is by Pocketbooklover. My suggestion is to look at it and email her and get her opinion and some advice. Its my understanding that she has been very will, but its worth a shot.

 

[ChloeTzang]

One of the best blogs from a writer on Lit that i've seen is by Pocketbooklover. My suggestion is to look at it and email her and get her opinion and some advice. Its my understanding that she has been very will, but its worth a shot.

Thx, I will take a look as well. Trying to figure out a good approach to blogging and also to reaching a wider audience myself so its interesting and useful to hear about other peoples experiences.

 

[TxRad]

Thx, I will take a look as well. Trying to figure out a good approach to blogging and also to reaching a wider audience myself so its interesting and useful to hear about other peoples experiences.

You might have a word on blogging with Naoko when she pops up again. She does a couple of different ones. It might be a while before she surfaces. He last post said she was having problems above and beyond the ordinary.