Nov 18, 2013 08:09
Well, I never did make it to the Regatta this weekend. We went out to breakfast with some ham radio friends of Bob's on Friday morning, but by the time I was supposed to go to the Yacht Club, I was having that "seasick on land" feeling and spent the day on the couch watching reruns of QI. Saturday and Sunday I felt much better, but not well enough to be away from my couch for hours. So I stayed home and watched the races from here. A friend of ours -- actually the realtor who showed us houses when we first visited -- won his category. But there weren't enough boats registered for him to win the big prize: his weight in rum. So someone else won it. Someone heavier! That's a lot of rum.
So I didn't get to be social. And I didn't feel good enough to do anything else but plan. So I have a plan. I need to start eating better. I may not eat processed food or drink soda, but the amount of bread I eat isn't good and it makes me feel like crap. So I'm off the floury stuff as of this morning.
I wanted to go for a walk this morning, but it's blowing a gale out there and I don't feel THAT good yet. So walking and working out will wait another day. My head still hurts a little.
But in my lazing around this weekend, I did figure something out. I figured out why getting emails from these blogging gurus is making me so angry. I subscribed to these emails but whenever I get one, I feel affronted. I mean, they're just telling me how to promote my blog and that's what I want, right?
Well... it is and it isn't. I want my new blogs to get good traffic and have lots of people following them. But what I don't want is to become obsessed with marketing again. From 1997 until 2012, it was kind of my raison d'être. It comprised most of what I did for RH. And let me tell you that it is as soul-sucking when you do it for yourself as when you do it for a big pharmaceutical company. Yes, you are just letting people who want your product to know your product is out there and available. But you also have to do a lot of shit and try to game the system (hello Google Analytics!). And in the end, you may get a sale or two out of it. But meanwhile, you will see your friends happily posting on their blogs about Simplicity's new Steampunk patterns and wonder why you fucking bother...
When I moved here, I stepped away from a lot of things I used to do. Worrying was one of them. And my biggest worry was search engine placement, Page rank, referring sites, and that kind of stuff. Strangely, in the last year of me doing nothing, our number of hits per month has risen to its highest average ever.
Lately with these new blogs, I've been looking at these things again. And I HATE it. I hate thinking about traffic and SEO and keywords and writing engaging headlines and producing "epic content" (I HATE the misuse of that word!). It's all really a lesson in writing badly. And the NOW NOW NOW vibe really just makes my stomach retch. I don't want to think about positioning something to go viral. I don't want to use only the keywords people search for on Google. I don't want to do what everyone else has done.
I just want to talk about stuff. And if you want to listen to what I have to say, please follow my blogs. Subscribe or do the RSS thing or follow them on Facebook and Twitter. And if I have something to sell that you think is valuable, please buy it. And if I don't, then don't.
I think I'm going to watch some more QI now...