To wonder who why people blog

[Nevertooearlyforcake]

And who reads them? I know noone is forced to read them and I can completely understand it when people are living aboard and want to keep friends and family in touch with their lives. But the "I wearing these shoes" today ones - why? I've clicked on a couple of links fron time to time and it just felt a bit narcissistic to me - am I missing something?

firawla the book blogs brought freebies from the publishing houses pretty quickly. In fact I started it with freebies...but they were from my own publisher (I'm an author). I told em what I was doing and they sent me a box of authors they were trying to promote.

Couldn't agree more SpottedGurnard - I cringe when I see some of the 'mega' blogs who charge £300 a month for a teeny tiny ad, they are crammed with poor grammar and spelling and every other word is 'fabulous' or 'amazing'.

I would like to blog about make-up, how long do you think I'd have to blog for before people started sending me freebies????

Oooooh I could even abuse my position as an established blogger by posting links to the new make-up review site all over my current blog....

I find it weird that you would blog about your family, most especially your DCs. I read one regularly (for a good laugh-it is terribly earnest!) and I know so much about them, including where they live. I could pass them in the street and know really intimate details and yet they don't know me, or even that I have the information.

I can see the point if you have a hobby but not beyond that. They have lovely photos but really who do they think wants to see a 3yr old make cup cakes, with every stage-apart from fond grandparents?

The thing is, a blog is only as good as its traffic to an advertiser. Fabuloso writing etc is by the by.

If you want to run a successful blog that makes money then you need to look at others with serious traffic and instead of sniggering and tutting, ask yourself 'what is it about this blog that readers like?'

You need empathy with your readers/customers.

I don't particularly want to be a career blogger wordfactory, but thanks for the tips...

I know that what keeps the big blogs' figures up is having constant new content - and I can't be arsed with that. Also, quality twice daily content is only possible when you get lots of quality submissions from suppliers, and the best submissions will always go to the biggest bloggers.

It is quite possible to work hard and build contacts and get to the same position as the megabloggers, but you have to want that blogger lifestyle of being chained to the laptop and arsekissing 'networking', which doesn't interest me at all. Actually, I do like networking in a casual way and have some good contacts, but there is a lot of fakery around the particular world of blogging that I'm part of, and it comes with cattiness, bitchiness and is generally a bit school playground for me.

With my blog I soon found other interested bloggers linking to me and would get emails from people of issues to look into. But I think because my blog was about low level exposee I never got any back biting or bitchiness. Although thinking about it, trying to make it money making would leave me too vulnerable.

I got emails warning me people in thing I was exposing were trying to find out who I was and I was very careful to cover tracks. So I used an email address that had no links to me at all and only ever told 2 people I did the blog. Hilariously I got quite a few comments on my blog from people I knew in rl and really wanted to say - hey its Lesley. But never did.

Mothers who blog about their teenagers must be very embarrassing to the teenager. The one I read retold the story of the birth on the DD's 15th birthday!!

emsy you are right about the time it takes up to get serious traffic.

I tend to work very hard when setting things up then outsource the running of it. I then pay someone to network and post (as you say, blogs eat content), which obviously eats into my profit margin but I'm not prepared to do it myself as I have a number of blogs, and I'm also an author.