"How I Failed as a Blogger"

That was the title I proposed for a presentation to the Colorado Authors League Sept. 27 in Denver. Officially entitled "Blogging for Writers," I experienced a sinking feeling as the day approached. What wisdom can I impart as a blogger? I’m lucky if I get a couple comments a week on either of my blogs.

Meanwhile, I spend an hour or so a day going to blogs such as Daily Kos or Digby or Left in the West or Rake’s Progress or almost any other notable weblog with a progressive or literary bent (or both). Some, like Daily Kos, get upwards of a million hits a day and feature diarists who somehow have all the time in the world to write thoughtful (sometimes thoughtfully angry) posts.

So I decided to go to Denver, eat a free lunch, and learn something about blogging from my other panelists. Leslie Petrovski’s blog is http://www.nakeidknits.com/nakeidknits/. She focuses on knitting and her cats, in that order, and gets about 100 hits a day. Larry Borowsky is a writer who started his St. Louis Cardinals blog, http://www.vivaelbirdos.com, a few years back. He gets about 5,000 hits a day and sells his own "Birdos" merch on the site. In other words, he makes a little money.

Leslie came prepared with notes. For the 70-some people in the audience, she outlined blogging basics. When she started her blog in spring 2005, she wanted to bring her passion to the web. She looks at her blog as her journal. Like many of us, she grew tired of keeping a journal just because she thought writers are supposed to keep journals. So, she focused on knitting and discovered "a community of related interest." She estimates that there are a thousand knitting blogs. Nakedknits allows her to talk about her favorite subject. She also can share ideas with others and even find story ideas – a real bonus for a free-lance writer.

Leslie wrapped up her talk with a few stats. Some 12 million people keep blogs. Thirty-nine percent of Internet users read blogs – that’s about 57 million American adults. Her conclusion: "That’s an enormous audience for writers."

Larry combined his childhood love of the Cards with his writing and web skills to carve out his niche on the blogosphere. He has found an almost endless supply of like-minded fans, although he gets so many comments he can’t begin to read them all. But, as he says, "they talk to each other." One of the goals of a blogger – start a conversation with (and among) your readers. Members of the national sports press read vivaelbirdos, and he’s been quoted in newspapers and on the electronic media. He just passed the milestone of one million readers.

When it was my turn, I shared a little bit of my frustration about not building an audience. I also had to admit that I blog for other reasons. I shared my favorite A.J. Liebling quote: "The free press belongs to those who own one." Liebling was getting in a dig against capitalism. He had no way of foreseeing a future when all of us owned a press on the Internet.

I have two blogs. Wyolitmail is part of my job as literary arts specialist at the Wyoming Arts Council. It features news about WYO writers and books. Its sidebar has links to writers and literary resources. Pretty straightforward, really, and it’s linked to a few other lit-oriented sites in the West. My personal blog, hummingbirdminds, grew out of my web site of the same name, which I started in 1999. The web site features my writing, including essays about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) which I tried (unsuccessfully) to turn into a book. Just one of my unpublished manuscripts.

While my web site features my work, the blog is for my opinions as a "Liberal Writer in WYO," as my subhead attests. I have a lot to say about the subject and few readers, but it’s important for several reasons. I feel strongly about the sorry state of our nation and our state. I’m a lonely liberal in a sea of conservatives. And I own a press and I strive to use it. I sense that I’ll grow into it and, as long as it’s an outlet for my passion, I’ll keep on bloggin’. If hummingbirdsminds ever loses its energy, it’s easy as pie to reinvent my cyber-self.