What I Expect from Blogging

Pro Blogger’s Darren Rowse has asked people to write about why they Blog.

There are severeal reasons that come to mind for what I do here.

1) To build audience

This is a huge reason for blogging. I think when one’s blogging about politics, the expectation that you’re going to earn a fortune off the blog is somewhat beyond reality. All those people who read politics blogs tend to not click much, so to expect to make anymore than a pittance on AdSense is absurd.

The big benefit is building audience for my writing, which can help with projects down the road, in terms of gettings thing read and sold. It can also open up speaking opportunities, a lot of things I couldn’t obtain by simply writing a column for a website, so my major goal is to consistently increase my audience.

2) To not miss the boat (again)

I’m playing catch up on this blogging thing. This isn’t my first blog, my first was where my podcast is now located. I started it in 2002. Now, its a rare breed of blog that’s been around that long. However, back in 2002, I had no idea what I was doing on the little blogspot blog and made infrequent post on an unmonetized blog at the same time that other blogs such as Instapundit moved beyond Blog Spot to become successful and earn thousands of dollars off the gig. I got this blog in August, 2004 and it took me about 16 months to even understand what I had.

So, I’m trying to be innovative in some ways (such as doing podcasts) but most of my original work goes here, as I work to catch up and get ahead in the world of blogging.

There’s clearly some money to be had on this and I want to be a trailblaizer not one of the confused lot who scratch their head and ask, “What happened?”

3) Defend Good People

Woe to the good person who enters politics for they shall be maligned. I spend a lot of time on this blog defendintg good people from attacks by political hacks and enraged opponents. When Brandi Swindell ran for City Council last year, she was attacked and mocked. I wrote around 30 posts defending her and I had about 20 people a day coming off Google to read my defenses of her.

Through blogging, the Good Lord has given me a megaphone and shame on me if I don’t put it to good use.