Where Have All the Bloggers Gone?

Where Have All the Bloggers Gone?

The title, with apologies to a great song from my high school years, asks a question that I really wish I knew the answer to.  Much like everything else, blogs seem to come and go. Over the past decade or so, I have watched several that I enjoyed go away. One of my favorites, the writer got simply tired of posting and interacting from his front porch cabin. It was hilarious and he had quite a few followers, including myself, who often joined in on the front porch conversations. Two others, that I really looked forward to reading passed away – sad as neither was what I would consider old. Others just quit posting, one I checked on yesterday to see what happened, it is still up but no new posts for over three years, guess I will give up on that one. Another blogger recently announced he was quitting because, well, I’m not sure, giving up because he was tired of it and moving on to other things. One lady who wrote my all-time favorite gardening blog, gave up because she didn’t have as many followers as she wanted, too bad, as it was a terrific blog for gardening and food preservation.

So why am I writing this? Am I about to quit? No, not yet and not thinking about it. I have been blogging on this site for nine years, and eleven on my Wyoming site. I have not posted as much lately but that is a slowdown, I’m not quitting anytime soon.

I have always enjoyed reading a good blog but lately, most of what I read are big commercial type blogs with hundreds of thousands of followers. I like reading many of these, but they do not seem nearly as personal as ones I followed back in the old days of blogging, a few years ago.

Recently another of my favorites has slowed to nearly a stop, hope he makes a comeback.

Selling Books - Odd, but I have done no recent advertising and as my readers are aware precious few posts, but my sales and pages read are up. Who knows what drives book sales, just when I think I have it figured out – I don’t.

We are just back from a nice break, spending a few days in the Ozarks enjoying shows and great company in Branson.

Today's photos - are from our daily walks the past three days – wow were we tired after returning home, but we forced ourselves out on the trails anyway – once we were out we enjoyed them, came home and crashed.

Have a great week and keep on reading and keep on writing. 

This one I snapped on vacation at one of my favorite childhood haunts outside of
Fairbury, Nebraska where I grew up

Writing & The Month of March

I am still surprised at how many posts I see each day that have the same theme. The theme is always something like this - The five mistakes writers make, or, the six no no’s of writing in first person. They pretty much rehash the same things over and over. Seems like I remember a few years ago that bloggers were told to put a number in the blog title for more hits, I still see so many five of this, or six steps to this. Not sure if it works but still seems popular. 

Lately, it looks to me that writing books about writing or marketing are the way to sell books. I seem to get multiple tweets, emails, and links each day to this kind of information. It also seems that writing how to for a hobby or small business books could be a money maker. I see more and more of these often offered in eBook only format and many in the 15-80 page range. How much? All are priced from .99 cents to $2.99. Maybe I will give it a try.  How about, Living Uncomfortable on Retirement Income, or maybe for golfers, Turning A Fade into a Screaming Slice. Probably not, maybe a writing book, Hours and Hours of Writing Only to Start Over – Again.

Well, another month has come and gone, and my book sales were mediocre. My trial at giving away one of my novels met with moderate success and did give me a bit of an uptick in sales. I would recommend it to anyone who writes and is still building an audience.

I finished my first draft of my gardening book – it was fun and so different from what I am used to writing. This one will be a .99 cent eBook and likely an $8.99 soft cover. It gives both sound gardening advice and some fun to read garden murder mysteries. Not sure I have ever seen anything quite like this book. Here is a brief excerpt from the first chapter.

It’s Planting Time

Gardening should be fun. Most of the time it is, but where I live, at high altitude in Wyoming, it can sometimes be tricky business. Start the season too soon, and a gardener may find the garden snow covered by morning. Start too late, and the garden might be covered in snow before harvest. When the growing season is short, timing is everything.

So, when do you start? Tough question, easy answer. No matter if you are gardening at altitude, or in the lower areas of America’s heartland, start after the last snow and harvest before the first hard frost in the fall. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were that easy? Yes, it would, but, unfortunately,  it is not.

Can an experienced gardener predict the best time to plant every year? Ahh, no. But we can all find a way to understand when the time is right to sow those first spring seeds. The best way is to live in the same place for a long time, and then you will know, know the perfect time to plant. If you are new to the area, or if, like me, you forget what last year was like, or didn’t write it down anyway, here is a start.

In 2012, the USDA updated their Plant Hardiness Zone Map. This is the best way to start, all you need to do is type in your zip code and up it comes.

All Photos were taken Thursday in our back yard
It is looking like Spring, at least some days!

Writing Short

Books seem to be getting smaller, at least that is what I have been reading. Many traditional publishers, in their author note sections, are still listing word count by genre the same as they did many years ago, but they may be a bit out of touch by doing this. I recently looked at a book series on Amazon where each book was less than 30 pages. I am not sure that would be considered a book, not in my world anyway. It does seem to me that the new book may be closer to 200 pages than the 400 in the past. Looks like 100-page books are also doing well. Now when buying an eBook, I check the page count. I don’t mind paying .99 cents for a good short story, but am against paying several dollars for a book that is less than 30 pages.

Are We Still Reading? - Maybe the scientists who tell us all the texting and instant gratification of video games are on to something. Kids do not sit around and read, not much anymore. Many parents still require kids to read 20-30 minutes each evening, kind of like the music practice in my growing up days.

My new western novel, is complete at 237 pages, with a few pages of front matter and some author stuff and a pitch for my other books, in the back, this would make the actual book around 230 pages. I tend to write shorter chapters, which is the new wave in fiction, and this one has 50 chapters. That would make each chapter four or five pages long. As a reader I like to quit at the end of a chapter, short chapters make it easy.

By the way, for my format, I use a 6 X 9 book layout and size 12 font. This lets my book come in at just under, 50,000 words. Many authors suggest 11 as a better font size, but I use what is easy for me to read, and I like it slightly larger. I also use 1.15 spacing, for ease of reading. It costs a bit more this way, as it adds pages, but I like the look and feel of books printed this way.

Trying for a short - Not sure if I can do it, but I am going to try to do some shorter books, we used to call them novellas. I will shoot for 20,000 to 25,000 words, might be fun. I already have an idea, although it may be lame, as are many of my early ideas, I like it so far.

Enjoy the week and keep reading and keep writing, only keep it short.

Today’s photos from two great hikes over the weekend.

Here We Go Again

It’s 2017 day number 2. So, how are those New Year’s Resolutions going? Funny how so many people set goals on only one day of the year. I recently set a goal for the month of December, and it worked. Goal setting for writers needs to be an ongoing process. I have several books to publish this year and am sure I will get at least three published, more I hope. I am not afraid to adjust goals as I go that I do try to not soften them too much.

Beautiful Winter Look the Last Few Weeks

I am waiting to publish two books that are ready to go as I decide what to do with ISBN numbers. In the past, I have used the $10.00 option from Amazon. That is no longer available, and now I am looking at purchasing ten numbers for $250.00. Twenty-five dollars each is still not bad, it is the initial $250.00 I am holding back on. For me, that is a lot of money at one time. Create Space/Amazon does offer a free ISBN number option, but then I would need to give up my own publishing company, Old Trails Publishing, which I want to keep using.

At present, I have decided to get the three books that are close, finished, then decide what to do about a number. I have also thought about publishing some of my work, only as eBooks, but there is just nothing better than leafing through a book that a writer can call his own.

Stark - But I Like It

Meanwhile, keep on writing and keep on reading.

No Looking Back Now - It's 2017       Happy New Year!