Shitty blog assistance please.

[Jodiechrist]

Right. I have a blog (http://rantolotl.blogspot.com) that's been kept more or less alive and kicking for well over a year now, and as far as I can tell, it's become a little more consistent, better structured, a little more planned and so on. Well, at least I hope it has. I've maintained a relatively steady readership, from what I can gauge, with some vague acquaintances really getting into it and contacting me for updates/with praise and so on, but mostly only fairly close friends/acquaintances commenting on it regularly. I have no idea who reads it outside of that, and occasionally get a nice little surprise when I hear some reference to it from someone I really didn't expect it from.

Now, I've done bugger all to promote the blog itself, other than attaching it to my sig here and nowhere else, and pestering a few people on MSN every now and then. Given that the only feedback I get is from people I know, who presumably wouldn't want to piss on my parade, I'm having trouble with accurately knowing:

a) is this something I should bother to continue with, given that it's not a private little journal of my heart open to the world, but something that's created with an audience in mind (ie, am I producing something readable?)
b) is this something I can 'grow' the readership of, if the answer to a) is yes?

So... here's where the call for help comes in. I really, really need an objective eye cast over it - I'd be massively grateful to any writey-like zgeekers with a bit of spare time on their hands and a lot of patience who could take a quick look and let me know? I know it's probably not a lot of peoples' cup of tea and all that, but I guess the key thing I need to know at the end of the day is if this is writing that people I don't know and don't know me would read...

(and a bit of a warning, the later stories in particular make occasional references to characters & storylines of some previous posts... hopefully it's not too confusing or prohibitively injokey)

Cheers and thanks,
Me.

[L]

Well I can say I read your blog sporadically... I usually get around to reading all posts but sometimes weeks after you posted. The evils of time etc.

I find your rants enjoyable and funny. I think I even commented once ;) I know this isn't giving you much to work with "writey-like" but at least you know there is someone else reading somewhat regularly.

[m0loch]

Well, I stopped and took a look. You write very well, but the content is the same as any other blogs. I mean, your style is funny enough to make it interesting but, since I'm not an acquaintance, it looks awfully self-indulgent to me. The answer, in short, is that no, people who don't know you probably won't read it religiously. Write about topics that interest broader groups though, and with your style you're in!

[kleph]

who cares if anyone looks in or you get a kazillion and one hits? the point is you are writing. you are writing regularly. that's the only way to be a better writer and you are sticking with it. in this sense your blog is a success and you certainly should keep working at it.

when i first came to peru i was in the same situation you describe. i wanted to find some way to document what i was doing and a blog seemed to be the ideal way to do it but i had no idea what to do beyond that. so, like you, i got a blogger account and just started writing. the result looked like this (http://kleph.blogspot.com/archives/2004_02_01_kleph_archive.html).

after a year or two of this i got a bit better idea of what i wanted to do and how i wanted to organize it (i also got fed up with the asshats at blogger). i got a few folks from zgeek to help me out and overhauled the look and layout of my blog to what you find on kleph.com today. (to compare, here is one of the entries (http://www.kleph.com/blog.php?v_blog_id=1&v_blog_entry_id=85) from that previous version as it looks today.)

that process gave me a clearer idea of what the content of my blog would be and that made it pretty straightfoward when it came time to do the design and layout work - it also made things a lot cheaper.

so i'd suggest going into blogger and dicking around with the look and layout of the site a bit to get a clearer idea of how you want things to appear. consider how you'd like to organize your 'rants' and present them and shape the blog with that in mind.

if you want a ton of hits, start registering with networking services and writing things that will draw people (that paris hilton, i tell ya!). you want to make money? drape googleads and whatnot across the thing. if you want stellar content that stands on it's own, well... that's gonna take time and commitment, my friend.

and remember, as much as we like to think of our websites as a static document, they are not - they evolve. they mutate. they change. that's the point.

but, just like poker, you gotta be at the table if you want's to be part of the winnings. and you've got that part under control. so keep it up.