Who Are You?
The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence; at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar, sternly. “Explain yourself!”
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, Sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.”
“I don’t see,” said the Caterpillar.
“I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,” Alice replied, very politely, “for I can’t understand it myself, to begin with; and being so many different sizes a day is very confusing.”
“It isn’t,” said the Caterpillar.
“Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,” said Alice; ‘”but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel a little queer, won’t you?”
“Not a bit,” said the Caterpillar.
“Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,” said Alice; “all I know is, it would feel very queer to me.”
“You!” said the Caterpillar contemptuously. “Who are you?”
– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
THE ELEVATOR PITCH
That’s the assignment: write an elevator pitch for your blog.
Assignment, yes. Darren Rowse at Problogger is hosting his biennial 31 Days to a Better Blog challenge, which combines theory and homework, and I’ve joined.
I signed up because I’ve been feeling a little disconnected from my blog and I thought that having a reason to reflect on it daily would be a good way to get back on track. I didn’t foresee that the first assignment would expose the main reason I’ve been drifting away from my blog.
I don’t know what my blog is about.
How technology is changing our our lives? Personal branding? What people are doing around the web? Traveling? Relationships? All of the above? Where do I fit into all of this?
“If you’re fuzzy on what your blog is about it’s unlikely than anyone else will have much of an idea either,” Rowse writes in his first post.
We all keep blogs for different reasons, but most of us want to be read, want to share, and a great many of us would like to give our careers, and maybe even our incomes, a boost through it. Having a focus is smart business. It enables you to connect with a specific audience and develop a community, it gives you visibility and credibility in your field, it allows you to effectively implement advertising and helps attract sponsors.
“I started out with a personal blog that covered everything from spirituality and church to photography to blogging (and more),” writes Rowse in his book ProBlogger: Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. “And though the blog did become quite popular, after 18 months of running it, I began to notice a number of things that made me consider a new approach: some readers became disillusioned with the blog. My blog had a number of main themes and different readers resonated differently with each one… when I focused on a topic they were not interested in, they either ignored the post or, at times, pushed back… I began to feel guilty about blogging on certain topics.”
Rowse decided to break his blog into different, well-focused niche blogs.
“The result was a more natural blogging experience for me and a more useful one for my readers,” Rowse recalls.
REBRANDING SMUT
In 2004, my friend and fellow writer Laura Roberts turned me on to her newest endeavor: Black Heart Magazine, an independent webzine featuring “the dirtiest minds in literature.”
My career as a blogger started in high school, centered around the wonders of dating and sex. Before there were blogs, there bulletin boards and I was on there, pushing the pixels into elaborate recreations of my adventures and experiences. By the time Laura and I connected, blogs had taken off and we each had a nice crowd of readers who were eager for more.
And more we gave them. Even as we continued to evolve, wrapped up the college years, hit the workforce, got into more and more serious relationships, we continued to write about sex—how we liked it, how we had it, how it played into our everyday lives. We were driven by desire and desire would always enjoy an audience.
Or so I thought.
Last month, Laura sent me a direct message on Twitter asking what I thought about changing the tagline of the magazine to shift the focus from smut to literature.
“That will change the whole direction of Black Heart, won’t it?” I asked her.
Yes, it would. And that’s essentially what she wanted to do.
“Rather than cater to the sex crowd, when I find myself increasingly bored with erotica, I am looking to bring my love and lust for literature to a new format,” she elaborated on a Facebook note. “Black Heart will be moving in a new direction as a result of this, focusing more on the literature side of ‘literate smut’ … I’m looking for people who are passionate about reading and writing, who love literature in a slightly dirty way … interviewers, authors, book lovers, book snobs, lit pimps, booksellers, book publishers, book readers, book reviewers, academics, writers, dilettantes, anybody who considers themselves a writer of poetry, prose, journalism or blogs/rants/whatever pops into their head.”
I didn’t comment because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand what I felt about it.
The next time I stop by Black Heart Magazine, I notice the banner has changed from “the dirtiest minds in literature” to “sex, love, literature.” The featured story is “Poetry for the People.”
I don’t click.
Mind you, I love literature. But my relationship with my books was never what Black Heart Magazine was for me. Black Heart, for me, was about the ever-evolving process of sexual discovery. I don’t want to read that April is poetry month unless—pardon my boldness—the poetry in question is being written on my back in cum.
That’s the reaction Rowse was talking about—that’s the reader pushing back. In this case, it’s not that the blog has gone off-course. Laura has carefully navigated where she wants to go after some careful deliberation and discussion with her contributors. She has done everything right.
Still, here I am, staring at the main page of Black Heart Magazine and feeling, though I’m sitting in an office wall-to-wall with classic literature, that I no longer belong.
WHEN YOU TURN INTO A CHRYSALIS—YOU WILL SOMEDAY, YOU KNOW
Blogs are not static because people are not static. The reasons for choosing a blog with a specific focus have been enumerated here and elsewhere. But just as they give you a solid framework within which to work, they also serve to restrain you.
“I would really like to be one of those bloggers who is comfortable with being all ‘niche,’ all ‘industry-specific,’” my friend Atherton Bartelby remarks in a post regarding the elevator pitch assignment. “I would love to be termed a ‘design blogger’ or a ‘media blogger’ or a ‘gay relationship blogger.’ But neither I, nor my blog, will ever be just any one of those things, because one’s life is not single-faceted like that; one’s life, and certainly mine, is multi-faceted: the professional and the personal, the good and the bad, the specific, and the all-encompassing.”
WHO ARE YOU?
After thinking about my blog for several hours, I decided to let it speak for itself.
Since the inception of this blog, I have put out seven interviews, 11 news items and 26 essays relating to blogging, web culture, social media, old media versus new media, oversharing, cruelty on the internet, branding, marketing, gender, relationships and, on two occasions, travel.
As more and more of my relationship discussions move over my column at BlogHer and as more of us begin to settle into the world of new media to the point where it’s no longer appropriate to call it “new,” the content that initially made this blog an adventure in discovering how technology is affecting the way we interact with one another is becoming scarce.
Further, as I continue to attend events and meet people working on web-based projects around Southern California and elsewhere, the focus is shifting to them and their endeavors. Four of the seven interviews conducted on the blog happened after 2009 kicked off, and I have quite a few more in the works.
So what are you, blog? Or should I say, what are you becoming in that chrysalis?
A reflection on the web—the people in it, the things we’re doing, the customs we’re adopting, and the things we’re leaving behind as we venture forth into this uncharted territory of trial-and-error, where more and more, the digital is colliding with the analog.
And I hope you, dear reader, will stick around to see the wings that surface from this chrysalis and the many, many rabbit holes thereafter.
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April 7th, 2009 at 8:59 am
So do you feel that your elevator pitch is broad enough to encompass all that you will blog about in the future, or will you limit what you blog about to remain in line with your elevator pitch?
OMG, Lordewoks (Dave)s last blog post: Is Google gearing up to wage war on Facebook and Myspace?
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April 7th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Funny that you introduced this with a bit of Alice; when I was experiencing my original Blogistential Crisis last spring, the passage that kept returning to me was, “‘I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid. Because I’m not myself, you see.’ ‘Oh, my fur and whiskers!’ It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul.” But I decided that bit was far too emo for this time around. Ha ha ha!
What I have always loved about your blog, and what I am sure will see it through its chrysalis stage, is that your voice and your passion and your inimitable wit are all so distinct and unique that they are always present regardless of your content. I only half joke whenever I make comments regarding being “Floxified”: your voice and your personal brand are already that strong, I think, that they are conveyed no matter how varied your topics.
I loved this rumination on your blog, in addition to its elevator pitch. But then I’ve always loved it when you have become introspective about your blog; it’s what makes bloggers like us stand out, I think. *smile*
OMG, Atherton Bartelbys last blog post: The Curious Pitch
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April 15th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I’m still debating the “literature” aspect of Black Heart, since I think it belongs, but perhaps only to a certain degree. As you mention, the fact that it’s Poetry Month isn’t really exciting enough to be featured on the site, whereas if we took a DIRTY Poetry Month approach, it could work. But even then, I find poetry’s a hard sell… even when you’re giving it away.
I think my main problem with Black Heart is that I am still trying to find some aspect of sexuality that isn’t being covered, while still making it hot enough to entice readers. It’s tricky, since a lot of my interest in sex is philosophical, and again, it’s a hard sell. But you’ll always be welcome at Black Heart, and I still look forward to reading your cum piece!
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