Let’s face it – blogging is a thankless job.
Mostly. For most of us, that is. Unless it’s your job to blog (and good on you if it is, you lucky dog), or you derive enough money from your blog’s advertising that you can “blog to live” (which kind of makes it your job as well), then when you blog, there’s no direct compensation for your effort – and for good blogs, that can involve a lot of effort.
Research, writing, reviewing, keeping ideas ready for posting regularly… there’s a lot more to it than just sitting down and spewing out some thoughts. It takes effort.
And for the most part, it is thankless. Oh sure, if you’ve got a large enough reader base you might get lots of comments and emails saying “thank you” or “I loved your article” or, if the reader is particularly clever, “I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.” But more often than not, even if your posts get lots of visitors, very, very few will comment. So like I said, it’s a thankless job.
Sort of.
Because it occurs to me that people who blog often don’t do it for the thanks. Like great artists in a way, they blog because they enjoy blogging – there’s a strange sort of satisfaction in writing a good article and knowing that even if no one comments on it, Google will find it and someone will come along and get value from it (someday). It’s almost like leaving your mark on the Internet.
Maybe.
In any case, that’s how I often feel – and goodness knows I don’t get anything back from this blog (no advertising). So let me ask – why do you blog?
