I came across an interesting piece this morning on Kristen Lamb’s Blog asking the question: when do writers need multiple blogs?
Kristen’s response: never.
Oops.
Four or five years ago when I started out my first blog was called My Own Velvet Room. A few years into blogging I decided I wanted to write more about adoption and I started a second blog called Arms of Adoption. It was a challenge to keep up with the Arms of Adoption blog but I felt the subject warranted it’s own site.
Eventually I brought everything together here at A Slice of Life Writing where I post about writing, adoption, life, and whatever else strikes my fancy. Life was good. Blogging was simple.
Then, earlier this year, I started a second blog called A Grandma’s Garden. I haven’t worked hard at promoting the site and it feels like something I’m doing for myself to keep a record of my gardening adventures. I think that’s okay. I’ve even referred back to previous posts to see what the garden was looking like on a given date.
After reading Kristen’s post this morning I’m rethinking A Grandma’s Garden and wondering if I should bring it in with A Slice of Life Writing.
I follow excellent blogs dedicated solely to memoir and writing, others are focused on adoption issues, I also follow some eclectic ones that don’t seem to have a single focus. I enjoy them all.
What do you think? Should writers have multiple blogs or should a blog have a more narrow focus?
Just give them different days. Put YOUR NAME at the top. Your Name–A Slice of Life. I have to hunt all over this site, just to get your NAME. That is bad. This is a beautiful site. Make it work FOR you. As far as these different topics, just give them their own days. We get it and it makes it simpler on followers. If they aren’t interested in adoption, they just…you ready for this?
They will ignore it.
But, if you are great at blogging, you might convert them. They might find that they ARE interested in these topics because they love your writing VOICE. Combine everything. Multiple blogs will make you crazy.
Thanks for the stopping by and commenting, Kristen. Good point about having to hunt to find my name too! I used to have the title as “A Slice of Life Writing with Linda Hoye” and lost that when I changed the banner. Oops!
Oh, and thanks for the shout-out :D.
…and you don’t need writing in the title. Again, we are smart. We see symbols that make words and we “get” this is writing. No need to coach us and hold our brains ;).
Dear Linda, for myself, blogging must fit in with living a full life, and so I have time to write only one blog and now I post just once a week on it. It is a memoir and so concerns the happenings of my decades through which I’ve lived.
I know that some people have more than one blog but I tend to follow only one. And I wonder if an “eclectic” blog isn’t a real gift to readers. Within in they meet the whole person of the blogger–all that he or she is interested in. All that makes up her or his life. Peace.
Ooh! I like that last bit about “getting to meet the whole person”. My problem with having two blogs is that I suck at multi-tasking. If I’m focusing on one, I’m neglecting the other. I’ve almost told all the stories there are to tell about our life overseas, so it’s a moot point now, but if I had it to do over again, I would have combined them somehow. Now that I’m getting more into art, I briefly thought about creating an art blog, but talked myself out of it. Instead I just designated Saturdays as “Studio Saturday” and added that subtitle about “embracing change.”
I agree with the idea of getting to know the whole person -you are an adoptee, a gardener, a grandma. For myself, I’m enjoying getting to know all that about you. I wouldn’t follow or read a separate gardener’s blog for example.
Dear Linda, well, I’ve started a second blog–one on writing. Specifically, my writing life. I’ll provide a link to it in my regular Wednesday posting on my first blog–coming home to myself. Peace.
Linda, I think you know that I have two blogs. One is specifically for sharing my faith with a community of other bloggers focused on the same. The other blog is dedicated to my writing and after a slight transformation this week, it is now renamed and focuses on healing by writing, as well as my memoir and my own efforts at that project. The two are so strikingly different, at least to me, I haven’t had the nerve to combine. I think your post brings a lot of good thought to the topic and one I’ll be thinking about over the next weeks and months. 🙂