No Comment
Mum's the word...Back in February, 2009, just a couple of months after I began writing this blog, I wrote my one and only controversial piece. It was called "Harlan Ellison is an Asshole." To date, it gets more hits than anything else I've written or posted.
When it was first posted, there were comments from Ellison supporters who thought I was a real jerk for calling their hero an asshole. And then some of his personal friends--some of whom were big-name screenwriters in Hollywood--got into it, calling me all sorts of names, too--which, by the way, I loved. Because I knew what might happen. And it did. Soon there were folks who hated Ellison (I don't hate him at all; I just thought his remarks about amateurs made him an asshole) who were commenting on Ellison's supporters comments, and then they commented back, and it went viral. Well, not viral. A sniffle. A slight fever with an irritating cough. Before I knew it, the commentary exploded and The American Writer's Google™ temperature went up, up, up, and I started getting more readers.
"This was really good. I liked it a lot. Please write more."
Of course, the comments stopped on that piece. But I received comments on other pieces early on. I often noticed on other blogs I read that comments were a big part of what the blog was all about. My friend's blog, Fundamental Jelly, was primarily about his photography (great, by the way) with an occasional (rare, actually) short story. But with each posting, he received several, if not dozens, of comments from those viewing his blog. And he would respond to them all, and they'd sometimes respond to his response--all very funny, creative people, because most of his viewers seemed to be writers and bloggers themselves. He captured a unique audience of quirky writers who knew how to write a comment that wasn't a bland "Wow, that was really good."
About six months ago I noticed that I rarely received comments. Except from my brother Timm, my cousin Jeff, and, of course, my mother, who all occasionally commented on a piece. Then less than occasionally. Then rarely. As it is now, the only comments I get are those spamming little peckers who send you a comment like, "I really like your show, can you send us more?" (no kidding, that was today's!) only so their Website link is posted for my readers to see. They're idiots. They actually think I'm going to approve their comment? And if I did, why would someone reading this blog who happens to read their comment click on www.insurancewithoutagents.com or www.abighardon.com (this link doesn't really exist, Jeff).
"So if this is my colon, and this is my semi-colon...where's my dangling participle?"
So I've been getting pissed about it. Not the spam--the lack of comments. I sit at my keyboard diligently writing three days a week, rarely taking a break from it, and no one has anything to say? Mom, are you still reading your favorite son's blog? Timm, are you still reading your favorite brother's blog? Cousin Jeff, are you so wrapped up in your golf swing that you can't find time for me anymore?
Yeah, I started whining about not getting many comments. But then I clicked on my blog's statistics and noticed something I hadn't before. My readership was up--sometimes way up. I thought, are these just folks clicking on something they've accidently Googled? I got a huge readership on the piece I recently wrote about how to use italics--and it continues. Then I looked back over the year and noticed that anything about punctuation or grammar had a lot of hits.
Perhaps readers are simply Googling things like "How to use italics," or "Using the comma," and bingo, The American Writer pops up. So I tried it. I tried various versions of finding how to use italics, the comma, the colon, the semi-colon and a few other of my popular posts. Google--that little search engine that could--couldn't find me on any of the first 20 pages.
So who the heck is reading my blog? I don't have a clue, because there are no comments. It can't be accidental, because there is a distinct pattern of what is being read most, what is being read consistently.
"This blog is great. Have you tried Agitabulum, the new drug from Sealy-Meyers that eliminates all visceral symptoms of being ignored?"
For 34 weeks now, I've posted consecutive chapters of my new novel, The Plunge, and I can see that a few readers are reading it. What's baffling, though, is that some chapters are read more than others. So I can't tell if there are readers reading the book, or hunters-and-peckers roaming the pages of writers' blogs or literary blogs and happen to hit on a chapter, read it and never come back, or readers who like reading Chapter 6 four times because they liked it so much or didn't get it the first three times. I don't know...because I never get any comments about the chapters. Which was one of the reasons I began posting it. For feedback. My friend at Fundamental Jelly started reading it, didn't like it and stopped. I like that. At least I have an answer. And he gave me some critical feedback privately--not on the blog--which I appreciate and will consider.
What's this all lead to? Deep Denial. Yep. I will blindly write this blog. With or without comments. And I'll just continue to deny any thought that I'm writing to hundreds and hundreds of people who found me by mistakenly Googling "How Do I Make My Penis Larger?"
Posted by Tom Eubanks at 1/17/2011 6:53 PM 
Categories: Rants and Raves, General Blogging
Tags: Essay Rant Vital Resource
Categories: Rants and Raves, General Blogging
Tags: Essay Rant Vital Resource
I ALWAYS read your grammar posts, but I don't always comment. And you shouldn't take the weird spam comments personally since they come from robots! And don't begin a sentence with And.
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Robots? Cool. How can I actually meet one of them. I've never met a real live robot before. AND I probably won't, right?
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Ah, the comment thingy. I can only speak for myself, but getting comments on one's blog is directly related to the amount of commenting you do on other's blogs. I was an active commenter early on and eventually some of these folks became regular readers.
The down side is there is an unwritten quid pro quo regarding comments. If you comment on my blog, then I'll comment on yours. But once you have 20 or 30 bloggers leaving comments, it gets to be a big chore. I eventually burned out and quit commenting altogether. Of course, my page views and number of comments went way down, but I am fine with that. It's more work than I want to do.
Finally, I came to know that I had quite a few viewers who never commented. So, there's that.
All the best with it.
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I've had mixed feeling about comments, because I really don't care to answer all of them with some pithy response, and I don't want to have to keep responding to compliments and especially to criticism. That would get old. So it's a blessing in disguise. And a moot point. I know there are readers out there, so I'm going to keep writing. It's like exercise for me. If I start, I get thin.
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