GalleyCat: Blogging 101

Pretty interesting thoughts from GalleyCat on blogging today. Have a peek:

Blogging is a tough business, and it's only getting tougher--projected drops in advertising could soon rewire the blogosphere.

Even book executives are pondering the future of this mysterious art. Debbie Stier, Associate Publisher at HarperStudio, confessed that she never imagined what sort of mental gymnastics authors endured following her digital evangelism:

"First of all, it's really hard. Do you know how many times I told authors, without batting an eye, 'Blog Blog Blog.' I feel so guilty now that I've discovered how hard it is to be 'on' when someone says 'go.'"

After a few weeks in the driver's seat of a blog, Stier is looking for blogging advice from the Internets. GalleyCat suggests this RSS feed primer from Yen Cheong. What do you think? Help Stier and her authors answer the question: "What makes a good blog?"

I agree. Blogging is much harder than people think. And I find that a lot of people revert to blogging as some kind of lazy journalism that doesn't require work. But the best blogs are not only linking machines, but also provide unique and original content, not to mention salient and thoughtful analysis of what is going on in and around their field of coverage.

Blogging is fresh in my mind because Zombie, Cake Man and the other members of the League and I have had a few discussions about this here blog and what we want to see come out of it, both in terms of content and design. It's a tricky balance to strike, I'll say that. You want to present material in a clear and effective form but you also want to be as original and trend-setting as possible. I think, personally from past blogging experiences, the hardest part is when you know the material is there and up to snuff, but you're still waiting for that onslaught of audience to finally kick in. It can take weeks and even months for your blog to finally appear on the radar of others that matter and in turn, generate traffic. Patience, like in many other areas, is the key.

What do you look for in a great blog? Which ones do you visit regularly?

On a related note, here's a post about blog-generated poetry.