ARE YOU BLOGGING MORE AND ENJOYING IT LESS?

Last Friday I wrote the post:
WHY BOTHER BLOGGING?
http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-bother-blogging.html

I talked of how with the advent of self-publishing, there were
so many book tours, bloghops, cover reveals, and guest interviews ...

all of blogdom was beginning to stress out under the load.

Are you among my friends like

Donna Hole :
I know I'm letting so many authors down by not hosting every tour, cover reveal, and promotion with all my friends. The stress is getting to me.

Candilynn Fite :
I'm with Donna, even though we didn't get to read her longer version, a lot of it stresses me out.

In many ways, I feel like I fail my fellow writers when I don't promote, host, reveal, and participate in every event. It's a downer and I believe on a subconscious level, drives me further from blogging. I only post once a week, and during a normal week, I can only devote one day to hopping around. Otherwise, I get nada accomplished.

I feel all the promo takes away from the personal touch of blogs. The personal connection, which is the true reason I began blogging.

I'd like to have fun with blogging, but instead I hang around feeling guilty about all the things I haven't participated in. I will say, I believe a change is needed. Exactly what? I'm not sure.

or
VR Barkowski :

Every slice of cost-free media has been usurped for free promotion: blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. It is a lot of white noise and an unbelievable amount of wasted cyberspace.

Early on, blogs as a sales platform were unique and had some impact. Now, as always with saturation marketing, that potential has been exhausted (at least for fiction).

In my opinion, blogging as an even quasi-viable marketing tool died some time ago.

I can't wait until all the book hawkers realize they're wasting their time, take a hike, and blogging goes back to what it once was: a way to promote yourself and learn through an exchange of ideas.

FACT:
*1,052,803 books were published in the U.S. 2009.
*Approximately 3,000,000 books were published in the U.S. in 2011.
*Est. ISBN #s issued in 2012? 15,000,000

To many, their blogs have become vampires, sucking time, energy, and fun from their lives.

So many new books with blog tours coming out.  Cover reveals left and right until the cyberverse
is blotted out with them.

Twitter was invented for mobile; Facebook is behind on mobile. Facebook is predicated on the past; Twitter is in the now.

And what do you see on Twitter?  BUY ME! BUY ME! BUY ME!

It is less text-heavy -- heaven forbid we ask people to hold three coherent concepts in a row.

But to rail against Twitter is useless.  As Victor Standish says, "It is what it is."

How to think of Twitter and our blogs?

Through our updates and tweets, we become and cultivate a brand whether we like it or not and,

 as writers, it’s important to maintain a level of exposure and engagement that will ultimately drive traffic to our blogs as well as give a hint to readers what we’re all about.

As long as everyone on the planet has a smartphone in their pocket, they're taking their online lives with them.

And blog posts simply have too much text to fit well in the small square of a smartphone.

We are driving ourselves to distraction to keep up a platform that is dying.

Let's face it, keeping up with blog reading has become a chore for most and it's much easier to peruse a Facebook news feed

 or twitter scroll than to muddle through a Google news reader backed up with weeks of unread blog posts.

So, yes, in the traditional sense, blogs may be on the ropes.

The New York Times is now jumping on this discussion theme, declaring that today’s twentysomethings no longer blog, a further sign that fewer people can find the time."

They go on:

"...Former bloggers said they were too busy to write lengthy posts and were uninspired by a lack of readers. Others said they had no interest in creating a blog because social networking did a good enough job keeping them in touch with friends and family."
 

What do you think? 

Has blogging become a vampire, draining you of the
time needed to write your novel,

sucking the fun out of what once was a warm, fun interaction with like-minded
fellow writers? 

What can be done to bring new life to a medium that once was so important and influential?