Why I Can't Define a Niche

I've been thinking a lot over the past few days about niche. That is to say, about how much I can narrow down the singular topic about which I write here on my blog. In the past I've created niches on other sites, including Hubpages, Zujava, Squidoo and Wizzley. While I write about several different topics, I've carefully cultivated niches on these platforms in order to boost my traffic and function. 

I'm actually pretty good at this. It's easy enough to do when you're using mind-mapping to work through ideas and to establish what goes where in terms of niches. 

This blog is something different. I want it to thrive. I want it to have followers. I want to be able to build a community here where people can discuss their favorite books, book crafts, reading habits, book reviews and book blogging. I want those things for this blog and for myself. And to do that, there's no way that I can make this a niche blog.

While I read a lot of young adult fiction (for example), that's not all that I read. In fact, I read pretty much everything with great liberty. I just love books. I hate to restrict myself and I don't want to make a promise that I mostly review Teen Dystopian fiction, because what good does that do me? When I run out of Teen Dystopian novels, then what becomes of the blog?

For that reason, I'm not comfortable niching this blog. I'll write what comes to mind. I'll post the articles and reviews that I fancy posting. And this will be my blog.

In the next few days, I'm going to create new accounts on Hubpages and Squidoo so that I can niche better than I was. And I'll be moving my reviews back here to my blog, for the most part. Hopefully this will do the most good for me and my readers!

Photo courtesy of dailyinvention.

Everything I Don't Know About Blogging Could Fill a Book

I've been blogging for about four years now, and I am bad at it. For four years, I've been trying to make extra money writing online on Hubpages, Squidoo, Zujava and other sites.

To put it really bluntly, I suck at this. I've been thinking about it and thinking about it and thinking about it, and I've finally come to the conclusion that I need to really set some blogging goals and start sticking to them instead of slacking off and writing just whenever the mood strikes me. I mean, I'm really bad at this. 

My problem is that I don't know what readers want from me. I write book reviews, which I share on Hubpages. I list the books that I've read (for sale, with quotes) on Squidoo. I update my Tumblr several times a day with news about what I'm reading, quotes, thoughts on the book, movie stills (if there's a movie based on the book, or if the book is based on a movie). I tweet about what I'm reading, I post to Facebook about what I'm reading, and I generally talk books. 

Have you noticed the real issue here? None of this actually involves sitting down to write a blog post. And when you factor in the time that I actually spend reading the books that I talk about, I'm a busy beaver. 

I want to reach out to you. Right now there isn't much of a following for this blog, but my previous book blog did pretty well, overall. Obviously I have some potential here and there are people out there paying attention to the RSS feeds I've provided in relevant locations. So tell me, please: What do you want to read about here in my blog? 

Bear in mind that I don't want to post reviews here. I have better platforms for that and I know that as a blog reader I tend to skip over the reviews because they aren't conversational enough; I'd rather talk to you, my readers, like a human being, a friend, somebody who you can be actively involved with. Reviews are too static to make that work, which is why I've put mine on a different platform. 

So, I'm putting this out there for discussion; What do you want from me, as a blogger? What can I give you that will keep you coming back for more? Whatever it is, I'll do my best to provide it. In the meantime, I'm making it a goal to post daily!     

Photo Courtesy of Sue Richards.