Nicholas Carr in the Sun magazine

In the most recent issue of the Sun magazine, a really, really good publication, writer Nicholas Carr has this to say about blogs:

Though in theory you can reach a global audience through the Internet, the reality is that the vast majority of blogs, for example, are read by very small audiences. Writing one is not all that different from publishing your own photocopied zine in the eighties or being a ham-radio operator in the fifties.

Well, Nicholas, I wrote for a photocopied zine in the eighties, and it's almost certain there were more readers of that zine than there are of BwP.

But there is one big difference between writing for a zine in the eighties and writing a blog today. And that is, that a zine in the eighties could never go viral.

On March 4, for example, I got about 1,200 page views, without a comment. I don't have a stat counter sophisticated enough to tell me why the blog spiked like that. It was during my blog vacation.

And that's as viral as I'm likely to get. But it's way more viral than my beloved zine.

So what the Internet has done for us bloggers is to give us all a lottery ticket.

Keep playing, everyone.

Comments

[Bob Mustin]

Becca and I both read The Sun. As far as I know, it's the only magazine that's lasted some 25 years without advertising.

I edited a litmag in the 90s, and we stacked arms after eighteen months. I think we had some 100 readers (a lot more than my blog), but publication costs got away from us. So far, that's not a problem with "small-fry" blogs.

Hope you're right about that lottery ticket.

[Lee]

Heh, like that - a lottery ticket!

[DF]

I have known about the Sun for a very long time-- it's edited about 10 miles from my home-- but I never read it until last week. This is an exciting time for writing. Edith Wharton has a terrific little sub-story about failed writers and journalists in The Age of Innocence. Fun to read about how the more things change, the more they stay the same.