on tuesday i take a look at my marketing situation, since i do my own, and on the first of the month i take a look at my blog system, since that's part of my marketing, i realized. i never really made my blogs to be commercial. but apparently my writing needs some work, and hasn't just caught on like wildfire, where one person buying one then turns into that same person buying endless copies. it's not working out that way. it may be that i'm not that great a writer.

i can deal with that. for one thing, i've turned to writing true stories of my ancestors and relatives, and there's a learning curve to non-fiction, too. it may be that by participating in many genres - short stories, plays, non-fiction, and novels (i have yet to finish one) i will master none. but at least i will have given them a shot.

one of my concerns is that i am limited to amazon, and all the people i like have been shunning amazon. so i'm considering using another platform, namely Lulu, or another way to market the books.

but on amazon itself, things are not looking that great. it's like my numbers are drifting into a bed of ash (i've been making a lot of fires these days). no publicity makes people just try to read something. kdp special doesn't seem to pick anything up. i'm flailing. ok.

then there are the blogs, like this one, that are actually pretty interesting. see that ad on the side? i'm curious about whether it works. but i can also tell you that this blog has a running average of about two thousand visitors a month, although maybe a hundred of them are me checking into my own computer. that's a lot of people. now if i were truly commercial (i have very mixed feelings about going commercial, and i've never been commercial), that's a lot of people i could be making my pitch to. i could be making my pitch to you, dear reader.

but i'm not, really. i'm just giving you my thoughts, with the little keep your sanity ad on the right.

my blogs have always been things i felt good about putting out there; i never really had reason to use them to draw traffic to, say, something i'm selling. now that i'm selling books, i'm a little inclined to use them that way, but part of me doesn't want to give up that innocent nature. my poetry blog, for example, is just about the poetry i like, and the poetry i have written. and it's always been that way. one time i put an amazon ad on it hoping to pick up revenue, but it didn't work. no revenue. just like all poetry publications. it's words on the page, or electronically. you're either doing it for love, or you're just doing it.

i have one about language as a self-organizing system. it's got one of my favorite url's, named after chicago traffic, and it's totally non-commercial. could i make it commercial? it's one of a kind, as far as i can tell, nobody makes weblogs to say that language is a self-organizing system. my inclination is to decorate it, perhaps use it to point to other ones, but not really make it commercial.

i think i'll make some of them commercial. it'll be an experiment. this one, no way. it'll stay small letters, and what's on my mind, and nothing else. a little ad in the template, maybe.