Be Effective and Popularity Will Come
Big WoWo has a post on Being Effective, Not Popular. I've never been one to follow convention. I like doing things my way, and I don't give a crap on whether or not it's normal or if I'm doing it the way it's supposed to be done. All I care about is:
1) Do I like doing it?
2) Is it effective and productive?
When it comes to blogging or any other endeavor you undertake, if you are effective, then the popularity will come. People recognize talent, and they recognize B.S. If you are dishonest with yourself, then your readers will smell it.
Most bloggers try to define success by the number of readers they have. They stress quantity over quality. But it is much better to redefine success by the quality of readers as opposed to quantity. Who cares if you have a 100,000 readers a day if most of them never care to visit your blog again? If that's the case, then what you said obviously didn't make an impression on them.
The key to writing a successful blog is to write for an audience of one, namely YOU. If you write for yourself, then others who are like you will find you. It is better to have a small cult following than for you to follow the fickle masses of the Internet.
If you noticed, I don't write about conventional Asian American issues, because everybody else in the AA blogosphere writes about that stuff. How many times do we have to read about interracial dating and white guys banging Asian chicks? For an Asian American blogger, that's an easy kill, because AF/WM is such an incendiary topic. I don't mind writing about it, but only if I'm adding something new to the discussion that hasn't been said before.
As a blogger you have to respect your audience, and that means you don't dumb things down for them. You have to hold your audience to a higher standard. Talk to your audience as if they've already done their homework and know certain basic things. If you do this, then you will attract a higher quality of readership. In essence, you will influence the influencers.
When I write the Alpha Asian blog, I write not with the intent to be popular, but to be effective in bringing more hope, confidence and charisma to the Asian American presence on the Net.
Comments
I think of some bands who got signed to a major label and their songs changed, the songs were overproduced, lacked originality, and the original energy and essence of the band changed as well.
The biggest hurdle is money, the age old struggle between commerce and art. What do you want to be? An artist or a pop star or the latest disposable rage of the month? Soon as you start chasing the dollar, you've become a sell out. If you stay true to yourself and your vision, if it's any good, the money will find you. It might not be huge sums of money, but there will be people who appreciate your honesty and integrity as an artist. Like Ricky Nelson sang in "Garden Party", you can't please everyone, so you have to please yourself.
you have to love your craft so much that perseverance doesn't really feel like perseverance. But I agree with you Mgoride: money is a big hurdle. Some artists need money now, but I've known guys who can live on ramen and coffee for years.
I think in terms of artists like Warren Zevon who had an incredible body of work, someone who could really write a lyric that had some universal truth. You knew what he meant as soon as he sang it; there was that shock of self recognition. Anyway, guys like him who are less celebrated get kicked off the record label for not selling enough CDs, etc..but what kills me is that their work is SO much greater than the mainstream crap that is out there. The music industry is very much just like Hollywood.
one of my fave artists is Paul Westerberg. THAT guy and his former band The Replacements should've been rock stars. In a perfect world, Westerberg would be a household name. But he isn't and he's come to terms a long time ago that he was never going to hit the financial jackpot.
But what he does have is a cult-like following (of which I am a member), the respect from his peers, and is able to make a living from his small fan base. he still writes songs with poignancy while adding in enough gritty rock sensibilities to keep it from becoming too sugary and he has found his niche. He is a man who is willing to follow his muse and let the chips fall as they may. He stays true to himself because he knows his songwriting abilities are good enough to compete with anyone. And sure enough, the money will find him, be it CD sales, film scores, sountracks, or a royalty check in the mail.
He stays firmly rooted where he grew up (Minneapolis) rather than go to NYC or LA. He was said, "You don't go to LA to be an artist, you go there to be a star." He's had his flirtations with mainstream fame and realized he doesn't want it. here's a quote from him:
Q: Does it ever bother you that bands who have appropriated the
Replacement's sound are selling truckload's of records when you never have?
A: I think alot of people who sell a lot of records would kill to have
what I have. They don't necessarily have the guy who waits three years for you to come through town on tour just so they can get your autograph. They
get a more fleeting, hollow kind of fan worship than I do. What I got is real. It's small, but it's real.