Re: Why do you blog?

**E* L* <e*@yahoo.com>**

My former reply went only to Donna, so I'll repeat it and expand.

The community of other garden bloggers, of which there are quite a number, is great. Garden blogging combines writing, which I've doing all my life, and gardening, another of my major occupations.

I do two blogs: one is my own garden blog, and I also blog on Garden Rant. The discipline of being scheduled to write for Garden Rant whether I want to or not is great, and I've also found that if I post more often on my own blog, I'll get more readers.

The financial aspect of it does not interest me greatly, which is good, as I make nothing from it.

Graham, I an deeply interested in petunias.

Elizabeth Licata

--- On Sat, 1/24/09, Graham Rice <garden@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> From: Graham Rice <garden@tiscali.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [GWL] Why do you blog?
> To: donna@icangarden.com, "Garden Writers -- GWL -- The Garden Writers Forum" <gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org>
> Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009, 9:16 PM
> Well, this is why I blog.
> 
> For ten or twelve years I had a weekly column - first in
> The Observer 
> newspaper over in England and then in London's Evening
> Standard. 
> Budget cuts hit the Standard and that column came to an end
> but I 
> found I missed the weekly discipline of writing a column -
> so I 
> decided to start the Transatlantic Plantsman blog 
> (http://TransatlanticPlantsman.com) and impose the
> discipline on 
> myself.
> 
> Of course, the advantage is that I can write about anything
> I like 
> without getting it cleared by an editor. The disadvantage
> is that I 
> don't get paid! - except for a few modest referral fees
> from Amazon 
> and Google for book sales and click throughs. I can be a
> little 
> self-indulgent, I admit, and it's not intended as a
> mass market blog 
> in the way that Garden Rant, for example, is and I'm
> sure I get far 
> fewer readers than they do. But I can sound off about
> issues related 
> to plants on which increasingly cautious editors might not
> want to 
> publish. And I can get ideas and issues out into the world.
> And of 
> course there are just so many interesting things to write
> about. 
> People sometimes ask: where do you find stuff to write
> about? One 
> answer: I look out of the office window and out of the car
> window - 
> and pay attentention to what's out there.
> 
> One other advantage is that I can blog about something that
> interests 
> me - and that can lead to commissions for magazines or
> papers. A 
> number of editors are regular readers and they sometimes
> see 
> something that catches their attention and I get a
> commission on the 
> subject. Or I email them about a post that I feel is the
> basis for a 
> magazine piece and say " Did you see my post on
> whatever-it-is? What 
> a about a piece on that expanded to cover... (etc)?"
> 
> I now have a second blog on New Plants 
> (http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/graham_rice/), for the
> Royal 
> Horticultural Society website, for which I get paid a
> modest sum and 
> another paid-for blog is on the way.
> 
> Another useful aspect of blogging is the stats. I can check
> how many 
> readers have looked at each post and that can give me an
> idea of the 
> popularity of different plants and different issues. The
> number and 
> style of public comments and private emails responding to a
> post also 
> gives me useful information. I can tell you, for example,
> that hardly 
> anyone is interested in petunias! However, if I think there
> are 
> important things still to say about petunias I'll post
> about them 
> again anyway; but I'll be doing so from a position of
> knowledge and, 
> if I choose, can adjust the approach accordingly. On the
> other 
> hand... I was surprised to find how much interest
> there's been in 
> tulbaghias - and it looks as if that might lead to a
> commission.
> 
> My problem with blogs is that there are so many of them
> that are 
> actually worth a look! Often, freed from the dictats of
> print editors 
> worried (perhaps) about keeping their own jobs. good
> writers burst 
> free and produce great reading. And, at the other extreme,
> home 
> gardeners just writing about their own garden can be
> genuinely 
> illuminating. But I just don't have the time to read
> them all.
> 
> Well Donna, there you have it. CL's response was
> interesting, I'm 
> looking forward to hearing from other bloggers.
> 
> Graham
> 
> Transatlantic Plantsman blog:
> http://TransatlanticPlantsman.com
> New Plants blog:
> http://mygarden.rhs.org.uk/blogs/graham_rice/
> 
> 
> >Graham brings up a good question, at least for me
> anyway...what is the point
> >of blogging, what purpose does it serve?  Are you using
> it to sell
> >something, using it as a personal/public diary...Are
> you using a blog as
> >another avenue of selling your products?  If so, are
> you? Is it worth the
> >effort?  Or are you doing it just to have a blog - then
> why did you decide
> >to have a blog?
> >
> >I am just curious...
> >
> >Donna Dawson, Master Gardener
> >
> >Member Region 7 Garden Writers Association
> >Affiliate Member Canadian Institute of Travel
> Counsellors
> >Member North American Travel Journalists Association
> >Member Royal Horticultural Society
> >http://www.ICanGarden.com
> >http://www.gardeningtours.com
> >2009 Garden Tours - Ecuador, China Spring and Fall,
> India, Morocco and
> >Chelsea Flower Show London
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: gardenwriters-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org
> >[g*@lists.ibiblio.org] On
> Behalf Of Graham Rice
> >Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 8:32 AM
> >To: Garden Writers -- GWL -- The Garden Writers Forum
> >Subject: Re: [GWL] garden stock photos
> >
> >Errr... shifting? Collapsing, more like. Of course, you
> could say
> >that much blogging is "giving our words
> away"...
> >
> >
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> 
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