Usedcarsalesman has long known he was a generalist, interested, unfortunately, in everything from entertainment to business to politics to world events. He considers nothing off-limits.
Perhaps you could even call him more a "writer-as-manager," a writer essentially "good-at-nothing:" That is, one who applauded and dined on the specialization of some, while he produced a broader, more political, and cause-and-effect oriented piece. In fact, maybe you could say he was more the "editor" or "managing editor"-type.
Great, but so what, right? You're a editor/managing-editor of essentially zip, Usedcarsalesman. You are still an editorialist or essayist apart from any newspaper or magazine that would draw you readers and give your writing context. And you obviously don't have name recognition like Mark Cuban to bring people in on your own, there's no consistency to your post topics, you rarely compose pieces that have good search "keywords," and your writing hardly ever provokes comment from the few readers you seem to encounter.
To add insult to injury, your own name makes you seem less than trustworthy, perhaps suggesting a site to do with "flipping beaters" rather than editorial exposition (go figure :). Bottom line is that you're in to 4 calendar years with this and you still don't really have any real readership, Usedcarsalesman!
Well, the other day, Usedcarsalesman read an interesting snippet to do with blogging on the walletpop.com blog. It was written by forensic accountant, Tracey Coenen (as you probably already knew, "forensic accountants" are the tactical consultants employed by all serious bloggers ;).
In her piece, Ms. Coenen may have unintentionally answered a question that has been dogging Usedcarsalesman (and maybe a few other bloggers) for many years: who -- what people -- was he really writing for, besides himself? And correspondingly, where should he devote his efforts at gaining those readers?
Ms. Coenen provided opinion to suggest that Usedcarsalesman (and many other bloggers) were inadvertently ignoring the people most interested in "timely, original and insightful" content on an array of subjects: Professional journalists and editorialists. Perhaps this was who Usedcarsalesman was writing for, whether he knew it or not.
In Usedcarsalesman's case, perhaps it was the journalists and editors of larger publications, themselves, who would actually "get" and benefit from the pieces he wrote. Maybe this was the font of readership, Usedcarsalesman so long pursued?
Wait, Bloggers attempting an alliance of sorts with main-stream media, you say? Generating ideas that might shape mainstream journalism, "flushing" hidden concepts in to the light, Bird-Dogging for The Bugle as it were? Egad, man!
What about your, Are Print Publishers Like The Christian Science Monitor Asking For Donations? piece in 2004? What about some of your concepts in Usedcarsalesman's Metroblogging.com Fantasy in 2006? Or those suggested in The State of Blogging, 2007 (Part 1) or The State of Blogging, 2007 (Part 2) in, well, 2007? You're writing suggests some antagonism towards main-stream, print-publishing, Usedcarsalesman.
Usedcarsalesman says: "yes and no." From a business-efficiency and labor stand-point perhaps. But, keep in mind, Usedcarsalesman, himself, thankfully doesn't have those aforementioned issues to deal with on a day to day basis. And it is no problem if his readership is composed of people -- your typical journalists and editorialists -- who do have to deal with those issues.
In sum, Usedcarsalesman now plans to help traditional journalists and editorialists wherever he can, even contacting them to raise their attention to certain of his pieces. Perhaps that is the way he'll start to grow a readership.
