Blogging is a freaking narcotic. Once you get the taste of an audience, you have to have it every day, preferably several times a day.
Yet, we all know where narcotics lead, when abused. To laziness, sloppiness, poor health, bad decisions and so on.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve recently kicked my blogging habit. I shuttered my music blog, my wine/beer blog, and more significantly, I stopped “blogging” on AdPulp on April 7, 2012.
By blogging I refer to the light- to medium-weight updates that often refer to a primary source. Clearly, there are other ways to conduct oneself online. No one is forcing me to aggregate or to reformulate the day’s ad news. Truth be told, no one is encouraging me either. I’ve always enjoyed producing content for this site, regardless. But now, with repeated use the narcotic has weakened.
I do see a path forward, one where I push the old blogging habit aside and focus instead on original reporting and essay writing. I still enjoy writing thoughtful pieces on MarCom’s most pressing topics, and I believe there’s a good reason to do so.
The thing is, there has to be a direct line from these so-called “thought leadership” pieces to a paid offering. And there is, on Bonehook.com. On Bonehook, there’s no marketplace confusion about who I am or why I’m sharing. There’s also no confusion about my priorities.
AdPulp has always been a side project, but I have not always treated it as such. Hanging up my blogging boots for a month has helped me to see the blog for the trees.
Of course, AdPulp isn’t done by any stretch. Shawn, Wade and Dan all continue to invest their time and efforts in the site, and I’m working behind the scenes to pull some AdPulp-branded eBooks from our archive, to recruit more voices to these pages and I remain active on AdPulp’s Facebook page (which is better suited to lightweight updates like featuring new work).
AdPulp is also different from a favorite campaign that one points to forevermore in a portfolio — this is a living, breathing media brand and it continues to evolve day by day. So, to be clear, I’m not walking away from AdPulp, I’m changing my daily routine.
Finally, I want to thank new and longtime readers for your interest. The great majority of you are silent, but I’m willing to entertain the possibility that your silence is a sign that you’re listening.
