Huh. My response is almost... exactly the opposite? I feel like "game! numbers! fun! accomplish!" and I actually enjoy this stuff more than the actual "content" of Chris's blog... mainly because a lot of the content is irrelevant to me as a non-writer.
I generally feel a little awkward when I am meta about stuff too, but like Plymouth mentions, that is actually something suggested on the internet in multiple places to GENERATE interest in a blog or website and get a growing community more involved. And...in fact...when I started doing it, things did pick up.
I will say that the image of a writer quietly doing their work and just making money has never really been true. Writers have always been integral in their own self promotions. In small press they sometimes have to do the footwork of selling their own books on consignment, and even in the big six they contract to do readings and are promoted aggressively by agents. The internet has just allowed independent artists to promote themselves.
So it IS self-promotional. And if you don't want to read around that stuff to get to the other stuff, that's okay.
I have a painter friend who is able to work as an artist who talks a lot about reach. He says that people way more talented than him are constantly folding and getting day jobs or just struggling to work on the weekends because they have that sense that trying to make money or widen their audience would sully the artistic purity of what they're doing.
So I've done a lot of thinking about it, and I wonder if it's not a classist thing. (I'm not saying YOU'RE classist. I just think that philosophy is and it has really permeated art.) Like the people who have espoused the eschewing of money have been the artists who can just do the work unpaid indefinitely. Most hard-working artists are under appreciated in their own time. The ones who pass the hat are seen as less legitimate even when they are sometimes better.
I dunno, I think it's all fascinating. But I really did read up on my "How to Get More Page Views" advice, and they all mentioned getting your audience involved in your ambitions. Like I said, it always feels a little strange and skeevy to me too because I come from the same school of thought that you do.
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I generally feel a little awkward when I am meta about stuff too, but like Plymouth mentions, that is actually something suggested on the internet in multiple places to GENERATE interest in a blog or website and get a growing community more involved. And...in fact...when I started doing it, things did pick up.
I will say that the image of a writer quietly doing their work and just making money has never really been true. Writers have always been integral in their own self promotions. In small press they sometimes have to do the footwork of selling their own books on consignment, and even in the big six they contract to do readings and are promoted aggressively by agents. The internet has just allowed independent artists to promote themselves.
So it IS self-promotional. And if you don't want to read around that stuff to get to the other stuff, that's okay.
So I've done a lot of thinking about it, and I wonder if it's not a classist thing. (I'm not saying YOU'RE classist. I just think that philosophy is and it has really permeated art.) Like the people who have espoused the eschewing of money have been the artists who can just do the work unpaid indefinitely. Most hard-working artists are under appreciated in their own time. The ones who pass the hat are seen as less legitimate even when they are sometimes better.
I dunno, I think it's all fascinating. But I really did read up on my "How to Get More Page Views" advice, and they all mentioned getting your audience involved in your ambitions. Like I said, it always feels a little strange and skeevy to me too because I come from the same school of thought that you do.