On any curve of distribution, at the beginning of the curve and at the end of the curve are outliers.
At the beginning, these outliers are known as “pioneers.”
At the end, these outliers are known as “laggards.”
And in the middle of the curve (where the bulge is) this space is a cluster known as “the masses,” or the “average” or the “median.”
This truth of distribution stands for anything that can be mathematically measured, from the number of tall people in a room all the way to the number of CDs that people own who you may stop on the street.
This truth of distribution applies to my words (and the words of any other blog writer) as well.
On one end (at the beginning of the distribution curve) I’ve written blog posts with 50 to 100 words.
On the other end (at the end of the distribution curve), I’ve written blog posts with 1000 to 2500 words.
And in the middle, on average, I’ve written posts with 300 to 500 words.
Some math before I make my larger point: In the last four years, I’ve published 848 blog posts. If on average I’ve written 500 words per post, which comes to 424,000 words I’ve published in total since starting in 2013. And it might even be a little higher than that, due to posts not published.
424,000 words.
In all that time, I haven’t collected as many email subscribers as I would like.
I also haven’t collected as many engaged readers as I would like.
And this is the trouble with the Internet in general and blog writing in particular.
It begs the questions:
- Why write on a blog you own, everyday if no one (or very few) are reading and engaging with you on your own platform and instead are continuing to read and respond on other platforms (i.e. Facebook or Medium)?
- Why continue to build on land that you own when you’re the only one in the house?
I’ve been thinking about these two corollary questions a lot lately, because people often get excited when I talk about the blog, but then, when I point out that it requires you to be engaged with me, in order for it to work at the emotional and psychological level, I get…
…well, I get the responses that you would think I would get.
I’ve been thinking about these questions as I’ve been watching shared, walled, social media gardens devolve into spaces of short-form thinking, and long-form hubris.
I’ve been thinking about these questions as I build a platform that may not be for everyone–but that just might be for YOU.
424,000 words.
Responses, engagement, critical thinking, emotional intelligence: These are the things that matter, and whether writing, teaching, video making, or podcast recording, I hope that you will stay in the meaty part of the distributions curve of listening, engaging and responding.
