Too Many Outlets?

I have been writing. Really.

I signed up for a 31 days to a better blog and then opted to start a whole different blog in a whole different place to see how that went. I can write without a problem. My problem lies in the marketing aspect of my writing.

I have been writing my Little Bits of History for about three and a half years now. They were published, in an abbreviated form at RGQ for a little more than three years. But I hit a roadblock. It wasn't so much writer's block as a sense of failure or maybe just disappointment.

I have had my essays looked at by a real book publisher at a writer's seminar. She said they were a great idea, but she was a fiction editor and had no idea where to tell me to look for a publisher. She gave me names, I looked, they weren't the right venue either. I'm not even now sure of the right venue. As I said, I'm a writer, not a marketer.

But, with the 31 days thing, I needed something to do for 31 days. I have all these already written essays on my computer. My first year's essays are not quite up to my current standard. I have learned many things in the threes plus years of actually writing day in and day out. I believe my newer essays are better than my older ones.

So I decided to polish up my old essays. I use what's there, but give them a little extra and get them more in line with my current standards. Then I posted them in a Word Press blog. According to my 31 days thing, I needed to market. No matter how brilliant one's writing, it is useless without the reader.

I belong to two different writing forums (and a history forum and a trivia forum). Well, I'm signed up a third writing forum, but am inactive there. It's just way too large. In the writing forums, I posted links to my history essays at Word Press. 

A couple of exciting things have since happened. One of my writing forums is run by a fellow Carolinian and he directed me to Examiner.com. They are now allowing me to publish my essays there. Only this one lets me do some other spiffy things. I get to be paid, for one thing. Not much and it would be more if I got more hits.

However, each day it tells me how many hits my page got, how many are average for my city outlet, and how many are average for my topic area. I'm consistently higher than the average. So thanks to any and all who are clicking on my writing. Readers are just great.

Dave is also a member of one of my writing forums. He has recently published an e-booklet on blogging. He included my Little Bits of History as one of his examples on writing a blog. Thanks so much, Dave. 

But that got me to thinking. I've been writing. Really. I have daily historical essays put up on two different sites and they are completely different topics. But I've been so busy with writing, buffing things up, finding links, finding pictures I'm permitted to use, getting everything posted, updating links at other sites, and all the myriad details – I've neglected to write here.

So, here is this.
Here is Little Bits of History.
Here is Examiner.com.