Waaay back on April 1st, 2007, this blog was started with the basic "Rounders" blogger template, little fanfare, and no readers. I eventually conned AverageSisInLaw into reading and leaving a comment here and there. I worked my Rolodex and told friends to tell friends about the blog, but not that I was the dude behind it, since I wanted to remain anonymous. To get the word out, I did something I'm not particularly proud of. I went to other blogs and hijacked their comment sections with hyperlinks to AB.com. It took weeks before I got over the 10 visitors/day mark, which, as I understand it, only 1% of all blogs do. After months of blogging, and little feedback or readers, I felt like this was a huge waste of time. It was sad.
My wife reminded me that I wrote for self-expression, it is my talent, whether or not anyone else notices. She was right, so I kept it up, and tried to focus on finding my "voice" and developing my own style rather than mimicking that of the bloggers I really liked (ie: DP). Slowly, but surely though, folks started finding me, and the daily visitors went from a few dozen, to a few hundred. When my seminal post about The Jena Six ended up on the boards over at Michael Baisden's (whom I bashed) freaky deaky singles site, I was officially on the map. Hits continued to grow, I won a Black Weblog Award, I got asked to do the now-defunct NPR show, and The Washington Post name-dropped me a few times. The blog is now stronger than ever, with over 1200 posts, several regular guest contributors, hundreds of daily visitors, and plenty of active commenters. While I make a little pocket money from ads and merch sales, AB.com has become a priceless part of my daily life.
As I've told you guys before, comments are any blogger's payment for their hard work. You can pretend that writing in a vacuum is fun, but reality is, it ain't. Getting feedback (good or bad, doesn't matter which) is what makes the weekend hours I spend running this blog worth the time. And for that, I thank ya'll. And one of these days, I will quit being lazy, stop expecting someone to knock on my cyber-door, and go create my own opportunity to turn blogging into a steady 2nd paycheck.
If I can be obnoxious for a moment, I feel like the content, originality, and most of all community that's grown here at AB.com is worthy of an even bigger stage. A stage that will allow me to push my message of
In the meantime, I hope ya'll enjoy this site and stick around, because you (nor I for that matter) never know what's coming next. I appreciate the support and would send shout-outs now, but who do you know that works on his anniversary?
Two Fingers,
Jay (aka: "AB")
