Show Me The Money or Show Me Some Love or Just Leave Me a Comment

I don't expect to get rich from blogging. I don't expect to make more than a few pennies (as I type this, AdSense says I have earned $5.39 since I started blogging in April of this year). I started blogging for myself. This is what I said to myself when I started. Yet, I am starting to feel I want more from this relationship. Hmm, I have heard that before, but no need to digress. I would like to think that there are people out there reading what I write, and there are. There are, but they don't leave comments. I am not bitter. Really I am not. Just a little disappointed.

Comments are the little pats on the back or the slaps in the face that I assume most bloggers aspire to. I mean, how many really rich and famous bloggers are out there? How many can quit their day job? What else is there, with regards to blogging, but the give and take of writer and reader? Or perhaps, there is only "give" with the hope of "take".


I'm sure it doesn't help that I don't know precisely what I want to discuss in my blog. Do I want to review wines? Do I want to cover industry trends? Do I want to interview wine personalities? Do I want to educate people about wine? I am not sure what my purpose or motivation is, but I suspect strongly it lies with education. Education, most specifically, of wine regions of the world and what they produce and even more specifically, about individual wines in particular. I want to educate others and myself further. I am still trying to find my voice.

A few days ago I published a blog, "Minnie Gets Popped", that I was very happy with. It was a wine review of a sort. It was storytelling of a sort. It was, I would dare say, creative. It was my attempt at 'Wine Review Noir", to coin a phrase. This post got more hits than any other post before it, yet it didn't garner a single comment. Was it bad? Maybe people just don't have the time for comments. Maybe it is just the folks reading my blog who don't have time for comments. Maybe some people think that leaving a comment on someone's blog puts their soul in jeopardy of being stolen, like those old-worlders' fear of cameras. Or perhaps it is a fear of submitting your email into a form with no knowledge of who is on the other side. Whatever the reasons, I decided to force the issue. I decided to force the issue on my friends.

I sent out an e-mail to about twenty-five friends who are either in the wine business, love wine or are generally, in my humble opinion, creative. I sent a link to my blog (something I have never done before) and asked for some feedback, anything, praising or panning. I received a total of six responses, OK, five; one person emailed me twice. They were all positive, although, one perhaps, alluded to the state of my sanity. I could, however, be reading too much into that one.

So, the reviews are in! And the critics and press, i.e. my friends, loved it! Soon to be a major motion picture!

"I absolutely love it. Very clever, and well written too."
JW in Grafton

"Nice touches of mystery, humor... And the surprise ending (I was sure that would be a $50 bottle)."
SS in Watertown

"I clicked, I read, I loved!"
EK in the North End, Boston

"Both [she] and i loved that post! Great imagination..."
CH in Lunenberg

"I just read this again, and it’s enormously entertaining."
JW in Grafton

"Hope all is well"
PG in Lincoln

OK, "Minnie Gets Popped" is not going to be a major motion picture. I feel a little better, though, now that I have some feedback. The kicker for me, however, all this feedback was in e-mailed replies. No one left a comment!