No TQT this week, but other changes in store

Normally around this time in this space I would place my Ten Question Tuesday interview, but I’ve noticed that some of the people who state they are open for interviews don’t seem to return my inquiries. It’s very frustrating because I don’t like to have too many interviews in the can (I like to work one week ahead) but when you ask a couple people who don’t get back to you that throws off the schedule. Listen, I’ll cheerfully admit I don’t have the highest number of readers but I’m working on building it up with the help of those folks I interview – the idea is to help out the pro-liberty movement overall and build something where the momentum can’t be stopped.

So I suppose I need to work on next week and see if I can get back to doing these interviews. In the couple months I’ve done TQT I’ve begun to marvel how radio hosts can get weekly guests because it’s tough to drag some into commitments – perhaps this is the best time to thank Dan Bongino, Jonathan Byrdak, Diana West, Patrick McGrady, Sara Marie Brenner, Tom Fitton, and Jake Day for their TQT participation. Really, that’s not a bad seven people to be in the company of, so I’ll see what I can get for the next few weeks. It’s quite a bit of work to put these together – particularly because I’d like to look outside the echo chamber of Maryland politics as well as find some people you may not hear as much from – but I enjoy the interaction.

Hopefully you’ll forgive the unscheduled TQT hiatus, but now I’d like to talk about something else.

If you haven’t noticed, I like to create content and the reason this site is called monoblogue is that, on all but perhaps two occasions where I’ve had guest posts, I’ve been the sole writer. But there was something I noticed of late about the way I did it and how it affected readership.

Late last month I put up a poll for a few days asking readers how often they visit the site, and the answer sort of went along the line with  my suspicions that I could improve readership simply by posting more. It actually coincided with my desire to spend more time on other avenues of writing, such as the Watchdog Wire; simply put, spending three hours compiling posts like ‘odds and ends’ by making them sound coherent with transitions which satisfied my perfectionist streak left me less time to do other writing. My time is limited by my other, currently more lucrative outside jobs so I need to make my monoblogue posts count.

So instead of writing one 1000-2500 word post a day – although there have been days of late when I’ve dragged myself in the door after a hard day of toil outside the home and scratched out a quick and dirty 300-word post simply to place fresh content – I thought it would be better to try for a couple 600- to 800-word posts. Certainly I will keep my reporter’s hat on where needed, but the goal is to accelerate the post tempo up to around 50 to 60 a month. By spreading them out, it gives readers a reason to visit daily or even more frequently.

And if I can show readers visit more often, I can get more advertisers and more writing opportunities. I have a couple irons in the fire which might pan out as I try to expand my reach and get back to a format I enjoy writing – the 600 word op-ed, suitable for publication at a website or news outlet near you. (Being paid to do it would be nice, too.)

People tell me I’m a pretty good writer, so now it’s time to expand the audience and reach. If you’d like to be interviewed here, need a good op-ed (or even press release or persuasive e-mail, I’ve done those too), or even just show your support in a manner besides buying my book or rattling the tip jar, just let me know. I believe next Tuesday I should be able to resume the Ten Questions.