Comments on: Will Work for Wine (Alice Feiring & Who Really Killed Wine Writing)

By: 1WineDude

1WineDude — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:26:32 +0000

Great points – if you want a blog with readership, then it's essential to engage in some form of personal 'brand building'. Cheers!

By: Gary "Iron" Chevsky

Gary "Iron" Chevsky — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 16:19:15 +0000

I don't think blogging is about writing. It's about marketing. Wine blogging or any other kind of blogging. You can be the best writer in the world, no one will read your stuff until they discover you. In the flood of blogs out there (which we are all contributing to) how do you stand out? In the past, maybe you interviewed for a job, spent your career honing your craft and climbing up the ladder, and finally published for a widely-circulated publication. Nowadays, you spit out a blurb 2 minutes after you decide that you are a born writer?! Take a lesson from Gary Vee and lots of other successful people. Market, market, market! Then if your content is half-decent, you will get some readership, and if your content is brilliant, then maybe someone will want to pay for it. But truth be told, there is one-in-a-million (maybe even in 10 million) folks out there who could garner that sort of attention and devotion. Because this information is not critical, but rather hobbyist. Unless you are publishing something that businesses need, you cannot count on consumers to pay! Ad ad-supported sites? – forget it! So enjoy the social prestige and the pleasure from the discourse and the wonderful wine experiences that enrich us, and go find a real job to finance this writing hobby. That's not the plight of wine blogging, it's just life and business.

By: 1WineDude

1WineDude — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:04:27 +0000

Basic brand-building, I suppose!

By: Steve Raye

Steve Raye — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:50:41 +0000

Good conversation here and some very salient points. Here's my two cents: we need to put blogging in perspective. It is an evolving form of communication and its current form is guaranteed to change. So we shouldn't be as concerned with the problems of blogging today, so much as where it may be going, and how we can help it get there, at least in our small part of the blog world.
A blog doesn't exist in isolation,and that's especially true for Alice…her blog is a voice and a point of view, and that voice is an influential one. But it's only one vehicle for her to communicate with an audience. Alice should look at her blog (and Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and, and , and…) as tools that work in concert to increase readership, influence, and ultimately her commercial value. That's especially true for someone who already is a professional writer. Don't look to the blog to make money, use the blog as a tool to raise the value of the things you sell for a living…articles and books.

By: 1WineDude

1WineDude — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:47:54 +0000

Hey Phil – no worries, always happy to have your input!

I think that article is very relevant. And kind of frightening!