Interesting Blog Stats

Andrew Sullivan was one of the earliest bloggers and is one of the most successful. His blog is The Dish (link) and he reports that 95% of blogs are abandoned within 120 days and 60 - 80% of them are abandoned within the first month. A site called Postary (for people who don't want to manage blogs but want to publish a single post to share) has developed a "typical" blog lifecycle:

1. Euphoric moment of inspiration
2. Pseudo-manical and self-indulgent perusing of domains
3. Careful consideration of theme and design
4. The inaugural post - "Hello world!"
5. The 2-4 post honeymoon phase
6. Waning and changing interests
7. Feelings of desperation and apathy from low engagement
8. Inevitable abandonment

I retain a lot of faith in the power of effective, well-managed blogs that focus on the needs of the customer and not the needs of the artist. As a resource for buyers—especially when there are numerous postings about all your work and the posts bear the title of the work—nothing beats a blog for the narrative that most buyers want to accompany the piece.