On Becoming a Destination Blog

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As the owner of a shoestring literary press, I’m less a commodity publisher and more an ideas broker. Although sales figures are important because we pay royalties on the downloads of our ebooks, the real indicator for me that our authors are being read is the feedback they get. Who are their readers, where are they, what do they think about what they’ve read? Therefore my strategy has mainly been to get the word out about our authors as broadly as possible, which means I’ve been exploring to the maximum the capabilities of the web network.

Since the running of Cantarabooks and Cantaraville consumes most of my free time, my own writing has had to take a back seat—or rather, what I write has to be fairly short and uncomplicated. So, I blog. This past month there’s been a dramatic spike in hits to Cantara’s Notebook, which I attribute mainly to a couple of postings:

• Susan Boyle’s Next Song
• Cantaraville Is On Somebody or Other’s Shitlist

Not only that, people have been hanging around to comment, as well as read other postings, for a longer amount of time—20, 30 minutes, even up to an hour. I’m also getting more and more repeat visitors. (Hello, Cambridge!)

In other words, I’m now developing my own readership.

This puts me as a writer—rather than as a publisher or editor—in an interesting situation. What I’ve enjoyed about Cantara’s Notebook is that up to now it’s been...well, just a notebook. And even though it’s on the web for all the world to find, it’s been low-key that no one’s really been looking for it. As a result, I’ve been able to work here, improving my writing, in the comfortable certainty that my postings wouldn’t be reaching a lot of people— (fewer people, let’s say, than those of my unfocused friend who recently posted a plea on Huffington to Free Bernie Madoff).

This may no longer be case and may never be again. But will my destination readers be patient enough to read postings that are, for the most part, only drafts—only promises of better writing to come?

As an editor-publisher with some fairly high standards when it comes to my writers, I realize I’m running a risk by exploring my own indiosyncratic interests (history— politics—censorship—belief systems—Susan Boyle—Toothy Tile—gay horror films—an ongoing narrative that’s playing out like some postmodern bildungsroman) in my own time, in my own idiosyncratic way.

I suppose the one question I’d ask of any reader to this blog would be: What did you come here looking for, and did you find it?