I think my blog is getting into a rut.
My general rule of thumb with each post I make is that it should somehow be original, something that can’t be found elsewhere on the vastness of the internet. Otherwise, why would anybody read it?
Running a blog on a very niche topic is a pretty good way to make that task easy. There are only a handful of other blogs or websites out there fully or partially dedicated to Japanese baseball cards, most of which you can find on my blogroll. The small size of the community means there are massive gaps in publicly accessible information about Japanese cards into which a little blog like mine can step to help fill the void. Blogs about American cards can’t just do a post along the lines of “This is what a 1987 Donruss card looks like” and expect anyone to care. Japanese card bloggers can get away with that kind of post though since with a lot of major sets there isn’t any basic information online and putting it out there serves a purpose.
The downside to this is that it encourages a certain amount of laziness. My blogging output recently has been almost entirely posts structured along the theme of “Hey look at these neat cards I have.” (See: post about these neat cards, and these neat cards and these neat cards and these neat cards and on and on and on).
Those posts feature cards about which there isn’t much info online so they tick my “Post must be contributing something original” box, but at the same time they collectively have started to give the blog a somewhat monotonous feel to it. There are only so many iterations of that kind of post you can do before things just start to flatline.
I try to mix them up with posts in which I either analyze some broader issue in the hobby (like this one) or lay out some autobiographical story about my own collecting (like here). I think they tend to be a lot more read-able and give the blog some much needed variety. But the thing is, those types of posts require both 1) a good idea to ground them, and 2) a lot of time to compose. Good ideas and free time are hard to come by. "Look at this card" posts on the other hand don't require coming up with a new idea and can be dashed off in about half an hour.
Ideas in particular seem to present a problem since the laws of diminishing returns kick in after a while. When you start a blog, you have a pretty good inventory of ideas for things you'd like to talk about. But over time you start using up those ideas faster than you replenish them with new ones, and eventually you just reach a point where you can't think of any great ideas but have a stack of neat cards and start to rely on them for most of your content, which is kind of where my blog is right now.
This post itself is evidence of that. Its one of my "idea" posts, the idea being that I'd do a post about how I am running out of ideas for posts. Ironic, isn't it?
Out of curiousity, for all you other bloggers out there, how do you keep your blogs "fresh" over time? Ever feel like you have run out of ideas and are relying too much on simple "Look at this card" templates for content?
I think you just have a case of writer's block and you're straining for something that isn't a recurring series. I say this because I go through this kinda rut pretty much every year lol. To a point where I sometimes get sick of this hobby entirely.
ReplyDeleteBut after a little break I find that it does wonders. There's always something in this hobby that draws me back in. For me that comes in the form of either getting IP autos when MiLB season re-starts, or when I find a new player to supercollect and bring into my world. That revives things for me real quick. During the down time I just end up sticking to literally anything other than cards. Music, sports (just enjoying it, not thinking about it in card form), work, other things. At a certain point the lull ends and I feel inspired to blog again.
Yeah, that is probably it. I was curious if other bloggers had the same thing!
DeleteI've only been blogging for a year or so, and there are already times when I wonder when I might run out of ideas. However, I've probably only seen a fraction of one percent of all the trading cards and related collectibles that are out there, and as I discover new stuff, inspiration seems to keep coming.
ReplyDelete(Hint: One of your recent blog posts provided some of that inspiration, and I'm working on a related post now.)
Oh cool! I look forward to reading it!
DeleteConsidering I started my blog to document my collection, most of my posts tend to be about card pickups, blogger care packages, and highlighting certain cards that mean something to me. Idea-wise, I might have one creative post in fifty. As for running out of ideas... I worry about that all the time. But something always pops up. Sadly it's almost always a "look at this card" post.
ReplyDeleteEven your Look at this card posts are a bit more than that though, you've usually got an idea or two behind each post which you formulate as a question to readers at the end. I admire that approach!
DeleteFor what it's worth, I have yet to read one of your posts and think "Gee, this blog sure is getting stale", so I would have to imagine that there aren't a lot of other people out there thinking otherwise. I go through ruts all of the time, I think that's normal for anyone who's trying to post on a semi-regular basis.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jon, I feel the same of your posts.
DeleteNone of your posts have an "I left these Ritz crackers out too long" taste to me, and I'm happy to read more of them. But I also know how you feel. One idea, if you're tired of writing about pick ups, is to write about things related to your collection. Japanese baseball itself springs to mind immediately. There's some information about it that the internet community can find on the internet itself, or by reading Whiting and Fitts, and so on. But I presume there's plenty more knowledge available to someone living in Japan and comfortable with the language than there is to the rest of us. You're in Nagoya - tell us about the trials and trevails of the Chunichi Dragons. They've only won the Japan Series twice, but once recently. What's the story of their 2007 run? What was the pennant race like? Unexpected heroes?
ReplyDeleteThe economics of the league might be interesting. Do they have a revenue sharing agreement between the teams? A salary cap? Do the teams try to extort municipalities into building them new stadia every few years like they do in the US?
Or, the War disrupted Japanese baseball even more than it did American baseball. Nakajima ended up as a Russian POW, teaching his captors to play baseball in (I presume) Siberia. How did that happen? Sawamura was killed in action. Was he a sailor? An infantry man? I think he died in the Phillipines, but you might have access to information about his unit and battles that he fought in.
Or you could write about the baseball card Hobby in Japan. (You've already done some posts on this topic.) Are there Japanese auction houses that carry cards/memorabilia? What's the most expensive Japanese baseball card? Do kids in Japan collect cards, or is it mostly old dudes like in the US? Are there oddball Japanese cards - you know, logoless things packaged with frozen pizzas?
I don't know if you were looking for ideas or not. If not, ignore the foregoing. If so, there's lots of stuff that I (for one) would be interested in knowing about.
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But I also want to hear about whatever else you picked up with that Miyatake card.
Oh those are some great ideas, thanks! I might steal some of those actually if you don't mind :)
DeleteSawamura was in the infantry I think, he died on a ship that was torpedoed in the sea between Taiwan and the Philippines.
That question about what is the most expensive Japanese baseball card is an interesting one since I don't know, which is weird. There are a few expensive ones that come to mind, but I don't think the Japanese hobby has an equivalent of a T206 Wagner. Explaining why that is might be a good post idea....again if you don't mind me plagiarizing your idea!
Please, do so. That's stuff I'd like to hear about!
DeleteMost expensive vintage cards are probably the rare Kabaya-Leaf cards. Especially the Hiroshi Gondoh card that was discovered last year since there's only one known example of it (and it's owned by Keith Olbermann)
DeleteThose are probably the main contenders for the title.
DeleteAs others have said, there are lots of things to talk about. And for many things, it's putting your own spin or opinion on something. Writer's block can be a big issue. I keep a list of post ideas that I visit if I can't think of anything; sometimes an idea comes to me when blogging isn't an option, or it's a topic I don't really want to tackle now, but might be interesting to write about.
ReplyDeleteYour cards can tell stories, too. I know a lot of our purchases come from online sources, but if you have a story of how you got the card, or if it's important to you in some way, that will give you ideas. Or, the player may have a story around him - Oh's training habits, Nagashima's son, so on.
Many of my posts have been/are "look at what I found!" but I at least try to add my opinion, to keep it from being more than "here are cards" posts. But I do that for me; all of my posts are for me. I don't write the blog for my readers, though I'm very happy people are interested in what I have to say.
"Why would anybody read it?" Does it really matter? In the end, write about what you want, how you want, when you want. (If I wanted more readers, I'd write about 2020 Topps, big money hits, and Astros buzzer gossip. Or I'd just switch to YouTube and over-emote about the mad sick to-be-PSA 10 card of Frank DiPino I just pulled from an '88 Donruss pack, after making a click-bait title.)
Good reply!
DeleteIts cool that you write your blog for you, an audience that you know best.
I totally pulled an 88 Donruss PSA 10 Frank DiPino once, its my retirement plan!
I’ve never thought your blog was ever stale. Love reading it!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I think the same of yours!
DeleteToday or tomorrow I will be writing a post about this year's edition of BBM's annual Rookie Edition set. This will be the 13th time I've written about one of these sets. I don't know a damn thing about keeping a blog from getting stale :-)
ReplyDeleteSeriously though, I guess I'm like Fuji. I try to write about stuff I'm interested in. I hope others are too but I can't do anything about that so I don't worry about it.
LOL, yeah, the annual BBM Rookie Addition set post!
DeleteYour blog is way more of an institution in the Japanese card collecting world than mine is though, so those set review posts serve a really important purpose.
And your best posts about the hobby are the gold standard. One of my main criteria for a post I make here is making sure its something you haven't already got covered (and if it is, what can I add to what you have said).
Thanks - and I'm stealing that "Rookie Addition" line!
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