By
Lisabet Sarai
Almost
exactly ten years ago, I took over the Oh Get a Grip blog from a
group of romance authors who had been its founders. At the time, I
was just getting my feet wet as far as marketing and social media
were concerned. Blogging was all the rage, but I didn’t think I had
the time or the level of commitment needed to start my own blog. When
an offer of a guest post on Oh Get a Grip morphed into a suggestion
that I become the blog admin and find new contributors, this seemed
like a sign.
It
has been a fantastic decade. At various times, the members of the
Grip have included many of my favorite authors, and many friends. If
you scroll back through the earlier posts (they’re all there, all
3000+ of them!) you’ll like see many names you recognize.
In
the good old days, the Grip got lots of traffic. I’m amazed when I look at posts from five years ago. When I went to the Blogger
dashboard and randomly chose a page with a 100 posts from 2014, I
found we averaged about a dozen comments per post. One
of my posts actually got 40 comments.
These
days …. we’re lucky to get two. And that’s usually from another
member of the blog.
Personally,
I think this has to do with a shift in the way people consume
information. In this age of Twitter and Instagram, words are a
liability. Our posts have always tended to be thoughtful, measured,
carefully crafted, and pretty long – in the 1000 word range or more
(except when we played around with flash fiction). These days, nobody
wants to put in the effort to read that much text.
At
least, that’s what I believe. Recent posts are as insightful and
challenging as the older ones, but we don’t get readers (or
commenters) because, sadly, people don’t care.
Anyway,
I’ve decided that after ten years, it’s time for me to move on.
The Grip is experiencing a shake-up, and about half of the current
contributors plan to leave at the end of 2019. However, there’s a
contingent who wants to salvage the Grip, maybe changing its format
to better fit the preferences of today’s audience.
We
really haven’t decided yet. But don’t delete your bookmark. There
may be amazing things ahead in 2020.
For
me, though, this is the end of the road. Ugh, that sounds final,
doesn’t it? In fact, if the Grip continues, I’ll likely be
around, commenting as well as assisting the new admin. I’m not the
type to keep totally silent.
However,
this will be my last formal post for Oh Get a Grip. I’ll do a
marketing post on the 17th as well. After that – well,
you know I’ll be writing sexy stories. And you know, I think, where
to find me.
