A letter to my readers

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Dear Friends,

I’m at a crossroads with my bloggy blog, and I need to make some decisions. I need your help in making these decisions! I see a BUNCH of you subscribe to my daily RSS feed or weekly newsletter, but only about HALF open up that newsletter from your email, and even half of THAT actually open up the newsletter to hop to my blog to read all about it.  I totally get that we all only have a limited amount of time, but I want to “chat” with those of you that tune in regularly, and hear from you what keeps you coming back.

Before you all go feeling bad for me, let me just say that I hear that this is the NORM in the creative blog world. I’ve consulted with a bunch of blogging friends, and it’s pretty typical stats for them, too.  Buy why?? If you subsribe to a newsletter, that tells me you are interested in what that person has shared in the past, why not now? Did you sign up for the newsletter randomly one day, and it’s just too much effort to unsubscribe? (I’ve totally done that).

Blog Chat

I guess my big question is that I’d love your input on what you’d like to see me sharing on this site. Here are two thoughts in my brain now:

  1. In the past year, I took on a good handful of creative contributors to help me share posts about a range of things, that I just couldn’t pull together on my own each week. I have LOVED the help, and LOVED what they had to share. But I wonder if that made people less interested in reading, because it was no longer MY voice every day. My favorite contributor shares are recipes and (gift, party, holiday) printables, so I have asked them to share more of that, and have been very pleased with their awesome-ness. Over the summer as I’ve traveled, I also had a lot of guests, and I wished I hadn’t tried to fill the empty space so much. I want more connection with all of you out there. As I share my heart in storytelling, and exploring the world of emotions out there, I want to hear from you, too. I miss the connectedness in blogging, and as I share less, I feel less and less connected, and that makes me sad.
  2. I also know that I started off sharing SO MUCH photography content, and a lot of people are less interested now that I haven’t shared so much of that anymore. I totally get that. Though I LOVE everything photography, I just felt drained of any interesting photography tips, and just don’t have a ton more to share. Unless people have specific questions, it’s hard for me to come up with topics that I haven’t already covered.  This site has morphed into more of living a creative life, and adventures of family stuff, and I love sharing how to capture joy in ALL aspects of life.

With that said. As much as I have a HUGE long list of stuff I want to write about and share with all of you…well…sometimes I just can’t crank out a long post (LAZY), or I procrastinate, not organized, intimidated by the long process it will take to tell the stories in my heart and share pictures.  So I know I wouldn’t be able to write EVERY DAY.

So are the contributor posts FLUFF to those of you just wanting to hear my voice, or is there value and interest in their shares, even if it isn’t ME sharing?  I discuss topics with my contributors and ultimately select what they will share, so I feel like I have a hand in their shares, but YOU don’t know that.

I feel like ultimately, I want to discipline myself to write more, because I love it, and enjoy the feedback. But still want to keep fabulous creative friends around to help me share great content when I just couldn’t write every day. I started the “On my Mind Monday” series a year or so ago, and like exploring my thoughts, then sometimes I pour my heart out, and occasionally hear no response, and my hearts just not ok with that! So I stopped…

I also know that the community in blogging has shifted to community in social media, and I LOVE hearing from you on Instagram….but miss hearing from people HERE.

I’m begging you, PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS!

  • Camp A: I like 50/50, creative contributors and Kristen’s weekly ramblings, I’d love you to get to know me more as you share more of your thoughts…I’ll try to comment more when you share your heart, and I’ll share mine.
  • Camp B: Don’t care about your ramblings, just like the creative/holiday/travel stuff to PIN and make.
  • Camp C: All I want to hear about is you detailing every second of your day, every day, and I’ll promise to comment each day.
  • Feel Free to make up your own camp somewhere in the middle.

P.S. Another Ghana post is coming on Tuesday.

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