Embracing the medium: what makes a successful cultural blog?
by Angela Meyer from her literary blog - LiteraryMinded

The following article is a slightly amended version of the speech I gave during the Emerging Writers’ Festival panel The Revolution Will Be Downloaded, May 2009.

In my reading of cultural blogs (particularly literary blogs), and through a growing audience for LiteraryMinded, I have found that some recurring elements exist in blogs which could be deemed successful. My measure of success isn’t necessarily a huge number of hits, but a loyal, returning audience of readers that grows over time.

I’ll first give you a bit of background on LiteraryMinded. I started the blog on Google’s blogger platform in May 2007. I was living in (coastal Australian small city) Coffs Harbour, I worked in a bookstore, and I was studying film and literature. As much as I was surrounded by great people, there weren’t many who shared my passion for literature. My conversations about books basically occured over the counter at the bookstore, or with my fellow employees. After I’d started doing the occasional freelance review, author interview and article for Bookseller+Publisher, I started the blog as a bit of an outlet for my passion. B+P gave me permission to reprint content on the blog, and I found it then also acted as a bit of a publication record, or literary CV.

I moved to Melbourne in March 2008, started working full-time at B+P and by now had figured out (basically from reading lots of blogs) that combining the semi-personal and the literary was beneficial in growing an audience. I blogged extensively on the Melbourne Writers Festival (both serious events and authors-in-the-bar stuff), and Antony Loewenstein mentioned me on his blog, which led to the attention of Crikey. Crikey chose me as their literary blogger because they felt I had enthusiasm and a ‘finger on the pulse’ of the literary world. I was now contracted to write, and have found the rhythms in which I like to work in. More and more I have learnt what makes a cultural blog readable, accessible and interesting, and I’m sure I’ll continue to learn, but for now I’ll share with you six points:

Read Angela's six points and her full speech at Literary Minded.