One Writer, Many Blogs

I've noticed that there are quite a few writing bloggers out there with more than one blog. And while some are clearly related to their writing business, others are on completely different topics.

Why have so many blogs? Despite the fact that it's time consuming, there are plenty of good reasons to have multiple blogs.

Reaching multiple business audiences. If you start to specialize in writing for a certain niche market, you might want to consider creating a blog targeted to it. It positions you as a writer of authority and experience in that market and it helps you reach potential clients.

The Article Writer's Matt Keegan provides a great example. In addition to a general blog about freelance writing, he blogs on a wide variety of business-related themes including the airline industry, the auto industry, cruise ship employment, and financial topics.

Inkthinker's Kristen King does this too; she also blogs on women's issues and pet-related themes.

A place to write about your passions. Most of us have interests outside of our businesses. But the audience for your freelance writing blog may not share your passion for musical theatre. That's probably why Susan at The Urban Muse writes about musical theatre on a separate blog; Matt Keegan from The Article Writer writes about religion outside of his business blogging, and Irreverent Freelancer's Kathy Kehrli writes about her love of books on a separate site.

Professional vs. personal. It's part of business-blogging orthodoxy that our business-related blogs should include only minimal personal info. But writers who want to get personal--either in public or to a private audience of friends and family--often open up private blogs that include their personal views, activities and opinions--and they're usually not aimed at a specific niche audience.

You're getting paid. There are plenty of ways you can get paid for blogging; sometimes you're doing it anonymously under a client's name and sometimes you get a byline. But I'm sure at least a few multiple-blog writers are handling some of their blogs as paid projects.

I'm in the process of launching a few new blogs that cater to my interests outside of business writing. While I get ready to announce their existence on this blog, I would love to hear from other writers who have multiple blogs. Why did you choose the topics you write on? How do you manage marketing and writing for more than one? And do you feel like you get out of blogging on multiple topics enough to make up for the energy and time you put into it?