Today, I start an experiment here that will take the blog off track a bit, but which could better build readership. “What?” You ask. “Joe, don’t you have another experiment going with comments turned off?” Yes, and that one ends next week.

The experiment comes to answer a question: What is the best way to be the better blogger? I need to make money writing at a time when writing is becoming a commodity service. Increasingly, journalists like me are obsolete. The answer I seek may be to the wrong question; perhaps blogging isn’t the writing I or many people like me should pursue. But I try.