Why am I blogging anyway?

In her podcast on her top five tips for growing your blog Holly, of A Branch of Holly, lists as number one: know your purpose.

Hm, so what's my purpose? Not in life - that would be debatable - but here on this blog. Why am I writing it? 

A number of reasons spring to mind.

1) It's a hobby-horse of mine to deny the lie that you have to reach a certain level of readership, whether that's in sales or number of Twitter followers, or be published by a traditional publisher, to be considered a writer. To call yourself a writer. 
If we put words on paper or on screen, whether they are read by hundreds or none, we are writers. Whether those words make up amazing prose or total gobble-de-gook, valueless to anyone except the author, we are writers. And for most of us writing is something we have to do, as essential to us as the air that we breathe. Well almost.
But having said that, it's still a lie I have to fight myself. So one purpose of this blog is to act as a reminder to me and others like me, those who may blush if someone describes him as a writer or who will shrug and mutter under her breath, 'I write a bit but it's nothing.'

2) I am a writer and I have self-published two novels. I want to promote them and from what I'm learning 'growing my online presence' is a way to do it. If I make the blog interesting and it's not just constant advertising.
I have another two completed novels that I'm hoping to self-publish later this year maybe as well as ideas for sequels to both those already published. So I have a lot of self-promotion to do. I need to build my brand, as Holly would say.

3) From the small steps I am taking into this social media world - Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook - I am learning new things every day. So another purpose of this blog is to share the snippets I gather as well as my experiences of self-publishing and giving talks, and approaching libraries and books-sellers.

P.S. I suspect my purpose in life is, as a friend once said to me, to serve as a warning to others.