Reaching a wider audience

Though many online diaries get no more than a trickle of traffic, other bloggers become overwhelmingly popular. Jeannette Vagnozzi of southern California created her blog (2hands.blogspot.com) as a convenient way of keeping all her loved ones updated on her treatment for stage I breast cancer. Four years and nearly 300,000 hits (individual viewings) later, the blog has turned into something much more. “I’ve connected with so many other breast cancer survivors and made some wonderful new friends,” says Vagnozzi, 43. “My blog became a tremendous network of support for me.”

Kathy-Ellen Kups’s blog is one of the most popular on the HealthTalk site, with hundreds of women writing to say they relate to her story. “I was amazed at how many are willing to be open about their breast cancer experiences,” says Kups. “I have never regretted telling anyone about my experience. And I’ve gotten so much back from blogging.”

After being diagnosed in 2005 with stage I breast cancer, Jill Midthun, 37, noticed that the online cancer support sites she visited didn’t feel like real communities. This inspired her to create blogforacure.com, a site where visitors can set up their own blogs for free. “I wanted a place where people could see pictures of the bloggers they were talking to, so they could connect better,” she says. “I also wanted a place where you could put down all the basics in detail so you wouldn’t have to make dozens of phone calls to friends and relatives.” Midthun predicted a handful of bloggers might use her service. So far, nearly 600 people have signed up.

Some talented bloggers can even turn their writing into a profitable sideline. Donaldson, an at-home mom from Gainesville, Florida, began blogging three years ago while undergoing a lumpectomy, chemo and radiation for stage I breast cancer. Her diary caught the eye of an editor, who offered her a job writing for the now-retired The Cancer Blog. Now she maintains her personal blog on her own site, and blogs about general fitness issues for AOL’s That’s Fit! channel. “I started out as a journalism major in college, but I took another route, career-wise,” says Donaldson, 37, who works on her blogs while her two sons are in school. “It took breast cancer to bring me back to my writing.”