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02 Jan 10 - 09:37 PM (#2802001) Subject: Blogs From: Jerry Rasmussen I'm told that if you want to be up to date in Kansas City (or anywhere else for that matter) you should have your own blog. Or is it glob? From all I am told, if you have your own blog you can sell truckloads of CDs and books, and everyone will admire you like the Dickens. (Who admires the Dickens?) Contemporary advice is, if you want to be successful, be on Facebook and have a blog. I'm suspicious about all of this. The few blogs I follow seem very one-directional... all you ever wanted to know about ME. I'll have a website up very soon at jrasmussen.net, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to share comments and conversations on some level. If you have a blog, what is your experience with it? Have you sold globs of whatever you're trying to sell? Is that your motive? (fair enough, by the way.) Do you have a lot of people following your blog? Help me become modern. Jerry Oh yeah, and how about posting lyrics you write or excerpts (rhymes with burps) of stuff you write? |
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02 Jan 10 - 09:58 PM (#2802010) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Stilly River Sage Jerry, I didn't start any blogs until I saw the linkages that work well with Twitter, and to some degree, Facebook. For a long time they seemed like a way to let your material get ripped off or to publish stuff to personal to publish. But with Twitter, when you follow people who write interesting things (usually writers, scientists, computer geeks, some critics and media folks, and a few for humor or just plain interesting insights) then you have a conversation underway. I don't follow everyone who follows me, but I sometimes check in to see what they're doing, and will on occasion follow after a while. It comes and goes. The point is, we don't communicate solely in 140 characters, we usually have a sentence or some keywords and a link to an article, a web site, or a blog. I have one to do with gardening, primarily, that covers organic subjects plus canine and natural history observations in the yard. I've been a member of an organic gardening group for years, and they overlap. And I put some more social and political and non-gardening stuff in the other one. I'm not posting links here because you didn't ask about my blogs in particular and I am not interested in shifting the topic to what I write about. It's enough to state that last year I contributed to several blogs (I also have one for work). I think they are growing in usefulness and sophistication as Twitter and other social media grow. SRS |
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02 Jan 10 - 10:48 PM (#2802035) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Jerry Rasmussen Thanks, SRS: Patricia Campbell sent me an e-mail with a link to a blog she just started, and I found it very warm, conversational and inviting. Not surprisingly. The reason why I ask for the experience that others have had is that I read a very informative, lengthy commentary on a blog about the foolish traps they set for people who publish their book as POD (Print On Demand.) The conventional wisdom is that you get your name and the title of your book on as many possible venues as you can, and it will stimulate sales. There's a whole cottage industry of people who charge you big bucks to get your name and the title of your book in endless lists. I didn't fall for those... several of them ask $300-500 dollars to do it for you. The article I read on a blog confirmed what I suspected. The person spent over a thousand dollars on getting her name scattered around the internet and most of the efforts didn't sell a single book. I liked Patricia's blog because it's much more in line with what I would enjoy. In honesty, I suppose the Kitchen Table thread is a blog of sorts. If I can create a blog that works like the Kitchen Table thread, I'd be happy. I'm interested in reading what's happening in other people's lives as much as a I am in writing about mine. I enjoy conversations, not monologues. I also joined Twitter and myspace, but haven't really been very active. I get frequent requests from people who want to follow my twits (what has the English language come to?) In every instance, it says that they have no followers but are following 400-500 other people. Are we a nation of followers? It's a big help to get this imput, particularly yours, SRS. Like most people I am not completely one-dimensional. A lot of what I write doesn't really fit on Mudcat, and the same is true of the music I like. Life has become so compartmentalized. Maybe it makes sense to divide myself up into departments. Thanks again. I may just give a blog a shot. Any other experiences will be gratefull received. Jerry |
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03 Jan 10 - 12:29 AM (#2802060) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Stilly River Sage I don't blog to sell books. I blog to share ideas that I've been mulling for a while, and like I said, it is part of a wide-reaching conversation. I'll PM my links. Several Mudcatters know them already, but I won't make it conspicuous on your thread. SRS |
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03 Jan 10 - 10:17 AM (#2802116) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Jerry Rasmussen Thanks SRS: I created a blog last night, but can't figure something out. I tried posting a comment on a friend's blog where I am a "follower" but it won't post the comment. It says I can't post because I am not a "Team Member." Does the owner of the blog have to accept me as a "Team Member?" I don't get it. Thanks for the links. Jerry |
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03 Jan 10 - 11:16 AM (#2802156) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Stilly River Sage You may have to join the web site that maintains the blog software. I use wordpress.com, and I think have access to blogger.com through my gmail accounts. If I were to post on someone else's blog, it would depend on how they set it up, and if they are on blogger or wordpress and I'm logged in (I usually am, by default) then I can just post there because I'm not anonymous. It's a gatekeeper thing, a way to slow down the spam that can turn up. You may need to create an account over there just to post a remark. SRS |
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03 Jan 10 - 11:40 AM (#2802172) Subject: RE: Blogs From: katlaughing I have my blog set up so that I have to approve comments before they actually post. I receive and email telling me someone has posted a comment which needs my approval. That's on |
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03 Jan 10 - 11:48 AM (#2802182) Subject: RE: Blogs From: katlaughing Forgot to say, Jerry, I've been undecided whether to have a blog about my book or not. I do have it on my website www.katlafrance.com (am going to be redoing it, soon) and I did make a simple "ad" for it and posted it to youtube. That's what all of the big pubs. do now. They create trailers promoting their latest books and put them on youtube. Here it is: CLICK. You might want to create a trailer for your book you never know who might see it. I am glad you avoided the creeps out there who want your money and do nothing to promote. I started looking into POD years ago and decided cafepress.com was the most economical, but I have not promoted it like I should and have not had a lot of sales. (It came out just before I became ill and had to have surgery.) I have a second book ready and I think I am going to use amazon's template and do the POD through their CreateSpace, that way I will be listed on there which will help with sales, I think. I do have a blog about my personal journey back to health, but that's nothing to do with sales of anything.:-) |
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03 Jan 10 - 11:58 AM (#2802185) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Simon G For a reader the key technology is RSS, twitter is a poor substitute. I read 20 or so blogs, the items appear in my RSS reader along with news feeds. It is wonderful to come across a wonderful gem of a blog post amongst the a load of depressing news stories. I would never go to 20 blogs and read the entries there, but the new articles come to me which is great. The best blogs for me are from the polymaths who can post interesting observations, analysis and conclusions from a wide area of knowledge, expertise and interests. |
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03 Jan 10 - 12:56 PM (#2802241) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Jerry Rasmussen Thanks for the website link, Kat. I am still a novice at all this stuff. Dan O'Connell is doing a website for me which should be up soon. Now that I've posted my first article on my blog, I can't see any way to post another one. I'll keep trying. Your new book looks it will be a good read. Jerry |
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03 Jan 10 - 04:10 PM (#2802389) Subject: RE: Blogs From: Cuilionn Jerry-- Blogging has been, for me, primarily a pleasant bit of writer's discipline. I started mine after admiring the work of some other women--mostly clergy and homesteaders of various stripes--who write well and regularly. The goal was to make myself write one short essay a week. For the first several weeks, I also tried to teach myself one blog-related skill per week, too: changing font effects, imbedding photos and video clips, etc. I never had a commercial aim with mine, and was pleasantly surprised to pick up a handful of "followers." (figgered my readership would be pretty much limited to myself and my mother...how the others found me, I'm not entirely sure.) Eventually I hooked up with a web-ring of like-minded bloggers and participated in some of their regular writing games/exercises (called "memes"). Most of the "site traffic" I've generated has been the result of my participation in memes and the comments I've taken the time to leave on others' blogs. I also go on Facebook and note my blog postings in my status update with a clickable link to the blog-- again, mostly so kith & kin can see what I've been up to, but also to generate a slightly wider circle of interest. (I do not do any Twittering as I distrust technologies that cater to short attention spans.) A note about posting creative material and personal compositions-- take the time to include a copyright notice somewhere on your blog, and/or include one below each new bit of lyricism that you post. I've noticed that many people who post photos have managed to "stamp" the images with a copyright notice so that it can't be cut-and-pasted by anyone else without the true source being known. (Likewise, on my blog, whenever I use lyrics, photos, etc. from anywhere else, I always try to post links to the source(s) of that material as a courtesy.) Hope this helps... if you want to take a gander at my blog, PM me and I'll send a link. Blessings, --Cuilionn |