06.14.07
Posted in News at 2:50 pm by admin
Honestly, how many people care about the byline in an article? Unless you’re a semi-famous author (or celebrity), the public is more concerned with the article itself than who wrote it. Writers, you want to change that don’t you? The most obvious way is to force your way into the story; forcing yourself into what you write. That’s the gorilla way. Here’s the guerilla way: brand yourself. Check out this article: “How to Effectively Brand Yourself through Blogs.”
By getting your name out there, people will start to follow your work. You want to write about ketchup versus mustard, the dog whisperer, and what’s flawed about the Ivy League admission system? You also want to get people to read all the above? Then be Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink” but also renowned writer and media critic. Gladwell has branded himself so that his name is bigger than his work, which means that people will want Malcolm for everything because he has name recognition (as well as skills).
Freelance a lot, brand yourself, and get pseudo-famous; it’s the dream of every small town girl.
A few interesting articles:
How to become a Freelance Blogger
Blogging is Easy Money, Right?
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05.09.07
Posted in Book Related, News at 12:44 am by admin
I’m going to Michigan next week (May 17 - 20) to participate in the Ann Arbor Book Festival.
I’ll be sitting on one panel (as Lilly’s sidekick) and moderating another. Should be fun. Visit the alma mater, eat some Pizza House, Rendezvous at the bar around two, go buy some Steve & Barry’s to dust off that school spirit. Um, Go Blue?
Reading in Mixed Media - Saturday, May 19th
Moderator: Jonathan Yang, Rough Guide to Blogging
Matt Bell, writer/blogger
Doreen Lichtman, Survival From Malice
Claudia Mair Burney, Murder, Mayhem and a Fine Man
Meghan O’Rourke, www.salon.com, Slate.com
The world of writing and reading is changing quickly. Join this panel as they discuss how they have addressed this changing world as writers. From blogging, to making books or excerpts of books available online or as ebook downloads, this group is facing the challenges of a changing literary world head on.
The Writer-Agent Relationship - Friday, May 18th
Lilly Ghahramani, Full Circle Literary Agency with author Jon Yang, The Rough Guide to Blogging; Amy Williams, McCormick-Williams Literary Agency and Travis Holland, The Archivist’s Story.
The author-agent relationship is crucial to publishing success. An agent will work for you in getting the best publication deal, and will support you through the publishing process. But how do you find the right agent? And how do you get that agent to notice your work in all the piles of manuscripts they receive each day?
Two pairs of authors and agents will discuss how they came to know each other, how they work together to be effective, and what expectations they should have of each other.
Come on out, Michigan is only a hop and a skip away!
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04.30.07
Posted in News at 6:49 pm by admin
Now, this is pretty self explanatory. Just click to 16 Must Read Articles for Bloggers from “The Wrong Advices” and read on!
The article names themselves are super enticing: Declaring War on Blogger Apathy; Do You Have What It Takes to be a Professional Blogger?; 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity…
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04.21.07
Posted in News at 1:34 pm by admin
The book is doing well, really well. In fact, I had to go to three different Borders/Barnes&Nobles just to get a copy of it. It was even sold out among my friends — well, the four around that might have a copy on their shelf. I ended up having to order two copies of my own book to Barnes & Noble in order to have a reference copy for work. That may sound like a bad thing; but obviously, it’s not.
Feel free to order a few copies online or offline; it’s a tremendous work of achievement. Two thumbs up! It’s the prettiest/easiest/and most entertaining blog book out there. The Bay/Bruckheimer of blogging books. Plus, it’s informative.
Everyone always compliments me on the design. I just wink at them and say “And yeah, that’s not me on the cover.”
Thanks for buying. Now keep a copy on your shelf when I visit you so I don’t have to sit around special ordering my own damn book just to get copy.
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04.01.07
Posted in Articles, News at 11:11 pm by admin
Well, this is kind of interesting. SonyBMG, home to artists such as Christina Aguilera, Pink, and Good Charlotte (who?) announced that they would require all unsigned band demos to be submitted via their the record label’s blog. No more sending your little taped demo to the studio and hoping to knock the socks off of an A&R person. Now it’s slap it on the blog, upload your photos and videos, and hope to hear a response. Or something like that.
Wait, this kind of sounds like MySpace — or what MySpace used to be — doesn’t it? Good luck aspiring musicians! You guys should have blogs anyway so posting your stuff to SonyBMG shouldn’t be too hard. And think of all the postage and handling you’ll save. Let’s hope other businesses will soon follow suit; incorporating digital formats and blogs into the old way of doing things.
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03.21.07
Posted in Articles, News at 6:01 pm by admin
At this year’s SXSW conference, blogger and science fiction writer Bruce Sterling told a crowd that blogging would be dead within ten years. Blogging, dead? Just like Captain America?
Well, what Sterling was talking about was that blogging in its current iteration would no longer be around. Online journals would just be an integrated part of life, not really “gone.” Blogging is dead just sounds much more exciting but really, do you think that once everyone gets their hands on tools that help them post words, photos, audio, video online that it’ll go away? Nope. Blogging will just become part of the fabric of our culture and never go away, just like the Captain — even if he is momentarily knocked out of service.
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01.30.07
Posted in News at 11:34 am by admin
The nominations for the 2007 Bloggies, the Academy Awards of the blogosphere, have been unveiled! This is the seventh year the Bloggies will be handing out cash prizes (sometimes up to $25 or more) and bestowing recognition upon the worthy. This is a great place to find blogs that have already been reader-tested and fan-approved. Go there to vote for the coveted “Weblog of the Year” and make your voice heard.
Only you can prevent forest fires!
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01.09.07
Posted in News at 10:33 am by admin
While this isn’t exactly blog related, it’s just too beautiful to not share: The Apple iPhone. Wow. I’m a gadget freak myself but this tops everything I’ve ever seen. Forget hoverboards and cybernetics (for now), this’ll even quicken the heart rate of any technophile. If you weren’t able to attend the Macworld 2007 meeting — where Steve Jobs likes to announce lust inducing items such as the iPod and various upgrades to iProducts — you can follow along on blogs such as Engadget. It’s almost as good as being there!
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12.24.06
Posted in News, Tools & Resources at 4:38 pm by admin
Seems like Blogger’s always (fashionably) late to the party nowadays right? The platform largely responsible for launching blogs into the mainstream is now reactionary. Little trinkets like labels, site feeds, and password protected entries are only now entering the Blogger service through its Beta Blogger — which is now open for all.
In an ocean filled with what seems like hundreds of blog providers, Blogger may no longer innovate but when it makes changes, it makes a huge impact. I mean, when Blogger add new features, or requires users to switch to new logins (Beta Blogger requires a Google Login), millions of blogs are impacted. Big ship, that blogger.
I’d been waiting for my own beta Blogger invite to appear on my various Blogger hosted blogs. When I finally got the opportunity, I was delighted. Here were the labels I was looking for, here was drag-and-drop template customization, here was better displays for archives, I loved it.
Then, I tried to take my non-blogspot.com hosted blogs over to beta Blogger. Bad news. If you were trying to FTP to Blogger, there were huge icebergs ahead. I spent a week panicking that my blogs would be no more. Online forums reported users who had lost blogs, users who could no longer publish, users who were stuck in limbo between old Blogger and beta Blogger. I had the same problems, mainly being unable to FTP to the domain of my choice.
Blogger Help was timely and helpful during that hand-wringing week, but I think I learned a valuable lesson here: always create a test blog before converting something over to a new platform. In addition, always save copies of your stuff. But you knew that already, right?
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11.17.06
Posted in News at 8:34 pm by admin
Modern Life Is Rubbish points us towards “Common traits of the top few blogs,” with nifty little pie-charts (reminiscent of our favorite game, Trivial Pursuit) that depict the percentage of bloggers using a particular blog platform, font, background color, and main subject of the blog. Neat-o!
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Honestly, how many people care about the byline in an article? Unless you’re a semi-famous author (or celebrity), the public is more concerned with the article itself than who wrote it. Writers, you want to change that don’t you? The most obvious way is to force your way into the story; forcing yourself into what you write. That’s the gorilla way. Here’s the guerilla way: brand yourself. Check out this article: “How to Effectively Brand Yourself through Blogs.”
