Successful Blog

1.2 Indeterminacy of Purpose

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Interview with Indie
His Blog: The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy
URL: indeterminacy.blogspot.com
His initial purpose: to match photos with short fiction in a writer’s photo blog
Thing to note when you visit: the interactivity; the connection between Indie and his readers; the quality of the content; the special features and unique ideas

Indeterminacy of Purpose

1.2 Purpose

Every one of us was a new blogger once. One day we’d never heard of a blog. The next day we had. That was the beginning.

In this part of the conversation, Indie shares how he decided to start a blog and determined what it’s form and purpose would be.

Indie, what made you start the blog? How did you decide on its purpose?

I first found out that blogs existed early in 2004 and had a vague wish to start my own. But I was uncertain as to what it could be. I thought the world could do without another online diary. At the same time I discovered the phenomenon of finding photos via file sharing programs. By summer I had further vague ideas of starting perhaps a photo blog with my own photography, or perhaps a short story, novella, or even a novel built around a series of photographs I had found via p2p. I’d written a few short stories before, but writing had never been a major part of my life. In fact, writing had always been such a painstaking process to me, I could not imagine writing anything longer than a few pages. Despite the verbose answers I am giving here, brevity of expression is one of the concepts I admire most.

My catalyst for beginning the blog was stumbling upon the site 10eastern.com, which had received lots of attention for it’s gallery presentations of found photos, as selected by the site’s proprietor. Until then I was skeptical about the acceptance of a blog which used found photos–photos which were sometimes unintentionally shared.

I greatly admire the stories of John Cage written for his Indeterminacy project, and all of a sudden I realized that the best way for me to do my project was not with a long story wrapped around a series of photographs, but daily one-minute short stories in the form and perhaps style of John Cage’s stories. I believed it would be possible for anyone to have at least one good idea per day. That’s how it all fell into place.

Blogging can keep us so involved day to day, that we forget to stop to see where we are. There was a reason we each started blogging. How has that purpose changed over time? Is our purpose still our guide, or have we lost sight of it?

Knowing the purpose of my blog makes it easier to make decisions about what belongs and what does not. I want to keep enough focus so that when readers return, they’ll know they’re on familiar ground.

My personal blog’s purpose is to offer readers a place to get away from the world, share a few stories, and wonder about things. What’s the purpose of your blog?

Like the bloggers who blog them, every blog needs a purpose in life.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

1.1 Meet Indie

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Interview with Indie
His Blog: The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy
URL: indeterminacy.blogspot.com
Location: Europe
Genre: Writer/Photo Blog
First post: Friday, August 13, 2004
His audience: persons from all walks of life who like to read quality fiction–bloggers, high school and college students, people in the creative arts (artists, writers, stand-up comics, musicians, designers) and people who work with language every day (lawyers, therapists, professors, teachers, editors, company CEO’s)–his blogroll reflects his audience
Thing to note when you visit: the interactivity; the connection between Indie and his readers; the quality of the content; the special features and unique ideas

Meet Indie.

Indie

Indie’s an American blogger, living in Europe. He’s the first interview because his blog shows how quality, creativity, and attention to readers can turn a basic template into a memorable blog. Indie gives his audience a flash fiction story five days a week. He also has made the writer’s blog interactive.

It’s hard to miss the sense of community on this blog. The folks who hang out here are having fun. Indie has both a factual and an intuitive sense of who his readers are and he clearly connects with them. It comes across in their comments and his responses. His writing voice is authentic and engaging. Just listen to his answer to my first question.

Indie, how would you define a successful blog?

Since you selected me as a “successful blog,” I had hoped that you would tell me what the definition would be. . . .

In my case, I call my blog a success because it fulfills my personal feeling for aesthetic and expression. The stories are all short, which gives me time to read and correct them until everything sounds “just right” to me. My feel for what is “good writing” is probably a composite of my years of voracious reading. I never posted anything that I did not think was up to my standard of quality. In this respect I can call my blog a success.

About six weeks into my blogging I received a flattering comment to one of my stories from Anonymous which describes, by process of elimination, that person’s idea of a successful blog. The comment left me stunned and . . . I hope I deserved it.

    “That’s great! All of your stories are good. I get so sick of the intellectual web people who think they’re the next … some one…. They love to attack gods and people and things. They like cynicism for the sake of cynicism. They usually have some Japanese sounding name, and a Nietzsche quote in their signature. They want desperately to be “thinkers” and “uber” and different and cool, but there is something fundamental that they just don’t get. I find 95% of blogs and stuff on the web to be like that, 95% of the stories and fiction to be entwined with some bitter little agenda.”

Three of my stories have been included in the quarterly E-zine Practically Creative which is another sign for me that I am on the right track.

Indie proves that success has many definitions. We’ll be talking with him all this week. If you haven’t experienced his blog, I encourage you to. There’s a great chance you’ll find something that sparks an idea that works for you.

Have questions or comments for Indie about his definition of success or what you’ve seen on his blog? Feel free to leave it for him here. He’ll be stopping by all week to join the conversation.

Tomorrow–Indie’s Audience–why they come, what they like, how they find him, ideas for interactivity, and more . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Building Readership: Community Participation

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Guest Writer: Hanni Ross

As recently discussed, community participation is a great way of building traffic to your weblog. Scrivs mentioned commenting on other weblogs as a way of getting your voice out there, and another post offers a great list of starting tips on building traffic. The key message from those two articles is community participation. The more you give to the community the more you can expect to get back. You might wonder where to start, well, that’s where we come in.

Say you’ve just written an article that you’re particularly proud of, how do you get it out there?

  • If you were inspired by another blog post then send a trackback/pingback (for a good explanation of trackback see here). This not only makes the original author aware of your post it also generates a link to your post on their site. Like-minded readers will therefore discover your post and who knows, they might feel the need to write a response or even to link to it from their own weblog.
  • Email the article to a few of your friends and cohorts. They might like it and also feel moved to write a response or to link to it. You have to be very careful on this one though, you can easily lose credit by appearing to “spam” your peers with your work.
  • Participate fully in any discussion that might happen in the
    comment section. Show your readers that you value their input and make your site a nice place to visit.

More generally, how can you gain community-wide recognition?

  • Say, for example, your weblog is primarily about cats. If you happen to frequent any cat forums on the web add your weblog’s URL into the signature. Similarly, if you are a member of any
    relevant mailing lists then it couldn’t hurt to add your URL to your signature.
  • Again participation in any resources on your weblog’s topic can only do you good. Get your name out there as someone who knows what they’re talking about. Think carefully before you write on any discussion boards or mailing lists – anything you write in a moment of madness might come back to haunt you…
  • If you do happen to write a column or just occasional articles for other websites then ensure to include your URL in your author bio. If you have built up a reputation elsewhere then there’s no reason why you can’t use it to show people that you’re channelling your efforts into a weblog too.
  • If you have expertise then share it. If you have a gardening background for example and therefore know more about caring for house plants than most then share your tips. Make yourself an indispensable resource.
  • Hunt around for any relevant directory sites and ensure that you’re included, that way people coming to your site are more likely to be those who will stick around as they are interested in your
    subject matter.

It’s important to communicate your energy, enthusiasm and ideas to others to make yourself known. Good luck!

We’re building up a catalog of tips here at Successful Blog, if you have any you’d like to share then don’t hesitate to leave them in the comments.

Blogging Lite Checklist NEW/IMPROVED VERSION

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UPDATE:

In the article, 10+1 Qualities of Bloggers and Our Readers, the third bullet was

  • Bloggers love to disrupt the status quo.

Well, sometimes this blogger does, and sometimes she doesn’t. She sure doesn’t like to stir things up, when she doesn’t know she’s doing it.

A new blog comes with a learning curve, and this one came with an audience. I just showed what happens when you try to make friends with your readers just a bit too fast. Even with experience, it’s an easy thing to do. In fact, it might be easier because you know once the hellos are over, the real conversations start.

So if I might say one thing,

I’ve read the checklist over again. I agree with Richard. It has problems with the tone. The beauty of blogging is that I can fix this immediately. So I’m going to edit the checklist, but let the comments on the original stay just as they were.

Blogging Checklist For Emperor Penguins

1. Turn on the printer and print out this checklist. If you don’t have a printer. Don’t try to turn it on. STOP HERE. I know that you’re an Emperor, but there’s some things that you can’t do. Bloggers are friendly folks. Ask a blogging penguin to print it out for you.

2. Find your blog. If you cannot find your blog, get help from a blogger friend. If you do not have a blog, STOP HERE. This is a blogging checklist, you need a blog. But if I might speak freely, Emperor sir, getting started isn’t hard, and mistakes shouldn’t worry you. In fact, as a penguin you might find it familiar. Writing for a blog can be like etching things in ice . . . nothing on a blog is set entirely in stone. The rewrite of this list just for you is perfect proof of that. 🙂

3. If you found your blog, I fear, Emperor, you must go back and start with number 1. If you’ve forgotten what you’re doing or why you’re doing this STOP HERE. You might be like me and don’t do well with printed documentation. Go ahead and try a little experimentation.

4. Check off number 1, if you actually did it. If you did not, you ARE an EMPEROR penguin after all, STOP HERE. With all your penguin followers, you might consider another way to blog. Do what the mainstream media do–hire a ghostblogger.

My apologies to the more-enlightened Emperor Penguins. The time alloted for this checklist has expired. We’ll have to continue another time with the rest of this checklist. . . . 🙂

ALSO NEXT WEEK:

An Interview with INDIE

about his successful blog from Germany,
The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy (Say that three times quickly.)

Go visit to see what makes it tick.

See you then!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Tips: Writing Clearly

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Guest Writer: Hanni Ross

Recently I’ve been thinking about how important it is to be able to get your point across well. I’m not particularly good at this myself so have been doing some research.
In my research I stumbled across a powerpoint presentation entitled “How to Write More Clearly, Think More Clearly, and Learn Complex Material More Easily“.

You might be wondering what this has to do with Successful Blogs, but I think that it’s important that you take writing for your blog as seriously as you would take writing a newspaper article or even a book perhaps. It’s important to have a reliable method and to be organised with both the planning and writing of the article and in conveying the message you would like to get across.
The presentation touches on the writing process itself and breaks it down into five steps:

  1. Planning (deciding what & how to write)
  2. Drafting (getting it on paper once)
  3. Revising (getting it on paper better)
  4. Editing (fixing spelling, grammar, typing)
  5. Formatting (choosing typefaces, layout, etc.)

You probably spend a lot of time considering your entries anyway, but perhaps it’s worth putting in just that extra minute or scrutinising your writing process just that bit more to see how you can improve.

If you have a good writing process then you’ll produce good work; you’ll start to develop a style which you’re readers will recognize and feel reassured by.

Further than that, take a closer look at the article itself, are you Writing to be Understood?

10 + 1 Qualities of Bloggers and Our Readers

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First there were bulletin boards. Over time they became forums and then chat rooms. Web sites were born and were gathered into portals. Each of them uses the magic of the Internet in a slightly different way. None of them quite captures the personality and creativity of so many individuals as blogging.

What is it about blogging that makes it so addictive both to bloggers and our readers? What am I talking about? Pete Blackshaw of Intelliseek explains it in his ClickZ article Ten Simple Rules for Dating a Blogger. I’ve used his rules to derive ten blogger descriptions. Do you see yourself in them?

  • Bloggers are always clicking. We see and report everything with amazing clarity.
  • Bloggers are never one. We are part of a social network. We love sharing information.
  • Bloggers are almost chameleons. The world of blogging is flexible and agile. Great bloggers are too. That’s how we’re creeping into all kinds of online publishing.
  • Bloggers love to disrupt the status quo. We live by doing things better, faster, cheaper. We have WAY MORE personality than our webmaster counterparts. It shows up in how we write and in what we like to read.
  • Not all bloggers are on the up and up. In fact spam and advertorial content is what some slimy bloggers are really about. Successful bloggers don’t need them.
  • Bloggers have their addictions and temptations. We are involved with Search Engine Optimization. We can’t quit checking ad program words. We are crazy copy generators. We are constantly checking links and statistics. . . . Excuse me for a minute. (If you don’t know what those things are, that’s why we’re putting together a Blogger’s Survival Kit.)
  • Bloggers live for our bloggy “big breaks.” It might take time, but our position changes. The first notice by a big search engine, the first trend search that shows up on Blog Pulse, the first page ranking at Google–these are our academy awards. We know not to expect our nonblogging friends to understand it.
  • Bloggers don’t tolerate imposters. If someone we trust has steered us wrong, you can bet we’re long gone. . . . and possibly blogging about it.
  • Bloggers think in lists. We list early and often. We know that lists are key to keeping information moving fast and furiously.
  • Bloggers like to have our say or we wouldn’t be blogging.

and I added this one

  • Successful bloggers know what we’re blogging about and who we’re blogging for.

So there they are 10+1 Qualities of Bloggers and Our Readers. Know any others I should add to the list? How do we use this information to make our blogs more enticing to our blogger-readers?

–ME “Liz” Strauss