Are You a Silent Blogger?

Written by James - 79 Comments

In the past few weeks, I’ve been discussing the blogging community, how it’s being misused and abused, and how those who don’t abuse it have become my community.
Then I realized that a lot of people out there seem not to do this at all – form a community, that is. So here’s a primer on [...]

Five Things I’ve Learned Since Getting A Book Agent

Written by James - 32 Comments

This is a story about some guy – just a guy like anyone – who decided to start a blog. The next thing he knew…well. I’ll let him tell you about it. Please welcome Josh Hanagarne, the World’s Strongest Librarian.
At the time of this writing, my blog at the World’s Strongest Librarian is five months [...]

How to Decide the Best Community Contribution

Written by James - 34 Comments

Last week, I wrote about deadbeats in the community. I even swore. In English. It was great.
I didn’t really mean it.
Well, I did mean some of it, like the part where I say screw the deadbeats who use ‘community’ as their reason why I should contribute my time and effort into helping them build their [...]

Screw Community

Written by James - 80 Comments

Community is a word you’ll hear all over the internet. You’re part of a community on Twitter. Blog networks are a community. Your blog’s comment section is a community. The whole blogosphere is a community.
You’ll also hear that you should be part of these communities. You should be contributing. You should be giving others a [...]

How to Add Spice to Your Content

Written by James - 26 Comments

Finding ways to help your readers understand your ideas and concepts isn’t always easy – but there are two writer tricks that you can use to get that “a-ha!” from your crowd: analogies and metaphors.
Now, we’ve covered analogies before. You can read about them right here. The short version is that analogies compare something unfamiliar [...]

Don’t Keyword Your Comments

Written by James - 51 Comments

I once heard someone say that a name is the only gift you give a child that lasts forever. The reminder that you really should choose your children’s names wisely (of course) followed that touching thought.
My kids have good names. In fact, one of them has three names, plus a ‘nom composé’ as a last [...]

One Easy Way to Keep Your Blog Readers Happy – And Gain New Ones Fast

Written by James - 42 Comments

A lively, thriving comment section is a hallmark feature of a good blog. But way too many blog owners treat comments like prizes. The more they collect, the better. They don’t respond to each person. They often don’t respond to any person at all.
It’s enough to make you wonder if you should even bother writing [...]

What You Need to Know Before You Start a Video Blog

Written by Harry - 16 Comments

Love it or hate it, video is here to stay. Despite those who need to read and don’t like videos, there are others who think video is the next best thing.
And it could be. In our human need to desire fulfilling all our senses, video blogging (or vlogging) seems the next natural step in [...]

WordPress 2.8: It’s Time to Upgrade Your Site

Written by Harry - 30 Comments

WordPress 2.8 has been released, and the platform has some pretty exciting stuff going on. Many of the improvements involve the scripting and style under the hood, which speeds up WordPress to make it much faster to load and less stressful on your web server.
The real fun stuff is in the dashboard, though. You may [...]

Your Blog Readers Aren’t Buying

Written by James - 61 Comments

If you own a blog, you probably stress out over increasing your readership. The authorities tell us big numbers means success, that you need to get a thriving blog community happening and you need more numbers on display.
The message that numbers count comes across loud and clear. Bloggers stress over how many readers they have [...]

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