The Three Golden Rules for Surviving Blog Challenges

By Terri Rochenski

This year I decided to join in the A-Z blog challenge. It’s a big undertaking, not a quickie way to gain faithful followers. I learned a few things along the way – things that had I not done, I never would have succeeded.

Being prepared. 

As a stay-at-home mom, finding time to read and write is tough. Life itself often gets in the way, distracting me from deadlines that must be met. I realized the only way I would make it through this challenge would be to do things in advance. I’m ridiculously organized, so I made up a to-do list – preparing my mind I WAS going to succeed being #1.

Chose a theme.

I read this countless times, and decided since I’m such a neat / order freak this idea was perfect for me. I chose quotes & excerpts, then went on to create my own little widget to place at the beginning of each post letting visitors know what my challenge was all about. After this, I scoured my publisher & the world of fantasy books for titles that began with each letter of the alphabet.

Scheduling.

Starting a month before the challenge began I dove into pre-blogging. Getting posts completed in advance took the stress of the challenge off my shoulders. Luckily, I was able to complete all 26 posts before the challenge even began, thus freeing up the entire month of April for … well, life!

And the month of April brought a LOT of life.

Yes, I visited blogs during the challenge – I even signed up to help ‘police’ the linky list of participants. On top of that, there was 20 feet of the front of my house being completely ripped open for a new entryway and front windows, spring break for daughter #1, 10 day vacation at my parent’s internet-less Pennsylvania homestead where I grew up, an ARC to read for my publisher, and awful, all-day-long morning sickness.  o_O

Will I do this or a similar challenge again? Depends. If I have a major deadline looming like I do right now for the completion of the 2^nd book in my 2-book series contracted with J. Taylor Publishing, then I’d have to say NO. Or if child #3 turns out to be a ripping terror who doesn’t let me sit and breathe until 8 at night it’ll be NO.

But if the next challenge comes along when only “normal” life is looming, I’ll give it a go. I just won’t attempt it without following these golden rules!

How about you? Planner? Panster? What got you through your last challenge?

Terri Rochenski

Website / Blog / Facebook / Twitter / Goodreads

About the Author: Terri started writing stories in the 8^th grade, when a little gnome whispered in her brain. Gundi’s Great Adventure never hit the best seller list, but it started a long love affair with storytelling.

Today she enjoys an escape to Middle Earth during the rare ‘me’ moments her two young daughters allow. When not playing toys, picking them back up, or kissing boo-boos, she can be found sprawled on the couch with a book or pencil in hand, and toothpicks propping her eyelids open.

Blogging Basics: Guest Posting

Last week, we discussed the basics of blog hops and memes, and how to make connections with them.  This week, we'll discuss making connections by guest posting on other blogs.

The five pointers last week were: 1. Be Interested, 2. Participate, 3. Follow the Rules, 4. Visit Other Participants, and 5. Advertise the Hop/Meme.

Guest posts can expose you to new readers, as each blog already has its own readership.  Thus, this is a valuable way to meet other bloggers and possibly build your own readership (as well as bring your readers over to the host's blog, benefiting both of you.)

Some basic rules for guest posting are as follows:

1. Choose a relevant host blog.  You want to find a blog that will have a readership that might be interested in what you typically post about.  If you are a writer of romance novels, it behooves you to find a host blog that has something to do with romance, reading, writing, or other related topics.  You will likely not find the appropriate audience on a hardcore science blog or one that focuses on politics, for instance.

2. Choose a relevant blog topic.  You've chosen an appropriate blog, now be sure the post you write up is a topic that is relevant to both your blog and the host blog.  You don't want to trick their readers into coming over to your blog, just to discover your post has nothing to do with what they will find there.  Don't make an entire post that is just about self-promotion.  Your guest post should have valid information and be interesting.  Choose a topic and do it justice.

3. Be present and visit the commenters.  Know when your blog post will be going live on their blog, then be sure to show up.  Respond to comments and questions left in response to your blog.  Be a presence and show that you care what they think, and that you weren't just throwing a post out there.  And just as you should visit those who comment on your blog, you should visit those who visit your post on another blog.  Stop by, read what they have to say, and leave them a nice comment.  If you really can't think of anything to say, or are limited on time, at least thank them for stopping by.  Your friendly personality might win you more readers than the guest post itself.

4. Link them back to your site.  Always give readers a way to find you.  The best way to do this is to include a short bio at the end of the post, which should include important links, such as your website, your blog, etc.  You may just choose to include a list of contact points/links, or you may include a link to your blog or website somewhere within the body of the post.

5. Thank your host.  Be sure to show your appreciation to the host.  Thank them in your post, in the comments, with an email, whatever you feel comfortable with.  Let them know you appreciate that they were willing to share their space with you.  Think of it as them having invited their friends over to their house to listen to you talk.  Wasn't that nice of them?  Also, as an advance thank you, be sure to ask them what they want from your post and how to format it.  Giving them something they can easily cut and paste, and that they will be happy to share on their blog, is the best way to thank them.  The thank you at the end is well deserved frosting on the cake.

Always remember that the host is doing you a favor by sharing their space with you, and treat them accordingly.  Try to make this exchange as easy on them as possible by having a well written post that is relevant to their blog, and that is formatted nicely, easily, and to their specifications.  If you have questions, it's better to ask them, rather than leaving it up in the air whether you're doing what they need you to do.

May you find your Muse.

Shannon
The Warrior Muse

Special Announcement:   The special A to Z edition of Woven Tale Press is now available!   Be sure to check out Woven Tale Press.    Is one of your blog posts included?

Tim Brannan guest post

Hello everyone and my name is Tim Brannan, some of you might know me from either of my two blogs The Other Side (gaming, horror and geek life) or The Freedom of Nonbelief (atheism, science and human rights).  I also am one of a groups of bloggers at Amazon Princess and Red Sonja - She Devil with a Sword.  I am guest posting at the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.

One of the reasons I first got into blogging was to expand my abilities as a writer and help build an audience for my various game books.  I started my blog, The Other Side, as a design journal for my then WIP The Witch.  Then something interesting happened.  I became part of a community.  Sure I had been part of an online community before, via message boards, chat and even going all the way back to BBSes and Telnet.  But a blogging community is something a little different.  I can say my bits here and then others respond, I respond back and there is the back and forth that is very nice.  I then go to other blogs and repeat the process as a responder.   Over the years I have integrated nicely into a community of other bloggers in both gaming and atheism.  I continually get ideas based one what ever the topic du jour is.

I do not underestimate the value of community here.
That is one of the reasons why I feel the Bloghop or Blogfest is critical part of my blogging experience.  For the month of May I am participating in seven different bloghops/blogfests.  I am considering adding an eighth.

I enjoy participating in these for a number of reasons.

First off it exposes me to new bloggers.  I get to read something new and potentially someone new to follow with each one.  For the A to Z challenge I end following a dozen or so new bloggers.  Likewise it exposes me to a new audience and potential followers to my blogs. There are a lot of blogs out there. There are even blogs out there that have similar interests to that I never saw before.  Joining a Horror-related bloghop, for example, is a good way for me to find people with similar tastes outside my normal circles, but joining a "First Loves" bloghop really gets some diversity for me!

Secondly it stretches me a writer.  So with all of these blogs you think I have a lot to talk about.  Yet I have to admit that there are some days that I open up Blogger and stare at a blank screen. A good bloghop gives me ideas, and failing that it gives me motivation.    One of the more obscure ones I joined was one dedicated to silent film star Mary Pickford.  Now you might ask how a game-blog with an emphasis on old-school games and horror can have anything to say about a silent film star, but in truth there was a movie that had a huge influence on my future writing.  Being able to share that with my primary audience (my regular readers) and my new audience (people in the blog hop) was great, especially since I needed to write from the point of view to satisfy both.

At this point I do want comment on not alienating your audience.  I know there are some people, not a lot, but some, in my regular blogging circles that do not like blogfests, and the A to Z one in particular.  I want to be cognizant of this.  Not tailoring my involvement to the loudest minority mind you, but what it means to my primary audience.  If I were for example were to spend the entire month of June doing nothing but talking about silent movies the people that come to my blog for gaming material will be turned off and leave.  I participate in these bloghops/blogfests, but I have to make sure that anything I post would have been something I would have posted anyway.

I enjoyed being in the A to Z blogfest the last three years.  Each year I do something a little different.  I am thankful to all the mods, helpers and minions that made this years' run so much smoother.  A real special thanks goes our to Arlee Bird for driving this Leviathan every year.  This year I was more focused and did things that will end up in my next book Eldritch Witchery.  Again, stuff I was going to write anyway and share.  This time it ended getting more diverse feedback than say if I had done it in June.

In the end I guess these things are what make of them.  For me they have been a great experience both as writer who happens to be blogging and as a blogger in a community of bloggers.   Now if there was only a central place where all the blogfest and bloghops were advertised that would be great!

Maybe someone else can take that on. I have some posts that are screaming at me to write. ;)

About the Author: Tim Brannan is an author and blogger living in the suburbs of Chicago.  He has worked on a number of games including the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG, Ghosts of Albion, and The Witch.  He is currently working on Eldritch Witchery for Elf Lair Games and Darwin's Guide to Creatures for Battlefield Press for the Gaslight RPG.  When not working on game material or blogging he spends time with wife and two sons.  During the day he designs curriculum for universities going online. Prior to this he was teaching Statistics at the university.

Dying blogger giving away 100 dollars, people laugh like crazy

And now a late-breaking A to Z news report:

Dying blogger giving away 100 dollars, people laugh like crazy

Mumbai: In an interesting development, a broke amateur blogger who lost his job thanks to the April AtoZ challenge, has decided to give away his last 100 dollars through a blogging contest. The announcement sent shockwaves of amusement throughout the blogging community, with incidents of laughter induced hernia and vomiting reported from all over the world.

Our agency was among the first to report the tragic loss of Akhil’s job when he was caught writing articles for the AtoZ challenge during office hours. The blogging community, crossing borders and cutting lines, had strongly supported him and his right to get the load off his head. This time though, the reaction is completely opposite.

Vaisakh, a blogger from India, tried his best to talk to us over the phone. However his incessant, breathless laughter rendered all his words inaudible. After half an hour of effort, he finally caught some air and said:

“I’ve known that guy from the first day he started writing. I really liked his incoherent, thoughtless banter, made me feel really good about my own writing. But then tragedy struck and he was thrown out of his job. People really sympathised with him you know, but sympathy doesn’t pay the bills, does it? I can’t believe he is stupid enough to give away his last penny, that too through a blogging contest! I mean do you see the irony here? One challenge took away his job, the other one is gonna take away his life! He has really outshined Peter Griffin I tell you.”

We caught up with his fellow blogger Ayush Chauhan at a cheap liquor joint just outside of town. Sticking a dirty needle up his left arm, he talked about the good times and how it all went down the drain so quickly:

“We were 2 broke IT guys. Then we were 2 broke IT guys who blogged. Our dreams of making thousands of dollars online were brutally shattered when he got fired. Ever since then, he has been begging me for some money, but you can see how things are. I’m glad he is getting it over with. That poor bastard never knew what hit him. May he rest in peace.”

Source: www.zuzafun.com[/caption]

When last seen, Akhil was living in a cardboard box just outside of Vashi station. He appeared frail and delusional, and kept muttering something about the Govt. taking away his home. Our reporters managed to get some fluids inside him, giving him the energy to speak:

“Sure, I lost my job due to the AtoZ, but it inspired me to write. I finally got a place to put my endless thoughts to rest. This is my tribute to my blogging friends, my death will spawn 100 new articles and those 100 will give birth to 10000! Money is so overrated I tell you, and eternal glory costs only 100 dollars. I invite you to share this glory with me.”

The situation continues to be grim but excruciatingly funny.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

      Okay so the article is not totally real, but the contest part is.   For more information check out 1 Hundred Works.

Related articles

• Forced by A to Z Challenge, man loses job.
• Travels Within and Without
• Building Communities: Corinne Rodrigues and the A2Zeders

A-Z Reflections 2013: Ornery's Wife from Zoe's Cottage

As I was out reading Reflections Posts, I came across some fantastic ones that I thought would generate a good discussion. Perhaps you were too weary to write your own, but I'm pretty sure you still have some opinions. I thought Ornery's Wife did a great job of outlining some of the main topics we as co-hosts want to hear your opinions about. So comment away, or if you've already done so in your reflections post, feel free to leave the link to it in the comments. ~Tina

Since I have a strong tendency to FORGET things, I may have forgotten to write this when I had planned to and in fact may forget to put in some important thing.  I hope not...

First, the Positive aspects of the challenge:

• It was very well organized and advertized
• There were many participants, from diverse backgrounds, locations and perspectives
• I found a LOT of new blogs to follow
• Many new friends are following my blog :)
• There was a lot of information up front about how to be successful and by reading that I was able to finish the challenge successfully and change up many aspects of my blog to make it more reader and comment friendly.  I do love me some comments!
• After reading so many blog posts with the Captcha turned off, when I found one with that in it I was shocked! :)  I only had one or two anonymous comments that were unrelated to the post and those were directed to Blogger's spam folder.
• I like only having to link up ONE time at the beginning of the challenge instead of daily--sometimes I can't get to my computer until late in the day and not having to stress if I didn't make it at all was really nice!
• My Google Chrome browser highlighted which blogs I had already visited on the linky list so I could check out new ones easily since (as I mentioned before) I am inclined to FORGET things like where I had been before.  It only worked if I clicked the link directly from the list (as opposed to from another comment on a blog) and in Chrome (not Firefox) but that was how I usually went "shopping" for another friend. :)
• I love that there was not a set theme other than the alphabet letter for the day--you could choose your own theme for the month or choose not to use one at all and fly by the seat of your pants. 
• I was also glad there was no length requirement.  Some of my favorite reads were just a picture with a caption.  I also found that if the post was really long and about a topic I was only marginally interested in, I didn't spend much time there.
• I was challenged to amp up my writing, both in quality and quantity. The challenge seemed to attract a really large group of "real" writers, and their content was more often than not meaty and fun to read with fewer glaring grammar errors. 
• Truly, this was an amazing collection of bloggers!  Not only did most of them reciprocate visits, a lot of them left great comments. I have never had that type of response in any other blogging carnival/hop  in the past.

Now for the negative aspects, if one could call it that--Perhaps more like constructive criticism?

• There were several blogs I visited that never did post a single entry for the challenge after they announced they were participating or else dropped out early in the month. I couldn't find the email address to send the links to so I didn't ever report them. Even at the end of the month I was still stumbling across some of those.  Perhaps there could be a link on the linky page of the A to Z blog about where to report? (or did I just miss it??)
• I came across several blogs with Adult Content that were not flagged on the list. I may choose to visit one, but I would like to know in advance it is such. Otherwise the tags on the blogs were somewhat helpful when deciding which ones to visit.  For the most part the AC notes were the only ones I tended to avoid because I FORGOT what the different letters stood for other than WR and I didn't want to take the time to go back up and read the list.
• The Disqus comment thing was annoying.  Some of the blogs allowed you to comment with just your name and email address, but others required you to have a Disqus account or log in with Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter.  I didn't comment there.
• Some of the blogger profiles are linked to their Google+ account, but there is not a visible link to their blog in their feed. So, when tracing down a comment I was directed to Google+ but couldn't reciprocate their visit because I couldn't find their blog address.  Perhaps if someone has their blog set up this way they might add a blog link to their home page or else in the comment itself.
• I was more likely to comment on a blog whose comment link was at the bottom of the post as opposed to having to drive back up to the top to find it.  Some of them were so small and hard to find it took a lot of time.  
• I was more likely to read a post if the entire thing was displayed when I arrived on the site as opposed to having to click a "read more" link. Page re-loads take valuable reading time and as I mentioned above, I have a tendency to peruse the length of the post before I read it to determine if I have enough time (or attention) to give to a lengthy piece or not.

And that is about it.  Thanks to Arlee Bird and all the helpers who made the challenge so much fun and easy to participate in.  Thanks to all my new followers and those who left such insightful comments on the posts. Thanks to you for reading this one!  I'll be back next year, maybe on more than one blog! :)

Thanks, Ornery's Wife (love that name) for sharing. Please go visit her at Zoe's Cottage and give her some more bloggy love.