Are You A Blogger Buddy Or A Blogger Bum?

A guest post from John Sherry of RealSimplePeople

Everybody needs a friend.

We really can’t do life without them.

And that includes bloggers too.

With just the laptop for company and umpteen hours behind the small screen, bloggers could do with some bigging up and support. It can be a lonely existence tapping away on the keyboard day after day, so a friendly face and a few kind words, even if they are only comments on a post with a gravatar picture to match, can prove food to the writer’s soul.

But friendship is a two lane street – it goes both ways. What you give is what you get and the blogosphere is no different.

Blogship is friendship so its best to be a blogger buddy and not a blogger bum.

So, if you’re not sure of the difference between the two, here’s the low down on whether you are a friend or foe when you log on and blog on.

Blogger Buddy.

This person represents blogging and contribution at it best. Here’s what they do:-

  • Regularly post consistently high quality content designed to inform, advise, help, and solve problems in a particular niche or field.
  • Visit and read other blogs in a similar sphere leaving comments and opinion to back up and support the host blogger adding value with their words and thoughts.
  • Develop respected connections with other bloggers including via e-mail and on social media where they share their posts and products to a wider audience, all with a positive angle and ‘don’t-miss-this-it’s-ace’ ethic.
  • Invite other bloggers to write guest posts for their blog and happily reciprocate if asked only ever creating the same excellent work for others as they do for their own site.
  • Are an active participant in blog forums and online communities, even attending live events,  happily offering their insight and the pitfalls they’ve experienced so everyone can gain and not make the same mistakes.
  • Feel a good reputation is worth having any day rather than climbing all over people to be a success.
  • Is prepared to work at it not just aiming for or expecting overnight success, being keen to get respect and recognition for amazing content from peers and the public alike, even if it takes years.

Blogger buddies are the cement in the blogosphere bricks and the very foundations that the blogging world has successfully been built upon. They are warm and approachable and are team players wanting everyone to be a winner.

Does that sound like you? Or could you actually be the dreaded Blogger Bum?

Blogger Bum

This person is only out for themselves and is the ‘I’ in Internet. They don’t want friends, they want something else like somewhere to make money, mischief, or moronic statements.

This is some of what they get up to:-

  • Writing very average non structured content as well as cobbling together other people’s blog posts and claiming them as their own, all on an intermittent basis.
  • Posts often speak about how great they are, their awesome work and what success they have achieved, the money they are raining in, plus what brilliant things they are about to do next that you should get involved with. In other words; me, me, me!
  • Guest posts aren’t welcome or encouraged on their blog as it takes traffic away, but they chase down other bloggers for a slice of their action, often in a very coarse fashion.
  • They rarely comment on other blogs except to boast about their profile and to leave links to their site, upcoming book sale, or a selected affiliate they want plugging to earn oodles of bucks from.
  • Forums and communities are hated by them as it’s about giving and they are about taking. Why help others when you can help yourself?
  • They have few good blogger relationships as their selfish attitude leaves a trail of bad feeling and negative feedback from experiencing their behaviour and actions.

Blogger bums knock down the walls others work hard to build in and for the online blogging neighbourhood. They trash for cash or speak out simply to freak out people, their only concern being their own welfare and what’s-in-it-for-me. The only person that matter is them as they wage a one man (or woman) war to win at all costs.

So there it is – which one are you?

Tough question perhaps but take a rain check and check out your online activity today.

It’s worth taking time to truly figure this out because there’s more to blogging than being first, just as there’s more to friendship than taking first.

You can be a blogger buddy and do the write stuff, or be a blogger bum stuffing it up wherever you go.

Your blogging personality is your personal statement to the world, so which one are you making?

John Sherry is a member of the A-List Blogger Club. He writes the Real Simple People blog. As a coach and blogger he teaches people how to enjoy simply being themselves and all the natural happiness and success this leads to.

“The A-List Blogger Club is an absolute goldmine. If I’m honest I can’t be without it”. ~ John Sherry of Real Simple People

Categories: Blogging

How A Few Measly Words Can Dramatically Improve Your Article Headlines

A guest post by Sean DSouza of Psychotactics

Put couple of tablespoons of petrol in your car’s tank today. And see what happens to the car.

I’ll tell you what. It’ll probably take you a few inches further.

And you’ll say to yourself: “What the heck? What difference will a few inches make?”
Just as you’d say: “What the heck? What difference will a word or two make to enhance the power of a headline?”

You’ll be amazed, how by simply adding a target + a specific, you’ll make your headline far more attractive in a matter of seconds.

Why don’t we find out for ourselves, eh?

And let’s start off by taking a random topic…

e.g. Let’s take an topic such as: ‘Why article writing is the key’

But the key to ‘what?’

Most writers leave out the core detail. They miss out telling you where the article is going in the first instance. And these writers don’t leave out the core detail on purpose.

They just don’t realise the importance of the core detail. And the core detail should usually contain what we’d loosely call a ‘target.’

A ‘target’ is simply ‘who or what are we speaking about?’

Let’s me demonstrate what I mean, by doing a little addition.

So instead of: Why article writing is the key…

We say: Why article writing is the key ‘to getting strategic alliances.’
We say: Why article writing is the key ‘to getting clients.’
We say: Why article writing is the key ‘to getting paid.’

Notice what happened when we put in that ‘target’?

First, it actually gave your article a solid direction. And hey, it did even more. It created curiosity. Your la-la topic, suddenly spruced up, brushed its hair, and put on a tuxedo.

And if you’re amazed at what adding a ‘target’ could do, let’s now add a ‘specific’ to that headline. I’m going to replace just one word/one phrase at a time. And you watch.

Watch how the article literally swings from one side to another.

Example 1:

Why article writing is the key.
Why article writing is the key to getting strategic alliances.
Why article writing is the key to getting ‘active’ strategic
alliances.

Example 2:
Why article writing is the key.
Why article writing is the key to getting clients.
Why article writing is the key to getting ‘higher-paying’ clients.

Example 3:
Why article writing is the key.
Why article writing is the key to getting paid.
Why article writing is the key to getting paid ‘in advance.’

So you see what we did?

We took the core topic.
We added a target.
We added one specific such as ‘active’ or ‘higher-paying’ or ‘in advance’.
And we instantly intensified the power of the headline.

Amazingly that change in the headline did a lot more. It made the article easier for you to write. Without the ‘target’ and the ‘specifics’, the headline was weak, and the resulting article would be a soggy waffle.

But as we put in the ‘target’ and the ‘specific’ it actually forced you to focus on that specific, thus resulting in a mucho superior article.

Instead of the article being general and vague, it’s now specific.

You’re either going to be writing about ‘article writing’ and ‘active strategic alliances.’ Or ‘article writing’ and ‘higher-paying clients.’ Or ‘article writing’ and ‘getting paid in advance.’

You’re most certainly not going to write about all three (not right today, at least!)

Because as you can plainly see, they’re three completely different articles, going in three completely different directions. But when you have a vague headline, it’s almost impossible to keep the content of the article focused.

When you have a specific headline, it’s darned impossible to go off track.

What’s more is that your audience is more focused too, because the rest of your article is delivering exactly what the headline promised.

The specificity of the headline is what drew the reader in, and it’s the specificity of the rest of the article that will keep the reader reading.

And if you don’t believe me, remove those measly words…

Remove the specifics. Chop off the target.
Then write your article.

The headline loses power. The article weaves, then stalls. What’s worse is that the entire article becomes so much harder to write.

And even if you were to actually complete and publish the article, your reader would not experience a sense of clarity.

And you get that clarity with just two measly words. The addition of just a measly word or two, and your article is vrroooming down the road.

And hey, in the right direction too!

To read more articles by Sean DSouza—and get a very useful report on “Why Headlines Fail”, go to PsychoTactics.com

Categories: Uncategorized

10 Simple Ways to Double the Speed of Your Writing … Right Now

A guest post by Henri Junttila from WakeUpCloud.com.

Imagine being able to produce the same amount of writing you do now in half the time.

Or even producing double the amount of work you do now in the same amount of time. It’s not only possible to do, but very simple.

I’ve written thousands of articles during the period I’ve been making a full time living online, and I’ve discovered that the only thing holding me back from writing faster is myself.

You see, we all have beliefs within that tell us what our writing speed limit is. As I’ve let go of these beliefs and blocks, I’ve found myself writing faster and getting into the writing zone effortlessly.

With all that said, let’s look at ten simple ways you can double the speed of your writing, right now:

1. Outline

The first thing that has proven highly effective for me and my writing is to outline my articles before I start writing.

I know this sounds ridiculously simple. The problem is that most people know about outlining but never use it in their writing properly.

For example, with this article I brainstormed a good headline, and I then wrote down the 10 different ways that you can double the speed of your writing.

It’s nothing fancy, but it works wonders for me and as you implement it into your writing, you may notice the same effects.

2. Single-Task

The next step is to single task, and eliminate any and all distractions while you’re writing.

I know this is hard with Twitter, Facebook and e-mail beeping for our attention, but I’ve found that I can significantly increase the speed of my writing by simply doing nothing other than writing.

Another really simple tip, but the magic lies not in complexity, but in simplicity.

So focus on getting your first draft done and then allow yourself to check e-mail or whatever your addiction is.

Or you may want to wait until the end of the day until you reward yourself.

3. Destroy Your Inner Critic

Our inner critic gets in the way of writing the first draft fast, because it wants to have everything perfect before you’ve even written the article.

You can simply thank your inner critic for caring about the quality of your work and focus on getting the first draft done.

Tell your inner critic that you will edit the article after you’ve written it. The magic in writing well is not in producing a perfect first draft, but editing and rewriting afterward.

4. Voice-to-Text

Another fantastic way to increase the speed of your writing is to use voice to text software such as Dragon NaturallySpeaking.

In fact, I’m using this very program to write this article. It allows my hands to take a break and it lets the inspiration flow freely.

It is not without mistakes, but it is amazingly accurate, especially when you’ve used it for a while and it has gotten used to your voice and way of speaking.

5. Brain Dump

Whenever I’m stuck, I set a goal to write as fast as I can. If I run out of things to say or write, I will simply repeat the last word to keep the momentum going.

Brain dumping is a great way to get all your ideas out.

Once you’ve got the ideas on there, you can pick and choose the ideas that you think are relevant to whatever message you’re trying to convey.

6. Deadline

If you want to dramatically cut down the time you spend writing articles, I suggest you get an egg timer or a regular clock and set a deadline for each article.

If you’re writing a 500 word article, you may want to set a deadline for 10 minutes.

This will force you to get everything out as fast as possible. It will also help to suspend your inner critic and focus on what’s truly important.

7. Routine

We all have routines and rituals that help us get into the right state for writing.

Mine is often making a cup of green tea and sipping it while I outline whatever I’m going to work on.

Think back to the last time you felt really good about diving into your writing. What did you do? How did you feel? Where were you?

8. Place

There are places where you seem to get into the flow of writing effortlessly. For some people this may mean going to a coffee shop, while others like sitting in nature with no distractions at all.

I personally prefer writing at my desk with total silence. I may listen to music from time to time, but often enjoy the silence.

Find your own sacred writing space and spend your time writing there as much as possible.

9. Replicate the Zone

Think about a time when you’ve been in the zone. How do you know when you’re entering the zone?

What do you feel inside your body? What is it that tells you that you’re now in the zone and your writing is flowing effortlessly onto the page?

You see, when you identify what the zone looks like to you, you can replicate it.

10. Passion

This may seem irrelevant at first, but have you ever noticed how much more you get done when you’re passionate about the topic you’re working on?

I certainly have.

Being passionate is not only important in writing, but in every area of your life. If you constantly do what excites you, you will produce high-quality work while at the same time feeling good about yourself.

As you finish reading this article, I want to remind you that you already have all the resources within you to easily write faster, better, and higher quality articles.

We often get in our own way, and as you become aware of this, you can begin to realize that you can get into the zone whenever you want.

Henri writes at Wake Up Cloud, where you can get his free course: Find Your Passion in 5 Days or Less. And if you liked this article, you will enjoy one of his top articles: How to Get Inspired to Write in 10 Minutes or Less.

Join Leo Babauta and Mary Jaksch in the A-List Blogger Club!

Categories: Productivity

Get More Done with Creative Quickies

A guest post by Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse.

You yearn for that week-long rendezvous with your Muse, the one where they (the mysterious, powerful and there-to-serve-you they) leave a basket filled with lunch goodies on your cabin doorstep. Where you have no laundry, no carpooling duties, no meetings to endure and no one else to attend to but your creative genius.

Or that day-long writing session where you do nothing but sip your cup of perfectly brewed green tea and express your creative passion in your studio.

Truth is, we’re pulled in so many directions that long stretches of time to immerse ourselves in our creativity are rare indeed.

If you’re not getting the time you need with your Muse, perhaps it’s time to consider the Creative Quickie. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes, thirty minutes to get in, get your creative juju on, and go on with the rest of your obligations.

I can hear you protesting now, “But Cynthia, I need at least thirty minutes just to get into my creative flow.” That may be true, and I suspect it takes longer when you know you have hours ahead of you. Our creative energy will take as much space as we give it.

Let me repeat that: Our creative energy will take as much space as we give it. So give it more with regular creative quickies.

Try Creative Quickies

The creative quickie works to help you stay connected to your Muse when life threatens to break the two of you up. As I’ve seen with my clients, there are always more demands on our time than seem manageable.

When you slip in Creative Quickies on a regular basis you will:

Dispel the notion that you need tons of time to ‘get into the flow’. You can learn shortcuts that will allow you to slip in and out of your zone more easily.

Keep a thread of connection to your work. Short, consistent sessions with your project will keep it at the top of your mind. New ideas and strategies will be incubated while you go about the rest of your life.

Gain energy for the rest of your day. When you have even a brief encounter with your project, it can fuel you for your other work.

Build self-confidence. When you blow off your creative projects because you think you don’t have the time or energy, you drain your confidence. Grabbing short sessions will boost your self-esteem by showing you that you do respect your creative urges.

Finish your projects more easily. With ongoing connection and steady commitment, you shed the struggle and have more energy for creating.

Be more inclined to schedule and enjoy longer periods of creativity. Soon, these quickies will entice you to make more time for creative work. You’ll feel the benefits and will re-structure your priorities to ensure studio time is on the calendar.

And guess what – you’re going to be happier. Honoring your creative impulses instead of struggling against them will help you feel lighter, more energetic and satisfied. And who doesn’t want that?

Simplify your process

If you’re not getting as much time as you’d like with your art, commit to spending fifteen minutes once or twice this week with your art or writing project. No goals other than hanging out with it. This could look like:

Opening your notes for your book project and reviewing them. Chances are this will generate more ideas, so have a notebook handy to capture new insights.

Opening the last chapter you were writing and making notes for revision. Revisiting previous drafts shows you what changes need to be made. This process also teaches you about your strengths and weaknesses.

Going into the studio and stretching a canvas or watercolor paper. Depending on your medium, there are multiple steps in the creative process, many which can be done in fifteen minutes or less. Consider dividing your projects into fifteen-minute chunks; it could change the way you create forever.

Doing a free write to generate ideas for next steps. Often, when we’re stuck, a quick mind dump can help us identify best actions to take.

Try a creative quickie or two this week. See how it works for you and what impact it has on your creative work. I once read about a woman who completed her novel in five minutes a day. That’s quick! What might you be able to achieve in short bursts of time?

In fact, grab a quickie now and then leave a comment letting us know how it went.

Cynthia Morris of Original Impulse helps writers, artists and entrepreneurs make their brilliant ideas a shining reality. Cynthia authored Create Your Writer’s Life and pens articles, e-books, and is finishing a historical novel set in Paris. Get your creative juju back with Cynthia’s free newsletter, Impulses.

Categories: Creativity, Habits

Writing an eBook: How to Get Started (and Finish!)

A guest post by Cara Stein of  17000 Days

Writing an ebook is awesome. You can control the publication process, eliminating the long delays of finding a publisher and waiting for your book to be printed. If you do a free one, it’s also a perfect way to let your future customers take your writing for a test drive.

I recently released a free ebook, How to be Happy (No Fairy Dust or Moonbeams Required) , and it’s done wonders for my subscriber numbers and traffic. I’ve gotten tons of comments from people about how much they liked it and how helpful they found it. Music to a writer’s ears!

Here’s what I learned from the process:

1. Get inspired

For my ebook, the idea jumped into my lap and wouldn’t go away until I wrote about it. (It was a lot like how I got my cat!) But normally, I expect I’ll be going after ideas myself, rather than the other way around.

A good place to look for ideas is what you already know and are good at. What do you know now that you wish you had known a few years ago? What resource would you have killed for when you were starting out?

2. Make an outline

Once you have an idea, making an outline is a great way to start building the book. That’s how I did my ebook. I had a lot of things I wanted to say, so I started listing and organizing them. Once I had the outline, all I had to do was fill in the blanks.

The magic of this technique is it takes an overwhelming task (write a whole book!) and turns it into a bunch of doable pieces. Once the whole thing is broken down, writing a section is a lot like writing a blog post. Write a bunch of blog posts? Of course you can do that!

3. Schedule your writing time

I would love to have the kind of life where scheduling wasn’t necessary, but I juggle way too many things. If I don’t schedule something, it doesn’t get done.

When I was working on my ebook, I set aside a two-hour block four mornings a week for writing. It was a good plan, but I often let other things trample a writing session. Oh, the furnace is out–I’ll meet the repair man Wednesday morning. Poof! There went a writing session. Time to make Thanksgiving pies. Poof! There went another one.

It’s especially difficult when the people around you don’t share your priorities. They want to spend time with you, you say you can’t because you’ll be writing, they look at you like you’re weird, crazy, and lame.

Or maybe I just had this problem because I didn’t believe in myself. If you don’t take yourself and your project seriously, nobody else will, either. If you want to write a book, commit to it, make it top priority, and guard your writing time as sacred. You will finish it if you want to badly enough.

4. Celebrate

Whether your book is short or long, finishing the writing is an accomplishment. Treat yourself!

5. Revise systematically

I tend to write like mad and revise later. I do a little rewording during the writing, but I try to leave my critical internal editor at the door. That leaves me a big rough draft at the end.

This is where I got really stuck. Writing is exhilarating. Revising and editing, on the other hand… far less sexy. I’d try to read through the whole thing and end up asleep on the couch.

Then I had the idea to break the editing down to the size of a blog post, like I had done for the writing. The amount of work required to fix and tighten up a blog post is about one to two hours for me–a doable amount. So I split the book into chunks and revised them one at a time. Much better! Then I could look at the book as a whole and fix it on that level.

Another trick I use for revising is formatting the text. After two or three passes through a piece of text, I can’t read all the words any more, no matter how hard I try to make myself concentrate. But when I move it from a word processor to blogging software or a book layout and start concentrating on headings, emphasis, and lists, it gives me a new perspective and I can read all the words again. This is usually my last round of revisions. In the case of the book, I also sent it to grammar-loving friends for additional copy editing.

6. Launch

Once the writing and editing are finished, it feels like you should be about done, but actually, there’s still a ton of work to do! You need to design the cover and do the layout, or get someone else to do it. Then there’s all the marketing and technical stuff!

For me, the excitement of having other people finally read my book was essential motivation at this stage. There are a squizillion little things that need to be set up and taken care of for the launch to go smoothly. Making a checklist is essential.

Check and double-check all of your links. It sounds obvious, but it’s easy to mess up. Try to launch when you don’t have a lot of other things going on. But most importantly, launch! Nobody will get to read your great work otherwise. It can be tempting to keep tweaking and improving, but at a certain point, you have to declare victory and get it out there.

7. Take the long view

Leading up to my launch, I was 100 kinds of excited. All this work, finally coming to fruition! I stayed up until 2 am the night before getting everything done. Meanwhile, my day job was causing a ton of stress and sucking up a lot of energy. By launch day, I was an exhausted, gibbering bundle of nerves.

A lot of things fell short of my expectations on launch day. One of my download links was broken (insert self-flagellation here!). I had less traffic than I hoped, and of the direct traffic that day, only 13.5% actually clicked the “download” link. I was crushed.

Then, I got a message from a reader saying she liked the book but didn’t see enough of me in it–next time, I should include more of myself.

I had asked for feedback, and at the time, I sincerely meant it, or thought I did. The problem is, once I consider something finished, I can’t imagine anyone’s honest feedback being anything but “Stellar! Best thing I’ve ever read! I’ve been waiting for this all my life!” So this feedback, even though it was constructive and mostly positive, crushed me. As fried as I was by then, I couldn’t be see anything clearly. I was devastated, ready to quit writing and retreat to my cubicle.

That would have been a huge mistake! Over the next week, I got some rest, traffic and downloads picked up considerably, and I got a ton of enthusiastic comments from old friends and new subscribers. The rush I was expecting on launch day did happen, just not all that day. It’s also given me the chance to interact and deepen my relationships and feel more a part of the online community as a whole.

Writing and releasing an ebook is one of the best things I’ve ever done. I highly recommend getting started by writing a short ebook or manifesto and releasing it free. The positive energy is addictive!

Cara Stein helps people remember that life is short and make their best days a common occurrence. You can enjoy more of her posts at 17000 Days.  Check out her free ebook: How to be Happy (No Fairy Dust or Moonbeams Required)


Categories: Art of Writing

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