Saturday 30 January 2016

For those about to blog.. we salute you.

I mentioned in my last post that a Blog Banter can be a good way to start blogging and I'm writing this post with the hope of encouraging new Eve bloggers.

Blogging can be really good fun and it's a personal soapbox where you get to shout your opinions out to the rest of the community. It creates a personal history, like a diary, I can use the sidebar to see where my head was at regarding this game in 2009 because I blogged about it back then. It gives peer review of your ideas which can help you refine them into better ideas.

Let me briefly mention what blogging is not:

- blogging is not a way to make money.

- blogging is not a way to become "space important."

- blogging is not a way to keep secrets. Don't put stuff you're not supposed to tell people in your blog.

- blogging is not a way to farm upvotes on reddit. A typical blog link gets downvoted to oblivion, there are about 3 exceptions to this, all very well established bloggers.

So where should you start?

Most blogging posts are one of two kinds: a soapbox post (eg offgrid links are EVIL!) or a diary post (today I lost my first Stork). Both kinds are fine.

Read other people's blogs with a view to what they are doing that you can also do. Some bloggers take extreme positions such as the Greedy Goblin, some people just churn it out with consistency and regularity like TAGN, some people are diarising the interesting gameplay they get up to like Cloaky Bastard.

It's really easy to start, just pick Blogger or Wordpress and take the defaults then publish. It's not really any harder than posting on a forum.

I suggest you start by writing for yourself. Do an article, then do another, then do another. Look at them, is this something you want to make part of your hobby?

If it is build an audience. Here's several ways to get people reading your blog.

- comment on other people's blogs. Many bloggers will click on interesting commenters and follow them back to their blogs.

- link selected posts on reddit. I definitely wouldn't make it a habit as it's demoralising to be downvoted but remember the people downvoting you are usually doing so for strategic reasons, as a way of gaming reddit, not anything personal.

- ask other bloggers to add you to their blog roll. If you reply to this I'll take a look and if I like your blog I'll add you. Don't be a pest, no one wants to be asked 50 times, you'll just get yourself blocked.

- write with consistency. Generally the most popular bloggers in the Eve community write daily. I don't, I don't want to work that hard nor am I worried about popularity but it works well for many bloggers.

- stay on topic. This is a rule I don't follow. If I wanted this blog to be more popular I'd stick with a topic, say FCing and publish only high quality articles that are relevant to people wanting that info. But the blog is for me more than for anyone else so if I want to sidetrack and write about something else I do it here. But that adds "noise" for people hoping to read something that interests them.

- get yourself added to Eve aggregator sites. https://evebloggers.com/ http://totaleve.com/
Please don't do this until you've stuck with it a couple of months.

Good luck and don't be timid about putting your views out there. It's what the internet is for!

11 comments:

  1. I have to second the comments about reddit. It's very important to be choosy about what you post there. Those posts should be your posts about big topics and present a well-reasoned argument. They need to have mass appeal, specifically to the kind of reader who frequents reddit.

    One clarification... I'd say that writing daily is a good way to generate a lot of garbage. I find that those who write daily do so at the expense of quality. Every 2-3 days is about as frequent as you can get without watering down what you have to say.

    My best advice is to have a point to each post. Know what you want to say, and stick to it. Provide something for the reader to leave with after reading - whether it's advice, insight, a lesson... something of value. You're fighting for that reader with every single post... make sure they see the value in it.

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    1. The three main daily bloggers for me are TAGN, Gevlon and back in the day Jester. I think they all maintain quality.

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  2. I started at the beginning of the year. No real reason, just for a bit of fun. I haven't made my blog public yet because I want to see if I will stick with it, will it bring me enough enjoyment and more importantly do I actually have time to jot stuff down?
    Currently I am limiting posts to weekly and am enjoying myself. So thanks Stabbed Up you have given me some direction and an invitation to post.

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    1. The key thing is that you're enjoying yourself.

      When you feel ready ask me to have a look. If I like it I'll add you to my blogroll and if you hustle a little you can build an audience.

      I have to say I really like the comments, I've written a lot of blog posts where the comments were better than the post they responded to.

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  3. So erm.. could you add me to your blog roll :)

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  4. I will throw my .2ISK in there with Tal... with a dash of added be VERY careful with reddit... it can be like playing with ebola... really fascinating until you see the tear in your glove.

    As for the rest of Stabs post... Spot on. I started mine as a journal of my exploits and it has evolved, as Tur and I and EVE all have, over the years (ye gods, 5 of em now) into what you see most... a base of journaling mixed with a lot of meta commenting and a dash of RL every now and again for spice.

    Good luck!

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  5. Funny, I started a blogger profile just recently after deciding I might like to try Blogging. Then I discover this article today after reading Cloaky Bastards latest piece.

    Thanks for the tips Stabs, I look forward to more of them over time. (My blog is all private til I decide if I am actually any good at it, then hopefully have a vault of stuff people can backread)

    ReplyDelete