Pimp That Post!

Great post over a More.com! I feel your pain. Pimping is one thing I need to work on too but it makes me very self-conscious. I’m surprised at the friends I HAVEN’T told I blog– They must be my Linda B.’s. The friends I HAVE told are very encouraging of my writing, but none of them blog so they still don’t read me. I’m chasing my tail with the people I know personally…. but I am making NEW blog friends– Like you!

I’m afraid I don’t do that! I don’t even put my blog out on the search engines! No tags, no money! I accrue readers the old fashioned way!

I really liked that post, Jane. I’ve been blogging since 2005 and I got to the point where I was obsessed with numbers and visitors and comments and…well, the list goes on and on. Then I gave myself a good shake and asked myself, “Who am I writing for?! Them, or me?” It came down to me, since the idea behind writing it in the first place was to create a ‘living legacy’ type of blog for my grandsons to have some day. I took my counter off, my stats. I had close to 400,000 visitors at that time, and it was many months ago. I have never pimped my blog. I don’t know how those people found me. I don’t know how much of it was spam. I’ve never generated great amounts of comments but I’ve treasured many of those written by people who’ve spoken up and told me the reason they believe people don’t comment is because I make them THINK. One commenter said many of my posts have stuck with her all day. So…I continue on. I don’t know if I’ll ever be anyone more than a self-published writer — we ARE published every time we hit the “post entry” button. And I’m happy with that. I wouldn’t trade the wonderful friendships I’ve made with my readers/fellow bloggers for all the money in the world.

Sigh. I am one of those that is uncomfortable telling everyone to read my blog. I have two…one more for women and one that is about my earnest effort to try my hand at an urban garden…and as you can see…the first thing I’m not doing is even putting the site names here in m comment. I’m pitiful! I think for me I’m petrified that my friends will judge my writing and not for the better…: ) I feel better with strangers reading it. And of course, I feel if I tell too many friends that if I include a story about them in the blog they’ll be uncomfortable. But you’re right. I gotta pimp. I just have to get over myself. I think I’ll have some cards printed up that just have my blog names on them and ‘visit my site’ call to action. I’ll leave them everywhere. and even though I bank online now, I’ll put the sight names in the ‘memo’ area of the check the bank sends. I’ll be ruthless. I’ll put them on stumbled upon now – because I signed up for that and never use it. Hopefully there are people so not like me that are totally hooked it. Digg sound interesting. You know I think you’ve inspired me! Thanks! I’m on it. Oh…ok. my blogs are:

http://www.livinginthelandofnod.blogspot.com and
http://www.janeatthegardengate.com

Jane!

I have just come from your blog, the one you managed to put in the last lines of this comment. But first I had to repair to the bathroom because I almost peed myself, that post of yours on dating was so funny. I don’t want to give anything away here because I’m hoping you’ll let me publish it on MidLifeBloggers.

I’m thinking maybe we ought to form a group of pimp-free bloggers. But we’d all pimp each others. That way the job would get done, but we wouldn’t have to do it.

You’re good. Disciplined. Focused. I’m envious.

See my response to MissKriss. I think we ought to pimp each others blogs. Or at least write each other’s pimp requests. It really is just selling, isn’t it? And I was never to good at that either.

These comments are so funny, because they all sound just like me. I started writing a blog recently and want people to read it, but I’m reluctant to tell people about it. The really ironic part of my reluctance is that until recently, my career was in sales and marketing. I can sell and market other people’s stuff, but not my own.

I definitely have to get over that!

KarenMidLifeSequel: We all need to partner with those brash hussies who have no problem promoting themselves!!!!

It really does depend on why you’re blogging. If, like me, it’s because you truly want to make writing more than a hobby and want it to pursue it as a profession, you want to pimp the hell out of your blog. I have business cards with my blog url AND the blogs that republish my posts (including MidLifeBloggers–thanks Jane!) I have no shame in giving them out to women who might be interested wherever I go. You have to be selective about which sites you allow to republish your work and also read the fine print. Some, I discovered, state that they own your work that you post. You don’t want that. You want to retain full rights to your own writing. Like Jane, I’ve been picked up my MORE.com, and even though I don’t make a dime off it, the exposure is priceless.

PS–I think this makes me a “brash hussie.” Great blog title!

I think you’re right, Elaine, it does depend on one’s purpose in blogging. I’m caught somewhere in the middle, though. Having already done the professional writing career, I’m not looking to venues like More to give me exposure.