This is the companion blog to “The Rough Guide to Blogging,” available now (Fall 2006).
Well, it looks like I’ll be blogging more over at jonyang.org now than here. It’s been a fun run, but I’ve got a million blogs and the theme of the day is “consolidation” so I’d like to keep everything on one blog. So head on over there for a treasure trove of information — blog and non-blog related. Thanks guys!
Honestly, how many people care about the byline in an article? Unless you’re a semi-famous author (or celebrity), the public is more concerned with the article itself than who wrote it. Writers, you want to change that don’t you? The most obvious way is to force your way into the story; forcing yourself into what you write. That’s the gorilla way. Here’s the guerilla way: brand yourself. Check out this article: “How to Effectively Brand Yourself through Blogs.”
By getting your name out there, people will start to follow your work. You want to write about ketchup versus mustard, the dog whisperer, and what’s flawed about the Ivy League admission system? You also want to get people to read all the above? Then be Malcolm Gladwell, author of “The Tipping Point” and “Blink” but also renowned writer and media critic. Gladwell has branded himself so that his name is bigger than his work, which means that people will want Malcolm for everything because he has name recognition (as well as skills).
Freelance a lot, brand yourself, and get pseudo-famous; it’s the dream of every small town girl.
A few interesting articles:
How to become a Freelance Blogger
Blogging is Easy Money, Right?
Hey, remember that time I was on TV talking about the book and blogging? Months later, I figured out how to get the audio up (click here)!
Of course, anything to be done should be done half-assed so I only have the audio and not the video/audio synced together.
If you want to, as you’re listening to the soothing sounds of my verbal stumbling around a television set (I inserted some beats so you can jam or work out to “my track”), you can imagine me using lots of hand gestures and doing weird things with my hands. That’s apparently what I do when I’m speaking in public; I gesticulate.
I have no idea why my voice dropped two octaves. Television adds ten pounds and makes girly men sound like they have deeper voices apparently. Enjoy.
Coming at you from Freelance Switch, it’s the “15 Must-read Blogs for Blog Writers.” To be honest, lists like this are highly useful but at the same time, I say to just read what you like and you’ll naturally start to become a “better” blogger. This list gives you a small slice of nice sites to learn some blogging strategies but in the end, if you emulate these guys, you’ll be nothing but an, well, emulator.
Freelance Switch is for a resource for freelancers of all types and it’s got easy to read content and a nice community around it. Check it out.
I’m going to Michigan next week (May 17 - 20) to participate in the Ann Arbor Book Festival.
I’ll be sitting on one panel (as Lilly’s sidekick) and moderating another. Should be fun. Visit the alma mater, eat some Pizza House, Rendezvous at the bar around two, go buy some Steve & Barry’s to dust off that school spirit. Um, Go Blue?
Reading in Mixed Media - Saturday, May 19th
Moderator: Jonathan Yang, Rough Guide to Blogging
Matt Bell, writer/blogger
Doreen Lichtman, Survival From Malice
Claudia Mair Burney, Murder, Mayhem and a Fine Man
Meghan O’Rourke, www.salon.com, Slate.comThe world of writing and reading is changing quickly. Join this panel as they discuss how they have addressed this changing world as writers. From blogging, to making books or excerpts of books available online or as ebook downloads, this group is facing the challenges of a changing literary world head on.
The Writer-Agent Relationship - Friday, May 18th
Lilly Ghahramani, Full Circle Literary Agency with author Jon Yang, The Rough Guide to Blogging; Amy Williams, McCormick-Williams Literary Agency and Travis Holland, The Archivist’s Story.The author-agent relationship is crucial to publishing success. An agent will work for you in getting the best publication deal, and will support you through the publishing process. But how do you find the right agent? And how do you get that agent to notice your work in all the piles of manuscripts they receive each day?
Two pairs of authors and agents will discuss how they came to know each other, how they work together to be effective, and what expectations they should have of each other.
Come on out, Michigan is only a hop and a skip away!
A few weeks ago, reader Dave Hall took a look at the Rough Guide to Blogging and noticed that it said this:
“You can use an image from elsewhere on the Web without copying it to your server. Simply find the address of the individual image (not the page it’s displayed on) and use the IMG tag in the usual way.
Before posting an image on your blog, however, it’s best to ask for permission from the copyright holder. In reality, nothing is likely to happen to you for using an image without permission - especially in the case of celebrity photos and other commonly circulated stock photos - but at the very least it’s polite to ask before using, say, a drawing from an artist’s website.”
As Dave pointed out, that’s “hotlinking” and definitely not kosher for bloggers. I wrote him back and explained that he was definitely right; you should definitely ask permission to re-post images from another blogger and then host the image yourself.
Thanks for pointing that out Dave!
And here’s an important article from Aviva Directory that you should probably read: “12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs to Know.” Included in the twelve? Whether to Disclose Paid Posts, The Legal Use of Images and Thumbnails, Domain Name Trademark Issues, Laws that Protect You From Stolen Content, and of course, Is Deep Linking Legal?
Now, this is pretty self explanatory. Just click to 16 Must Read Articles for Bloggers from “The Wrong Advices” and read on!
The article names themselves are super enticing: Declaring War on Blogger Apathy; Do You Have What It Takes to be a Professional Blogger?; 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity…