Writing

5 Essentials to good story writing

If you’ve always believed in your writing skills, and want people to appreciate the stories you have in your mind, it is important to pen them down on paper rather than keeping in your head. However, just because you have some good ideas does not mean you can be a great writer. In order to write an interesting story, you need to understand every aspect of the literary world, and how to spin your words into everlasting tales.

No matter how charming you plan your protagonist to be, you need an interesting storyline to keep the readers interested. Every story has three acts (beginning, middle, end) formulated with the right mix of some key ingredients. A story needs to have an origination, escalation of a conflict and resolution.

Every story needs a vulnerable character, mixed up in a setting which is important to the narrative. The character’s meaningful choices will determine the outcome of your story, and reader’s interest. In simple words, every story is a journey of transformation from one situation to another. Sometimes, it’s also about the transformation of a character. A better understanding of the key ingredients that make up a story will help you tell your tale to the world.

Orientation

The beginning of your story needs to grab a reader’s attention, and familiarize him with the mood, tone and setting of the story. It should also introduce the protagonist so that the reader invests some time and attention. Before a reader cares about the story, he needs to care about the protagonist.

The best way to introduce the protagonist is to set your reader’s expectations by revealing a basic portrait of the character. You need to give a glimpse of your character’s normal life to the reader. For instance, if your main character is a detective, readers want to see him more at crime scenes. Similarly, a college guy should be playing pranks in the college campus.

Whatever basic portrait you choose for the main character, you need to understand that it will also serve as a strong promise to your readers about the transformation which the character will undergo in the story. [Read more…] about 5 Essentials to good story writing

What is a Blog Editorial Calendar and Do I Need One?

By Christian

Question: What is a blog editorial calendar? Do I need one?

An editorial calendar is a tool many professional bloggers use to keep track of and organize their daily blog posts. It can be as simple as a grid of post-it notes on the wall or as intricate as an Excel spreadsheet. A dated Excel sheet, but a good resource can be found on Andy Wibbels’s blog.

The month is broken down into days, and each day is assigned a particular category of blog posts to help the blogger think of topics for that particular day. Underneath the days are different blog topics you have written or intend to write.

Another page on the spreadsheet could contain all of your blog ideas for future posts. When you are ready to write and publish a post, it goes from one spreadsheet to another.

Many bloggers don’t use an editorial calendar, but it can definitely be useful if you are having trouble finding a blog topic for a particular day or to keep track of possible topics for future posts.

Organizing different blog topics for different days can help overcome the dreaded “what am I going to write today” obstacle. For instance, on a web design blog you might have assigned the following topics to the days of the week:

Monday: jQuery examples
Tuesday: Site of the day
Wednesday: Tips and Tricks
Thursday: Cool Tools
Friday: News from around the web
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Off

Categorizing your main toipics this way will help direct your posting, plus it will also provide consistency for your readers.

Whether you use a formal editorial calendar or its all in your head, breaking your blog into definite categories for different days of the week can greatly increase your producitity.

How Do I Jump Start My New Blog?

By Christian

Question: How do I jump start my new blog? I feel like it’s just me.

Starting a new blog is always an uphill battle. According to WordPress.com, there are tens of thousands of new blogs started every day – that is a lot of competition. The fact of the matter is, until you build up a following, you may actually be the only one reading your blog, but don’t let that get you down.

Start with your inner circle of friends and colleagues. Let them know about your blog. Whether it is a personal blog or a company blog – you need to get the word out. Put it in your email signature (careful about putting personal blogs in your company signature!), make sure you send out a tweet on twitter every time you make a post, post it on your Facebook profile – whatever you need to do. Let people know.

A great way to get more readers is to create a facebook fan page for your blog. Some bloggers use their personal facebook page as their blog “landing page” but you can create one for your blog as well. By creating a facebook fan page, you will be listed and searchable in the directory giving you access to millions of potential readers.

Another great way to get your blog out there is to do video blog entries, or at the very least a video describing your blog, and upload it to youtube.com. Remember to put a link to your blog in the description and your profile so people can click and get to your blog easily. Doing regular video blog entries and successfully using categories and tagging will drive readers from youtube to your blog and will be very targeted traffic.

Above all – write great content! The first second of someone finding your blog are crucial and can mean the difference of them coming back or leaving for good. Good content – GREAT content – is a surefire way to get people not only reading your blog but spreading your link for you.

This is an important point. You can do all the promotion you want for your blog. You can spend money on advertising, widgets for trade shows, and more. But if you don’t provide good content, it all doesn’t matter.

So don’t worry if it is “only you” when writing your blog. A successful blogger not only writes on their blog, but also is out there on the Internet promoting their blog and adding value to other people’s blogs. Being active in your niche is one of the most important things to remember. It isn’t all about your blog, its about reaching your readers no matter whose blog or website they are on. Be an active participant and people will find you.

As well as the search engines.

5 Ways To Make Money Blogging in 2011

By Christian

It’s every blogger’s dream – to make a living blogging. But the odds are against the part-time blogger making even the smallest payout from Google adsense their first year (if ever.) So how do you beat the odds? These tips should help

Find Your Own Advertisers

Putting up an advertising space saying “advertise here” is not going to get you anywhere. You may think advertisers should be trampling each other for that above-the-fold 125×125 ad on your homepage, but chances are it will never come. So go to them. If you don’t have a rate card for your the spots you are selling then you better make one fast. An ad for $30/mo. is still $30 more a month you didn’t have.

Find a local angle to the niche your blog is about. If you are writing about “silver lab puppies” seek out a local breeder specializing in that type of dog. Likewise, if you have a more general blog such as “sailboarding” you may not have a sailboarding shop near you, but chances are you might have a local sports or outdoor supply store that sells life jackets.

Just because you have a “national” focus does not mean you can only have national advertisers. I hope you are active in your local blogging and twitter community and follow (and are followed by) other people in your area. They are probably reading your blog regardless of content. There is always a local advertiser you can hit up for some exposure. It’s great if they have a shopping cart and ship nationally or internationally, but even if they don’t – they may be interested in advertising.

Bottom line: don’t wait for advertisers to find you, go out and find some.

Post A Product Review

There must be a product or two on Amazon.com you can promote with an affiliate link. I’m not talking some random product but a product you actually use and would not hesitate to recommend. Look it up on Amazon and lin kto it with your affiliate ID. If you don’t have an amazon affiliate account – get one. Now. Seriously.

Some people do review sites for the sole purpose of making money through affiliate programs. Some are successful, most are not. So if you really love a product, review it. If you tried multiple products that are related, compare and contrast them. Some of the best performing blog posts are comparisons of similar products. An example might be The Flip video camera vs the Kodak Zi8. You aren’t just copying the description from amazon, you are doing an honest-to-goodness comparison you yourself have tried.

THAT is authenticity.

Review Your Adsense Stats

I admit it, I don’t spend nearly enough time figuring out google adsense placements and performance. I log into adsense, check my balance and then look at it again in a few hours. Repeat throughout the day.

But there is a lot of information waiting to be mined. Like everything it takes time and effort. Look at your pages and figure out the best placements for your ads. Maybe all of your ads are in the same place on every page – maybe not. Try testing different placments and sizes. It will take a while to get the relevant stats, but once you hit upon the formula for your site, it can mean the difference of tens or hundreds of dollars a day.

Review A Site or Product for $5

This one is a bit controversial so stay with me. There is a great web site called fiverr.com. On it you can buy (or sell) practically anything for $5. Everything from a phone call impersonating Kermit the Frog, to a picture of your dog posted in the middle of Tokyo’s biggest street.

One of the ways people used to make money on their blogs was through a site called ReviewMe. It’s still around, but you had to be selected by an advertiser based on your traffic, and personally I made about $20 in 2006, then nothing.

But on fiverr, not only can you sell a “review” but you can also just sell a link if you want. Now, if you want to remain reputable you would include the proper attribution such as “Sponsored Post” before your blog post, or s a similar disclaimer letting people know you are getting something in return for reviewing or linking to the site. Go ahead and search fiverr for some other ideas.

The Donation Button

We’ve all seen them, and most of us hate them, but in this day and age, who cares. The old “tip jar” is a viable way for your readers to make a donation to your site. Even Adam Curry supports his podcasts The Daily Source Code and No Agenda through listener donations. Yo may never see the $1,000 donations Adam sometimes sees for his show, but you might make a few dollars a month. PayPal makes an easy Donation button that gives you an embed code you can just copy and then paste into your blog.

Of course the biggest way to make money blogging in 2011…

Keep writing great content. Write regularly, write well, write write write. There is no shortcut for great content. Great rewards come with great work. If you only give a few minutes or hours for blogging a day, then that is what you are going to get out of it. A great blog requires a lot of work. Making a good income with your blog likewise requires a lot of work – but it is possible.

Here’s to a profitable 2011!

What Is A Niche Blog?

By Christian

Question: I’ve been hearing the term “niche blog” a lot lately, sometimes good and sometimes bad. What is a niche blog?

Great question!

If you are new to blogging, you may hear about “finding your niche.” In fact, most blog mentors advise people to start with a niche they enjoy, and grow their blog from there. Sounds great, doesn’t it! It is… but that isn’t the kind of niche blog being talked about these days.

Today, the term “niche blog” is used a lot of times to refer to what used to be called “MFA” or “Made For Adsense Blogs.” These are blogs on a super niche topic used only to put up SEO content to rank high for keywords, so they can earn adsense revenue from people coming to the site.

By having no real content, when a visitor arrives at the site, they will more than likely want to leave right away. The best way to do that is through the google ads presented on the page. In this way, MFA or niche blogs are very popular with the types of bloggers who want to “get rich quick.”

There are many themes catering to this niche blogs easily and quickly. By purchasing a developer license from the theme’s creator, the niche blog author can use the same theme over and over again on hundreds or thousands of different niche blogs.

Some people claim niche blogs have a short shelf-life, making money quickly at first and then falling off. Others say they their niche sites earn as much today as they did 6 months or a year ago. One thing is for certain though, you have to produce a lot of niche sites just to be sure your income stream is not depleted should one or two stop earning revenue.

If you are running a true “niche blog” then really it is just a blog. Mentioning you run a niche blog may get some strange reactions from others in forums, especially if there are those who think niche blogs are spamming the Internet.

How Long Should A Blog Post Be?

By Christian

Question: How long should a blog post be?

The easy answer is – as long as it needs to be!

Some people follow a strict formula of X many words, with a keyword phrase mentioned Y times, and a photo at the beginning, etc etc. But what really matters is:

What are you trying to say?

Remember, people are reading your blog because they have an interest in what you are saying. Blog the awesome. Don’t supplement your blog with uninteresting babble about being home sick with the flu – you are writing a blog about something.

Some of the best blog posts are less than 150 words. If you have something major to say, then by all means, go for the 1,000 words and more mark! A blog’s length should not be dictated by a formula or a strict set of rules.

Say what you are trying to say, the best way you can say it.

That being said, there is a style of blog writing that is easier for readers to digest.

Details on that coming up in a later post here on asktheblogger.com.