Blogging - 3/3 - Wordful

7 Bad Habits New Bloggers Must Avoid

November 18, 2008 By Charles 3 Comments

I have to be very honest: maintaining a professional blog is challenging. It’s been over six weeks since I switched wordful.com from a mini-consulting site to a blog. At that time I told myself that I must write on it everyday.

The kick-off started off relatively well until I fell into some bad writing habits. None of these habits had anything to do with what I was writing, but rather how I was writing. So now that I’ve lived through some initial failure, let me share with you what I’ve learned:

The Significance of Personal Publishing

October 23, 2008 By Charles Leave a Comment

The ability to self publish on the internet, where nobody controls anybody, may very well be one of the greatest milestones of the early 21st century. Anybody with access to a computer and the web can exert their full intellectual and emotional facilities to whomever chooses to listen. I must say this has got to be one of the truest freedoms of expression to date.

Even with all of the marketing, the hype and even the money, blogging remains a natural extension of one’s persona. The writer must now be mindful of their audience, their readers and their market as they attempt to deliver a consistent message of value and authenticity.

This is no easy task for me, personally, because blogging under Wordful has so far been an intellectual struggle. I’m constantly at odds with connecting my deep, evolving thoughts to a mainstream, monetizable audience. In other words, writing as a marketer marketing as a writer does not come easy to me.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Publishing Tagged With: Blogging, blogging for money, personal publishing

Articles vs. Blog Posts: What’s it Going to Be?

October 8, 2008 By Charles Leave a Comment

I read a very interesting AlertBox article by Jakob Nielsen the other day entitled “Write Articles, Not Blog Postings.” While I tend to think that there is a gray area between what’s an article and what’s a blog post, Nielsen presents a valid point: there’s a limit to the value you can provide if the blog post is “just another comment” on someone else’s work (gee that sounds like this post).

Even someone who demonstrates leadership within their specialized niche is bound to produce some crappy or at least quasi-crappy blog posts, claims Nielsen. “Blogs are also fine for websites that sell cheap products,” he adds.

So here’s my plan: to produce quality and value 100% of the time no matter what. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Editing Tagged With: articles vs. blog posts, Blogging, Editorial Strategy, niche blogging, web publishing