Listen, Bitches

Here is a handy trick, for when you know your blog post / FB entry / office memo / etc is taking too long to get to the point. Start the first sentence with "Listen, bitches." You can go delete it after you've finished writing. But I guarantee it will get you straight to your point. For example:

Listen, bitches.

I would rather eat a bucket of eyeballs than promote myself. Especially on social media. All that hashtag-spamming algorithm-twisting click-follow-share-like-buy digital donkey-braying feels incredibly gross and fake, and I hate it like I hate stepping in a puddle with socks on. 

Now. With that said, Kristine Hall of Hall Ways and #LSBBT is THE BEST blog-tour-guide there ever was or will be. She is just egregiously kind, and helpful, and patient, and so good that I even have to take back some of those ugly things I said about social promotion in the above paragraph.
You know what she did?

She set me up a special prize drawing, where I can put the first chapter of my next book in with the three copies of One Night in Sixes that we're giving away. (It ends at midnight tonight, so go quick if you want in on that.)

She put together this neat scrapbook, where I can show off the amazing beautiful things that some of you guys have made and done for me, that I could never, EVER have done for myself.


And she has put my book in the hands of SO many fantastic bloggers and readers, like Tabatha Pope and Melyssa Prince and Texan Girl Reads and Bookadelphia who have written reviews that I would have never in a million years known how to ask for myself. Like this one here, that legit made me cry, because she just GETS IT.

 

I don't know how much sense this will make to those of you who haven't done the author-thing, but like... Kristine brought my book back to life, y'all. I thought it was dead. I thought I had failed. Now there's all these brand-new people picking it up, and some of them are enjoying it the way I had never EVER dared to hope that perfect strangers would or could, and my writing-world is a garden of possibilities again.

So, even though I'm probably always going to be rotten at instanipulating the blogarithms, I'm prepared to confess: in the right hands, these book-tour-barn-raisings are really something else. Hashtags and all. And if you don't have someone on speed-dial already...

#listenbitches: Hall Ways is the fearless, friendly media-mancer you need, want, and deserve in your life. Go find her.

One Reason Why Your Blog Doesn't Actually Suck

Hey guys - thanks so much for all the comment love on my last post!  I'm a little worried about the enthusiasm and sincerity of some of the responses, though, so just to clarify:

The reason I posted that with so much tongue-in-cheek hyperbole is because I don't actually agree with that advice - or better to say, I don't agree with treating that advice as Absolute Commandments.  Yes, blogging is a medium, and it's good to know how to shape your ideas to make them maximally attractive in said medium.  But how you ever noticed how often people try to sell us "magic formulas" to fix whatever problem we're having?

"On page 3, introduce the Mentor, who will prompt the Refusal of the Call to Action."

"Step 2: make eye contact with the girl and approach her - don't let her make the first move."  

"Then, after dinner, eat ten grapes and drink another 8 oz glass of water."

This stuff pops up over and over again, because our brains find it so damned attractive.  "Don't worry; it's really not complicated," the sirens sing.  "You only need to do these six simple things, exactly and to the letter, and all will be well."

And even though we intellectually know that if it really were that easy, everyone else would have already done it, our ego makes us believe that we are special snowflakes in a sea of weak-minded schmucks - that WE have this special secret advice now, this wonderful magic feather, and all we have to do is jump off the balcony and fly.

The siren song is a hell of a lot more attractive than the reality.  Nobody wants to listen to the frumpy old mermaid who says things like, "Actually, it's really goddamn hard," and "Successful people can't really help you, because they don't know anything but what worked for them personally," and "If anybody actually had this shit universally figured out, they wouldn't still be shilling for people to buy their advice."

So if you really do want to think about what makes for a kick-ass blog, here is an exercise you can do.  First, peruse these posts here, and read whichever one(s) catch your eye.

Amazon, Hachette, and Giant Stompy Corporations.

All the Love in the World is Useless.  [TW: cancer, death.]

Writing Strong Women, Part I: How it All Goes Wrong

Games of Yesteryear: Final Fantasy III, or How Four Onion Kids Fostered an Obsession

Silent Technical Privilege

But but but - WHY Does Magic Have to Make Sense?

Then compare that to some of YOUR favorite posts (ones you've read, or ones you've written.)

Some of the ones I posted are from huge mega-successful blogs and authors, while others are small.  Some are funny, some are ranty, some are thoughtful, and one is heartbreakingly sad.  Each of them breaks some or all of the 'rules' I posted last week.  But I will bet you a dollar that they all have at least one thing in common with your favorites: in each case, the author was writing about something that mattered to them, and did a really good job of putting their passion on the virtual page. 

And that, reader o' mine, is why I strongly suspect that your blog doesn't suck.  Even if you haven't gotten part 2 down yet - even if you're not sure how best to present your passion in this particular medium - if you are writing about something you care about, you are already halfway to greatness.

That is what I think, and that is what I am saying here.


5.  Pry claws from back legs out of your arm. Go get the cat, pick up half-dissolved pill from floor and drop it into garbage can.

"10 Reasons Why Your Blog Sucks"

"Tex," people occasionally tell me, "I know I'm supposed to blog, but I'm scared to try.  How do you do it?"

Well, here is a sordid confession: I don't actually know what I'm doing.  At all.  Or DIDN'T - until this weekend, when I sat down and read about eighteen dozen "blogging for clueless goobers" articles.  Now I am an expert!  My blog will be eighteen times better going forward - and yours can be too!  Here is what you need to do:


1.  Your post title needs to be keyword-rich for the Google, but witty and provocative enough to attract live human eyeballs and their coveted clicks.  (See what I did up there?)

2.  Your post should have - I won't say the T-word here - a single, clear main idea.  No aimless rambling!

3.  You've got to have a picture, of course.  Who's going to have the attention span to get through your relentless odyssey of text without a pictorial rest-stop along the way?  (And no stealing from Google Image Search, you mannerless Visigoth!)

Here are some poorly-photographed nachos we once ate in Stirling, Scotland. 
Note the strangely reasonable portion sizes and extra-elegant double plate.

4.  On a similar note, make sure you bold the especially interesting bits, so people who aren't really reading can follow along.  You know that game you played when you were a kid, where the living room floor was hot lava, and the throw pillows were stepping stones?  This is that, but for your reader's fickle gaze.

5.  You'll have the decency to update at least twice a week, of course, because otherwise you're just wasting your time. 

6.  You'll promote each post at least twice on three different social media accounts, because see above.  (But don't be obvious or obnoxious about this.  You can't be all Cat in the Hat with your "look at me, look at me, look at me now!"  You have to balance the cake and the boat and the fish and the ball with more of an "I don't know if you know this, but I'm actually kind of a big deal" disinterested swagger.)

7.  Time your post wisely.  Have your local haruspex perform the appropriate reading of entrails to find the most auspicious day and time.  We recommend chicken for Blogger, and the liver of a young male sheep for Wordpress.

8.  And for heaven's sake, keep it snappy, Tolstoy!  Yeah, you can have posts longer than 500 words - if your audience are convicted felons doing time in solitary.

The nachos were accompanied by the obligatory bilingual moisti-nap.
Because finger foods, like menstruation, are marks of Original Sin,
and best endured with dignity, resilience, and a robust array of sanitary products.

9.  Oh, and tagging!  Tag RELENTLESSLY.  Tag like Banksy on a bath-salts bender.  Just take 75% of the nouns in your post and reproduce them as tags, so that the invisible SEO spiders of the Internet can bring you even more coveted clicks.  Basically, if your tag list doesn't look like the Finnegans Wake episode of "Will it Blend?", you're doing it wrong.

10.  And whatever you do, don't forget to ask a question at the end of your post!  It doesn't matter how forced or awkward it is, as long as it's there.  Because how else will your readers know that they're allowed to leave comments?  God, why does it always have to be about YOU?!

So there you have it, people: everything you need to know about blogging.  Fame and fortune will soon be yours!  What about you?  Do you like fame and fortune?


I mean, we’re already talkin’ 27 hits, here. And that’s from this computer alone!