Comments on: How Not to Blog in a Blogathon Blog

By: Jill

Jill — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 02:11:44 +0000

Good post! I will be blogging again this year - my theme is to post a cute animal pic every half hour…I figure it is cute and people get excited to see which pic is next!

I will be blogging at http://www.jilbean.blogspot.com

By: Blogathon Tips: Blogathon 2007 July 28 : The Blog Herald

Blogathon Tips: Blogathon 2007 July 28 : The Blog Herald — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:18:21 +0000

[...] helped out a lot of bloggers during past Blogathons, which resulted in How Not to Blog in a Blogathon Blog. So I thought I’d share some tips to help you prepare for this year’s [...]

By: Writing Effective, Attention-Getting Headlines and Titles on Your Blog « Lorelle on WordPress

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:21:43 +0000

[...] During the 2006 Blogathon, I wrote about how not to blog in a blogathon blog and mentioned that titling posts by their post number was fine, but if that’s the only title, your audience is missing out on the “rest of the story” in the blog post. Why would I click “No. 14″ if I don’t know what “No. 14″ is about? [...]

By: One Year Anniversary Review: Blogging and Blogging Tips « Lorelle on WordPress

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 08:03:15 +0000

[...] I love learning from others, and I often share tips and techniques from my prowls around the web looking for things to learn. The recent Blogathon, a 24 hour marathon of non-stop blogging, I pitched in by reading and commenting on many of the blogs participating this year. I learned a lot, and I learned a lot about the many things you should do, and not do when you blog, especially when you blog in a Blogathon: Over and over I read people writing about how they will never come up with enough stuff to write about to cover the 24 hours. How they will never think of 48 things to write about. Wrong way to think, folks. [...]

By: sam

sam — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:16:01 +0000

That is a really great and well-thought out reflection, Lorelle. It is nice to know there were people out there reading through all the blogs. (Hardly 10 million visitors though, I think I maxed out at 1800 and I am sure about 50 of those hits were my mum!). As a blogathonner myself I regret not having had the time to follow any of the other participating blogs to see how other people did it, so I really only have my own experience of it to judge by. I did the food thing - but that is ok since I am a food blogger and I needed to keep my regular audience interested in the subject matter, and I think actually following my chosen charity at work and photographing them on the go was really the best part of the day - being able to actually to show people where their money was going. I had tears in my eyes when I passed all the people queueing for food, and then it made everything so worthwhile.

thanks so much for your helpful thoughts

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 12:14:02 +0000

“Unless your blog is about recipes and food, then what you are eating, unless truly inspirational, is a waste of time.”

I totally agree.

If your blogathon and blog is about poop, then give us the whole treatment. If your blogathon theme is about every minute of your day’s activities, I expect graphic details. But don’t write about philosophical or political issues, and then for a post or three fill us in on your lunch and potty breaks.

Consistently consistent.

By: Steven@RK

Steven@RK — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 06:41:50 +0000

And, on a side note, I think if you WRITE a food blog, you should be allowed to write ABOUT food. Just my two sheckels…

By: Steven@RK

Steven@RK — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 06:40:04 +0000

What a great article. Sadly I kinda fizzled for a bit partway thru as ALL the recipes I planned to use died in a hard drive malfunction. I really need to work hard next year to live up to these guidelines…

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 02:04:59 +0000

Order? WordPress and other blogging tools sort posts in chronological order by default, so the reading order is most recent to oldest. But you want people to read from oldest to most recent, right?

Well, without getting into the code and manipulating the order for your entire blog, which wouldn’t be a good idea, you can take all the posts you wrote and put them on a Page or in a single post in your own desired order. You can also leave them as they are and just copy and paste them into one post for a second, readable copy.

Actually, I had a similar problem on a transcription of a journal I wanted to publish on our new family history blog. The thing was written with no attention to date order. Scribbled here and there, randomly, including in the margins. I put it in date order and then it began to make some sense, but it was hard work to connect all the random entries. I pushed two versions. One for the all the entries, poems, songs, and diary notes, in as close to chronological order as possible, and the second post with just the diary notes in chronological order - no fluff, just the story of their lives. We learned a lot about their lives and even uncovered some mysteries with this two post technique. I’ll be talking about that more in the genealogy blog series.

No reason why you can’t do the same with your Blogathon entries since, for the most part, they do follow a sequence. It’s up to you.

By: Edrei

Edrei — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 01:08:53 +0000

It’s hard to tackle that part of the brain when you’re sleep deprived. Some people tend to get better, others like me just sluggish. Too bad it’s hard for people to see the point during the blogathon or if they read it as an individual post.

Any way to entice people to go through the whole thing in order? Or is this all solely based on the way we write?