Do You Feel Respected As A Blogger?

 

Arlee Bird at the Sinks in the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee

   What are your blogging goals?  

        Like I do, many of you diligently post content--often good content--to your blogs.  And if you're like me, you hope that your post will be visited by a few who will hopefully leave a comment and  that your post will generally be well received and perhaps even be helpful to some.  If we're lucky our visitors will click on one of our share buttons or pass the link to our post on through social media channels.

       If this is not the general intent of your blogging efforts then you are blogging for a different reason than I and I am not addressing of those kinds of bloggers.  The bloggers I am addressing in this post are the ones who are looking for what might be considered a certain sense of professional respect in their blogging niche or at least as much recognition as they can garner for their communication efforts for whatever reason they may be communicating.

       Think about where you stand on being a blogger.   My efforts are acknowledged to some extent in the form of a repayment for my own social media interaction.  If my media presence is active then I see an uptick in page views and a good number of comments.  If I am not making rounds and leaving comments then I have fewer visitors and typically experience a drop in my comment section.  I wouldn't say this has as much to do with respect as it does merely being an aspect of blog science.  Presence yields attention.

          Most bloggers are probably secure in knowing they are part of a community and respected by the other members of that community.   We have a circle of friends whom we can drop in on when we are available and they will stop by to see us when any of them has the time to do it.   Some bloggers are on a visiting schedule and we can count on them being there for nearly every post we put up.   That's comforting to know, but is it enough?

         Since blogging has a potential to reach millions and millions of people throughout the world, it does seem like it might be nice to know that a few thousand are reading my blog on a regular basis.  So far this is not happening for me and I would daresay for most of you.  Once again I can't say that this is much of a respect issue as much as it is a lack of visibility issue.  If I don't have wide ranging respect as a blogger then it's primarily because most of the world doesn't know I'm here and considering the millions of blogs that are out there I can see why my blog is like a grain of sand on the seashore.  Getting noticed by many is partly due to a blogger's own marketing ingenuity in promoting their blog and a wide cast social media net that gets posts promoted by others.

Going over the top

         Then there's the viral blog post.   Making the big time with a blog post is usually a fluke that comes as a result of well-written or unique content that is timely and of interest to many.  Virality may be that once-in-a-blogger's lifetime event that provides them a fifteen minutes of fame that amounts to little but bragging rights in the end.  Or that one episode in the public eye might be the beginning of something bigger.  Anyone who is using a blog as a promotional platform should be covetous of a blogger who gets catapulted off that springboard to recognition or even fame.   Or we might even say respect.

        You've probably heard about the blog post Thinking the Unthinkable (I Am Adam Lanza's Mom)  by Liza Long at The Anarchist Soccer Mom.    I'm not sure how many page views that post got but the comment section numbers over 3700.   Can you imagine having that kind of response to a blog post?   This post was publicized in just about every media outlet you can think of and that made a huge difference in the number of readers who visited Liza's blog, which by the way is a Blogger blog with "blogspot" in the URL.

       The comments for the blog posts after that one famous entry have mostly reverted to the 10 or so that she was getting before her viral post on a hot topic of the day.  Many of the most recent comments on her most famous post are primarily rather strange attempts at promotion that would essentially amount to spam that is somewhat in reference to the original post.  Still, that one blog post brought Liza Long scads of attention.

      Did Liza Long gain much respect from her Newtown blogpost?   Sure she got a lot of attention--a whole lot of attention.  A brief Google search will reveal that Ms. Long has intermittently been in the news throughout this year.  I also ran across a few announcements that say she landed a book deal with a respected publisher as a result of her blog post.  That's nothing to sneeze at.  I know I'd be pretty thrilled to be offered a book deal based on something I wrote on my blog and I think that would command at least some modicum of respect from at least a few people.

How do I compare with viral?

     According to my Google stats my typical post on Tossing It Out gets an average of around 250 page views.  This is nothing earth-shaking by any means, but I think it shows a certain amount of respect from my regular readers.  And I thank every one of you for being here so faithfully. This especially in light of my cutting back on my own visiting rounds and not making my web presence as obvious as it used to be.  I try to be a good social networker, but I've got other things to do sometimes as I know most of you do.

    Beyond that average per post range of 200-300 page views there are the anomalies.  For example my post this past Friday Tossing Out Another Throwaway Post  strangely had gotten over 1600 page views when I last looked.    My most viewed post is nearly 20,000 for one of my A to Z announcements.  That number kind of makes sense for that particular post, but my second most visited post seems somewhat odd.   That post is How Important Are Music Programs in the Public Schools? with over 5200 page views.   I've gotten comments on that post as recently as just the other day.  People are finding that link through Google.  Apparently it's a topic that interests a number of people.

     Do the page views equal respect?   I think I can confidently say that a number of you who are reading this respect me as I likewise respect you.   I appreciate you for that respect you give me.  I would never want to lose my inner circle of wonderful readers that I now have.  But to gain recognition beyond that circle is an exciting prospect.  To have one of my blog posts mentioned in national or even international media and draw large numbers of new readers would be an amazing experience.  To acquire new readers who actually continue to return to my site might be an indication of respect.

What is real respect in blogging?

        Sometimes it can difficult to define what respect really is.   In a way I suppose it's not unlike the old argument of blog followers.  Some bloggers say they don't care about having a lot of followers, but would those same bloggers reject additional followers so they could stay small?    That would be similar to an author telling people not to buy their books.  What author in their right mind would say, "I hope my book sells a few copies, but I hope it doesn't make any best seller lists"?

        That's the way I look at blogging.  I'm doing something that's a public activity so I'd like to see it go public in a big way--at least one post if nothing else.   A viral blog post would be okay with me.   Keeping new readers who respect me and my work would be even better.   A book deal because of something I posted on a blog would be beyond incredible.

         Fifteen minutes of blog fame would be pure exhilaration.  Respect after that would be the most I could ever ask for from blogging.

         Have you ever had a post that went viral?   What has been your most visited post? (feel free to leave a link to it!)   Would you like to see your blog posts receive thousands of readers?   How would you handle a thousand or more comments?  Do you feel respected as a blogger?

...And before you go...

       Please do leave a comment on today's post.  I want as many opinions on this topic as I can find.    The success of my research on this topic also depends on a big favor from you:  Please click on as many share buttons below as you can in order to reach a wider audience.   Please tell others about this post in every way you can think of.  I think the information I receive from comments will be very telling.   I will share what I learn here in my Friday post when I take the questions in today's post one step further in a direction that might interest some of you even more.

        Another reason that I want you to pass the link for this post on to others is that today's post is a lead-in for my mid-month Battle of the Bands post.  Since today's post will be the current post for today only and be replaced by another tomorrow, this post will be more easily lost without your help.   Please share the link!

        Incidentally, my post today is also a hint for the song I will be using in my Battle of the Bands face-off tomorrow.   Can you guess the song?  Be sure to be here tomorrow to find out the song and to vote on your favorite version.

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Type Is Not My Type : #IWSG

Image via Wikipedia

       Our A to Z co-host Damyanti Biswas who has the blog Daily (w)rite was recently talking about Word programs as opposed to typewriters.  This got me to thinking about my own experiences.  I disliked typewriters immensely when I had to deal with them.   Being able to use Word programs was like a dream come true.

        Technology is exciting, but it also scares me.  Electric typewriters were better than the manuals, but still it was a hassle when you made a mistake.  Correction ribbons and white-out kind of helped but I would still end up with a messy looking manuscript.   I wrote a lot by long hand in my notebook with my Bic pen and I liked that just fine.  But nevertheless I was deterred from being a professional writer and just doodled for myself and anyone who cared to take a peek.

        I once bought a Sears Type-O-Graph.  This was in the late 1980s.  This novel little machine was like a typewriter that instead of making impressions with type heads it had little pen tips that wrote whatever it was that you were keyboarding.   It also made really cool graphs and did a few other tricks.

       The store demonstration sold me on the Type-O-Graph, but after I started using it I realized that it was too complex for me to want to learn about.  Besides that, the little pen tips ran out of ink pretty quickly if you used them a lot and those things were expensive.  The machine was not very effective and not economically practical.  Besides, even though the graphs and diagrams that the machine could create were kind of cool, when would I need to use this?   My whole point in getting the Type-O-Graph was to make writing easier and truth be told it did not do that.

        When I finally started using computers I discovered true facility in writing.  No more erasures and an easy view of what was going to be put on paper before it was printed.   I could easily edit.  My fingers were able to fly faster across the keyboard.  And I could look at the internet when I wasn't keyboarding.

         However, I was also now head to head with advanced technology.  There is so much that I don't get about computers.  There is too much to learn and new things keep coming.  Just when I think I've got something down they change it.  New versions of Word, new operating systems, new software, new hardware.   When does it all end!!!   I can't keep up.
       

          I'm kind of concerned how things keep changing.  Google, Blogger, Facebook--I get used to something and they make it different.  Sure it's supposed to be improvements that they're making, but I liked the old ways.   I can't keep up Twitter, video on YouTube, or all of the other things that are so abundant that I can't even name them all.

          Someday I just know a computer virus is going to eat everything I've ever created, steal all that I have including my identity, and then infect me and my wife with some brain eating disease that will turn us into zombies. Then some stupid zombie author will turn me into a damn story about zombies and instead of writing a book, I'll be a book. 

           Of course, I suppose there's an upside to that.  I like to see the up side to things, but I'm not thinking of it right at this moment.

           Let's leave it at this:  I'm kind of happy with the way things are right now and I don't want things to keep changing so fast.  I'm glad we don't have typewriters anymore and I like computers.  Leave my Windows and Word the way it is now because I'm used to it.  Stop messing with Blogger, Google, and Facebook.  All this change makes me feel so insecure.

            To hear from other insecure writers go here.

           

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What's In A Name?: The Story of a Pseudonym

      A recent post by Lisa Kramer at Woman Wielding Words pondered the topic of real names versus pseudonyms.  I've mentioned before that I use a phony name--like anyone might not have guessed it. This is as good as time as ever to explain the name.  In deference to Stephen T. McCarthy, who asked me about this many blogging months ago, I give you the origins of the Arlee Bird name.

      It was long before Google was around, so search engine status had nothing to do with the pen name.  I was in college and trying to become established as an author.  It was obvious even without the benefit of Google that I had a very common name.

        I've never made a point of trying to hide my real name on my blog.  Actually it can be found in several places, but most readers have probably never noticed that I was born with the name Robert Lee Jackson.  It's a name that perhaps is a few Google notches short of John Smith, but my real name is shared with a lot of people living now and who have lived in the past.   Check your phone book and I'm sure you'll find at least a few of them listed in your town.

         So trying to break in as an author I felt like I needed a name that would not be shared by thousands of other people and would be somewhat unique.  At first I submitted stories as Lee Jackson, but the name just didn't work for me despite being the name I'd gone by all of my life.

          Then I began to experiment with names.  I began to sign my writing as Ohio Franklin Jackson--after all it was the early 70s and people were experimenting with unusual names.  Having been born in Ohio I adopted that as my first name and Benjamin Franklin was one of my heroes at the time so I paid tribute to him.  I decided this name was maybe too quirky.

Image via Wikipedia

           Using just my first initial I went back to my real name as R. Lee Jackson.  There was a very brief period when I got the idea that it might be easier to have a short story accepted if I were female and I tried writing under the name of Mary Tipton.  Where'd that come from?  That didn't last long and I returned to the R. Lee Jackson tag.

           Feeling that starting a moniker with an initial didn't sound quite right, in early 1975 I went from R. Lee to Arlee, since it sounded the same when spoken.  For the next several years I wavered between those two opening names attached to the Jackson surname.

           In mid-1975 I joined a magic show and decided to focus my career on juggling and show business and basically put writing for submission purposes on the back burner.  My business card and all promotional material used R. Lee and I dispensed with actually using Arlee for a while.  I also used the alias of "Jack Clark" when I was acting in behalf of my alter ego of promoter for R. Lee Jackson and his professional activities.  Hey--I felt like I had to wear different hats sometimes in order to make people think I had representation.

          When I decided to get off the road in order to start my kids in school and lead a more normal life, I started an entertainment business in Tennessee.  When I was putting the business together I began thinking of a name.  I don't recall exactly how it came to me but I envisioned a logo of a bird tugging at a worm in a hole which  would resemble a music note.  This made me think of the expression, "the early bird gets the worm."  Bingo!  Early, Arlee--Arlee Bird Entertainment.

           Nearly twenty years later when I started Tossing It Out, I decided not to use my real name.  The name that immediately came to me was my old entertainment business name.  I figured there couldn't be many people with that name and it would be unique.  I googled the name and found one guy with that name in Florida, but that was it.   I took it.

           It's kind of an odd name, but it is different.  Now I've taken over Google with the name.  I don't know what happened to the guy in Florida.  It's my writing name now and silly though it may sound I am now Arlee Bird in my literary and blogging life.  I guess I might as well keep the name now.

     **************************  


       While I'm at it I might as well acknowledge an award given to me by The Word Nerd.  Since I'm telling you stuff anyway I'll play along with this one.  I know I'd said a while back that I wasn't going to do these award things, but what the heck--it's Christmas and I'm being nice.

        And I'm spilling beans.  So in keeping with the rules of the award here are seven things about me that I intend to blog about someday:

1.  I used to be an avid stamp collector.  I still save stamps and have my stamp collection, but I'm not active with it like I was when I was younger.

2. I also have a postcard collection that mostly consists of cards I bought when I was young, but if any of you ever send me a postcard it will go into my collection.

3.  At one time I had a fairly decent pencil collection, but I used all of the pencils back when I was still in school.  Gosh, does anyone use pencils anymore?

4.  Another collection that I once had that was rather sizable was matchbooks.   I won't go into detail about what happened to that--let's just say it went up in smoke.

5.  I joined my first book club when I was about thirteen--Doubleday.  I joined several other book clubs over the years which accounts for my extensive collection of books.

6.  When I was on the road I accumulated hundreds of cassette tapes, most which I still have and are playable.

7.  There is a real possibility that I am a hoarder.

          And I guess Word Nerd knows I that I'm not passing this on to anyone else.  This branch of the chain ends here, but I'm sure it continues through several of the other recipients.  But I will wish everyone

Merry Christmas!

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