How to play well (and blog well) with others

I’ve recently had a few lame come-ons in my email – “I’d love to provide content for your wonderful blog. I love your blog. Would you like to have interesting content for your blog?”

Read on and you will see why I am not impressed by this generic query.

I’ve also received a few emails from other writers, editors, and proofreaders – “How do I query another blogger to be a guest?” “How do I find guests for my blog?”

Previously, I posted these blogs as a series – My guest blog guidelines, Hosting a guest blogger, How to query another blogger, and Being a guest on another blog. Today, I’m posting them all together.

My guidelines

If you are interested in creating your own blog guidelines, click here to see my guidelines.

Hosting a guest

Hosting a guest blogger can be a rewarding experience. I learn, I find new friends, and I expand my reader base and exposure. Variety is the blogger’s spice of life. And it’s fun!

Guidelines – I explain these are not hard-n-fast rules, simply guidelines. I like to enable my guests to use their imagination, their own voice, and their sense of humor.

Reach out – I don’t wait around for people to invite themselves to guest blog. I go after people I find interesting. Reach out. Expand your horizons!

Background check – Before I invite someone to be a guest, I check out their blog, website, Twitter, Facebook… Do the same background check if a blogger approaches you. Is this someone you want on your blog?

Posting date clarity – In correspondence with a prospective blog guest, my deadline was vague. The guest blogger thought I wanted her article in February (because earlier I mentioned Valentine’s Day), and I was talking about November!

Deadline – Give the guest a specific deadline. S.P.E.L.L. it out clearly. “I need your submission in my inbox on or before January 22.”

Wiggle room – I normally set deadlines at least a week before the scheduled day. Don’t rely on last minute submissions. What if you plan on posting a blog on Tuesday afternoon and you still don’t have it Tuesday morning?

Back-up plan – What if your guest doesn’t follow through? Have a couple of your own draft blog articles simmering on the back burner for these emergencies.

Guest bio – I like to provide a bio and links for my guest’s online pages. So, in addition to the article, I ask for a 1) bio 2) profile picture 3) URLs for their social networking.

Maintain control – Indicate (in your guidelines and in conversations) that if you feel their article is not appropriate for your blog you won’t publish it or you might require edits.

Read the submission – Be sure to read the submission as soon as you get it; don’t wait until posting day. Is it well written and free of typos? Do the links work? If you feel it needs to be edited, send it back to the writer or advise her that you will edit. Be clear about what you feel needs to be edited.

Just say no – I hate to do this, but I’ve had to say, “No, thank you.” If the guest has broken one of your critical guidelines, ask the guest to edit or tell them you feel it’s not appropriate for your blog.

Learn to say yes! – I have broken out of my blogging box on numerous occasions. A few times, I have read a submission and think, “Eh, not really my cup o tea.” But I sit on it, give it a half day or so, read it again, and consider it on its merits.

Blogging love – If I have a guest, I ask that they share the link on their blog and/or their Facebook, Twitter, Fan Page.

Think big picture – Nearly every time I’ve had a guest blogger, I see an increase in my comments, and I occasionally get a couple new subscribers.

The query

Before the query – Say for instance you find a way-cool blog. You like a post or two and think, “I’d love to be a guest on this blog!” Before you query…

Guidelines? – If the blogger has guidelines, read them. Follow them.

Research – Read a bunch of the blogger’s posts, including posts made by guest bloggers. I suggest at least a dozen. What is that blogger’s focus? How are the posts presented? How are guests presented?

Where to send query – If the blogger wants you to send queries via an online contact form, use it. If the blogger wants you to send it to his email, use the email.

Form letters – Ick. Don’t do it. Most experienced bloggers can spot a form letter query from a mile away.

A blah query – “I’m a blogger, and I want to guest blog for you! I love your blog.” Blah and blech. Be sincere, not spammy.

A brilliant query – 1) Mentions a couple of the blogger’s posts and why you liked them. 2) Mentions one or two of the blogs in her blog roll. 3) Mentions the blogger’s book (if applicable). 4) Mentions what you’d like to blog about 5) Provides a brief preview.

Pace yourself – Don’t send out 50 queries on the same day – you might just get 50 “Yes, I’d like to have you on my blog” and then you’re scrambling to write 50 blogs at quantum-leap speed.

No, thank you – You send your query. You think it’s stellar! The blogger turns you down. It’s his blog, his decision. Remember, it might be timing. Make a note to query this blogger at a later date.

Temper, temper – If the blogger turns you down, don’t blast him on FB or Twitter. Send a basic thank you and let it go.

Resubmit – Try again in a few months. Consider subscribing to the target blog and leaving a comment on occasion.

Your guest post

Your blog host accepts your blog idea and gives you a deadline. You are scheduled to be a guest on another blog. Fabulous! Don’t simply drive in, drop the article, and drive away.

Now the work begins. Make it shine!

Deadline – Your host tells you, “Please have your submission to me by January 15.” Make sure it’s in her inbox by that date. Better if you have it to her before the deadline.

Dress up – Don’t send a slopped-together article. Clean it from top to bottom. Wipe the glass. Scrub the tires.

Check the mirror – Proofread, edit for clarity, adhere to word count, include all the information your host asked for. In addition to the article, your host asks for your bio, a profile picture, and your URLs. Don’t make her come back and beg you for them. Submit these as attachments to the submission email.

The extras –

BIO – Your host asks for a 50-word bio. Don’t send a two-page resume and expect her to edit.

PIC – A profile picture – Have one. Have a recognizable profile photo, not you amongst 37 cousins at your last family reunion.

URLs – I keep all my URLs in a list, so I don’t have to retype them every time.

Post Day –

Share and promote – Make a post on your own blog that directs subscribers to your host’s blog. Go to the host’s blog page and click all the buttons to share it, tweet it, Facebook it, etc.

Socialize – Visit the host’s blog over the next few days and look for comments. Respond to comments. Be nice. Don’t embarrass your host.

A dud – It your guest post is successful, great! If not, don’t go off pouting or FBing “Why isn’t anyone commenting on my guest post?!” You posted it to your blog, FB, Twitter, and so on. Let it sit for a day. Then consider posting it to your Facebook again.

Send a thank you – Even when I thought Laura’s 10^th birthday party was a dud, my mom made me send a thank you note. It’s the right thing to do. Send a thank you to your host.

Do you have to stick to “write what you know?”

This blog was inspired by a post I read at Indie Plot Twist, Write What You Know.

Living a dull life?

Danielle Hanna (half of Indie Plot Twist) and I both live in small towns in North Dakota. Just because it’s a small town, doesn’t mean it’s dull.

Read the newspaper

Unfortunately, you will find political intrigue, shootings, explosions, train wrecks…

Local police department

Have you ever done a ride along with the P.D.? I haven’t, though I did volunteer at my local police substation back in Albuquerque (and I still have contacts at the P.D. in case I have police-procedure questions).

Community events

Nearly every weekend, even in small towns, there are holiday events, festivals, or ethnic events.

How about a conference, like the Annual Bloggers and Writers Conference in Fargo, North Dakota?

Everywhere you look, you see history

What’s the history behind that building that houses the art museum?

What’s the history of Main Street?

What events changed your town? The flood of 2011 comes to mind.

Your past life

Most of my short stories and poetry reflect my knowledge, memories, experiences – both good and bad.

I have plenty of fond memories from my long-ago life – growing up on the east coast with Mom and Ang and brothers, building snow forts and skating on the local pond, Christmas caroling with friends, summer vacations. Even if you don’t want to write about long ago, you can use these memories to enhance your current characters and stories.

Look at old pictures

I have taken thousands of photos over the years. When I go back and study them, I see things I never noticed before. Old photos are great if you want to remember how the hair styles and clothing styles were for that era (if you are old enough to have another era). I also have a slew of old photos from my mom’s generation and beyond.

Jobs in your past

Most of us have numerous career experiences. I’ve worked a bunch of different jobs – dry cleaners, large corporations, small-town government, uniform warehouse, conference planning, loading dock, accounting, school for the deaf, and more. Tap your memories!

So many contacts

We all chat online via Facebook and LinkedIn. Why not utilize some of these contacts for their knowledge, information on their jobs, and their day-to-day challenges? We are all connected to professionals like doctors, lawyers, bankers, chefs, etc.

What if we want a character that does something we know nothing about?

Say, a character who is an archaeologist? That’s okay because I’m taking an online class in archaeology right now through Coursera. I’m learning just enough to be dangerous (or at least enough to include some of my newly-learned tidbits in my prose).

Or, conduct research at your local library or historical society.

Small town life

While I was writing this blog, an article about life in a little town popped up on Pamela Wight’s Rough Wighting blog, In My Little Town.

 

What experiences in your life have inspired your stories or characters?

What local happenings have inspired events in your stories?

Have any of your previous jobs made it into your stories?

Are you in a small town or big city?

 

A plug for my inspiration

Danielle Hanna learned how to read and write at age four and knew she wanted to be an author by the time she was seven. She now writes Christian mysteries. When she’s not riveted to her computer, you can find her camping, hiking, and biking with her German Shepherd/Rottweiler Molly. Danielle and Carrie Lynn Lewis partner at Indie Plot Twist.

 

 

Carrie Lynn Lewis has been writing for personal enjoyment most of her life. Her favorite genres are mystery, suspense, and political thriller, with manuscripts in the works in each of those categories. She is also an active critique partner for other authors, both published and unpublished. Carrie personal writing blog can be found at Writing Well.

At Indie Plot Twist, Danielle and Carrie are recording their journey to independent publishing. They host free classes on the blog five to six times a year and encourage readers to participate in the comments section.

 

Will you be remembered after the writers’ conference?

I am attending a writer/blogger conference in Fargo, North Dakota, this month.

I looked back on my writers’ conference tips, written last year. I also wrote about “branding” back in 2013 – you can see that link here.

For this conference, I thought…

How do I want to present myself? (The Word Shark, editor extraordinaire)

How do I want to dress? (professionally, in colors to match my website and blog)

What do I need to have? (biz cards, a name tag, give-away pens)

People are going to remember me because…

I dressed like a professional editor – sensible shoes, a blazer, neat hairdo, spare make-up. And everything about me is going to scream, “Shark!”

Personalize

I’m not going to use any entry-table name tag, no way. I made my own. You guessed it – it has a shark on it.

Hand outs

I will have The Word Shark biz cards and give-a-way pens with a shark charm (people will take me home with them).

North Dakota bloggers on FB

I discovered and joined the FB group, North Dakota Bloggers. There has been some chit-chat about the conference, and I have connected with a handful of attendees as well as presenters.

Research the presenters

Before any conference, you get a who’s-presenting email. Do look up these people, connect with them on social networking, follow their blogs ahead of conference time.

Magazine articles

One of the presenters at this conference is the editor of a local, regional magazine. Will I have a couple of articles to hand her? You bet your dorsal fin!

Engage

Don’t just show up at the conference – engage. Talk to people, ask questions about their projects, and participate in discussions. Exchange cards so you can send a follow up email, “Nice to meet and you at the conference…”

When all the conference-goers go home

They will pick up my shark pen and say, “Hey, maybe I do need an editor.”

 

Conference ready!

Got the shark name tag

Got shark-pen give-away swag

Got a flashy shark shirt for downtown Fargo walk-about

Got a quiet shark tee and blazer for the conference crowd

Got the biz cards, ready to hand out

It’s all conference I’m about!

 

How do you prepare for a writers’ conference?

What’s your favorite thing about attending a writers’ conference?

 

Cool shark-charm pens custom made by The English Rose.

 

Untying Knots by Writing Fiction (Because Story Telling is Good for You)

Article by J.J.Brown

Have you ever had a real knot you couldn’t untie, that was driving you mad? Or have you heard about an issue that seems impossible to solve? Try writing a story about it.

Story telling is good for you.

One of the ways I cope with difficult issues is by writing stories. I had a brain-splitting conflict worse than a migraine, about an environmental issue recently–called “fracking”. Fracking is a method of gas drilling, and is short for “hydraulic fracturing”. Literally means using water to break apart rock. Sounds clean. The parts not implied by this name are dark and dirty:

• Adding hundreds of chemicals – many poisonous – to the water
• Exploding the water with sand and chemicals deep under the earth’s surface
• Contaminated, poisonous, and sometimes radioactive water coming back up

Fracking has become wildly controversial in the US, in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Ireland, Poland… Although fracking is going on in 34 states in the US, this industrial process is banned in all of New York State where I live, because of serious health concerns. That ban is about to expire. My goal was to do what I could to make a difference in this issue before that decision. And so from July to November 2012, I worked on writing a novel to help me deal with the issue of fracking. I made it, only just! I published the new book Brindle 24 in December. Our governor’s decision is expected February 27th.

After going through the process of writing a novel around an issue, I would like to share the experience. Here are a few tips on writing fiction to deal with an issue.

Get the facts.

Do your research. Read what the experts in the area are saying. I have a science and medical education background, and so I researched what scientists and doctors were reporting on the issue of fracking. The facts were horrifying, and made the idea of writing a book seem ever more important to me.

• Watch documentaries and news programs about the issue
• Talk to people to see what they are thinking about the issue
• Listen

I watched the documentary film from Josh Fox, GasLand, on the effects of fracking in his family’s home state of Pennsylvania. Even farmers who have been fracked are talking about effects on farms and dairies. Many short documentaries have come out, like Kirsi Jansa’s Gas Rush Stories. I watch all of these that I can find. I collected the research and added links to a website for my book.

Find a role model.

Search out similar literary works that tackled issues successfully. I chose Upton Sinclair as my role model, for his amazing work, The Jungle. Some call it a novel, others investigative journalism. Whichever way you see it, the book made a tremendous impact on policy in the US on workers’ conditions. I was required to read this novel in high school, and the story stayed with me. I read the book again, this time as an author myself. He framed the brutal story of abusive working conditions with a delicate love story. For me, this made all the difference. As a young reader, I could not have read a long book about dangerous – and frankly disgusting – working conditions of urban meat packing. But the love story Upton Sinclair told in this setting was as gripping as Romeo and Juliet. I admit it, I read Shakespeare’s plays. I read that classic play again, while writing Brindle 24, which helped me come up with the opening scene.

Create conflict.

Based on the issue, ask: what is the biggest conflict? Write about the conflicts. For Brindle 24, I begin the novel with a fight between rural residents and outsiders from the city and from industry. I have experienced rural vs. urban conflict first hand during childhood as a rural resident of the Catskills upstate, and as a New York City resident now. But the biggest conflict I saw with fracking was the internal conflict, a crisis of conscience. How does a person do work for a job that could be poisoning others down the road? The “man against himself” conflict was a big one for me, in trying to understand the issue of what scientists were doing – or not doing – about fracking. I created a scientist as a main character in Brindle 24 to go through this crisis.

Add love.

We solve issues is not based on isolated facts, not out of conflicts either, but through love. In working on fracking issues in my story line, I explored how deep loving relationships among family members changed their choices. Their love for one another made the chemical contamination risks they each faced more significant. Losing a loved one is tragic. Losing a loved one from a preventable accident is even worse. I also included love of nature as a central theme in my story, to support the environmental views of central characters. In fracking, contamination, pollution, and destruction of nature have roused contentious debates. Nature herself becomes a character we love.

The next time an issue has your mind in knots, don’t get a headache. Tell a story.

• Get the facts
• Find a role model
• Create conflict
• Add love

I can’t wait to read what comes out of the process!

J.J.Brown is the author of the short story collection Death and the Dream, novels Vector a Modern Love Story, and American Dream, and the poetry book Natural Supernatural Love. Born in the Catskill Mountains, J.J.Brown lives in New York City. The author was trained as a scientist and completed a PhD in genetics.

Connect with J.J. on her Facebook Author Page, the book site (built around the issue), her Book Page on Amazon, and on Twitter.