Snoskred - Life in the Country

NOTE - If you link to me and you do not appear in my sidebar, please contact me and let me know. I want to link back to you and read your blog. I will be trying to find all the sites that link to me but it is difficult and time consuming. It would be much easier if you just sent me an email with a link to your blog.

Now I’ve got that out of the way..

I’ve been working on clearing out my Google Reader. I have gone from 215 subscriptions back to 143 - a huge drop. This is no easy task, but some bloggers have made it easy for me to make the decision - keep reading, or unsubscribe? Here’s some of the reasons why I have unsubscribed from some of the blogs.

Posts Too Long.

Writing one huge long post every week and posting rarely in between. There was one blog on my google reader, I kid you not, who would write posts averaging between 4,000 to 5,000 words once a week. Was it anything I could use? No. It was simply egotistical shyte where the blogger answered a whole bunch of questions other readers had asked - some of you may know the blog I mean..

Their last post in my reader was 5261 words, 28792 characters and just to give you an idea, I pasted it into word. It went for 15 pages. ONE POST!!!!!! And people say my posts are long, ya’all ain’t seen nothing yet! Just for comparison sake - this post is 2199 words long, 11276 characters and was four pages when I posted it into word.

I don’t mind a long post, if you have something useful and interesting to say. If you’re just pandering to your massive ego, I’m hitting unsubscribe.

Too Pithy.

Every post you wrote was three lines or less. Every. Single. One. I enjoy pith as much as the next person, but there is such a thing as too much pith. Give me some substance!

Where Are You?

Some of the blogs deleted last week had not been updated at all in over 6 months. Hello, you had people who were reading you and you went and blew it. Maybe you got busy. Maybe you got a life. Maybe you got hit by a bus. I don’t know, and now I’ll never know, because you just left me hanging. I’ve unsubscribed. Readers of this blog will be happy to know, if something happened to me I have a plan all ready to deal with it. You’ll never be left wondering here.

You Went Quiet.

You used to post regularly and I was loving it, but now I realise I haven’t heard from you in a couple of months - and your last post didn’t say “I’m going on holidays” “I’m taking a break from blogging” “I have to do (insert important thing) so you may not hear from me so much over the next few (length of time)”. If it did, I’d be ok waiting. Seriously. We all have lives to live.

They have a term for this with nuclear submarines - going quiet. Unless you happen to be living in one, it’s not a good idea to do it with your blog. Readers will unsubscribe - like I just did. Let people know if you’re going to be away for a bit. It’s a nice thing to do for your loyal readers.

You’re A Wanna-be.

I linked to you for at least 6 months and I told you I was linking to you via a comment. You never linked back. In your links list all I see are “a-list” bloggers. All you talk about is what the “a-list” bloggers are saying or doing. If I wanted to know what the “a-list” bloggers were saying or doing, I’d be reading them. I don’t read them. I wanted to read *you*, not some poor soul wishing they could be on the “a-list” and sucking up to the “a-list” bloggers in every post.

I’ll give that link to another blogger who deserves it more. Good luck getting the “a-list” bloggers to link back to you. Just a hint you might be able to use - if you annoy enough people who link to you, you won’t ever get to be an “a-list” blogger because regular non-a-list people won’t link to you or subscribe to your feed. Spread your link love around and base it on content, not what supposed list the blog is on.

I’m not feeling it.

In order for me to read your blog, I have to sometimes know what you are talking about. There is one blogger I deleted because they write these major in depth posts that read like a legal document. On a personal blog. There is never any personal posts, never any images and a lot of 50 cent words you only hear used in spelling bees.

If you’re writing like that on your personal blog, maybe you need to take a holiday. Relax. Not that I can’t handle in depth posts and legal wording but from time to time, chill out and have a laugh! Tell me something funny that happened to you. Lighten up.

I’m overwhelmed.

Some people post too much. Two to three posts a day is one thing. Four every day, you may be pushing it. 5-15 posts a day is way out of control. I want to know about you but not every single detail that happens in your life! Learn to edit. Write things and put them aside for a wrap up post, one longer post instead of 6 short little ones.

I’m writing this on Saturday the 18th of August. I’ve already posted three things today. Tomorrow I post one thought of the day and the weekly wrap up. The earliest this will be posted is Monday. That’s ok. My writing doesn’t have an expiration date. I know you’re not sitting at home waiting. You have a life. You have other blogs to read. So do I. Don’t pummel me with posts!

Your Content Went AWOL.

Some bloggers have got into paid posts so much that it is all they blog about anymore. I’m all about supporting a bloggers right to make money but if you aren’t providing non-paid content as well, you will lose your readers, and consequently find it harder to get paid blogging jobs. My personal rule is follow up a paid post with non paid content soon after posting the paid content, at least on the same day. If you’re doing that, give yourself a pat on the back.

Your Content Was Negative

Not one positive post in the whole time I’ve been reading you? All you want to do is whinge and you aren’t prepared to look at the positives in life? Sorry, that’s not for me. I prefer positive thought. Occasional snark is one thing, I can appreciate that. Being mad at the world 24/7/365? I’m feeling sorry for you and it’s depressing the heck out of me. Let me off this rollercoaster ride into negativity!

I’m Waiting.

One post a month? One post every two months? That’s all you can manage? Seriously? Are your readers so unimportant to you? You have nothing to say? You can’t find a news article to speak about? You got nothing? You can’t ask for guest posters? You’re too busy to have a blog. Seriously. I’m unable to deal with such long gaps between posts unless your content is *incredible*.

You Moved.

Without telling me more than once - and now I’ve lost that connection to you. Here’s a piece of advice for moving bloggers. Keep your old blog for at least a month. Once a week during that month, post a reminder that you have moved on your old blog. That’s for your feed readers, who may not have received the message the one time you sent it out. They may have hit “mark all as read” because there were 500 posts in one folder and they couldn’t face reading it.

Give your readers every possible chance to follow you. They are not expecting you to move and are unprepared for it. Me personally I’d be posting “I’ve moved here” once a week on that old blog for six to eight weeks.

You Were Cliquey.

Some bloggers just want their friends reading. They could make their blogs private so the rest of us don’t get attached and then hurt when they leave us out, ignore us and our comments, and refuse to link back to us.

Template Issues.

Every time I visited your site, you had a different template. And I visited your site a lot over the space of a few weeks, I told you how much I liked a couple of the templates but one day I got tired of the constant switching, things moving around.. it was just too much. Sorry. Your content was ok but not good enough to overcome the massive template indecision. Let me guess, you change clothes five times a day, right?

You Told Me You Were Quitting.

I understand, but I’ll miss you. In order to keep the blogroll alive, I’ve taken your link down but if you come back, I’ll put it up before I finish reading your first post saying you’re returning to blogging, I promise. Thank you so much for everything, I enjoyed your blogging.

But Wait A Minute?

Some of you may have read this list and thought “I do that” “Ouch, I’ve made that mistake” or even “I never realised how annoying that could be to my readers, I’ll never do it again!” If so, that is fantastic. It will make your blog even better - for me and for all your readers.

If your name is still over on that sidebar list of blogs I read via google reader, it means one of two things.

1. You are linking to me, which I deeply appreciate, thanks! I’ll never de-link you while you link to me. If I did it by accident please let me know. This job has been evil and I have been working on it for over a week now and still have not tracked down everyone linking to me.

2. I love you so much I can’t let you go. Even though you don’t link to me. It would be nice if you did, but I enjoy your writing and I’m giving you that link because of it. If you don’t enjoy mine, you probably shouldn’t be linking to me.

For 95% of the blogs listed there, it is both. There’s a few blogs over there doing a few of the above things, so perhaps take a moment to consider whether you are being considerate of your readers and mindful of what could make them unsubscribe from your feed.

Please note I read the Australian (and US) Blogs Community via RSS as one feed - if your blog is a part of that community I may not have listed it a second time in the list of blogs I read via google reader. If I listed it twice, that is my mistake but extra link love for you..

My Future Policy

Things have to change here because I can’t face doing this job once every six months, and I don’t have the time to be constantly updating this list. So here’s my thoughts on a good compromise. Some of you reading this may want to try the same thing, or publish your future policy so all your readers can be aware of it..

1. If I like your blog, I am going to add it to a folder in my reader called “new”. I will also add it to a block on the sidebar called “New Blogs I like”.
2. I will list your blog in the weekly wrap up when I add you.
3. I will comment and let you know I did this.
4. Once every 3-6 months, I will review this folder.
5. Blogs I have come to love will be added in to the main “Blogs I read with google reader” list.
6. Blogs that have linked back to me will be added in to the main “Blogs I read with google reader” list. There’s an easy way to make sure I keep linking to you right there. I’ll never de-link you while you link to me.
7. Blogs I didn’t feel that connection with will be removed from the reader and the sidebar.

Further Reading

This post is now accompanied by a post from Sephy with a lot of how-to info on RSS feeds. He’s great at taking the tech out of technical things so non technical people like me can understand them. Make sure to read it!. You may also want to have a look at these useful articles -

• Top 10 Sins of Blog Usability
• Thirteen Blog Clichés
• Simply said…How To Blog
• 7.5 Reasons I Abandoned You Today
• Top 7 blog mistakes to avoid

Over To You.

What are your thoughts? What is your policy on linking to blogs? Do you struggle with who you should give the link love to? Do you feel bad or rejected when people don’t link back to you? What about when people delete their link to you? Do you have blogs you’re hanging on to which you would love to delete?

I’m in the process of adding a few sections to my sidebars. Is there anyone reading this who has an article or post which would be useful to other bloggers? Would you like me to link to it in my sidebar? Just drop me an email or a blog comment with the link and the title of the post and I will add it to a new section I am creating over the next week - designed to help bloggers find useful posts that can help them blog better or do things they don’t know how to do, like how to guides etc. There’s so much bloggers need to know!

So on the right hand side bar you may spot a new scrolling list titled Bumpzee No-No Follow Faves. This list is slowly coming together as I read through the RSS feed. It will contain some of my favourite blogs from that community, the ones I am learning a lot from, the ones that I enjoy reading, the ones that make me think and challenge me. Please note I won’t be adding blogs that are already listed in other sections of my sidebar - some blogs belong to many communities on Bumpzee.

I’m feeling a bit restless with the blog template again. I found some today that are flat out incredible however I’m not sure they work with the new blogger. If you don’t like the current template I have here, please let me know in the comments section and if enough of you agree it needs changing I’ll look at changing it. Any new template would still be 3 column, hopefully. I am hopeful I might be able to talk Sephy into creating a clean 3 column template which the rest of us can build on.

What I want to do right now is make a new title bar graphic, so I’m going to focus on that for the rest of today. I have an idea of what I want to put there, we’ll see how it goes.

I also have an idea for a business, and I can’t really think straight right now, my head is whirring and yet somehow still managing to play Hotel California which has been on repeat in there for a couple of days now - you can all hear the whirring, right? HUGE thanks to Meg from Dipping Into The Blogpond for posting this brilliantly helpful post The Business Of Blogging which has got me all fired up and thinking of business names and to do lists and next steps.

So what is this great idea I have? I’d love to tell you. But not just yet. I’ll let you know when I know more.

I’ve put in some scroll bars on my links lists. You might want to do this as well. The code is fairly simple - <div style="overflow: auto; height: 200px">PUT LIST OF LINKS HERE</div> - you can change the height of the box to suit yourself as well, just change 200px to whatever amount of pixels high you would like the box to be. Thanks go to Sephy who figured out how to do this.

The first blog post I read on opening my google reader was Weekend: Blogistan by one of my favourite bloggers, Chani from Thailand Gal. While I adore her and her writings, on many topics we see very differently and this is one of them. It really got me thinking, especially some of the comments and her responses to them. So let me get into what I think, in the hope it may suggest other ways of thinking about these things.. Yeah, this one will be long, sorry about that, and I really would like to hear your thoughts and comments on it. Don’t forget there’s a weekly wrap up post below this one too.

Blogrolls.

I give out link love like there’s no tomorrow. I do it for various reasons -

- Blogs I read via my google reader - these are the blogs I am reading and enjoying. If I like them, and you like my blog, chances are you may enjoy them. But my tastes are wide and varied, and therefore you might find yourself surprised or even absolutely dislike what you find there. Once every 6-12 months I will go through this list and I may remove blogs I am no longer reading, blogs that have moved without beating my head up about the fact that they have a new location (tip, if you move blogs, post at your old blog at least once a week to let people know you have moved with a link to the new blog, so your feed-reading people can follow you), blogs that I’m not feeling the connection with anymore.

It is not done to offend anyone, it is not done so people link back to me (if they do, that is really lovely and much appreciated) and it is done to let people know I am reading them and that I love and appreciate their work. I believe it is the very least I can do in return for the enjoyment I get out of their blogging. A link in my sidebar is good for their Technorati ranking, their Google pagerank, and various other things.

- The links list to both the Australian and the US blog communities. Another of my favourite bloggers, Meg from Dipping into the Blogpond, set up the Australian Blogs Community a while ago. I read about it on her blog and joined up. It truly has changed my blogging life for the better in some major ways. Being a part of a community is such a nice feeling, there’s so many great blogs out there (mixed in with some not so brilliant ones but even they have the occasional great post) and I get it all delivered to me on the RSS feed so I can read through the first 250 characters of each post and then if I want more I can click through to the blog and read the rest.

I noticed there wasn’t a US blogs Community at the time and I suggested to Sephy that he should create one because he’s in the USA.

I really believe in both of these projects which is why I have the manual links to them in the sidebar. It’s good for everyone on the list, it adds to their pageranks in various places, and I’m hopeful it encourages others to join. I maintain the Australian Blogs Community list myself, each week Meg sends me the new blogs and I update little text files which I keep on my webspace.

Other people’s blogrolls -

- I understand that these things are not easily updated all the time. Most of the time I have all day every day to work on my blog. Not everyone has that.
- If you link to me, that is lovely and much appreciated but if I don’t know about it I can’t link to you in return. I always post a comment on a blog to let people know I am linking to them.
- If you link to me and you’re not in my sidebar, I recommend you let me know because I am happy to check out your blog. Comment on this post to mention you’d like me to check out your blog. I will as soon as I have the spare time, and if I like it, I’ll link to you.
- I appreciate someone asking to do a link exchange, and I will usually respect that by giving you a link back. If you get removed from my links bar at some later time, I do apologise, but it does mean I am no longer reading your blog. I read a lot of blogs, from time to time I have to re-evaluate my choices, and if you didn’t catch me with your content, if there was no connection, I’m sorry. It’s me, not you.

Commercial Promotion

And now we get to the slightly more thorny topic. Let’s face a few facts up front.

1. I do not earn any money. I do not work, I have not applied for unemployment though I would be eligible for it, I do not want to receive it at this time. We live on The Other Half’s income. Though it is reasonable and enough to provide us with most everything we need, it also is nice to have my own money from time to time to buy little treats for me.

2. If I were to promote a product or website here on my blog, it would not be something I don’t already use and love. And I have given blatant free advertising to things that I use and love, places I shop, websites I adore, places I like to go and visit, etc, before here on the blog. So if someone wants to pay me to do it, that’s fine by me.

Pay per post -

I did recently sign up for pay per post, and was a bit disappointed to find that one product I do already love and use and a product I would love to be able to tell you guys about because I really feel it would help you to increase your internet security was paying people PLENTY of money to blog about them - we’re talking in the hundreds here just for one post. However they wanted people with a google pagerank of 6 and mine is only 4, so I could not earn anything for blogging about it. So for the time being, I’ve settled just for putting a “you can hire me” thing on the sidebar, and then if someone wants to hire me I’d only agree if it is something I really do love and use - or, if it were something new that I felt I would love and use.

Also, I have my own little rule (which as yet I’ve not had to implement) that if I wrote a sponsored post, I would immediately follow it up with some not sponsored content. This gives people a chance to skip the sponsored post if they feel like it.

Advertising links in the sidebar -

I have no problem with putting ad links in the sidebar. Text Link Ads pay me for the link, not per click so if you want to click, that’s your choice. It’s not much money but when you earn nothing it kinda counts. I won’t be putting google adwords in, but I have no objection to people who do that. I also won’t be putting some of the other types of ads in, but I have no real objections when other bloggers do that - PROVIDING - there is actual content on their blog that I can read and enjoy.

My position on bloggers and commercial promotion.

So I guess my major bone to pick with Chani’s post was the part where she said commercial promotion on your blog means you get removed from her blogroll. I think commercial promotion can be done tastefully and without offending anyone, and as long as the blogger involved tells you that they’re being paid for that post. Money won’t buy my good opinion. I have to already have the good opinion first. If a company said to me - try our product, and if you like it we’ll pay you to blog about it - and I did like it so much that I intended to use it again, I’d be happy to blog about it.

If any of the companies which I use products from already came to me and asked me to promote their product here on the blog, well what’s wrong with that? I already use their stuff, I already love it, I was probably going to mention it at some point anyway (and I do have ideas for products I can’t live without blogs floating around already) and if I like it, chances are my readers might like it just as much as I do.

Just stop for one moment and think about this. You wash your hair, right? (One hopes so!)What if the company who manufacture your shampoo offered $10US for you to blog about their product. Would that tempt you, if you really loved their product, the feel of it, the smell of it, how clean your hair felt after washing it? What about $50US? What about $100US? What if they said a year’s free product? You’re already using it. What’s wrong with saying I love this, and the company is paying me money to tell you I love this?

Not to mention, it is actually good for me to tell people about things I love, because if I do that then maybe some of these companies will STOP TAKING PRODUCTS OFF THE SHELVES WHICH I CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT. I have here on my desk right now an empty McCormick pepper steak seasoning bottle because I am intending to write them an email which says why can’t I find this on the shelves anymore? I love this product and so does the rest of my family, we’ve tried the other brands on the market and they don’t taste as good, so please bring it back!

As time goes on, I find I am writing more and more emails to companies. They fall into two categories - why can’t I find your product, can you tell me where I can get some more of it - and I love your product, it is fantastic. I feel it is important to let companies know when they’re doing something well. They probably get plenty of complaints, and there’s not enough people out there giving compliments. I like to take the time to give a compliment if I can.

I’ve already promoted plenty of stuff here on my blog for free. For example - Pitango Soup - Lean Cuisine - Rushfaster and their brilliant website - of course Ikea there’s been many posts about, and that is not even mentioning the movies I’ve written about, the blogs I’ve recommended, books I’ve written about, TV programs, music I love, DVD’s, I could keep going but I think you get my point.

Consider a-ha and Morten Harket, how many times have I posted their songs here and written about them? Why do I do it? Because I love their work, and I think people who enjoy my blog would love it too - and it’s not something you’re going to find on the (US) charts - too much (c)rap and not enough substance there these days. I hope that me talking about it here might inspire people to purchase their music, I won’t lie to you about that. I’m not making any money out of it, I’m just a fan.

In this world today, good service and good products and good books and good movies and good music really are not easy to find, especially if they’re not mainstream or promoted everywhere. If a good friend of mine says to me - wow, this is fantastic, you have to (see, hear, taste) it, I’m likely to do exactly that. I consider my fellow bloggers good friends of mine, and if they love a book or a product or a movie or some music, I want to know about it.

Shopping in an ocean of products.

I went into Borders while in the city, on the weekend. We spent probably two hours there. As I was browsing the shelves, I was trying to recall the titles of books which my fellow bloggers had mentioned they liked, and I failed miserably. I could only remember one title which someone had not liked (yes, it was The White Masai), so I wasn’t about to buy that one.

There were SO many books there, millions to choose from. I felt like I was drowning in an ocean of not knowing anything about these authors and whether I would like them. It was like a glittering cave of pretty book covers with no idea of what was behind them. Like the old Doug Antony Allstars joke along the lines of - do not judge a book by its cover, read the entire thing in the bookshop first and then decide if you wish to purchase it.

Books aren’t cheap, especially not at Borders. As more time went by, I began to feel under pressure to choose. I went right through the authors from A to Z and nothing jumped out and grabbed me, except books I already had, and books I remembered reading in English class many years ago. I already have a lot of the classics - I must finish that Library Thing list in my sidebar one day, it does not represent anything like the amount of books I own.

You know what I ended up buying? Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell, a book I remember enjoying from high school and the only book from the A to Z section which probably had a hundred thousand books to choose from. My Life So Far by Jane Fonda - I saw her on The Actor’s Studio recently where they talked a fair bit about this book she’d written and all of a sudden there it was in front of me (not hidden on the shelves, in a book stand) so I grabbed it. Failure Is Not An Option by Gene Kranz - I mentioned already that I’ve seen him interviewed and really adore him. He still can’t talk about Apollo 13 without getting emotional, you can see just how much it meant to him to get those guys home. I loved the Apollo 13 book and I knew I’d love his book too, but I had no idea it existed and I found it quite by accident while looking for books on Aviation.

I had more money to spend, I could have bought several more books, but I didn’t because I didn’t KNOW what was good in an ocean of many options. I’ve been burned before, you know? If I’d had time to prepare for going there, I’d have put together a list. I have a DVD list, which I take everywhere with me, and if I see anything on it for less than $10AUD, I usually pick it up. I’m now starting a book list, and if a fellow blogger gives a book a good review and it sounds like something I’d like, I’m writing it down so I can check it out in the store.

So I guess, I feel like bloggers promoting things - for the right reasons - is something I really want to see more of. Yes, I have seen blogs which blatantly post a sh*tload of pay per post things and you can tell they have never had anything to do with the product they speak of. It always turns me off - however if they have good content as well, it’s not going to put me off entirely. I’ve seen blogs where the content was great, then they got into pay per post and now won’t write anything other than paid posts, and yes I agree that sucks and I wouldn’t keep reading that kind of blog.

The reasons above is one reason why I have not done any paid posts yet - there’s nothing there at the moment which I use and love. There’s one opportunity there at the moment that appeals to me that is trying to get the word out about a non-profit service and you know what, I think that is truly a worthwhile thing to post about. I post here about scams and internet security and keeping yourself safe on the net. I’ve posted before about Lifeline and depression because these are things that have happened to me and Lifeline helped me and maybe those posts helped someone to get help, you know? If non-profits and legitimate charities can use pay per post to get the word out about things they do and services they offer, that is brilliant in my opinion. If it can benefit bloggers too, that is surely a good thing.

Make money from your blog.

There are plenty of blogs out there promoting make money from your blog type of things, many of them are in the Australian and US blog communities. I have mixed feelings about them. Some of the things they talk about, some of the tips they give are actually excellent for blogging in general - not necessarily for making money out of your blog. I do want to improve my writing and my blog, and I am happy to read peoples tips and ideas.

There are some blogs out there where stay-at-home Mom’s are trying to make enough to continue staying at home with their kids. Some of those blogs are brilliant and fantastic and I love them. Some of those blogs I find incredibly annoying but I still have to stand up and applaud the reasons they are trying to do it - if my Mom had this option years ago, she might have been able to be at home more with us. I’m one of a generation of kids who let themselves into the house after getting home from school.

I guess the bottom line is, I’m willing to overlook a few commercial posts from time to time as long as

- I believe the blogger is telling the truth and not just saying things in order to earn money
- The blog has enough content which is not sponsored and that content makes me love the blogger enough to keep reading
- The blogger isn’t in your face about it, they follow up a sponsored post with genuine unpaid content
- The blogger also has content which tells about things they love and use which is NOT paid for, so it does fit in with their blogging in general

As far as ads in the sidebar etc -

- they are not too overwhelming
- they do not flash, or make noises when I move my mouse over them
- we all work hard on our blogs and deserve to earn some money from them, but we also must respect our readers and not overwhelm them with commercial content. There’s such a thing as too much.

For me, it’s not a black or white thing.

I can’t say - if you post commercial content I’m removing you from my blogroll. I’m not in a position to judge other people on whether they are tempted into making a bit of money from their blog. In fact I’m in a position to *applaud* people if they do it in a way which respects their readers. The money is out there for the taking and I’d much rather see it go to a blogger I love and respect who needs the money than someone just doing it for the cash.

Your blog is a place for you. It is where you can express your thoughts and opinions about things you believe in, things you love, things you want to let others know about. I’m along for the ride and I’m going to be there for the good times as well as the bad, the good posts as well as the not so good ones, the paid posts as well as the unpaid ones. I’m a pretty loyal person once you’ve won my heart. If you can make money out of your blog, good on you. Just don’t forget that your readers will leave if they find it offensive, or too much. I’m thinking one pay per post per week is probably enough for most readers to overlook. If you start posting three a day and no worthwhile content in between, eat my dust cos I’m outa there..

If you never comment on a post of mine but you’ve managed to make it this far, please drop by and leave your thoughts in the comments. I really want to know what other people think about this.