The Reader Appreciation Project » Blogger Anxiety http://www.raproject.com The First and Only Website On The Planet Dedicated to Customer & Reader Appreciation Thu, 05 Aug 2010 09:00:46 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Blogger Anxiety – Posting http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-posting/ http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-posting/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:00:29 +0000 Ronald Huereca http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-posting/ Blog Anxiety

This is the fourth and final post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on When Life Gets in the Way.

There are many anxieties surrounding bloggers and posting. Some of the anxieties discussed today are content theft, credibility, target audience, posting times, and a few others.

Content Theft

A typical blog post for me takes at least an hour. Now some punk goes and takes my content and puts it on his site as well. This content-scraper can now interlace the content I created with ads and make money off of my work.

What’s a blogger to do when they find out someone has been stealing their content? One option is to contact the person directly, but this may not work out in all cases.

My biggest problem is that people will take an excerpt of my content and place it on their site without any commentary. I don’t have a problem with people quoting my work, but at least provide some unique spin.

Credibility

Are you worried that you don’t have the right stuff when it comes to writing a blog post? Perhaps you’re worried that people will discredit your work or make fun of you?

When I was in speech class in college, my professor said that a humble speaker is a nervous speaker. I would also argue that a humble blogger is a nervous blogger. Anytime one can write something and not care what the audience thinks is the day when one has crossed the boundary into being egocentric.

Here are some quick tips to diminish the anxiety of credibility problems:

Know Your Stuff

This seems to be a given, but if you know your material really well, then be confident in your remarks when/if confronted.

Do Your Research

Make sure you get the dates and names right. Double-check links and double-check sources.

Use a Spell-Checker and Read Out Loud

At least use a spell-checker before publishing a blog post. Reading your post out loud will also catch a lot of errors.

Target Audience

The anxiety regarding target audience will often come up with guest blogging for someone. Darren Rowse wrote a great article on how to be a good guest blogger.

If you are having target audience anxiety on your own blog, one tip I have been given was to picture somebody you know that you want to come to the site and write for that person.

If you are worried about going over the heads of your target audience (such as talking technical), either refrain from making those kind of blog posts or find a blog where you can write about that stuff freely. You could always introduce your audience to technical things slowly such as things like RSS.

High Profile Posts

I submitted an essay for the WLTC Essay Contest in December of ’06. This was by far the biggest audience I had ever written for. And being that my essay was rather controversial, I couldn’t really handle the negative comments. The first few comments were positive. The first negative comment had me walking out of work early and straight into the gym. I was a young blogger. I should have known better than to enter a high-profile contest with an essay that basically said, “Don’t write about this, please.” My skin had yet to thicken. I’m still not sure it has.

My cure for the anxiety of a high-profile post was to basically ignore it. I tried to forget it was there. After two weeks or so, the buzz around the post died down and people stopped getting all frantic and offended. People moved on. Bes Zain wrote a good article on how to handle critical comments.

Potentially Offending People

You’ve got a post together and are about to hit that ‘Publish’ button. However, you are worried you might piss people off.

Although you should have a reasonable worry that people may be offended, I think that blogs and political correctness do not mix. I’ve said elsewhere that the day that political correctness takes over in the blogosphere is the day that blogging dies.

Bloggers should be able to speak and speak frankly. If people are offended, then that is that person’s choice to be offended. You will not make everyone happy, nor should you expect to. Hit that ‘Publish’ button and stand firm in your opinion.

Posting Time

I try if I can to not post something at midnight. The reason is, I usually find myself staying awake to make sure that the post was published correctly. I also wake up periodically in the middle of the night to see if anyone has commented.

If you have a problem sleeping, I would recommend posting in advance (like writing on the weekend or something) and publishing the post sometime during the day.

I find that when I set a post to publish at around 0600, I have a better night’s sleep and it’s easier for me to wake up at the prospect of a fresh batch of commentators.

Milestones

All bloggers have milestones that they would like to reach. For example, one milestone could be to reach a certain number of feed subscribers. Another milestone might be to achieve a certain Technorati ranking.

I personally would like to see a higher subscriber count and also more interaction between me and the readers.

However, there is a difference between having a goal for a milestone and expecting a milestone. Do I expect more subscribers? No. Do I want more? Certainly. So what am I going to do to get more subscribers?

It’s good to have milestones, but when these milestones aren’t met, it can be a little unnerving. My advice would be to do what you can to reach a milestone, but not to get discouraged if the milestone isn’t met.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the latest blogger anxiety post regarding posting. If you have any other anxieties regarding posting, please leave a comment.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> Blog Anxiety

This is the fourth and final post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on When Life Gets in the Way.

There are many anxieties surrounding bloggers and posting. Some of the anxieties discussed today are content theft, credibility, target audience, posting times, and a few others.

Content Theft

A typical blog post for me takes at least an hour. Now some punk goes and takes my content and puts it on his site as well. This content-scraper can now interlace the content I created with ads and make money off of my work.

What’s a blogger to do when they find out someone has been stealing their content? One option is to contact the person directly, but this may not work out in all cases.

My biggest problem is that people will take an excerpt of my content and place it on their site without any commentary. I don’t have a problem with people quoting my work, but at least provide some unique spin.

Credibility

Are you worried that you don’t have the right stuff when it comes to writing a blog post? Perhaps you’re worried that people will discredit your work or make fun of you?

When I was in speech class in college, my professor said that a humble speaker is a nervous speaker. I would also argue that a humble blogger is a nervous blogger. Anytime one can write something and not care what the audience thinks is the day when one has crossed the boundary into being egocentric.

Here are some quick tips to diminish the anxiety of credibility problems:

Know Your Stuff

This seems to be a given, but if you know your material really well, then be confident in your remarks when/if confronted.

Do Your Research

Make sure you get the dates and names right. Double-check links and double-check sources.

Use a Spell-Checker and Read Out Loud

At least use a spell-checker before publishing a blog post. Reading your post out loud will also catch a lot of errors.

Target Audience

The anxiety regarding target audience will often come up with guest blogging for someone. Darren Rowse wrote a great article on how to be a good guest blogger.

If you are having target audience anxiety on your own blog, one tip I have been given was to picture somebody you know that you want to come to the site and write for that person.

If you are worried about going over the heads of your target audience (such as talking technical), either refrain from making those kind of blog posts or find a blog where you can write about that stuff freely. You could always introduce your audience to technical things slowly such as things like RSS.

High Profile Posts

I submitted an essay for the WLTC Essay Contest in December of ’06. This was by far the biggest audience I had ever written for. And being that my essay was rather controversial, I couldn’t really handle the negative comments. The first few comments were positive. The first negative comment had me walking out of work early and straight into the gym. I was a young blogger. I should have known better than to enter a high-profile contest with an essay that basically said, “Don’t write about this, please.” My skin had yet to thicken. I’m still not sure it has.

My cure for the anxiety of a high-profile post was to basically ignore it. I tried to forget it was there. After two weeks or so, the buzz around the post died down and people stopped getting all frantic and offended. People moved on. Bes Zain wrote a good article on how to handle critical comments.

Potentially Offending People

You’ve got a post together and are about to hit that ‘Publish’ button. However, you are worried you might piss people off.

Although you should have a reasonable worry that people may be offended, I think that blogs and political correctness do not mix. I’ve said elsewhere that the day that political correctness takes over in the blogosphere is the day that blogging dies.

Bloggers should be able to speak and speak frankly. If people are offended, then that is that person’s choice to be offended. You will not make everyone happy, nor should you expect to. Hit that ‘Publish’ button and stand firm in your opinion.

Posting Time

I try if I can to not post something at midnight. The reason is, I usually find myself staying awake to make sure that the post was published correctly. I also wake up periodically in the middle of the night to see if anyone has commented.

If you have a problem sleeping, I would recommend posting in advance (like writing on the weekend or something) and publishing the post sometime during the day.

I find that when I set a post to publish at around 0600, I have a better night’s sleep and it’s easier for me to wake up at the prospect of a fresh batch of commentators.

Milestones

All bloggers have milestones that they would like to reach. For example, one milestone could be to reach a certain number of feed subscribers. Another milestone might be to achieve a certain Technorati ranking.

I personally would like to see a higher subscriber count and also more interaction between me and the readers.

However, there is a difference between having a goal for a milestone and expecting a milestone. Do I expect more subscribers? No. Do I want more? Certainly. So what am I going to do to get more subscribers?

It’s good to have milestones, but when these milestones aren’t met, it can be a little unnerving. My advice would be to do what you can to reach a milestone, but not to get discouraged if the milestone isn’t met.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the latest blogger anxiety post regarding posting. If you have any other anxieties regarding posting, please leave a comment.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-posting/feed/ 5 Blogger Anxiety – When Life Gets in the Way http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-when-life-gets-in-the-way/ http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-when-life-gets-in-the-way/#comments Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:00:02 +0000 Ronald Huereca http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-when-life-gets-in-the-way/ Blog Anxiety

This is the third post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on Hosting and Themes.

Most bloggers do not blog professionally. In other words, the blogger isn’t blogging as a day job or as a means of earning primary income. Most bloggers have other things going on in their lives besides blogging (day jobs, night jobs, school, children, etc.). These next forms of blogger anxiety discuss the anxieties surrounding blogging and life.

The Second Shift

Like most people, I have a day job. Some bloggers have studies to attend do. Some bloggers have both. Other bloggers have children.

Coming home from my day job to blog sometimes feels like a second shift. Blogging is time consuming. Most of the time is spent cleaning up spam, leaving comments on other blogs, interacting with other bloggers, research, reading other blogs, coming up with blog topics, and finally writing.

I personally don’t believe in the post everyday mentality of some bloggers. If I did that, I wouldn’t be writing about blogger anxiety. Instead, I would probably be writing about blog insanity.

I have found it helpful to do a lot of my reading of feeds in the morning, and sending myself blog topics via e-mails. Over the weekend, I try to do a majority of my writing. During the week, I spend most of my time commenting, e-mailing, and interacting. This so far has helped alleviate some of my second-shift type anxieties with regards to blogging.

Your Health

When I was younger (late teens and early twenties), I could stay up until 3 in the morning, wake up early, and stay up late again the next night without feeling the side effects. I can’t do that anymore. If I don’t get my sleep, it is like a chain reaction that just leads to a bad week with recovery on the weekend (if ever).

Blogging can easily impair your sleeping schedule. If the pressure is on to get a post out, sleep can often come second. If your blog theme has somehow screwed up, you might pull an all-nighter just to fix the thing.

It’s important, however, to have your health as a priority. Don’t let blogging override the importance of sleeping, eating, and exercising. Don’t let blogging become another cause of stress.

Prioritizing

Lack of prioritizing can cause immense anxiety in any blogger. If you write for multiple blogs like I do, it’s tough to choose which one to write for. It’s also tough when the topics run out, or there are many to choose from.

Besides writing, it is also tough when life gets in the way. You may have to go on a last-minute trip. You might have a medical emergency involving yourself or friends and family. You might have personal problems come up.

Recognize up front where blogging falls on your priority list. Does blogging fall to the wayside when things come up? Do you work extra hard to get that daily post in?

Here are some tips to better prioritize with regards to blogging:

1. Reevaluate your posting schedule.

You may be over extended (as I often feel) and need to reevaluate how often you post. If you have been struggling to make a post a day, try making a post every other day.

2. Set aside blogging time.

Just like you have a schedule for work, why not also have a schedule for blogging? Blogging is a time consuming hobby and you may need to actually make a schedule for yourself.

3. Have a backup plan.

If something comes up in life, do you have trusted backups? For example, a dear friend I trust has admin powers on my personal blog just in case I’m unavailable and I need someone to post for me. I always try to have a few back-up posts and topic ideas handy just in case I run out of things to talk about.

4. Keep open for inspiration.

I can never stare at my post screen and think of a topic. I have a voice recorder with me at all times (thank you Cellphones) and I usually e-mail myself topics as I think of them. Keeping open for inspiration will help you prioritize your thoughts and ideas when it comes time for blogging.

Conclusion

Life often gets in the way of blogging. It is very important to place your health first when blogging. While it is important to keep your blog going during tough times, it is also important to maintain your sanity and health (for your and your readers’ sake).

Thanks for reading and please feel free to add your own blogger anxieties (regarding life) in the comments.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> Blog Anxiety

This is the third post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on Hosting and Themes.

Most bloggers do not blog professionally. In other words, the blogger isn’t blogging as a day job or as a means of earning primary income. Most bloggers have other things going on in their lives besides blogging (day jobs, night jobs, school, children, etc.). These next forms of blogger anxiety discuss the anxieties surrounding blogging and life.

The Second Shift

Like most people, I have a day job. Some bloggers have studies to attend do. Some bloggers have both. Other bloggers have children.

Coming home from my day job to blog sometimes feels like a second shift. Blogging is time consuming. Most of the time is spent cleaning up spam, leaving comments on other blogs, interacting with other bloggers, research, reading other blogs, coming up with blog topics, and finally writing.

I personally don’t believe in the post everyday mentality of some bloggers. If I did that, I wouldn’t be writing about blogger anxiety. Instead, I would probably be writing about blog insanity.

I have found it helpful to do a lot of my reading of feeds in the morning, and sending myself blog topics via e-mails. Over the weekend, I try to do a majority of my writing. During the week, I spend most of my time commenting, e-mailing, and interacting. This so far has helped alleviate some of my second-shift type anxieties with regards to blogging.

Your Health

When I was younger (late teens and early twenties), I could stay up until 3 in the morning, wake up early, and stay up late again the next night without feeling the side effects. I can’t do that anymore. If I don’t get my sleep, it is like a chain reaction that just leads to a bad week with recovery on the weekend (if ever).

Blogging can easily impair your sleeping schedule. If the pressure is on to get a post out, sleep can often come second. If your blog theme has somehow screwed up, you might pull an all-nighter just to fix the thing.

It’s important, however, to have your health as a priority. Don’t let blogging override the importance of sleeping, eating, and exercising. Don’t let blogging become another cause of stress.

Prioritizing

Lack of prioritizing can cause immense anxiety in any blogger. If you write for multiple blogs like I do, it’s tough to choose which one to write for. It’s also tough when the topics run out, or there are many to choose from.

Besides writing, it is also tough when life gets in the way. You may have to go on a last-minute trip. You might have a medical emergency involving yourself or friends and family. You might have personal problems come up.

Recognize up front where blogging falls on your priority list. Does blogging fall to the wayside when things come up? Do you work extra hard to get that daily post in?

Here are some tips to better prioritize with regards to blogging:

1. Reevaluate your posting schedule.

You may be over extended (as I often feel) and need to reevaluate how often you post. If you have been struggling to make a post a day, try making a post every other day.

2. Set aside blogging time.

Just like you have a schedule for work, why not also have a schedule for blogging? Blogging is a time consuming hobby and you may need to actually make a schedule for yourself.

3. Have a backup plan.

If something comes up in life, do you have trusted backups? For example, a dear friend I trust has admin powers on my personal blog just in case I’m unavailable and I need someone to post for me. I always try to have a few back-up posts and topic ideas handy just in case I run out of things to talk about.

4. Keep open for inspiration.

I can never stare at my post screen and think of a topic. I have a voice recorder with me at all times (thank you Cellphones) and I usually e-mail myself topics as I think of them. Keeping open for inspiration will help you prioritize your thoughts and ideas when it comes time for blogging.

Conclusion

Life often gets in the way of blogging. It is very important to place your health first when blogging. While it is important to keep your blog going during tough times, it is also important to maintain your sanity and health (for your and your readers’ sake).

Thanks for reading and please feel free to add your own blogger anxieties (regarding life) in the comments.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-when-life-gets-in-the-way/feed/ 1 Blogger Anxiety – Hosting and Themes http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-hosting-and-themes/ http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-hosting-and-themes/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2007 20:00:58 +0000 Ronald Huereca http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-hosting-and-themes/ Blog Anxiety

This is the second post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on Blogging and Comments.

These next forms of blogger anxieties deal with blog hosting and blog themes. The topics that will be covered are hosting problems, theme manipulation, and stats packages.

Hosting Problems

I personally have a love-hate relationship with my host. I love my host when my site is working and the load-time is fast. And I absolutely hate my host when my site is down.

It’s getting easier and easier to change hosts, but who wants to change hosts every few months? Is it too much to ask for a good and reliable host? On my personal site, I just switched to Media Temple because I thought they would be more reliable than my previous host. However, my site has been experiencing a number of outages that readers have actually pointed out to me. I ultimately decided to stick with Media Temple, but the anxiety this hosting company has brought me has been tremendous. I hate having a site that is down, even for five minutes out of the day.

Other hosting problems are when switching name servers and even upgrading your blog installation. A WordPress plugin that seems useful that I have yet to try out is called Maintenance Mode. It shows your readers a maintenance page while you are upgrading or tweaking your blog. One technique I have personally used is to manually set up a maintenance page and modify the htaccess file.

Theme Manipulation

It never fails: You perform a minor update of your blog over the weekend and then check your site at work and find that your blog’s appearance is all out of whack. What happened?

More than likely, the theme manipulation you performed didn’t account for large items (such as long links and/or pictures) or you didn’t test it on the browser called Internet Explorer.

Making one small tweak and having something go seriously wrong is enough to have your hair turn white (or fall out). I recommend having a local backup of your blog so you can make theme tweaks without having these tweaks go public first. For WordPress (and Windows) users, I found a good article on installing WordPress locally. I also recommend versioning your theme before making any significant changes.

Stats Frenzy

There just seems to be too many stats packages out there right now. Most bloggers are familiar with AWStats. Other stats packages include Mint and Google Analytics. There are many more.

A lot of bloggers (myself included) are concerned that people are actually going to the site. While comments on blog posts are good, when the comments stop rolling in, all a blogger can hope for is that people are reading the content.

Stats can be a curse, however. You know you have it bad when you check your stats every hour or so to see who the most recent referrer is. It’s like watching water boil.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the type of blogger anxieties associated with hosting and themes. Feel free to add onto my list.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> Blog Anxiety

This is the second post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. Please read the previous post on Blogging and Comments.

These next forms of blogger anxieties deal with blog hosting and blog themes. The topics that will be covered are hosting problems, theme manipulation, and stats packages.

Hosting Problems

I personally have a love-hate relationship with my host. I love my host when my site is working and the load-time is fast. And I absolutely hate my host when my site is down.

It’s getting easier and easier to change hosts, but who wants to change hosts every few months? Is it too much to ask for a good and reliable host? On my personal site, I just switched to Media Temple because I thought they would be more reliable than my previous host. However, my site has been experiencing a number of outages that readers have actually pointed out to me. I ultimately decided to stick with Media Temple, but the anxiety this hosting company has brought me has been tremendous. I hate having a site that is down, even for five minutes out of the day.

Other hosting problems are when switching name servers and even upgrading your blog installation. A WordPress plugin that seems useful that I have yet to try out is called Maintenance Mode. It shows your readers a maintenance page while you are upgrading or tweaking your blog. One technique I have personally used is to manually set up a maintenance page and modify the htaccess file.

Theme Manipulation

It never fails: You perform a minor update of your blog over the weekend and then check your site at work and find that your blog’s appearance is all out of whack. What happened?

More than likely, the theme manipulation you performed didn’t account for large items (such as long links and/or pictures) or you didn’t test it on the browser called Internet Explorer.

Making one small tweak and having something go seriously wrong is enough to have your hair turn white (or fall out). I recommend having a local backup of your blog so you can make theme tweaks without having these tweaks go public first. For WordPress (and Windows) users, I found a good article on installing WordPress locally. I also recommend versioning your theme before making any significant changes.

Stats Frenzy

There just seems to be too many stats packages out there right now. Most bloggers are familiar with AWStats. Other stats packages include Mint and Google Analytics. There are many more.

A lot of bloggers (myself included) are concerned that people are actually going to the site. While comments on blog posts are good, when the comments stop rolling in, all a blogger can hope for is that people are reading the content.

Stats can be a curse, however. You know you have it bad when you check your stats every hour or so to see who the most recent referrer is. It’s like watching water boil.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading the type of blogger anxieties associated with hosting and themes. Feel free to add onto my list.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-hosting-and-themes/feed/ 5 Blogger Anxiety – Blogging and Comments http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-blogging-and-comments/ http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-blogging-and-comments/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2007 20:00:33 +0000 Ronald Huereca http://www.raproject.com/series/blogger-anxiety-blogging-and-comments/ Blog Anxiety

This is the first post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. The series will talk about the causes and possible solutions to various forms of blogger anxiety.

Bloggers have a lot of pressure put on them to keep up with post counts, comments, and a wealth of other factors. This post will go into several causes of blogger anxiety. Not all causes have solutions, but I personally found it helpful to know that I am not the only blogger going through these trials and tribulations. Having an awareness of the anxieties and that you are not alone will hopefully serve to boost your morale as a blogger and enable you to further appreciate your readers.

Negative Comments

One cause of blog anxiety more-or-less centers around what other people think. In real life, people always tell you, “Don’t worry about what other people think.” But in the “blog world”, you are basically putting something out there and asking what people think.

I received some excellent advice from another blogger who shall remain nameless (to protect the innocent). He more-or-less said that people will get pissed off about anything. The negative comments might outweigh the positive comments tremendously. However, all the feedback is going to make people curious about you and your product. If you have aggravated somebody (and that somebody is a blogger), you can guarantee that you’ll see more traffic your way. To sum this up: bad publicity is more downloads and/or page views.

My take on negative comments is that some people will just cut you down just to be mean. Ignore all personal attacks. Ignore the people who question your credibility. Listen to those who have actual, legitimate grievances. Listen to those who have actual, legitimate feedback.

No Comments

You’ve worked on something for hours, days, or perhaps weeks. You proof-read it and publish it. And nothing. Not one comment! Did you do something wrong? Did it fall on blind eyes?

Sometimes you might have had a total disconnect with your audience. Sometimes your audience that you want reading your stuff isn’t the audience you have.

Sometimes it takes time for your audience to catch on. Don’t worry about it. Keep blogging for you, but keep your audience in mind. If you have something interesting, your audience will warm up to it eventually.

Crickets

Somebody once told me that if you kill a cricket, you’ll have some bad luck. With blog posts, however, I’d like to see all crickets die a horrible, torture-induced death.

Crickets can be louder than silence. It’s one thing to write a post that doesn’t have any comments. It’s another to pour one’s heart and soul into a post and then nothing.

I am comforted by the fact that the cricket-type posts are probably the best ones.

The A-Lister

You have written a post that an A-Lister has commented on. Wow. Now the reality sets in that this A-Lister doesn’t agree with you.

I’ve had this happen to me quite a bit since I started writing for Devlounge. I’ll put something out and somebody that’s “somebody” in the blogosphere will leave a comment voicing disagreement.

The anxiety is high because you know these people carry a high influence in the blogosphere, but you also don’t want to look like a wimp and say, “Yes Mr. (or Mrs.) A-Lister, you are absolutely correct. I retract my poor blog post and bow down to you.”

If I were an A-Lister (and I’m far from it), I would want somebody to come up with an intelligent argument if that person disagreed. My advice would be to respectfully disagree and give your reasons for the disagreement.

Comment Spam

I hate e-mail spam. But at least nobody sees the e-mail spam except me. With comment spam, every one of my readers has the potential to see the spam I get. Fortunately, bloggers have a powerful ally with Akismet. The Blog Herald has an interesting article on how to stop comment spam.

A good spam filter and spam plugins do not stop idiotic people from posting random gibberish though. As a result, moderation is still sometimes necessary.

Conclusion

Blogger Anxiety is very real and it is amazing how something as trivial as a comment (or lack of a comment) can make someone have a really bad day. Thanks for reading.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

Special RA Project Sponsor Offer for You:

Other RA Project Articles

]]> Blog Anxiety

This is the first post in a series called Blogger Anxiety. The series will talk about the causes and possible solutions to various forms of blogger anxiety.

Bloggers have a lot of pressure put on them to keep up with post counts, comments, and a wealth of other factors. This post will go into several causes of blogger anxiety. Not all causes have solutions, but I personally found it helpful to know that I am not the only blogger going through these trials and tribulations. Having an awareness of the anxieties and that you are not alone will hopefully serve to boost your morale as a blogger and enable you to further appreciate your readers.

Negative Comments

One cause of blog anxiety more-or-less centers around what other people think. In real life, people always tell you, “Don’t worry about what other people think.” But in the “blog world”, you are basically putting something out there and asking what people think.

I received some excellent advice from another blogger who shall remain nameless (to protect the innocent). He more-or-less said that people will get pissed off about anything. The negative comments might outweigh the positive comments tremendously. However, all the feedback is going to make people curious about you and your product. If you have aggravated somebody (and that somebody is a blogger), you can guarantee that you’ll see more traffic your way. To sum this up: bad publicity is more downloads and/or page views.

My take on negative comments is that some people will just cut you down just to be mean. Ignore all personal attacks. Ignore the people who question your credibility. Listen to those who have actual, legitimate grievances. Listen to those who have actual, legitimate feedback.

No Comments

You’ve worked on something for hours, days, or perhaps weeks. You proof-read it and publish it. And nothing. Not one comment! Did you do something wrong? Did it fall on blind eyes?

Sometimes you might have had a total disconnect with your audience. Sometimes your audience that you want reading your stuff isn’t the audience you have.

Sometimes it takes time for your audience to catch on. Don’t worry about it. Keep blogging for you, but keep your audience in mind. If you have something interesting, your audience will warm up to it eventually.

Crickets

Somebody once told me that if you kill a cricket, you’ll have some bad luck. With blog posts, however, I’d like to see all crickets die a horrible, torture-induced death.

Crickets can be louder than silence. It’s one thing to write a post that doesn’t have any comments. It’s another to pour one’s heart and soul into a post and then nothing.

I am comforted by the fact that the cricket-type posts are probably the best ones.

The A-Lister

You have written a post that an A-Lister has commented on. Wow. Now the reality sets in that this A-Lister doesn’t agree with you.

I’ve had this happen to me quite a bit since I started writing for Devlounge. I’ll put something out and somebody that’s “somebody” in the blogosphere will leave a comment voicing disagreement.

The anxiety is high because you know these people carry a high influence in the blogosphere, but you also don’t want to look like a wimp and say, “Yes Mr. (or Mrs.) A-Lister, you are absolutely correct. I retract my poor blog post and bow down to you.”

If I were an A-Lister (and I’m far from it), I would want somebody to come up with an intelligent argument if that person disagreed. My advice would be to respectfully disagree and give your reasons for the disagreement.

Comment Spam

I hate e-mail spam. But at least nobody sees the e-mail spam except me. With comment spam, every one of my readers has the potential to see the spam I get. Fortunately, bloggers have a powerful ally with Akismet. The Blog Herald has an interesting article on how to stop comment spam.

A good spam filter and spam plugins do not stop idiotic people from posting random gibberish though. As a result, moderation is still sometimes necessary.

Conclusion

Blogger Anxiety is very real and it is amazing how something as trivial as a comment (or lack of a comment) can make someone have a really bad day. Thanks for reading.

Blogger Anxiety was originally part of a two-part post on my personal site. Several commenters helped inspire some of my points. I’d like to say thanks to them. Thank you Bes Zain, Vivien from Inspiration Bit, Josh Motlong, and Shawn Blanc. You all helped me with this series.

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