MotherReader

At the Kidlitosphere conference, I led the session on building up your blog and used an article that I had written. I’ve summarized it in this post, but the link to the entire article is at the end. If your goal is to reach more readers or make a bigger name for yourself, then these suggestions may help. Many of the ideas may also help you build a better blog or to be more connected within the community of kidlit bloggers. Of course, it’s up to you as to how much energy you want to invest in your blog. Let’s get started.

1. Quality Content: Good content is like porn. No one can describe what constitutes it, but everyone knows it when they see it. Lots of people can write book reviews, so you need to find a way to offer something more — and something interesting.
   


2. Daily Updates: If you want higher Technorati rankings, you need daily (or near-daily) updates. In the kidlitosphere, we’ll cut some slack for not updating on the weekend or skipping an occasional day, but if you want lots of readers you’ve got to offer lots to read.
   


3. Personal Voice: Sometimes voice is translated into humor, and I’ll admit that it’s easier to convey your voice through humor, but it’s not the only way. Readers need to see something of your personality in your posts.
   


4. Links and Blogrolls: An important part of blogging is being part of a community. Link to other bloggers when they write something interesting. Link and give credit when you find something on another blog that you want to write about too. Oh, and thank them when they write about your posts. Now, blogrolls are personal. Don’t get hung up on blogrolls, but don’t expect to be on a B-lister’s blogroll if they are not on yours.
   


5. Comments: If you want to be noticed, you have to comment sometimes. It’s best if your comment adds something to the post, but an occasional LOL is good too. Personally, I’d suggest commenting under your blog name for easier recognition.
   


6. A Particular Niche: Children’s literature is already a tight topic area, but you’ll stand out if you have a niche. Think about what unique perspective you have to bring to the table.
   


7. Spelling and Grammar: Spelling counts. An occasional mistake can pass, but if your writing is sloppy in a topic like literature, you’re going to lose readers.
   


8. Good Looks: It doesn’t need to be fancy, but an individualized header does set the tone for a more professional blog. Clean lines, good readability, and logical organization are necessary. Occasional pictures do help.
   


9. Unique Branding: Jen Robinson pulls together literacy news. Bookshelves of Doom is always on top of book challenges. It’s more than niche reporting. When I see these issues come up other than at those sites, I think of these blogs. I’ve associated their blogs with those topics. That’s branding.
   


10. Self-Promotion: You can start with putting your blog address on your email signature. Tell your actual, real-life friends about your blog. If you have something super-special that you want to get out in the blog world, you might humbly email a blogger and ask them to consider promoting it. Self-promotion also teeters on bragging, so you have to be careful, but my philosophy is that you don’t get much in this world by not asking for it.
    


11. Active Participation: Join in on an occasional book meme. Better yet, start one of your own. Pull together a useful list. Throw in a poem for Poetry Friday, a favorite post for a Carnival, or an article for The Edge of the Forest. Get yourself out in the community.
    


12. Patience and Perseverance: You won’t get to be a B-list blogger overnight. You have to keep writing, keep linking, keep commenting, keep promoting, and keep improving for at least a year.
    

Follow your progress with a statistic tracking system, which will help you determine how you’re doing readership-wise and where your readers come from and where they go. There was some discussion about different statistics trackers, and if anyone would like to elaborate on their favorite, please feel free to do so in the comments. I use StatCounter for no real reason other than it was the first one I found.

Greg from Gotta Book emphasized the importance of using good keywords, especially in the headlines of posts. Search engines will pick up those keywords and direct potential readers to your blog. The point being, I suppose, that using the title Football Poem may be more effective in pulling in the right readers then Ode to Pigskin.

Andrea from Three Silly Chicks mentioned contests as a great way to draw in readers, and also pointed out author/blogger extraordinarie Lisa Yee as a big proponent of contests. Yeah, I could say that I know a little something about contests too.

There was some discussion about drawing readers for authors’ blogs, but specifically drawing the readers of the authors’ books or the potential readers of the authors’ books to the blogs. This isn’t my area of expertise — though I think the twelve tips above will still help — but I’d love to see more discussion in this area. Bookseller Chick had a couple of great segments about this topic that might be of interest, and I don’t think it’s the last we’ll hear about it.

Let me mention that when I originally wrote my article, everyone had just discovered Kineda’s bloglebrity widget, which allows you to determine your status in the blogging world. Knowing that making the A-list in kidlit blogging would require a time machine and possible payoffs, I focused my pointers on how to hit the B-list. I made the title of my article “Be a B-List Blogger” for a reason other than awesome alliteration. I thought about saying “Be a Better Blogger,” but I didn’t want to attach the value judgement of “better” to whether you got more links. And that’s all the the B-List is: a number of links. It’s specifically 100 links from other blogs in a six-month period as tallied by Technorati.

You do not have to make the B-list to have a quality blog. You don’t have to care about the B-list to have a quality blog. But hopefully the suggestions will help improve your blogging experience. The full article, “Be a B-List Blogger,” includes examples of and links to various blogs, and is filled with bonus MotherReader humor at no additional charge.

Let me tell you a little personal story.

As a teen, I went to a private school for a couple of years, and then transfered into the public high school in tenth grade. A lot of the friendships were already signed, sealed and delivered by then — especially as my community generally involved people who had never ever moved. I may have been the only new girl out of two hundred tenth graders. Having trouble finding my people, I ended up with a unique crowd of artsy folk. And things were okay.

But in eleventh grade, I found that my group didn’t really fit me anymore. Some of them had gone from artsy to druggy. Some were heading to the VoTech school for half the day, while I was staying after for music and theater.

So I set my sights on a group of girls who were also into music and theater. It wasn’t necessarily easy. I’d talk to them in homeroom, but if I walked out to our lockers with them, they’d start leaving me out of the conversations. Then I could walk to the lockers, but if I walked down the hall with them, they’d talk about people I didn’t know. Then I could walk down the hall, but I knew I couldn’t sit at lunch with them. I just knew. But by the end of my private campaign, I was not only in the group, but a trend-setter within it.

Additionally, each day I’d go home and tell my mom of my progress in a detached way. I didn’t get bent out of shape that they didn’t embrace me from day one. Why would they? They didn’t even know me. If I wanted to be part of the group, then it was up to me — not them — so I made the effort. I remembered to cut out the article from Seventeen about the cute actor that one of the girls liked. I always had an extra pencil on hand to share. I may have made a mix tape.

Didn’t my feelings get hurt sometimes? Sure. But that’s life. These girls weren’t actively mean. They didn’t say nasty things to me, but they weren’t going to make me their new best friend just because I wanted it. I had to prove that we had something in common, that I’d add something to the equation, that I was... worthy, I guess. It didn’t hurt that I was talented in our shared interests of music and theater, but that wasn’t enough really.

There had to be that “click factor.” Not “clique factor.”

Now put that whole experience in with the blogging world, and you’ll get my point. It parallels my own experience in blogging almost perfectly. Instead of “music and theater,” it’s “books and reading.” Instead of “talk to them,” it’s “comment.” Instead of “my mom” it’s “my husband.” Instead of “article in Seventeen,” “extra pencil,” and “mix tape,” it’s “emailed them about something kid-lit-related,” “linked to a great post,” and “started the 48 Hour Book Challenge.”

And you know what? I’m still doing it. I keep up with my kid-lit peeps, but I still reach out there. I comment on Surburban Turmoil, though she’s never mentioned me. When Defective Yeti — an A-list blog — had a contest, I played and I told people about it and he mentioned me for it and I probably got some new readers.

Now when I opened up my interview question meme yesterday, one person said they’d do it. ONE. What a great chance that was for a blog who wanted some face time to get attention, because I went over to Zee Librarian to look at her blog. And lo and behold I saw this cool thing she had done with her young adult display. I found she writes about movies too, which I love, and I’ll certainly be back to visit her. That’s how you do it, people.

Am I saying that the kidlitosphere is like high school? Noooo. I’m saying that all of life is like high school — in a way. Things become more refined, sometimes. But if you need proof, look at who society pays — athletes and actors (beautiful people).

I bring this up, because Monica brought it up and wanted some feedback. I commented there, and at Fuse#8, where I originally saw the post. She didn’t mention my article on how to be a B-list blogger specifically, but she did reference the A-list, B-list status thing. My idea in writing that article was to tell other blogs how to get out themselves out there — assuming that’s their goal. It doesn’t have to be.

As for Monica’s related point of how to teach our children within classrooms and literature and parenting about not excluding people, I’ll teach my daughters not to depend on everyone else being nice and fair, because life isn’t nice and fair. However, be nice and be fair. I’ll teach my daughters to be proactive about their destiny, not reactive. Oh, and that friendships — even blog and literary friendships — take effort, time, and often that “click factor.” And that’s not the same as “clique factor.”

The March 2007 issue of The Edge of the Forest is now up, featuring interviews with Newbery Honoree Kirby Larson and with the hilarious Jenny Han. There are also reviews in all categories — from Picture Book to Young Adult. (Don’t miss Brian Farrey’s “Open Letter to Adam Selzer.”) Lots of other features to numerous to mention make this a must-read ’zine.

The Edge includes my new article, “Be a B-List Blogger.” I felt I needed to give some tips back to the book blogging community after being asked so many times about my own rise to B-list fame. Okay, maybe I was asked once. And now that I think about it, the question may have been if I could “go all night long,” but anyway, I took it as a cry for help.

I entered the kidlitosphere in complete and utter naiveté. My husband had been bugging me for a year to get a blog, after the many times I would bug him about including some adult book or some earth-shattering thought of mine on his blog. Then one day I just decided to do a blog about books. We set up the site, and I started writing. I knew nothing of other book blogs. I hadn’t followed blogs at all. I was actually quite surprised to find out how many were out there, and how good they were. While I started writing pretty much for myself and my friends, I soon wanted to be part of the larger community. But how?

The answer to that question is contained in my article at The Edge. Most of the tips came to me along the journey. Some of them were only available to me upon reflection. But I hope that the suggestions can help other bloggers that are struggling with their own road to blog-improvement.

On a personal, related note, in my article I mention that commenting on blogs helps get you noticed, and I want to say to some bloggers who comment here, that I do notice you and I do appreciate your support. I often bookmark blogs that are new to me, and I visit occasionally to see how they’re growing up. I rarely put a blog that is just starting out on my blogroll, because I think everyone needs time to find their voice. And honestly, sometimes I just forget. I am not an organized person, and I am at this point a deeply overwhelmed person, so there are things that just don’t happen. But I am happy that you read MotherReader, and I hope you keep coming back until the day you’re an A-list blogger and I’m begging you for a little blog-time. ’Cause that’s how things roll in the fast-paced, high-stakes world of blogging.