Friday, May 25, 2012

Us Writers Deserve To Get Paid

My recent experiences with trying to build up The Prancing Laggard Pub have caused me to butt up against a long-standing frustration I've had with the online writing business. You see, my main goal for the publication is to pay my writers a living wage.

"Oh, that's so noble of you," you might say to yourself as you clasp your hands and flutter your eyelashes, with or without a heavy dose of sarcasm.

No, it's not noble of me. If I was in the habit of cursing online, I'd do it here, but as I try not to do that too much I'll just say this - it's freaking my duty as a person in this industry to make sure that people get paid what their work is worth.

Now, my writer friends, repeat after me:

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Increasing Blog Traffic with Interviews and Guest Posts

Image by Emma Larkins
Every blogger wants to learn new ways to increase traffic to his or her blog. After all, what's the fun of writing online if no one is going to read your stuff? You might as well chisel it onto a block of marble and drop it into the ocean if you can't develop a readership.

Publishing interviews and guest posts on your blog serves to increase visibility immediately, and also to increase number of visitors over the long run.


Interviews

Interviews are great for a variety of reasons.

  • They let other people in your industry know that you exist.
  • You can learn terrific new things about publishing houses, other authors, techniques for getting published, etc.
  • They increase the traffic to your blog, because the interviewee usually posts one or more backlinks, and helps to promote the interview in other ways as well.