They’d read your blog (more often) if only…

Homes & Antiques magazine cutting: Dec ’09 (Photo credit: H is for Home)

You used photos, videos, drawings — visuals!

I’m amazed, and dismayed, by how few bloggers consistently add visual content to their posts. A sea of words is daunting and dull. Magazines and newspapers know they must seduce readers into their material, not simply subject them to an unbroken and wearying sea of type.

You thought more like an editor

When you write for an editor, your ideas, and how you plan to express them, have to pass muster with someone else, often several. They usually ask you to explain, a little or a lot, why you think this story is worth doing now. Blogging offers writers tremendous freedom of expression — please don’t abuse it.

You remembered that your readers are busy, easily bored and quickly distracted

Journalists are taught to use the “inverted pyramid”, in which the most essential information in any story is at the very top, usually within the first sentence or paragraph. We do it because readers are like very small tired children — they have short attention spans and wander off within seconds. Grab them fast!

You wooed me in with a fab headline

Magazine editors sweat over coverlines, the teasing short sentences they choose to put on their magazine covers, hoping to make you buy their edition over that of their competitiors. Newspaper editors know they need powerful, succinct or amusing headlines to catch our eye and pull us into a story. Have you ever studied some of the best heads? “Headless body found in topless bar” is a classic. This is an excellent headline as it immediately made me read the post — it’s bossy, very specific and focused on a place I know well. Sold!

Here’s a link to how to write great heads –  and another.

You used lots and lots of paragraphs

Don’t force readers to scale a huge unbroken block of copy! It’s lazy and editorially rude. They’ll just click away, irritated. And I see this a lot.

You posted more frequently

A blog that shows up every few months is the sign of someone who just isn’t that into blogging. Yes, it’s a lot of work. Yes, it takes time. Your readers are there for a reason. They want to read what you have to say! Don’t disappoint them.

You posted less frequently

True, dat. Some bloggers, giddy with the delicious freedom of being able to hit “publish” after every little thought flitting through their head, post constantly. I know that some bloggers relish the writing challenge of producing a post a day, but do your readers have that much time or interest?

We’re not writing for ourselves, but our readers’ pleasure.

You had more of a sense of humo(u)r

The best blogs have some lightness to them. They’re not a laugh riot all the time, and can often be serious. But being earnest all the time ? We usually shy away from that in real life, so why would we choose to read it? Mix it up a little.

You remembered I don’t live nearby, and don’t get your points of reference

I live in a town north of New York City, and most of my readers also live in the U.S. But I also have readers in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, India, places where a reference I might make to a local politician or cultural figure or news story may mean nothing to someone who’s never heard of them. Add a link to help your readers far away better understand what you’re talking about.

English: Broadway show billboards at the corner of 7th Avenue and West 47th Street in Times Square in New York City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You didn’t mistake a public blog for a private journal

This is the single greatest mistake I see in too many blogs. I really don’t want to read someone whining: “I don’t know what to write.” A blog is a public document, visible in perpetuity to anyone who finds it — your friends, family, employer, future employers. Make it lively, interesting, compelling and intriguing.

You didn’t underestimate the power of a great blog

A few bloggers have won paid writing opportunities, or more, thanks to their terrific blogs. A well-written and illustrated blog, with smartly-chosen links and consistently compelling material, is a fantastic way to showcase your design, thinking, ideas and insights — far more effectively than any resume can.

If you’re a current high school or college student, fresh grad or work-seeker, consider creating a blog strategically. It’s your very own billboard.

You understood that it takes time to grow an audience

Some fortunate few find thousands of followers within weeks, but more likely this will take months or years. Broadside has almost 4,000 followers now, but it began in July 2009, has more than 1,300 posts, (archives help), and has been chosen for Freshly Pressed six times, each time bringing in thousands of views and new followers. (My best-ever day, thanks to FP, brought in 7,606 people.)

Tried using bold and italics once in a while

A sea of unbroken copy is bad enough. Readers need breaks! We need to know when and where to pay extra attention. Read books and magazines — even their on-line versions — to get a better feel for this.

Linked to and quoted others

Readers are hungry for well-curated content. What else are you reading or listening to?

You revealed more of yourself

Readers are hungry for authenticity. We don’t need all the gory details, but we want to feel we “know” the people who are asking us for our limited attention.

Or less…

Some bloggers beat us to death with detail. Why is what you’re posting of compelling interest to others?

You introduced yourself

There are far too many blogs where the writer hasn’t even bothered to fill out the “about” page. Every single magazine includes an editor’s letter and their photo, in addition to “our contributors” pages, with their photos and mini-bio’s. In a world of competing voices, why should we listen to yours? Who are you? Where do you live? Have you any specific experience or credentials that add authority to your posts? Don’t be too cute or coy. The blogosphere is a public space and staying totally anonymous means I have no idea why I should give you my very limited time and attention.

You leave me wanting more

Don’t overshare. Many bloggers bury readers in minutiae, a level of detail about their kids or cats or classes, super personal stuff that’s too internal and not focused on me, your reader. Make me hungry to hear more, not covering my ears going lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala.

The joy of blog pals

So I get this email a while back from Elizabeth Harper, an American from Atlanta who fell in love with an Englishman and now lives in Cornwall, and who writes the lovely blog, Gifts of the Journey: “I saw something that made me think of you and I’ve mailed it.”

I wondered what it might possibly be, while touched and grateful that a woman I’ve yet to meet or even speak to was kind enough to think of me and send me a present.

A pub bar towel. Thanks, Elizabeth! So fun!

The other night, barely minutes after I posted, I got an email from Michelle in Minneapolis, pointing out (thank you!) a typo I’d missed. How unlikely, and helpful, to have a sharp-eyed volunteer copy-editor a few time zones in the other direction.

She and I had breakfast there in October 2012 when I went out to give a speech at the University of Minnesota. We had a blast. It’s the oddest moment, these blogging blind dates, when you finally put a voice, face and body to the person whose writing you’ve been reading for months, maybe years. She writes The Green Study, in a voice that’s consistently clear, crisp and no-nonsense.

Plus, the woman served in the military as a Russian linguist!

Depending what you write about, a fellow blogger may come to know you quite well indeed, and vice versa. I felt immediately at ease with Michelle, and we quickly fell into deep conversation.

English: Entrance sign at the northwest corner of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My first blog blind date was with Lorna, a young woman in Edinburgh who writes the blog Gin & Lemonade. I met her and her fiance, then beau, at a Manhattan bar.

On our recent vacation, we had a sudden family crisis to deal with and I knew, of all people, Elizabeth would know how to cope. It felt bizarre to fire a panicked email across the Atlantic, but she quickly wrote back a long and compassionate reply — a measure of her great kindness, as she and John had just survived a truly terrifying experience, a head-on collision. Here’s her post about it, with photos.

And then there’s C, who writes Small Dog Syndrome, which I’d been reading and enjoying for a while.

A few months ago, I needed a new assistant, someone really smart to represent me and my business interests. I need a challenging mix of charm and utter tenacity and wondered if she might be the one, and now she is. Thanks to her candid, tart blog posts, I knew we shared a love, and experience of, world travel and ex-pat life, and a stiff upper lip in the face of unpleasantness, personal or professional. You can’t intuit that from a resume!

Have you met or worked with any of your blog pals?

How did it turn out?

And for 2013…

Now you finally get to meet Jose…

I wish you all the best!

Excellent health, steady income, many cups of Earl Grey tea, glorious sunsets and ferociously enveloping hugs. Whatever your dreams may be, I hope you’ll take the first (or second or fifteenth) steps toward attaining them.

For those of you who have not yet read my Welcome or About page, I’m Caitlin Kelly, a New York-based author and journalist, who writes frequently for The New York Times. Some of my journalism, and my two non-fiction books, are here. I grew up in Canada, and moved to the United States in 1988.

My new book, “Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail” will be published in China — !! — in March.

Broadside continues to grow daily, with a variety of readers that leaves me gobsmacked — high school students to seniors, Spaniards and Australians and fellow Canadians and Indonesians, a Ghanaian charity, a pastor-to-be in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a yoga teacher from Cobourg (coming to take your class later this month!), a journalism professor from Iowa, a photographer from Perth, an immigration attorney from Houston, a Jordanian medical student, musicians and artists and writers and moms-of-six. More than 3,300 people have joined so far.

I met Michelle, author of The Green Study, in Minneapolis in October, and hope to meet Elizabeth, who writes Gifts of the Journey about her life in rural England, and C, moving to London, and author of Small Dog Syndrome, in England this summer.

Mrs. Fringe and I have a coffee date in a few weeks as well; a thank-you to her, to Rami Ungar and to C. for their comments, (which my annual tally from WordPress tells me makes them the most prolific here.)

More comments from those who’ve yet to speak up, please!

We’ve enjoyed much lively, intelligent debate here, and I’ve really appreciated your input. With so many readers worldwide — especially when I blog on American political or economic issues — we have a chance for some serious dialogue.

In a global economy, the smartest choice we can make is to connect across borders and ideologies and truly try to understand how the world looks to others many time zones away.

Please email me, or comment here, on what you’d like to see more of at Broadside (or less); one reader has suggested interviews and Q and A’s with some of the interesting and accomplished people I know in various fields, which is a neat idea, so I’m working on that. Also, possibly, more reviews of cultural events (books. shows, art) I think you’d also enjoy.

I’m also always looking for amazing blogs to follow — please share a few with us that you find consistently fab? What do you love about them?

My professional hopes for this year include selling two new non-fiction books, creating a woman-only, invitation-only conference next fall, working with a new assistant, telling more interesting stories and doing more well-paid public speaking.

Personally, enjoying as much time as possible with Jose, (as we head into our 13th year together), some travel (Newfoundland is on our list, as is Paris and London), deepening my friendships and staying healthy. My father is still super-healthy at 83, so we’re heading north to Ontario this month to visit him and see dear old friends.

What are some of your hopes for 2013?

Life after being Freshly Pressed: tips, advice — and welcome!

English: Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Whew.

More than 5,000 views (in three days) later, and 532 likes, life here at Broadside is back to normal. It’s fun to be featured, but the Niagara of comments is overwhelming if — which I do — you try to reply to each comment and visit everyone’s site who “likes” a post and/or who signs up to follow this blog.

For those new to Broadside, welcome! It’s a bit like throwing a party, happy to see old friends, and finding 300 people you’ve never met in your living room.

I blog every other day, sometimes a bit more often, on a variety of topics, often on writing. I am happy to hear dissenting views, but won’t tolerate rudeness, to me or others here.

If you want to argue a point, cool! But please do it with wit, facts and intelligence.

Insults are a direct route to the trash bin.

For those of you new here, I hope you’ll visit the blogs of some of the regular commenters here, like Nigel Featherstone, a writer in Australia; MrsFringe, a snappy mom in Manhattan, Michelle, a feisty, fun mom in Minneapolis; Rian, an expat American in Vancouver; the witty C, who I hope to meet for tea in London, Elizabeth, who traded Atlanta for Cornwall mid-life and the loquacious Rami, a student in Ohio.

A few thoughts on being FPed and how to get there, which Rami asked me about. I’ve been FPed six times, which is crazy, but flattering. The posts were about everything from why we need to thank one another, the lost art of conversation, how to write better to this most recent, about women’s obsession with their bodies.

I’m Caitlin Kelly, a Tarrytown, NY-based career journalist who writes for a living, and have been doing so since 1978, so blogging comes easily to me. I write frequently for The New York Times and have written two well-reviewed books. I hope you’ll buy them, and spread the word if you like them!

“Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail” has sold well; it’s the story of my 27 months’ working in an upscale mall, and includes interviews with dozens of others nationwide, from the CFO of Costco to a woman who’s 51 making $7.25/hr — with a master’s degree and $60,000 worth of student debt.

Retail is the largest source of new jobs in this economy. Terrible jobs!

Here’s a link to both…

I’ve also sold personal essays to places like The New York Times and Marie Claire, so I have some experience writing for an audience about things personal. My second book, a memoir of working retail, is also filled with personal detail, interwoven with dozens of interviews.

So…how to get Freshly Pressed?

Be consistent

Blog on a regular schedule. People who start to enjoy your work want more! It’s frustrating to find a terrific blogger but never hear from them. People have short attention spans. Don’t let ‘em wander off.

Choose your tone

I think this is key. The blogs I linked to above each have a clear and consistent voice, some calm and meditative (Nigel and Elizabeth), some encouraging and upbeat (Rian), some funny and smart (C.) When FPs editors go looking for people to feature, they, too, need a good mix of voices. If yours isn’t clear and strong, your chances of being featured likely diminish.

Tags and categories!

Be sure you are adding these to every post.

Mix the personal with the universal

This is the toughest balance of all. Too personal is confessional and tedious. Too universal is too vague and no one can relate to it.

How about a call to action?

Several of my posts that have been FPed make clear I want readers to do something — Say thank-you! Start a conversation! Write better! They might not do any of them, but it’s clear what I want them to think about doing, at least.

What are people talking about?

Not the bloody Kardashians! But in a more general way, in the culture. It might be the U.S. Presidential election or Hurricane Sandy or unemployment or Christmas or Eid. People want to read something that’s current and meaningful to them.

Great headlines matter

Hard as hell to do well. Really hard. But the best posts draw in many readers with a funny, moving or quirky headline that make you want to read more.

Get angry!

One of the major changes I’ve seen recently in what’s featured on Freshly Pressed, (which I read every day), is their choice of material that’s more challenging and provocative, whether grief, divorce, politics. Women bloggers, especially, tend to be too polite. Say it loud and say it proud! What’s the point of blogging if you keep pulling your punches?

Read your competitors

This is pretty basic. If you really want your blog featured on FPed, you have to read at least some of what is chosen there to analyze what they’ve done so well. As a journalist and author, I read a tremendous amount, often envious of others’ clarity or turn of phrase. The only way to get better is to read the best.

Those of you who’ve been FPed — Rian, Michelle, others — what advice would you offer?

Why we write what we write

Sibling! (Photo credit: Gus Dahlberg)

Great post from Romanian writer/blogger Christian Mihai:

A lot of writers out there, if asked, will say that writing isn’t easy. But it’s not because of the rules you have to obey, or the conventions, or the need of a vivid imagination. Writing isn’t easy because you have to relieve the most painful moments of your life, over and over again, and then you have to write them down, hoping that they’ll matter to someone else other than yourself.

I plan to write a second memoir, some day, about my family, as people have urged me to do and as I want to do. But it won’t be easy or simple or fun. I have three half-siblings, one of whom refuses to speak to me and one of whom I’ve never met; the only time we spoke, on the phone from London to Quebec in June 2003, she said “See you at the funeral.”

Like that.

Readers of this blog know I occasionally touch the third rail of true honesty about some of the darker, tougher stuff in my life, like this post about how my mother and I have no relationship anymore, and have not spoken since May 2011. That post has 66 comments, and prompted some of the most honest and compassionate conversation we’ve ever had here.

My mother and I probably won’t ever speak again. I’m her only child. It hurts every single day.

But I don’t write about it, here or elsewhere for a few reasons:

– There’s no solution. She has dementia and is attended to by a woman I loathe who has made sure to paint me as a demon and she as the avenging angel. That script is deeply seductive to my mother.

– She lives a six-hour flight away from me and my limited time and funds for leisure travel don’t make me eager to step back into that minefield. I spent too many miserable years watching her gulp alcohol while I waited for the inevitable shit to hit a very large fan. It did.

– I loathe confessional writing that’s supposed to tug at my heartstrings. I don’t write it and I don’t read it. If I even have heartstrings, they are wrapped in five layers of Kevlar by now.

There is much I will never write about here. One female reader, from Kenya, asked me to write more about my struggles. I wrote her back to ask what she meant, but she never replied to my email.

Frankly, I’m not persuaded that focusing on struggle by writing about it to an audience of strangers accomplishes much. Writing about it can feel whiny and self-indulgent.

Although this writer, (a journalist and Hollywood veteran), who has produced only a few blog posts — each of astonishing emotional clarity — makes me feel differently about this subject:

I don’t know what my boss saw in me but I was relieved some good quality shined through. It was clear on the first day that we had a connection. She had lost her mother recently, and when she asked why I was jobless I said I’d moved home to take care of my mom while she was sick with cancer.

The day my boss hired me, she asked about the type of cancer and my mom’s age, and I told her the story. She was so sympathetic, I had a hard time not crying. Finally a workplace that was sensitive and nurturing, capable of seeing my pain and not finding it a turn off or unattractive.

Suddenly, all the things I didn’t enjoy about working in media and in Hollywood became obvious — the unspoken competitiveness between writers, the constant insecurity that you’re not young enough to be employable, the expectation that you will always be or act happy, the arbitrary way with which your work can be cast aside by a studio exec or an editor after months of toiling. Not knowing why they said no to publishing or producing your writing. It all creates this paranoia and lack of trust that permeates every action.

If you never read Freshly Pressed, you must start! I read it every day and almost always find something astonishingly good there; they’ve really upped their game from a few months ago when all they featured were photo, food and travel blogs.

I know someone, only peripherally, on Facebook, a male writer my age who is suffering — and that is truly the word — from Parkinson’s disease. I have very mixed feelings about the endless medical and emotional detail he spills there. I feel compassion but I also, I admit, feel irritation at so much uninvited intimacy.

That may be my problem, of course.

Here’s a lucid and lovely blog post by novelist Dani Shapiro on the disconnect — and it’s a very real one — between how private many writers really are and how public we must be in order to grow audiences for our work:

What I’m getting at here is the complexity of being a person at once deeply private and shockingly public.  A person who spends days — weeks — speaking as little as possible, a person for whom the word “hermitage” is appealing, and a person who sits in front of an audience, speaking into a microphone, telling stories (jokes, even!) and looking — in fact, being – comfortable.  It’s a split-screen, this writer’s life…It requires a kind of armor…

The absolute vulnerability necessary to write something real, honest, and universal is at odds with the public self.  Yesterday, during my event, there was a woman in the back row (there’s always one) who, every time I looked her way, rolled her eyes.  I mean, really rolled her eyes.  A full eye-roll, heavenward.  Her body language said: I’m not buying it.  It said, I’m bored to tears, when will this be over?  Now, the rest of the audience seemed very engaged, even rapt.  But because I’m a writer––because I am a sensitive creature with less armor than most––and, because in order to give a good talk, I in fact need to be vulnerable, I directed my talk to the eye-roller.  I couldn’t stop thinking about her.  How was I failing?  Where was I going wrong?  Why, oh why, didn’t she like me?  It’s the next day, and I’m thinking about her still.  This is no different from writers who can quote you chapter and verse from their negative reviews, but not a word from the glowing ones.  Or writers who troll their Amazon pages, only stopping to take in the one star reviews.

So what is the armor, then, that allows us to take part in the world around us, a world that will sometimes feel like just too much, a world that might insult us, or hurt us?  For the writer, I think there’s only one answer, and I’m doing it right now.  It’s to return to the solitude

What are you not writing about — and why?

What do you choose to focus your writing or blogging on — and why?

So you want to be a writer? How badly?

Writer’s Stop (Photo credit: Stephh922)

Many people say they want to be professional writers.

Having taught journalism and writing to adults and to college students and writing professionally since 1978, I wonder, though, how many really do.

Here are some of the things you need if you truly want to make a living as a writer of fiction, non-fiction or journalism.

Self-confidence

If you’re too scared to attach your name to your work, or to publish it, or to show it to blog readers/editors/agents, how will you ever be(c0me) a published or read writer? Every writer is scared shitless on some level, often on so many levels we resemble a multi-storey office tower. But the whole point of writing is sharing your voice and your ideas with others. You have to be certain you have something to say.

Workshops and classes and graduate school can be amazingly helpful. Or they can sap your self-confidence as you place more value on others’ opinions (and grades.)

Humility

Being a writer means you’ll face a lot of rejection. You have to listen to feedback — whether about your ideas, your execution of them, your crappy attitude, your procrastination.  Every single person whose work has been selected, edited and chosen by others as worthy of publication faced the same challenges. Get over it!

If you’re not ready for rejection, you’re not ready to be a published writer.

Talent

Without which, you’re toast. But talent is subjective, so every rejection can mean you’re lousy — or you just haven’t found your audience yet. You’ll know pretty quickly, because you will sell and keep selling, if you have the goods.

My favorite success is the humor essay about my divorce I sent in to an American women’s magazine, who sent me a smarmy rejection letter. I sent it to a Canadian women’s magazine — who published it and submitted it for a National Magazine Award for humor.

It won.

Persistence

The single most essential element of writing success.

I know people now writing their third or fourth (unpublished) novel. My two non-fiction books, “Blown Away” and “Malled” were each rejected by 25 (!) publishers before a major New York house bought each one. The process was deeply unpleasant and shook my confidence to the core. But my agents (different agent for each) kept plugging away, because they believed in it.

I recently applied for a highly competitive fellowship, again. Too many people just give up and walk away, wounded and whining.

There’s a different and just as important sort of persistence — the commitment to your story and whatever it (legally/ethically) takes to get it first and exclusively. It took me six months of negotiation to win my exclusive story about Google that ran in The New York Times in June. It took me six months, starting from “Over my dead body!” from the PR official at one group to the interview with four of her clients, all young women convicted of gun-related felonies which I included in my book “Blown Away: American Women and Guns”.

Veteran magazine writer Jeanne Marie Laskas’ new book about America’s invisible workers, “Hidden America”, required a year negotiating with the FAA to finally watch air traffic controllers do their job. You can’t give up if you hope to get good stuff! It is never handed to you in a press release.

A thick skin

This is not a business of delicate phrases and warm hugs. People yell. Some people swear. Some do both. Readers will loathe you and say so in plain language on blogs and amazon where you cannot respond to them. Some critics will pan you.
A sensitive heart

And how, you ask, can you possibly have both of these? You must. The very best writers keep their hearts open — and readers can feel it.

Drive

What are you willing to give up or postpone to achieve success as a writer? Work at a horrible day job? Rarely see your husband/wife/sweetie/kids?  The world is filled with amusing distractions, but staying focused is the only way to reach your goals.

Emotional intelligence

Especially in journalism and publishing, EQ often beats IQ.

Can you mask your bitterness and frustration (see: drive, persistence, humility) with a big smile and a soft, gentle voice? Can you quickly find a way to relate to someone powerful who’s 30 years younger or older than you? Can you happily continue to network with people whose rudeness, arrogance and/or dismissal of you and your work may have left deep scars?

Members of this tribe are:

passionate about ideas; often deeply insecure about their talent; desperate for recognition and financial reward; ferociously jealous of those above them on the ladder. At every stage of this game, you’ll need every scrap of calm, mature self-management you can muster.

This is also a small industry based on long-term relationships. People in it move from city to city, publisher to publisher. They talk! They meet up every year at the London and Frankfurt Book Fairs and at BEA. We attend and teach at the same conferences.

Keep your nose clean.

Forgiveness

You’ll need to forgive yourself when your work fails to find a market. You have to forgive your agent and editor if your book doesn’t hit it big, because they probably gave you their best anyway. Your friends and loved ones will have to forgive you the endless, insane absences that a book or serious project demands — travel and/or solitude.

A stiff spine

No one will stiffen it for you on the latest Monday facing a pile of deadlines — or a dwindling bank account. That’s always going to be your job.

Voracious curiosity

If you’re not intensely curious about the world, what do you have to tell us?

If you’re not intensely curious about how writers think/write/teach/succeed/fail, why do you even want to be one?

If you’re not intensely curious about how to get better at your craft, even after decades, how will you do so?

Generosity

I’ve given away hours, probably months, of my time and skill and advice over the decades. These days I’m likely to insist on being paid for it, but this business depends on reciprocal help. This week, a friend asked me to read her essay — and wrote me a letter of reference for a fellowship. Last week I spent some time advising one of my assistants, a fresh Columbia J-school grad — and asked her if she’d make an introduction for me at the glossy monthly she’s starting to pitch.

Consistency

I recently started playing golf. I actually haven’t played a game yet. I just keep going to the driving range, buying a bucket of balls, and hitting for an hour or so. It’s a totally new set of skills. My husband says he won’t play a game with me until I can hit consistently.

Same for would-be writers. Anyone can bang out an awesome piece, once. But it’s showing up for years, doing every single one of them well, that creates a reputation for excellence.

Anyone in journalism, especially, has to crank out good stuff every day — sometimes every hour. That’s what they hired you for!

Here’s a powerful blog post about the determination and stamina it takes to stay in the writing game for the long haul.

Kristen Lamb’s blog about publishing offers a lot of excellent advice.

I really like this blog, Freelance Folder, which offers practical tips.

Want to hear the secrets of book reviewing? Come tonight to Park Slope, Brooklyn to this event at Barnes & Noble.

Do you dream of being a paid writer?

Are you one now?

How’s it going?

Twelve ways to blog better

Go ahead — share your heart with us! (Photo credit: journeyscoffee)

Last December I posted fifteen tips on how to make your blog more compelling. A few of you have since emailed me privately to ask how to find more readers, and more quickly.

Since I started blogging here at WordPress, in July 2010, I’ve been chosen for Freshly Pressed five times, which has been a pleasant validation that I’m doing OK in this new medium.

Here are twelve tips I hope will inspire and help you to grow your readership.

None are necessarily simple or quick. Just because it’s “only” a blog doesn’t mean creating quality content is, or should be, painless.

We all have limited time and attention

You know how few seconds we’re willing to offer anything on line. If you’re demanding others’ attention, which you are with a blog, why does yours deserve it? What value are you adding to my day if I take three or five or even ten minutes to read it? Don’t just hit publish because you think a post a day is worth doing. Make every single post something you truly think worth others’ valuable and limited attention.

The very best blogs combine the personal with the universal

We all feel fear, crave humor, hope to avoid embarrassment, experience sadness or anxiety. How often is your blog being emotionally truthful?

Compassion and empathy rule!

Snark isn’t my default mode and the blogosphere is full of stupid photos and political rants. You don’t have to be smarmy, but realizing that 99% of us feel pretty much the same feelings all throughout our lives (yes, really!) will inform the best writing.

Check your spelling, vocabulary and grammar

Messy copy shows a lack of respect for your readers. Spell-check is not your best friend. A dictionary is.

Pretend your blog is a magazine and you’re the editor in chief

By that I mean, make me eager to read it, using great visuals — photos, drawings, video — and a terrific headline to tease me in. Magazine editors are intensely aware of the need to entice readers away from all their competitors. Think a little more like them.

You’re being read worldwide — be inclusive

It’s easy to forget that whatever you’re writing about may be read by someone thousands of miles away. It drives me nuts when people can’t be bothered to tell me where or who they are. It’s extremely common.

Use social media to spread your work, selectively

As I write this, 25 people have wandered over for a look from Facebook, where a guy I’ve never met who lives in California liked one of my posts enough to link to it. Don’t beat people to death with your opinions, but social media is the one sure way to attract new eyeballs and potential readers.

Leave thoughtful, funny and/or helpful comments on others’ blogs. Do it every day.

I did this every single day for more than a year. It took up a ton of time and I’m glad it’s no longer necessary, but it is something you simply have to do if you’re truly hungry for more readers. I read Freshly Pressed every day and often find two or three posts I can leave a useful comment on. “Liking” isn’t enough! Leave a trace of your personality as well, which may well intrigue others back to see who you are.

Fill out your “About” page. Today!

Even if you’re not writing using your real name, readers want to have some idea who you are and why they might want to listen to you. Include a photo, a recent and flattering one. If you’re too scared to write even a paragraph about who you are and why we should be reading you…are you really ready to blog?

Move us!

The very best blogs, like a piece of music, leave us feeling something emotionally, whether outraged, laughing or pensive. Bland = zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Edit, revise, repeat

Do you bang out your posts in an urgent frenzy to share your views with the world, and hit “publish” right away? If this is your automatic habit, time to re-think. Use every revision to make it tighter and stronger.

Use paragraphs

A blog that goes onandonandoandonandon without a single line break, or paragraphs, is just selfish and rude, the written equivalent of a big fat boring monologue.

Does anything you read in the real world lack punctuation and paragraphs?

What are some of your tips?

Another post about the blog

I’m Caitlin Kelly, author here.

Since my last behind-the-curtain post about Broadside, this crowd has grown! Every day, new followers are signing up, men and women of all ages from across the globe, from Kenya to Indonesia to my hometown of Toronto — now at 2,300.

A few things to know about me, and what you’ll continue to find here:

I’m Caitlin Kelly, a career print journalist who’s worked as a reporter for three major dailies, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail, the Montreal Gazette and the New York Daily News, the 6th-largest newspaper in the U.S. Each of these experiences helped shape who I am as a writer, how I think and how I approach my stories, here and for my paid assignments.

I landed at the Globe when I was 26, with no experience at any newspaper, a fairly unheard-of trajectory. I’d been freelancing for them for seven years already, but suddenly had to meet daily deadlines. The Globe, being the national paper of record, and one with five daily editions, was a terrifying, inspiring, career-making place to work. No matter what the story, their standards were scarily high, even when they didn’t pay for it…like the prison riot in a city a 3-hour drive away that I had to cover, (the competing Toronto Star simply flew their reporters over by helicopter), while I just had to work the phones.

My newspaper staff jobs, which I still miss, taught me the professional values I live by today:

Get it first, run!, do it better, ask all the questions everyone else is too scared to, stay around longer, go places you’re not supposed to. Piss off the powerful. When the press pack turns left, head in the opposite direction. Get the quote! Talk to people with quieter, less-heard voices. Go find them. The perfect is the enemy of the good — just write the damn thing!

Never give up!

One of the reasons I so love news journalism as a training ground is that it forces you to meet and work with a wide range of humanity. You can hold any political or religious beliefs you choose, but you will  cover people who are utterly different from you and it is your job to listen to them carefully and respectfully. That’s a great way to live.

We all have a point of view and the more we listen to one another, the more we’ll learn.

Some of the many people I’ve met and/or interviewed include:

Queen Elizabeth, Rudolf Nureyev, Billy Joel, Olympic golf medalist Kim Rhode, Patty Varone, the NYPD cop who kept New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani alive on 9/11, convicted felons and set designers, professional ice skaters and female chefs, sailors and district attorneys.

I’ve loved the crazy variety, the constant demands of finding/wooing/interviewing people of all ages and interests, from a professor of nuclear physics whose Scottish accent and rapid speech made note-taking almost impossible to the doctors I had to interview, in French, while working in Montreal.

Since losing my Daily News job in 2006, I’ve been working full-time as a freelance writer, editor, blogger and paid speaker on retail work. I write often on business for The New York Times, for their Sunday section. I’ve also written for Marie Claire, Smithsonian, USA Today and dozens of others.

Along the way, I’ve won five fellowships and have written two well-reviewed non-fiction books.

I hope you’ll click the links to these books — you can read a few sample chapters free — and buy them. I know that some of you are teachers and professors. I hope you’ll take a look at them for your classes as both books have also been course-adopted as they’re lively, easy-to-read and fact-based.

I’m happy to write a guest post or do a Q and A with you about any aspect of writing and publishing.

The first book, “Blown Away: American Women and Guns” came out in 2004. I came up with the idea after I discovered a friend and colleague owned a handgun. I grew up in Canada, where civilian gun ownership is not nearly as prevalent and there is no equivalent of the Second Amendment, which many Americans use to justify their gun rights. To research it, I traveled across the U.S., to Ohio, New Orleans and Texas, interviewing 104 men, women and teens about the issue. It was a difficult subject, and I experienced secondary trauma as a result. It happens to journalists (and others) whose work exposes them to others’ trauma, whether sexual, war-related, as victims of crime and violence.

My newest book, which will be published in China in March 2013, is “Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail” which describes, firsthand, low-wage work in the U.S. It’s rough: part-time, no benefits, little chance for advance scheduling, few raises or promotions. It’s been compared to the best-seller Nickeled and Dimed, in which another writer went behind the scenes to work for low wages.

So when you read and link to Broadside, you’re reading the work of a trained career journalist who plays by old-school rules. You won’t read anything that’s false, made up, exaggerated. When I write about my husband, Jose, a photo editor at The New York Times and a Pulitzer winner, I tell him or ask his permission first. I don’t accept payment for anything I write, nor I do I accept freebies or giveaways or discounts.

I blog because I enjoy it.

I blog every other day, sometimes on the news, often far from it. As some of you already know, I’m passionate about a few things: women’s rights, travel, design, work, living a full and balanced life, emotional connection.

I blog because, more than anything, I want to hear from you!

A lively global conversation is my goal.

Thanks for being here!

BlogHer 2012 — was it worth it?

English: Martha Stewart at the Vanity Fair party celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The conference is over, with its many parties just beginning as I write this.

Three days of full-on intensity, 5,000 bloggers in one midtown Manhattan hotel, about 80 percent of whom — maybe 90 percent — were female, and under the age of 40.

It’s not a pleasant feeling to feel ancient, but this conference was very much a place for 20-year-olds and their eager enthusiasm. I’m not being fair, because I did see a few women my age or a bit younger, some of whom  are well-known in that huge on-line community.

But I quickly wearied of hearing perky 20-somethings tell me they “mommy-blog”, as I searched in vain for people writing on books, or work, or business, or politics. Had I done my homework and really searched the site and reached out to people, I know I could have made those connections.

The 2013 conference will be in Chicago, July 25-27, and registration begins in a few weeks.

The Good

– The agenda offered a lot of choices, whether super-technical information or tips on writing.

– Running into five or six very good friends, a lovely surprise and pleasure with so many attending, like Heather Greenwood-Davis, a Toronto-based travel writer who just finished an around-the-world odyssey with her husband and two young sons.

– We were told that 85 percent of speakers are new each year, so you’re not hearing the same Cool Kids at every conference.

– Katie Couric, a television legend in the U.S., and Martha Stewart, another American media titan, were interviewed live on stage. That was fun and gave us a glimpse of these famous women being a little more spontaneous and human. I enjoyed that.

– There was lots of good food and drink, so we weren’t subjected to the usual conference horrors of overpriced, lousy food and $15 glasses of wine. (They actually gave us a fistful of drink tickets. Score!)

– I loved hearing 19 bloggers, including a man, read their work from the stage. Several were deeply moving and beautiful, like Susan Goldberg, who lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario (way north) with her partner and sons.

– I liked seeing women of every size, shape and color. One panelist, Cecily Kellogg, sported fuchsia hair and was wickedly smart and helpful.

The Not-So-Good

— Way too many people! Many told me they were frustrated and really annoyed at being, literally, shut out of sessions they had paid real money to listen to, some of them flying across the country to do so.  There were simply too many bodies for the venue.

— Way too noisy. I came home shaky, headachey and exhausted from the sheer volume of too many people in too small a space. If you’re standing a foot from someone and having to shout, we have a problem.

– Nowhere (at least nowhere obvious) to just sit quietly and think, read, chill, chat with someone. No one should ever have to sit on the floor!

— No way to quickly, easily and efficiently, every day, find fellow bloggers with your interests. It would be simple, easy and helpful to simply affix a colored ribbon to everyone’s badge showing what they specialize in.

I don’t know about you, but I simply don’t have the time, energy, stamina or patience to be all perky for hours (to be polite and friendly, which is what you do at conferences) with dozens of people with whom I have zero shared intellectual interests.

My larger question, which may be rhetorical, is if there is any useful and mutually respectful dialogue to be had — which I saw no evidence of (and may have been happening) — between old media (i.e. print/broadcast) and this new world of social media.

Old media, as you know, is focused on fact, ideas, provable assertions, reliable (one hopes) sources. Biased, yes, but evidence-based.

I am still uncomfortable in an insular, ego-driven world of all-opinion-all-the-time. I’m not persuaded that it, alone, offers lasting value without some underpinning of a more objective reality.

I also have deep reservations about women toting huge bags of “swag” they got from dozens of exhibitors, all eager for attention from this demographic — women who buy stuff.

Swag. i.e. free shit, included (no kidding), vibrators (bright pink, the size of my thumb), cooked sausage, toothpaste, feminine pads for women in menopause (who are no longer menstruating?!) and soy-milk ice cream bars.

One exhibitor told me many women swaggered up demanding to be paid to mention her products, or to be given free samples. Her company makes sinks, bathtubs and faucets.

You want a fucking free bathtub?

And — what has any of this gimmegimmeegimeeeeeeeee to do with great writing?

Nothing.

Long before you focus on your blog’s financial ROI, we should be focused on writing amazing work that people might, if we are really, really lucky, even remember years from now.

Or even a few days from now.

What do you think?

Were you at BlogHer 2012?

Do you think you’ll attend in 2013?

A post about the blog

Garden Flowers – July 2010 034-sq (Photo credit: Paul-W)

I began blogging in July 2009, and only because my agent told me I had to start building an audience on-line if I hoped to sell my next book(s.)

In a stroke of fantastic luck, I was offered the following month a paid opportunity to blog for a community site called True/Slant.

And starting out with a built-in community made the whole thing a lot more fun than — as most of us do — pinging into the ether with high hopes and crossed fingers. I’m still friends with several of my fellow T/S bloggers and even had a great reunion with about 10 of them when I visited Chicago.

I migrated here in July 2010 when — oh, the greed! oh, the betrayal! — True/Slant was sold to Forbes and almost all of us were summarily canned after building the very value that made it worth selling.

I know that most bloggers do it for love, not money.

When your primary income, like mine (and some of yours) also comes from writing, it’s tough to spend even more time at the computer that cuts into paid hours. I blog because I enjoy it and because, as my agent warned me, I need to prove a large and growing audience for my work.

As a professional writer exploring many topics, it’s sometimes a chance to test out an idea before I sell it as an essay or longer article.

I enjoy, most of all, your thoughtful comments and the global conversation we have here. Very cool!

How do I know what you’d like to read?

I have no idea! One of the things about Broadside (which is unusual, in my experience of blogs) is that it’s not niche at all. I don’t focus narrowly on anything. Today, Broadside has 1,502 followers, (3 to 5 joining every day now.) You are one seriously heterogeneous group!

When I write for The New York Times, I have a pretty clear idea who my readers are. Same for Marie Claire, a women’s magazine.

But the challenge of this blog — and it’s a big one — is not being fussed about the fact that readers here range from high school age to senior citizens, men and women. Two recent followers are a technical school in Mexico (!?) and a political organization in Mississippi.

The commonality is….?

So I just write what I find interesting, spin it globally whenever possible, and hope you like it.

(Feel free, any time, to email me here or directly and suggest a subject you’d like to hear about. Or more of, or less of.)

Do I know who Broadside’s readers are?

Every time a new follower signs up, I make the time to check out their profile and/or blog. Often, as you’ve seen, I’ll leave a comment or “like” there, to let you know I appreciate your attention.

I’m amazed, and challenged, by the wide differences in your interests, careers, nationalities and ages. If we threw a party, we’d need a very big room!

How much time does it take to write each post?

It depends. Some I bang out within minutes. Others I polish for days, even weeks. Some, (rarely) I never post at all.

How do I choose what to write about?

It depends, again. If there’s something big in the news, (the Queen’s Jubilee, Etan Patz’ killer confessing), I’ll jump on it, but only if I have something of a personal link to it. I try to post only on subjects I feel passionate about. But because I have so many interests — design, work, ideas, relationships — I rarely feel stumped for a topic.

Anything you don’t post on?

Religion and politics. Readers of Broadside live all over the world, so how much interest do you really have in American political battles or the endless toxicity of the religious right? I may occasionally touch on spirituality.

Although my first book is about guns, I rarely blog about it as I have no time or interest in getting into heated on-line battles.

How far ahead do I write posts?

I usually have 5 to 10 posts pre-written and ready to go, at all times. But I revise and edit them many times and will update them minutes before I post.

The only way I’ve been able to enjoy a true vacation away from the computer is to stockpile some evergreen issues and post them when it feels right. While I admire the dedication of those who blog daily, it’s not for me. I’m not that interesting and I’m just too tired!

Which blogs do you follow?

I read only about 5 or 6 blogs, most related to my work or my passions, which include France and design. One, Design Milk, offers a terrific variety of daily stories, all visual, from around the world. Another, One Quality, the Finest, (written by a fellow Canadian ex-pat in the U.S.), offers a French idiom (and some history to go with it) every day. I find this one, Freelance Folder (aimed not just at writers) consistently helpful. I also like Seth Godin’s blog, which was recommended to me by a CEO I interviewed for my retail book; he’s an American business guru/author I find smart, provocative and insightful.

How often are you blogging?

Are you meeting your own goals? How’s it going?