Great advice Penelope. Exploring other blogs was incredibly helpful to me when I got started… giving me a view of what’s possible, what works and what doesn’t work. Technorati (a blog directory) is helpful in uncovering some good examples. I like the ability to search blogs by key terms.

It’s fun to see how your voice unfolds post after post… the more you blog, the more comfortable you become. Sort of like breaking in a new pair of shoes.

P.S. Should we tell them how addicting it can be?

Yes, you make a good point about watching your voice unfold. I think there is intrinsic value in seeing who we are through what we write. And this growth and self-knowledge is independent of the amount of mistakes we make or the amount of traffic we have.

Excellent advice! Very well put!

Greetings from Canada and… EXCELLENT post Penelope!

Your blog is now on my daily read list as of this Sunday morning in Toronto!!

Penelope,
Just found your blog thru the link on Amazon for Steve Fox’s book. It is now 4:00 am (had to get up at 2:30 to let the dog out, good thing I love my dog)couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went on Amazon for “5 minutes” I have been sitting at my computer reading thru your site for over an hour now. Your are the best. Thank you for your very useful, interesting and sound advice. I will visit often. Gwenn in Michigan
P.S. Thanks for keeping it simple. I am starting a blog, have been “reviewing software” I am taking your advice and have decided on Type Pad-will follow your suggested steps.Should of done it 2 months ago-thanks for your help in my decision making process-too much information out there.

GOOD DAY PENELOPE,
* Glad to find your site.Your knowledge, ideas , and advice,really deserve to be spread and shared with people to touch their lifes .
Your articles are helpful,useful,simple and easy to understand by every one. Thank you and Good luck ..

“LIVES ” NOT “LIFES”

The best instructions I got in a long, long while. Your article has just inspired me to take the plunge. Here goes…………

Very interesting article, Penelope. I was just curious about how people attract readers to their blogs? What channels do they use?

* * * * * *

It’s a question with endless answers because there are so many possibliities. I learned about stuff like this by reading a lot of blogs to understand how I chose what to read for myself. But also, I read a lot of blogs that desciribe how to run a blog business. My favorite is Problogger.net.

–Penelope

I have no clue about blog. Your article gave me lot of inspiration and insight. Thank you so very much. - Sukumar

I couldn’t agree more. I blog on my favorite topic - making money - and i’ve made a ton of friends who like reading about it!

we don’t always see eye-to-eye, but thats no problem at all.

Have been trying for sometime now to keep up with my blogging; but after reading this article, am sure will be back at blogging! thanks!

Penelope:

Wow!! Have been browsing your blog for a couple of hours now. Very interesting and informative career advice. Just curious on how you can think of so many informative articles to write about?

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Thank you, Alok. I really care a lot about the topic. I think that’s what makes me able to come up with posts. I spend most of my time trying to figure out how to make my own career and my own life work well together. This generates a lot of ideas for things to write about.

–Penelope

Thanks Penelope for this great tutorial ;)
I admired it that much, so I translated it into German (and put it into German context)

Thanks for the great article. I’ve been reading blogs for at least a few years in my field, without ever starting one. Finally, after reading your post, I’m giving it a shot.

The final tipping-point for me in deciding to create one: a desire to change practice areas as an attorney. I’m hoping my blog will help me to increase my reading in the practice area I hope to enter and will help me to gain some expertise in the area.

As you noted, no one is reading yet, but I hope to start gaining some readers as I learn more and converse more with others interested in the same topic.

My new blog: http://povertypolicy.blogspot.com

Thanks again, Karen

Read your article on networking. I will agree it can be important but I think working on your qualifications is more important and should have been noted as such. The world is full of con men who think they can network. Hardworking people who have documented qualifications are more scarce.

* * * * * *

Here’s why working on netowrking is at least as important as your qualifications:1. A wide body of research — for example Bob Sutton (Stanford) or Tiziana Casciaro (Harvard) — shows that people would rather work with someone who is lacking skills but is likeable. Sutton even has a cost benefit analysis that shows dealing with someone who is unlikeable is not worth the cost.

3/2007
Relationship development and how we treat other people determines the level of success we have in life.

Getting beyond getting to get adds a demention to giving that is hard to explain.

But here goes:
Getting to get is fine. It helps us move towards giving because it is benificial to the people we help period.

Also it’s easy think we are helping others when in fact our help is neither necessary or wanted.

So some simples rules apply:
Any time you can work through a 3rd party agency to help others, do it. When we can’t, be carefull because we think we are helping when we are just making things worse for the people we are helping.

Example: Most poor people are poor for a reason or many reasons. and giving them money might seem good on the surface. But we run the risk of having them think: That was easy I’ll just do that. I’ll just be a person who depends on the genorosity of others.

Now when people are hungry, and they have children who are hungry then all bets are off we need to do what ever we can to help.

Helping others is very important (for us) irregardless of why we do it.

Ward Campbell
Thermopolis, Wyoming USA

I am trying to find out how to start my blog and am still not sure what to do. I have so many thoughts i’d like to put out there but am a little in the dark still. There seems to be so much to do. I feel the need to say things that I think are insightful and would empty my head of so many thoughts. I will continue to try to understand and hopefully will find (and be able to accomplish) my wish. Sincerely, proud grandmother from NC Andrea Gibson.

* * * * * *
Hi, Andrea. You are right in thinking that a blog is a great way to empty your head of thougths that keep coming. That’s a big reason I like to blog. What would I do with all my thoughts otherwise?!?!

Penelope

siteltelc

interesting

read comments re: your blogg.First, how do I get onto your blogg.I like the idea of blogging,however, I do not fully undersatand the concept.If it is O.K for you to drop me a line it would be much appreciated. barry.

New bloggers with no or low budget should opt for blogger blogs. Later they can migrate to Wordpress platform. One advantage with this migration policy is that your back links remain intact.

What an interesting way to get people interested in reading! Book trailers are like movie trailers, but for books! You can find them all over the internet now, but here is a site that’s featuring them on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/booktrailers

Thanks for the tips!

Useful Post! Thanks for the tios.
Blogging is being a huge commitment most especially at first. Its depend on how you define success for yourself.

So love this post.

You describe the “blog with training wheels” or “learning lab” approach I’ve used to quietly and persistently practice, experiment, learn, experiment some more for a while now. It’s helpful to see it summarized here, with some other ideas to try.

The rest of your blog looks great, too.

Thanks so much!

There is no comment to write… sorry!

wow thanks for sharing start a blog :)

I really appreciate this post. I think it will be helpful to a lot of people. I have linked to it at the blog I started partly by the influence of it. Thank you for your help.