Oddities, Profundities, Profanities and Dad Stuff

Category: Blogging (Page 3 of 26)

I don’t fit into any category you have.

I keep signing up for sites to do some advertising.  Kontiki, Chitika and Google AdSense to name a few.  Each one of these asks what category your blog is in.  The problem is, I don’t fit into any of their categories!  I usually end up putting general and going from there.

This keeps bringing me to a debate.  What is my blogs niche?  Does it even have or need one?   I have read several things by now about the importance of having a niche that is defined.  Well I do to some extent.  I want to write about kettlebells, being a stay at home dad, fishing, car repair, migraines and what I learned from 2 years of my daughters dialysis and subsequent transplant.  This narrows down the field.  I don’t want to do fashion or celebrities, or WordPress finesse.  There are many blogs out there better than mike for that.

I think my category and niche will be me.  My thoughts and collated knowledge on a few subjects that others will find some value from my take.  Right or wrong (according to you) I will express my opinion and let the world take it for what it will.

I still won’t be pigeon-holed into a pre-defined box just to make them happy.  Maybe I will specialize a bit more in the future but for now, my niche is me.  I will sell my own stuff.

Any thoughts on this?  I would love comments or your ideas as well.

I don’t fit into any category and I am OK with that!

Justin

The things we do….

Delete key
Image via Wikipedia

Have you noticed how many anodynes there are laying around on the floor?  I know, the next question is WTF????  ok so this is yet another way to try and make some cash.  If you have ever signed up for one of those sites that hopefully will pay you to write?  Well they like to make sure that you own the site.  and this is the way they do it.

You get to put some strange sentence on a post so that they can verify it.  You can delete it afterwards, but it has to be there.  I ahve done some like this before, and deleted the post, leaving a gaping hole in my site where the RSS feed would like to shove something.  So I decided that this time, I would leave the sentence.  and build a post around it.

I am still a writer damn it and even if I am slow at it, I still come up with some great ideas.  One of these days, many more of those ideas will see the light of day.  For example, right now I have 20 posts in draft (read idea form) on this site.  There are many more on my other sites.

Eventually you all will be rewarded with the wonderful musings from my mind.  And the end of the Man With The Hazy Suit, My buddy Bob reminded me that it was still unfinished and at least he was waiting for the end.  I kind of gave up.  I will get that done and out as an ebook.  Maybe an audio book.  Maybe with a golden goose attached.

Ok, you all can send me a golden goose, I could really use one of those eggs right now.  Which brings up another very unrelated question that I would like some opinion on.  If the goose laid golden eggs, were they solid gold as we are lead to believe, or do they have the makings of an omlette inside?  Hmmmm…

anyway, there is too much rambling going on now and I have to go to the eye doctor.  See you all later.

-Justin

Simpleton finds The Golden Goose: illustration...

Image via Wikipedia

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On Guest Posts and the Community of Blogistan.

Today my first guest post ever will be posted (if it isn’t already) on Carlos’ site, Conscious Me.com.  I am very excited for this, it is a review of my experience with the Pre-Writing challenge.  It is now the first of April and I am officially 4 days away from completing my third month of blogging!

What a time it has been.  During these past months, I have met several people who have helped me make my blog better, and several whom I consider my friends in Blogistan.  My name is out into the aether so much more than ever before and it is the result of being all over the net and doing things that I would never have considered before.

I have joined, completed and guest posted on the Pre-Writing Challenge.  That is destined to be an annual event, an ebook and its own site.  Quite probably it will be a paid mentoring program in the future.  I hope to be a part of that.  I have developed quite a good relationship with Carlos as well as others in the challenge.

I have started another blog with Ralph called Cantankerous Old Coots, where we have a good time  ranting about how life has become too sissified.

I have been asked to help Dave Doolin over at Website In A Weekend with some tips for WordPress themes and a case study about using that theme to build another site.

I have (hopefully) helped some other bloggers with motivation and technical details.  I have received some very nice words from some big time bloggers like Robert Bravery who have helped build traffic on my blog.

There are several people that I interact with on Twitter and through email.  I may never talk to some people more than once or twice but there is that interaction and hopefully a connection that continues.  I am looking forward to meeting Josh Hanagarne from World’s Strongest Librarian after I found out that he lived near me.

I have had help from many different people.  I have had encouragement.  I have invested in courses and gleaned free information that has grown my blog.  I am very excited to be part of a community like this and I hope I can give back as much value as I have gained.  Thank you all, now go read my guest post.

When you are finished with that, go read Cantankerous Old Coots. That is all.

-Justin

PS the FCC requires me to tell you that by reading this, you are being infected with a virus that will cause clowns to dance wildly around your screen at undetermined intervals.  And it will steal all of the MP3’s you have on your hard drive.  If you have a problem with this, look at a calendar and derive a connection.

I Have Hit 3 Months! Time for the Happy Dance!

Hello all you wonderful people!  Well it is because of you that this post is here today.  This marks my 3 month blogging milestone!  That is 3 months since I bought my domain name and started working.  I am still here, I am not quitting, and I am getting more traffic than ever.  Not as much as I would like but hat is coming.

I am not going to list my stats here again, I think I just did that a week or so ago.  Today I wanted to hit something else, related but not the same.  I am heading toward 6 months with several people that are going to keep me on the path.  I will be a professional blogger.  Just hide and watch.

Here is my point, there is a time in whatever path you have chosen where it gets hard.  I don’t believe it is ever too hard to bear, I am not going to go off on religion but it works for me when the times get hard.  What is even harder but much more important is to be able to pull yourself together and keep going.

When the world seems like it is falling in and you are going to be stuck at the bottom of the sewage pile, there is something inside of each and every one of us that can climb out of the  pit and stand to the side.  You may get sprayed and dumped on but you do not have to be at the bottom.  There is always hope.

I can see why 3 months is an important milestone for a blogger.  There is the doubt that any of this is worth it.  There is the “nothing is happening so why bother anymore” effect that comes about when you do not have a focus.  There is the unwillingness to adapt, the unwillingness to “pay your dues” that puts many people off.

This world is overwhelming, with all of the information out there it is hard to see where to go.  There is plenty of discouragement waiting, on how many blogs are out there, how you need to be top in Alexa, how your lovingly crafted e-book is probably going to end up with the millions of others in mediocrity.  It can be hard to navigate the forest for the sheer fact that the forest is there.

But I have a chainsaw and the overwhelming desire to cut my own path.  I have adopted a new philosophy that doesn’t listen to people and their discouragement.  I will continue to put out my own stuff and if it fails then it fails; I have other things to take its place.

Building and interacting with the world via my humble cable modem is so much fun I am sure it will be illegal in the near future.  I am going to keep it up.  I am going to be successful.  I am going to quash all of the naysayers.  I will make money with my blog.  I really don’t want to deliver pizzas.

Please feel free to comment below, sign up for my RSS feed and most importantly my mailing list! Special content and discounts abound for those select few on my list.  and I promise not to shovel crap to your inbox, you may get a couple of emails a month.  Max.

-Justin

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