GREAT ADAPTATIONS

New blogger? Congratulations. And uh-oh.

Watch out for the New Blogger’s morass.

Right there! By your left foot! Careful or you’ll slip right in, and then how we will ever find you?

I’m excited about the opportunities popping up for people who want to communicate through blogs. Teaching, tutoring, “knowledge transfer,” building communities – these are just a few of the creative options for working and playing online. And the main way people seem to be getting into this business nowadays is through blogs. Even big businesses are starting to understand the value of a well-appointed blog. Blogs are the portal, and the blogosphere is the big brawny planet of creative adaptation. And by the way, “blog” is really just another name for a website. What I’m referring to is a website that uses devices made for blogging as its way of communicating with the world. That world of devices, and a whole philosophy that is emerging through it, is the blogosphere. It’s a big place.

So, transporting into the online world through a blog is good way to do it, right?

Maybe. Probably. But only if …

Yeah, you’re ahead of me. Only if you have some idea of what you’re doing. If you are thinking that this might be a way to make a living, and have fun at the same time, well, you’re right.

Maybe. You’re right if you know how to figure it out. Where to look, who to read, what to buy into, how the heck the whole machine works.

I’m going to make it a little bit easier on you.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch. You can learn for a long time without getting out your credit card. What I can do is lift the veil for a moment, take your hand, and give you three keys to the kingdom. These keys are people. All the keys are people. People who have been around a while, innovating, articulating, brainstorming, putting the pieces together. I want you to know about them because they are some of my best resources.

Allow me to introduce:

Yaro Starak, whose site is www.entrepreneurs-journey.com,

Darren Rowse, whose site is www.problogger.com, and

Brian Clark, whose site is www.copyblogger.com.

You can learn pretty much everything you need to know from these three guys.

But now there’s another problem.

The problem is information overload. And even narrowing it down to three people I totally trust and highly recommend, well, you’ve still got a problem. Any idea how much information is on those three sites alone? Well, the posting rhythm varies, but it’s typical to see at least two or three articles a week from these guys, sometimes more, and these are not two-minute reads. Everything they produce is relevant to growing a successful blog. Everything. So do the math. How long will it take you to get a feel for what they are telling you? They’ve been at it for a few years, and the last two years in particular are full of innovations and revelations. Got time to read oh, say, about a thousand content-rich posts? No? Uh-oh, morass again.

So I’m going to help you with this one too. You cannot afford to miss what these guys have to say, but you can focus in on what is relevant to a total beginner. They’ve made it relatively easy to do that, and I’ll just hand you the links here so you can relax, point, and click.

Start here. Read these three blogs, and you’ll have the door open to your own portal to the blogosphere.

Darren Rowse has created a whole system for introducing people to blogging. Here is a great place to get familiar with his style:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/02/14/is-a-blog-right-for-you/

Yaro Starak has a fantastic free resource that is very revealing about taking the leap to a monetized blog. Go on his website at the link below, and get a copy of his “Blog Profits Blueprint.” You’ll find it in a box in the right column on his home page.

http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/

Brian Clark also has a free resource for you to look at. His program, “Teaching Sells,” describes a system for building a learning community. I think we are going to see this blossom into an entire culture. You can get this one on his home page:

http://www.copyblogger.com

If you’d like to continue learning about bloggers and their brains, I’d love to have you in my writing community. Subscribe to my list, (by typing in your email in the right column there where it says “We’d love to have you”) and I’ll respond with some special stuff of my own.

So there you go, be fearless, and don’t forget to take your brain breaks. Come back and let me know what you think about these three resources. And here’s my question for you: What would you like to tell the world as an online communicator?

Best regards,

Suzanna