Mariannes Motifs

Why Do I Blog?

Blogging is a bit of a hobby for me I guess. It allows me to express myself without having to worry about pleasing anyone else. I don’t expect anyone to read my posts, and am pleasantly surprised when people do. Yes, a little bit narcissistic.

I never blog about anything I wouldn’t tell my grandmother, mother, next door neighbor, and boss. That rule keeps me out of trouble pretty well. I do make money blogging, and I am pretty sure my professional blog was part of the reason I was hired for a very good job.

I have four blogs? On my personal blog mariannesmotifs.com I share pictures of my family and amusing things I run across, write essays and vent about politics when I feel like it, share advice and freebies.

I have a Sci Fi blog scifijungle.com which is for all about books, movies, tv, and fun sci fi stuff. Then I have a blog about Crohn’s disease (crohnsdiseaserelief.com) which focuses on the disease I have and ideas on coping and inspiring others.

My best advice for a new blogger would be to pick a great plaform like Typepad.com or Blogger.com and get your own domain right at the beginning. I use GoDaddy.com and Typepad.  Don't blog at work - these things have time stamps.  If you have an idea write it down in a notebook, google docs, or on a flash drive, and flesh it out and blog it later on your own time.

More Tips for Blogging Every Day

Previously I wrote about Tips for Blogging Every Day.  I have some more "secrets" on blogging to share (and as someone who keeps up 4 blogs, I feel like something of an expert!)

1.  Don't feel like you have to blog every day.  If its not fun, don't do it. I think as long as you have a fresh post every 3 days or so, its ok.  Just keep it as fresh as you can.  If you have more than one blog, space out the posts between them so you keep yourself and your ideas fresh.  Or sit down for one monster blogging session each week.  If writing feels like work your readers are probably going to sense that. 

2.  Have some sources of inspiration.  I love Twitter (check the fascinating folks I follow on Twitter - a great mixture of music, tech, knitting, and more).  There are some great web aggregators out there that are handy when you lack inspiration.  Alltop.com and popurls.com are two like.

3.  I host my blogs on Typepad, (makes it so easy so I can concentrate on writing not managing the technical aspects) and I love the TypePad Blog It "Bookmarkelet."  In Firefox it's a button, in Internet Explorer it's a bookmark.  Whenever you come across an interesting artlicle, click the Blog It button and it sucks it into a ready make blog post, complete with quote and proper attribution.  Instant blog posts are handy when you want to add a bit of fresh content but don't have a lot of time.  Remember to keep most of your content original.

4. Have some go to blogs you enjoy reading.  For my Sci Fi blog I religiously follow SF Signal, the best Sci Fi blog out there.  For my Technical blog I like to follow CNET.com and Information Week.

5.  If you have a "one subject" blog, such as my Crohn's Disease blog, you might want to create a Google alert.   For example I get a daily Google Alert listing new articles and web pages that are about Crohn's.  This helps keep me up to date on the latest news, and gives me frequest topics to blog about that otherwise would probably slip past my (and my readers') radar.

6.  Everyone loves a deal.  I like to say, "never neglect your freebies."  I check slickdeals.net almost every day and when I find a deal or freebie that matches the subject of one of my blogs, I will post the deal.

7.  Don't be afraid to get silly.  Tonight I blogged a picture of the brownies we baked.  I have fun taking pictures on my cell phone and emailing them to my blog to make a short post.  Why not?  Like I said in #1 - if it's not fun what's the point?

Have a blessed day and happy blogging!

Mommy Bloggers

Properly attributed quote and link that were previoudly here have been removed at request of mom-101.com blogger who sent me  nicely passive agressive note.

I am a mom - it's true. And I suppose I deserve the epithet of "blogger" as well. Hard to avoid that one, with the four blogs and all. But the God help me if I ever am a Mommy Blogger. I will happily blog about knitting, blog pictures of my oh so cute kids, and force you to look at pictures of what I made for dinner but please spare me anyway that horrible label of mommy blogger.

And if you catch me driving around with a soccer sticker on my (admitted) mini-van, please just shoot me and put me out of my misery.

Oh and by the way - I absolutely enjoy blogging for free stuff, as well as other nefarious money making schemes of the bloggy variety. Heh heh heh. Just try and stop me.  Now, how can I get my hands on one of those blue acne light thingies...

Tips for How to Blog (Almost) Every Day

I read an interesting blog post on Chris Brogen's blog: How to Blog Almost Every Day.

Here are some of my blogging habits that help me find fresh ideas for posts:  popurls.com is a nice aggregator of new web content.  I also like to check Google.com/trends for the top web searches of the day.  (Gives me ideas of what's buzzing at the moment).  I love to check the Google news page for my blog tops as well as using Google alerts as another commenter noted. 

I love to carry my small digital camera around with me so I can snap a quick picture of anything that catches my eye out in the world.   I can also Twitter from my cell phone and have a Twitter feed on my blog, so that helps add fresh content when I am on the go and it's harder to do a full blog post.

Also, I advise don't stress over creating a post every day.  It's fine to post every 1 to 3 days in general.  Just keep the blog fresh and interesting.  Keep your audience in mind - I like to have a fictional audience in my mind for each blog and pretend I am talking to that person when I post.  For this personal my target blog audience is my mom!  For my Crohn's Disease blog the audience is someone just diagnosed and wanting advice. On the Sci Fi blog my audience is my friends who are Sci Fi fans.

Remember - blog posts can be short.  I completely agree with Chris that perfectionism is the enemy of forming good habits.  Do not fear mistakes - just point yourself in a direction and keep going!

Premium Wordpress Themes

As I have mentioned before I have purchased a new internet domain, cheesyromance.com with the intentions of building a web site focused around Romance fans and authors.  I have a great vision of what the site could be, with romance novel reviews and community forums.  So far however, I have hit multiple stumbling blocks to getting it started correctly.

First, I tried to go with very very cheap web hosting, and found that the host was much too difficult for me to use.  I needed a better web control panel, and help to be able to install Wordpress myself, let alone PhpBB.  Finally I scrapped the cheapie web host and went with DreamHost, who has some great 1 click installs, good help, and a decent price.  I got started and installed Wordpress.  Yep - 1 click. 

However, now I have Wordpress and I have no idea how to customize it.  I got a Wordpress book out of the library and am about to delve in.  I checked out some nice looking free Wordpress Templates, but I have to jump into some text configuration files and fire up Photoshop to make some custom graphics and banners.

The thought is a bit overwhelming and I haven't done it yet.

Today I learned about a premium wordpress theme called WPREMIX.  I think that when it comes to WordPress templates, like webhosting, and just about everything else in the world, you get what you pay for.  Free is great if you have the time and some knowledge about what to do with it.  For me, even though I have the time, I would much rather have a graphical interface than mess with code.  Even though I am perfectly capable of coding, it is not my favorite method of spending my time and energy.

What do you get with WPREMIX?  From looking at their website, the product is billed as "WordPress as CMS."  It features not only temples but a WYSIWYG page editor for the templates, and also over 50 static page designs so you can use it to make your entire site, not just blog.

The single user license is only $75.00, which is pretty reasonable for a professional theme, let alone for the GUI coding interface it provides.

They offer an affiliate program, which I signed up for, which has a 50% payout to affiliates.  (It used to be 20% and was recently increased) If you want to check this out and use my link I would appreciate it.  Here is the link with my affiliate code.

Click here to visit WordPress Remix website!

I will write about women in technology for Ada Lovelace Day on March 24th

This morning I learned about a special day coming up in March. Almost a thousand people have already pledged to take this day to write about a woman in the field of technology that they admire.  It is intended to help spread the word about positive female role models.

I think this is a fantastic idea, and as a woman in the field of technology I would love to help spread the word that technical careers are the best place for women to be.  In my opinion, the technical fields tend to more open, have better pay equality, and lots of room to prosper.  Young girls need to know that these fields are open to them as are any that they wish to pursue.

  'I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman
   in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will
   do the same.'

Coming Soon - Adgitize review

I am going to give blogging advertising network  Adgitize a try.  If you are familiar with Entrecard, it looks like Adgitize has taken some similar ideas and expanded upon it by adding an affiliate component, as well as the ability to pay for ads on their network on a monthly basis.   The price for one month of ads on blogs all over the network is just $14.00, or you can try it out with a 7 day ad for just $7.00 or 14 days for $10.00.  It's a low cost way to advertise your blog.  Blog writers can get points for writing blog posts as well as from clicking on the ad on other bloggers blogs, so you can get some blog traffic this way.  (Although a lot of the traffic might be "drop by and run" quick hits)

I am planning a blog redesign for Marianne's Motifs, so this might be a good time to try Adgitize.  I have a little bit of sidebar room to spare for a 125x125 ad. Here's an example of what the ad might look like.

I think this guy has a great idea in that he is charging a reasonable fee for the ability to advertise on lots and lots of blogs.  I haven't wanted to pay the money to advertise with AdWords from Google because they expect you to start at paying about $50.  But I think I could get my feet wet with $14.00.

Blogger Wish List - Dragon Coupon Code

My Top 10 Blogger Wish List

To get into the holiday spirit I am going to make a wish list of things that could help me with my blogging.  Now that I am between jobs, I am finding blogging to be not only a wonderful outlet for my creative energy, but also a actual source of income.  Its interesting to see how much money I can make now that I have lots of time to dedicate to the blogs. 

I actually have 3 blogs, about 5 Squidoo web lenses, and a new domain not yet set up.  I am quite excited about the possibilities as I have discovered that there are a number of affiliate programs and blog ads that can help a blogger out.

1.  Upgrade my Typepad account for more custom templates.

2.  Set up Dreamhost account for cheesyromance.com.  (Coming soon to a web browser near you)

3.  Get approved for textbroker.com so I can make some dollars writing.

4.  Logitech Wireless Microphone for use with #5 below.  (Check out the video listed above where the guy blogs from outside with his wireless mic while his computer is INSIDE.)

5.  Dragon Naturally Speaking software so I can type by talking and write faster to make more money.   Tip: here is a $25 Coupon Code DNSMSBG -Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard

6.  Improved page ranking from the big wigs at the big G.

7.  Lots of ideas for writing essays and articles.

8.  Time and energy to re-design mariannesmotifs for a better look and cleaner feel.

9.  Great keyword ideas.

10.  More Amazon orders!  Please use my search box to right to start your holiday shopping.  I get a small commission thanks!

• $50 Coupon Code DNSMSBG -Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred
• $25 Coupon Code DNSMSBG -Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard
• $25 Coupon Code- DNSMSBG -MacSpeech Dictate

Guest Post - Make More Money Writing with Dragon Naturally Speaking

This is a guest post by a fellow blogger on behalf of  Dragon Naturally Speaking.  The full white paper is available here.   Now I am going to check out this textbroker.com and see if I can make any extra money through them.  Also I want to check out ChaCha.com where people can text chacha (242242) and get the answer to any question.  They actually pay their "web guides" per question answered!

This  guest post is an excerpt from a white paper discussing how bloggers can earn more money through several different monetization and freelance writing services. It shows that bloggers that utilize Dragon Naturally Speaking can earn more money through these various services and how fast these extra earnings will pay for the software itself.

Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Blogger Break Even Analysis with TextBroker.com Earnings

I would like to walk you through several different scenarios to help all of us understand better what our words are worth.
I would like to start first by talking about a company that pays people to write. They pay them to write based on the number of words that are written. The company is called text broker.com and they are out of Germany and relatively new. I’m starting with TextBroker.com because the business model is very simple. The models will get more complex as I go through some of the other popular blog revenue sources.

Text broker.com will pay a person approximately 7/10 of a cent for a single word. They charge their customers approximately 1 penny per word. And they sell this service at increments starting at 100 words and go up from there.
That’s what they do; now let’s see how Dragon Naturally Speaking can pay for itself!
So, I’d really like to talk about how much you can earn from them based on how fast you type.
If you type 35 words per minute, and you typed for 50 minutes straight, you could theoretically type 1750 words.
Now at seven tenths of a penny per word, that work would be $12.25 per hour assuming that you take a ten minute break every hour. If you work four hours a day doing this, that would be forty-nine dollars per day.
If you could type 105 words per minute, that would be 5250 words in a fifty minute period of time. At that rate, you would earn $36.75 per hour assuming the same ten minute breaks every hour.

Obviously you can earn more if you can type faster.
If you could type 150 words per minute, then under this formula you could earn $52.50 per hour. That's almost 5 times more than you can earn if you type thirty-five words per hour.
So in this example there is definitely a value in typing faster!
There is a cost associated with being able to type as fast as well. You could go and take a typing class and learn how to type 150 words per minute. That might take you many months of school, and many years of practice.
It's also possible, that you may never be able to achieve that speed with your fingers.
Alternatively, you could buy Dragon NaturallySpeaking and be able to do it before the night was out. Dragon NaturallySpeaking costs $99 for the basic version and $199 for the preferred version.
As I write this, there are coupon code or discount code offers that you can use to save more money off that price. The coupon codes vary from $25-$50 off the price. Typically a bigger discount is offered for the preferred version, which I use myself.
Now in our example, if you bought Dragon NaturallySpeaking for ninety-nine dollars, and you did not use the coupon code to save twenty-five dollars, you would be able type 150 words per minute, and if you could previously type 35 words per minute, then based on the extra money that you could earn by typing faster, you would be able to pay for Dragon NaturallySpeaking in less than three hours of work using textbroker.com.
It kind of seems like a no-brainer. In many ways, it is a no-brainer with one exception. Not everybody writes for textbroker.com.
If you consider how much additional money you might earn by using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, and consider how much more work you could do by being able to type at 150 words per minute, then you might be able to figure out how long it will take you to pay off the software with your earnings.
I will cover a number of other situations, which will highlight this using other examples where people that typically write a great deal, could benefit from using Dragon NaturallySpeaking.
If you have an example that you would like to share, please let me know, and I will be more than happy to share it with everyone. :-)

Nuance is allowing a 25% Discount Coupon code for Dragon Naturally Speaking.  To get the discount click the image below and use code DNSMSBG.

25% off Dragon Naturally Speaking 10 Standard

So as you know I looking for a new j0b at the moment so I figure any way I can make a bit of money with my blog is a good thing.   This gives me some more information to check out.  And the discount code to get Dragon Naturally Speaking using Discount code DNSMBG is handy too.

Hot Images for Your Blog

How would you like to be able to add clear gorgeous images to your blog without having to worry about wrestling with copyright protection, complex coding, or taking your own pictures?  There is a new services called Acobox that makes adding blog pictures a complete breeze.

Everyone knows that the human eye is drawn to striking pictures, and adding the right graphic style to your blog or website can really make it pop.  One of the neat things about Acobox is that they take all the hard work out of this process.  Once you find the picture you want from their database they give you all different options and you can just copy and paste the code you need from their buttons.

The thing I don't really understand is what their business model is.  How can they offer this all for free to the blogger?  The images are very nice (all under free use) and the site is very easy to use.  I wonder if they have a plan for a pay service later or something? The site is based on the open source content management software called Drupal - http://drupal.org.  So perhaps its that open source spirit coming through that allows the site to be free.

Here is an example of a picture I snagged from their site - a habanero pepper in honor of "hot images for your blog."