Great discussion here and today on the panel! You have built a great community and site here, I hope this evolves as you wish/as you determine what that wish entails. I will be back for certain and also thanks for the referral to The Pioneer Woman, I really liked reading her site for a bit tonight.

Also–I wanted to say (regarding the panel) that I don’t believe anyone can ever fully achieve life balance, but it’s the effort of continued growth/goal setting in the direction of it that I encourage and recommend. When people have certain level of balance then (confidence)/only then do I ever encourage them to venture into business because it’s hard to start a business without some level of peace in organization, finances, health, etc. Maybe we could enjoy a nice lunch at Barry’s next time you’re in town.

Make a wish, Make it happen,
Kelly

Marie — This is a super-good point, and I’ll be sure to mention it. It IS really hard work to develop a readership, and people expect a certain kind of post from you. I think it’s also really hard to figure out what kind of post you want that to be — your voice, I guess.

Chickadee — I think you may be right in some ways on this. It may just be that those who are successful are too busy or too interested in other things to blog about how to make money from blogs. There are, however, blogs out there that do specialize in SEO and ad revenue and stuff like that. One mommy blogger I know who is really knowledgeable and willing to share her knowledge about this sort of thing is Jordan at Mommablogga.com. She’s actually a professional blogger (she writes for MarketingPilgrom.com) and if you click on her “metablogging” category, or her popular posts, you’ll find a lot of information. You can also hire her to analyze and “fix” your own blog. You have to remember that this is a service/product like anything else, and professionals want/need to get paid for their experience and knowledge.

Anyway, it all comes down to what you want to do with your blog. Do you want it to be your part-time or full-time job? To have it generate a little extra cash? Or is it mostly for you to join a community and express yourself and improve your writing? For me the last option is my focus, since I really want to keep my kids as my number one priority for now.

And of course there are also bloggers (moms and otherwise) who are, like I said earlier, just so talented and so lucky that their blogs become popular and almost seem to generate income without too much hard marketing work on the part of the bloggers (as opposed to hard writing work which I’m sure they do).

Good luck, and I’m excited to check out your blog.

Memarie Lanes last blog post..My poor nerves!

I was telling Brad about your book review this morning, I still think it was the best book review ever.

Memarie Lanes last blog post..My poor nerves!

Since I haven’t been approached about reviewing something I can’t help you there, but I would agree that MANY people don’t understand what the blogosphere is all about and the power of a mommy recommendation. I bought an infant carrier recently based on the comments I received on a blog post, not out of my parenting magazine.

good luck and knock ‘em dead. (I hear fighting over a rocket ship so I’m done now)

Marie — Thanks for the specific examples. I was telling Dick about your blog (again) the other day, because I like how you’re not a “mommy” blogger, and I think your posts are great in that each is self-contained and could be posted anywhere and provide value. Your posts really are more like articles, in a good way.

Marianne — I agree with both your comments — I think PR people don’t approach their relationship with bloggers as seriously or formally as they do that with traditional media. And perhaps that is because blogging IS often less formal, and some bloggers less reliable. I know I am not always reliable because I have three other priorities that come first; don’t exactly know how to compensate for that, or even if I want to, so it is understandable, maybe, on their part.

It is all about the writing for me now, too. I started out doing “just a scrapbook” after Dick kept saying I should, and it evolved. Unless I needed to really bring in some income, I would never want to spend more time on the marketing end, at least until the kids are all in school and I felt my writing was as good as it gets or something.

Some peoples’ writing is just so fantastic or their hook so original that they gather a huge audience without really trying (at least it looks effortless). Lucky them!

I don’t ever see myself as a BlogStar getting loads of comments as soon as I click PUBLISH. I don’t work that hard at placing my blogs out there or promoting them. That aspect of blogging takes a lot more time than I have to give.

What I love about blogging is the writing. Hands down, that’s #1 for me. Blogging has given me an easy way to write in many different styles every day. I’m glad to have finally cultivated a realistic daily writing habit and hope I can jump back into fiction with the same zest.

Oh, and the comment love rocks for me, too.

Congrats on being on a blogging panel – really. That’s big stuff to be a part of and you’ve got a good voice here in the blogosphere. Represent, baby!

Bloggers are busy not just with writing content, but with all the tech stuff behind the scenes. I think PR people need to grasp that when you approach someone who blogs successfully, you’re approaching not just a good writer, but someone who is very smart and savvy about the Web, communication, and marketing, and design.

Successful bloggers are bright folk; come with your best, most informed offers, PR reps.

I was given the Sony Reader to review though, and was THRILLED because I knew I’d love it, it would be easy to write about, and a free $300 item is excellent compensation. It was great that everyone responded really well to the review, with a lot of interest. The PR company was happy, I was happy, readers learned about a very interesting new product.

The worst one I ever got was from a major publication. They sent me an email asking me to promote a contest they were holding, a contest that was really laughable at best, with absolutely no compensation of any kind. I didn’t even bother to respond.

Memarie Lanes last blog post..My poor nerves!

I’m not sure if this addresses any of your specific questions, but I might recommend that anyone who is in charge of pitching to bloggers be required to set up and maintain a blog themselves. I think that there’s a lot that you can’t understand until you’ve done it yourself.

Glad to have discovered your site!

Jennifer (Et Tu?)s last blog post..The story of a friendship