This Message Will Self Destruct in Ten... Nine...

It's been a bit of a stressful week over here. The company that sends me ninety percent of my tech writing work laid off fifty percent of their workforce, and over at my husband's office, people who have more seniority than my husband were laid off. It's been a bit of a pins and needles week, you might say. I've been just a tad cranky. (I know, you're surprised to hear that bit of news, aren't you?! I'll bet you couldn't tell.)

Anyway, I've been thinking more and more about how to get rich blogging (the type of thinking my husband likes to call "living in a fantasy world") and how to get on with the whole immediate blog fame thing. (My husband's advice, "stop writing obnoxious political posts.")

I figure the way to become a Truly Big Deal in the blogging world is to become known as a Giver. A Blogging Mentor if you will. In that spirit, I give you:

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED: What Every Blogger Should Know!!!!!!:

What's a meme?
A meme is a very serious infection stemming from writer's block. It usually travels from blog to blog, and becomes more and more boring the further it travels. At the end of the blog post, you are supposed to name a few other bloggers who you'd like to see do the meme.

Many people name their friends, but I suggest naming bloggers who are much bigger than you are, because you never know, you might actually trick one of them into linking back to you, which ups your technorati score.

Um... What's a technorati score?
It has to do with links and authority and how many people generally wish you were dead.

What's a blog carnival? A blog carnival is where a blogger tricks people into linking to her blog. This is a true fact. The blogger hosting the blog carnival is called the "Big Cheese," and the bloggers who participate are called "Carnies." Usually there is a clever graphic you must post on your blog or the Big Cheese will smack your Carnie buttocks right out of the carnival.

I keep hearing people talk about their Readers. What's the deal with that?
Google Reader makes it possible for you to read all of your favorite blogs without having to take that time consuming and exhausting extra step of actually clicking on the blog. Whenever a blogger writes a new post, it automatically shows up in your reader. Voila! No more checking blogs to see if someone has updated!

Kind and gentle bloggers let you read the whole blog post in your Reader. Selfish and greedy bloggers only let you see a sentence or two of the new post, and then you have to actually click to pull up the blog and read the rest of the post. (I know this is selfish because I once had someone email me to tell me I was selfish and greedy for adjusting my feed so that you could only see part of it. Selfish and greedy. Because she had to MOVE HER FINGER an extra time.) (Resisting urge to make a "here's a finger for ya" type joke. Resisting. Resisting. Resisting.)

Selfish and greedy bloggers do this because they want you to visit their actual blog, so they will make ad revenue off of your visit, so they can afford to pay the servants. Because bloggers make BANK on those ads man. Seriously, I'm hiring a butler next week.

How do you get people to visit your blog?
Oh! This is an easy one. I pay them. Sometimes I go visit other blogs and comment, but really that's very time consuming. I find cold hard cash works much better. Each time they comment I send them twenty bucks. (If you would like to be on my cashola visit list, please email Kristina P. - she offered to pony up the cash to cover my blog comments this month.) (I'm pretty sure that's what she said.)

Is it weird if I comment without introducing myself first?

No. Nobody cares who you are. (Except for me. I CARE. But most bloggers - they don't care. JERKS.) The important thing is the number of comments. So if you want to make an impression, the best thing to do is comment about twelve times per post so the blogger looks really popular.

I tried that, and still, people don't visit.
Try leaving really memorable comments, like, "I can see into your bathroom window from where I'm standing." The blogger will totally remember you after that.

Why do people give stuff away on their blogs?

Because they're rich. Duh. You're really new at this, I can tell.

Should I include pictures in my blog posts?
Yes.



Well, that about wraps it up for this session. If you have any blogging questions for me, I'd be happy to answer them in the comments.