Wombat Blog is Open
Dale suggested a blog for the Wombats and several said they’d be willing to write an article every now and again, so here we are.
If you want to be a regular blogger on Wombat Wisdom, choose a day—something such as every Tuesday or the first Saturday of the month. (You can write and post blog articles ahead of time and set the day and time of their release, so you don’t have to rush to finish an article.)
We probably need to decide on the minimum number of articles per week to keep momentum going. (Personally, I see no problem with multiple posts per day, if that’s what it comes to. If you’ve got an idea, why wait for your day to post, as long as you also post on your day?)
Blog Options
This blog is set up to link related posts and to provide a page of each author’s posts. There are also rss links for the entire site and for each author. There are options at the bottom of every article to link to social bookmarking sites.
We have a page for pictures of Wombat get-togethers (Wombat Sightings) and for pictures (+ links) of our books. Authors have the option of an author page.
I’ve included a contact page—if you don’t want to be included in the contact list, feel free to opt out. No one sees your e-mail address unless you respond to an e-mail.
Author comments on your own article are enclosed by a heavy border, so they’ll stand out. You must be logged in when you comment to be recognized as the article author.
Only post/article excerpts appear on the home page, rather than full articles. This is best for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), so the site isn’t penalized for duplicate content. Thus, full articles appear in only one place. (We can change this, since many blogs show full articles on the first page. It’s just not a best practice.) You can create your own excerpts or allow the site to use the first 55 words of the post for an excerpt. (Think of the excerpt as a teaser.)
There are other options we can add to a blog—offer your suggestions.
Every author is able to write, edit and delete his/her own articles. You can upload images or video to include in your posts. (There are ways to make your images Web-friendly, so they load faster and take up less space than standard images.)
The group will need to decide on categories. SEO recommendations are for no more than 8 categories, though 10 might not be too many since there are multiple authors. Categories are main topic areas. I’ve set up writing as the default category. I’ve also included publishing and marketing. Other suggestions? (Use tags to refine the subject of your topic. Again, we don’t want to go overboard, but most sites have many more tags than categories.)
How about a category for the personal stuff—personal touch, my two cents, personally…, from the heart, my life, life issues.
How to… is another good category and might make a good weekly feature.
Dale suggested having a few weekly features—Hack that Hook or Elevate that Elevator Pitch—where one person posts a pitch or hook or blurb, something that the group can make suggestions on. If we do a feature such as this, we’d probably want a category for it. Would you like to host a weekly feature of your own?
**(added 12/11/10) I’ve already re-thought this a bit and have added other categories. I know I’d like to read what group members have to say on a variety of subjects, so I added categories for history, humor, hobbies, politics, and religion. I also added two sub-categories to writing—advice please, for questions and help on any writing topic, and fiction showcase for short stories and snippets and blurbs, anything you’d like to share.
Still looking for a category title for life stuff.
Maybe you’re unable to commit to a regular day or feature. We still want to link to your blog or Web site—there’s a list of Wombat contacts in the sidebar.
Posting an article is painless and fairly easy. Let’s have some fun!
Who wants to go first?
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Awesome! I’m sitting in a Beijing coffee place reading this! Can’t wait!
How fitting that Lisa’s checking in from China. I remember you went to China during the First Chapters contest. I thought, How cool, we’re in the middle of this wacky contest and one of the contestants reports she’s off to China!
OK, I found you! What a cool idea! I’m trying to decide if I can commit to something(or if I should just be committed! LOL!) Let me ponder a bit. And I’m excited to see what folks come up with (or should that be “I’m excited to see with what folks come up”? Is there any way to end that sentence withOUT a preposition? There, you have your first writing question!)
this is a great thing and maybe once I get the next book in (due in 19 days, not that I’m counting or anything), I can wrap my brain around it.
How about simply “life” for a category? I use that. Hmmm. Only ten categories? I’ve been adding more so people can find specific articles, such as specific writing articles. I better rethink that.
Kat, what about: I’m excited to see what folks do. I am too!
If no one else wants Wednesday, I choose that day.
Weekly features are good. Gives readers something specific to count on.
No one else is fighting for it, so Wednesday’s yours, Pat. Do you want to do a feature?
Apparently categories are for the broad subjects and tags are used to narrow the focus. Which makes sense. Each post doesn’t need its own category.
When WordPress picks articles for Freshly Pressed, they go by both tags and categories, so if the categories are too limited, they won’t find them. They found one of my articles in “culture” and one in “life”. Tags are most important, however, so I would suggest making sure everyone uses tags. I don’t use a separate category for every post, but some I use for my convenience, such as posts about a particular book. and some I use for WordPress and other search engines (WP has their own search engine.)
How would I do a feature?
Pat, if you want to do a weekly feature, we’ll set it up as its own category and you can use that category when posting those articles. And we’d reserve that category for only those articles. If someone else wanted to do that feature one week or you wanted a break, they can just use the same category. You could also incorporate the title of the feature, or part of it, into the title of each article.
A feature could be on any topic you’d like. Recipes, training cats, dealing with the opposite sex. It can be funny or instructive, whatever moves you.
You could do a weekly feature and still post other articles when you want to.
I’m being a pest. If I do a weekly feature and I want to do other articles, do I post both on the same day?
The days are up to you. I’d like to see us with some constants so we know certain days are always covered. Beyond that, I don’t see why authors can’t just post whenever they’ve got an idea.
(BTW, I’m working on that huge font in the responses to responses.)
How about “Wisdom Wednesday”? That should cover just about anything I would post, though I’m not sure how wise the articles would be.
Wisdom Wednesday is sort of redundant considering the name of the blog.
Good Lord! Don’t check in for two days and suddenly there’s a blog up and running. Looks good, ‘Bats.