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| Some of the Lit Ladies at a retreat |
Our names tell a little about what we'll blog about on our given day. I'm blogging about being a member of the sandwich generation. One of our members is Little Lady; she's blogging about being the youngest in our group, a senior in high school. If you want to check out our blog and see how we set it up, please do! We are currently having a contest to win Claire Cook's latest book, Time Flies.
In just the few short weeks since our blog has been live, I've realized the benefits of being a part of a group blog. Here are a few ah-ha moments I've had.
- Other members can help you with tech problems. I had never used this version of Wordpress we are using, and I couldn't figure out how to get the cute photo with my headline on the home page. I put my problem out to the other members of my critique group (we also have a private Facebook group for discussions), and immediately they told me what I forgot to do. So, instead of spending hours on this, I had my problem solved in minutes with my fellow bloggers.
- Your content is fresh, and it's not sucking up all your writing time. We have six bloggers! We are each blogging between two and four times a month. We are all working on finding guest bloggers or authors to interview or contests to hold. With your own blog, it's all you. If you don't blog for two weeks because your mom is in the hospital, your content is stale. With the group blog, everyone pitches in and helps keep the content fresh.
- All bloggers have different contacts. Six bloggers means that many more people announcing posts on social media and even talking about the blog with their friends and family! We are getting new people on our blog that we might not have each known individually. This widens the audience for anything that we are trying to promote.
- Blog costs can be split! So far, we don't have much cost. But if we do incur any, it can be split SIX WAYS instead of one person paying for everything.
- It creates a community. We were already close. Critique group members often are. But I feel like this blog and our Facebook group have brought us even closer. It's fun to read what each other posts and to keep track of what's going on in everyone's lives in-between critique group sessions!
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| Margo at a book signing |
12 comments:
Margo--My critique group has been talking about doing a group project of some kind. Perhaps this is it...
Thanks for the post. You prodded me into contemplating...
Thanks, Sioux. I would love to know what you come up with. Share please! :)
Look at my pregnant self...and there's an orb, too! An orb can mean a spirit or angel is around, so maybe that was Baby Ari blessing our writing retreat :)
Hi Margo! I love your Lit Ladies blog and you're so right about sharing the writing time, etc. Maybe I'll wrangle some friends into doing one with me, too! :)
Margo, I enjoyed your blog and now am following it on Bloglovin'. I help edit a blog for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers association (www.rmfw.org) and love the interaction, richness and depth of the collaborative writing. I think it's a great idea!
I like this idea. I have been mulling over what to do with my genealogy blog since I can't seem to find the time to devote to it on a more regular basis. Do I try to invite others or convert it to a regular family website...what to do? Thanks for the timely post on alternatives :)
@Dawn: Is there someone in your family who would want to post once a week? You never know! My friend has her son write a post every Friday.
@Julie: Thank you, thank you, thank you! You are the best. :)
@Becky: You have a lot of blogging friends already. Do you know anyone who is not already blogging? You could find another memoir writer or humor writer (or both) and go from there. The Three Amigoes. . .:)
@Camille: A year ago. . .and now you have that beautiful baby. Do you see how Sarah's phone is on that light app--this was after the lights went out. LOL
I personally love being part of a group blog! I only wish I could keep my own blog updated so regularly. Thanks for spelling out all the benefits in this post, Margo.
Sandwich Lady: I love your group blog! Your names are so cute, and you are all so diverse. I bet that makes for great critique sessions. :) Your points about the benefits are right on!
Margot, as you mention, group blogs are a great way to have fresh content on a regular basis without getting blogging burn out.
Also, having different experiences and expertise gives the readers more value.
And, blogging frequently is a good way to get a better ranking with Google!
@Renee: I know. If I had to do it all over again. . .:)
@Ang: Thanks for checking us out. :)
@Karen: Thank you for adding more benefits to the list. I was just telling my critique group members the other day about the Google angle.
Thanks for this post! I created my current blog site with the intention of having other contributing writers. It's still just me, but I'm on the prowl and I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks it is a good idea to create a community where a few of us can share our writing and share the workload. :)
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