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I’ve been so thrilled with the reception for my new ebook, Creating a Blog Audience! And the reviews have been awesome.
I thought it might be fun to celebrate with a little giveaway. So – up for grabs is a copy of this here ebook, and its accompanying worksheet pack!
To enter to win, leave a comment here and answer this question:
Why you want to build a bigger audience for your blog?
(I really want you to answer WHY here – it’s a really important question for anyone who seeks a bigger audience.)
I’ll draw a winner at noon PST on Tuesday, Sept. 22.
International readers, interplanetary readers – you’re most welcome to enter!
Congratulations to Karen, our big winner!
On my site, I want to learn from others as well as share my own discoveries, and the best way is through interaction. And the best way to get more interaction is to expand my audience.
By the way, I'd love to meet your interplanetary readers!
I'd like to build a bigger audience for my blog so that my posts can be starting points for discussion, rather than stories / thoughts shouted into an abyss. Having engaged, active readers is what makes blogging worthwhile!
A giveaway! What a nice thing to do, Diane. I learned a lot from your first ebook and have just started my craft blog, refashionology.com. Seriously, there's only one post there so far! It's brand-spankin' new! I'll be writing about my two passions- crafting and recycling- and featuring projects using stuff that might otherwise end up in a landfill, as well as spotlighting other crafters I find that are doing the same things.
I really want to build an audience for my blog to spread the word that we can be using our resources more carefully and that in doing so, you can push your own limits of creativity.
Thank you for all you do, Diane. I've learned SO much from your podcasts!
Kathleen
I like getting more readers to my blog because it's a form of group sourcing. They make suggestions and comments on my crafts, and then I can implement the suggestions to make them even better! It's market research, I guess!
I would love a copy of your book. I began my blog to promote my art, but found it is the writing that I enjoy the most. I would like to reach a larger audience to create a wider conversation about life.
I would love to draw more attention to my blog to get the word out that there is a new age of homemakers around and we work just as hard as the women of old.
hmm … i think a larger audience would provide me with some positive pressure, which would help me stay on task and try new things things. meeting new people interested in your craft, exchanging ideas and getting feedback can't always be done locally, so a following can be used like a resource in this regard.
also, a larger audience always seems like it would be a confidence booster too!
i'd like to build a bigger audience for my blog to get the word out. i'm knitting one hundred hats for charity over the course of a year, and while i'm definitely figuring out how to let others know about the project (and how they can get involved!) i feel like there's so much more i have yet to learn! having a book like this would take me a long way towards where i want to be!
Crafting has made me into such a happier person – the creative outlet provides with such joy for myself, and for loved ones when I give them a special item I’ve made. While I’m new to blogging (and relatively new to making handmade crafts) I feel like I could help spread this happiness to other people out there. Cheesy, I know, but I really think it is important to find something you love, and do it, even if you need to pay the bills some other way :)
I always want to add to my blog audience because I love the connections I make in blogland! Love learning about other crafty folks, learning FROM them, seeing their beautiful blogs….. it's so much fun!
Hello!
I want to build up my blog audience because I feel like I really connect on a personal level, as well as sharing all of my crafty ideas, and everything I am learning in school! I think I have a perfect mix of sharing what other people create as well as what I am doing to contribute to the world of crafts :) It would also help more traffic for my Etsy page, so I can earn more money to put me through my graphic design program!
I'd like to share my message with more people.
I really believe in repurposing rather than buying new as much as possible. It's not that hard, really. If we all do our part, the earth will be a better place.
hmmm why do I want a bigger audience? I honestly have no idea. I guess I would like a bigger audience so I can get more people seeing my art, but I also like to think I could make more people smile sometimes with my posts. Truthfully? I never started my blog with the intention of anyone reading it, so having even one person read it is nice :)
I think building a bigger blog audience means more ways to share ideas, communicate and recieve feedback. Also it helps to expand your blog into something you might have not imagined if you didn't have an audience! I just stumbled on to this one and I really enjoy it. Lots of information. Thanks.
Building a bigger blog audience is a two part thing for me. One is to promote myself. I sell the items that I make. I also have my own local tv show, and would like to expand my viewing audience as well. The second reason is to get more people out there inspired to make eco friendly crafts. I like to inspire via showing what I am making and giving how tos. Pretty soon I want to start be more pro active about cross promoting other people who are doing amazing things. I do a little of this, but not enough.
I'd like to build a bigger audience because I'm hoping to start a quilting business selling my own designs. I also would love to build a bigger audience so I can get more feedback from people. I love feedback on my posts, but only a certain percentage of people will ever leave feedback. Thanks for the giveaway!
Why do I want to build a bigger blog audience?
For many different reasons.
One is to encourage me to share my ideas with others and not give up after a bit when there does not seem to be anyone reading my blog except me and give up! How many of us can say we've done that?
Another is to share the things that I keep locked up in my head most of the time. To realise through the feedback that I am reaching people and, at least, making a little bit of a difference in their, and my, lives.
Also, I plan on starting up my own buisness so any marketing ideas for getting myself promoted online is always a good thing!
Cheers!
~Rori~
My offline life (and friends) focus around the sciences,and there's really not too much crafty overlap. Ergo, one reason I want to build a larger blog audience is to gain more crafty friends and become a bigger player in the craft community.
I also, of course, would like my blog to support and enhance my etsy shop. And I want to be famous on the internet, because that sounds fun!
I want to build a bigger audience to show off my blog(s). I've learned alot from various people and various blogs, but I too have ideas to share. I've been published, I've been on design teams, yet not much traffic. So, I need to have better ways to generate traffic.
I'd like my blog audience to be bigger because I would really love to invite more people in to be part of my creative process. I have an Etsy shop as well as a blog – both these sites showcase my work, but the blog really allows the viewer get to know me personally whereas the shop just shows my products.
I'm not selling well on Etsy right now which isn't too surprising because I'm new and I'm selling jewelry like a million other shops. However, I think if I had a larger blog audience that would mean more sales. I link to my Etsy shop often on my blog, like when I'm showing off something new I've made, I'll say “and you can buy this here on my Etsy shop” (hyperlink included).
Anyway, I'd be really interested in checking out this book. If I don't win it here, I may have to but it!
Sounds like an interesting book
I am just startilng in the art field even though I've been doing it for years. I met someone who called herself an artist after only oil painting for a year. I've been making things all my life and never thought of myself as an artist. It's time to change things around! I'm participating in my first art festival tomorrow! I want to promote myself and my talents and share whimsy and beauty with others.
I would like to build a bigger audience for my blog to build a network. When I first started reading crafty blogs one of the things that drew me in was the vast community that was created between the blogs. I'm feeling like a small fish in a big ocean since I moved to the city a year ago, so I would love to build relationships, especialy with crafty people. I'm still relatively new to the sewing/crafty lifestyle, and I love gleaning info from hardcore crafters!
I'd like to build a bigger blog audience because I'd like to one day create my own craft business. I see the blog not only as a part of that, but as a way to share creativity among a community who love to craft too.
I've been blogging since the beginning of the of the year but still struggle to build an audience- any help with that would be amazing!
Do what you love, love what you do is the path I'd like to follow and see building a blog audience as a step in the right direction.
I started my blog to share ideas and write about details of my crafting that my non-crafty friends in my immediate vicinity are not interested in hearing about. They don't care that I had to rip the seams 4 times to make the perfect fitting ruffled top, and care less about how i appliqued the cute but tiny details! But I find that crafty bloggers and readers DO care about these things, and i have to find an outlet to write these things down or I won't remember them for next time. The crafting online community is wonderful in that there's always someone with a good idea to help you solve your particular knitting or sewing problem that you have on hand. And that is why i want to reach a bigger blog audience.
Why do I want to increase my blog audience? Because the more, the merrier! More people means more feedback, more interaction, and inspiration to discuss a broader range of topics as people write in and comment. It's one thing to have a blog and feel like you're writing to yourself, and a whole 'nother banana if you're writing to real-live, like-minded people.
I'd like a bigger audience because sometimes I have a need to share details of what I was making with someone else who understands. I hate wandering over to a crafty friends blog and hijacking the comments with my own woes, but I want to talk about it somewhere. Sometimes I want to post a question for other crafters and I don't think they'd see it on my bookish blog, so I really want to build a audience of people who can talk to me about that kind of stuff too. I'd also like more traffic to my Etsy shop, but I can get that from my book blog. Mainly I'd like a network of people who know the answers to my questions!
Just purchased this on-line because I want to increase my blog traffic and my etsy shop. I've had a blog for 18 months and my etsy shop the same. Only have had one sale in etsy and limited blog comments.
I would like to build a bigger audience for my blog because I love to share ideas and inspirations with others. More readers=more creativity for sure.
The Elliott Music Studio blog is my collection of writings on “What I'm reading; what I'm working on; what musical ideas I am passionate about. It's a forum to share my thoughts on more than just music. It's about the sounds, the people, and the experiences that inspire me, every day, to do what I love. “Enriching people's lives with music.” I am passionate about this musical world and have enjoyed sharing it with others. I would love the know-how to expand my readership and see where my blogging journey takes me.
I had no idea before I started this project that I could write anything that people would want to read. With my new found confidence I would like to start an additional blog for my crafting life. I now have found my voice and can't wait to find my audience.
I'd love to have a bigger audience because communication is so much better when it's 2 way, and I do enjoy keeping my blog, and I love reading all my comments… makes me feel like I'm not alone in this crafty universe! Plus, maybe a little bit of vanity is involved!
Cheers,
Rebecca.
I would like to win this b/c I am in the process of starting an Etsy site and think a good way to get a good audience would be to have a blog (which I've been thinking of starting for ages). There are so many blogs out there that have inspired me and I thought it would be nice if maybe a blog I create could do the same for someone else. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure how to build a blog base, which is where this would come in handy!
I would like to win this b/c I am in the process of starting an Etsy site and think a good way to get a good audience would be to have a blog (which I’ve been thinking of starting for ages). There are so many blogs out there that have inspired me and I thought it would be nice if maybe a blog I create could do the same for someone else. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure how to build a blog base, which is where this would come in handy!
I enjoy blogging my day to day (sometimes week to week) progress from my crafty head. I have a low monthly readership and even with that I have made a few wonderful blog friends. I would love to get better at marketing my craft, and feel strongly about blog readership as a tool in doing so. Thank you for the opportunity to learn all I have already from your “Craftypod-casts.”
I live on an island with only 500 other people. While it may be a tourist destination in the summer, it is quite isolated in the winter when the boats quit running. I love blogging because it helps me meet and keeping touch with other like-minded crafty people. Of the 500 people in my entire town there are a few knitters, one other quilter, but no one else sews like I do or just “makes stuff.” So, to me, a bigger audience would mean more comments, which would mean I would get to know more people – because I email back to everyone who leaves a comment as long as I can get their address.
I'd love to have a bigger audience because I love the online craft community. I love being a part of it as a reader, and I'd like to contribute. There are so many blogs (like this one) I look up to, and I have kind of that freshman-admiring-the-cool-kid/big-sister feeling. I started blogging as a way to share with family (my grandmother is my biggest fan!), and I'd love to extend the conversations and two-way learning outside the group of people I know.
Sister Diane, I don't need to enter your contest–I went ahead and bought both of your books, and I have to say they are eminently practical and thought provoking. My partner is in marketing for a consumer electronics company, and we have had the juiciest debates because of your ideas!! You've really helped me solidify what it is that I think I'm doing/want to do with my blog. The very foundation of why I think it should exist has shifted after reading your advice.
I've learned a lot thus far–my brain started to melt after the first chapter of your “Audience” book, so I've had to step away to process!! You've framed some thoughts I was unable to articulate. For me, blogging ultimately isn't about me, really. It's an “us” thing. And somehow, that's very empowering to me. Undermining traditional “commercialism” through altruism has really touched me. Thank you. I can't wait to read the rest!!
I am planning on getting my online shop open for business in the next month or two (after getting our household moved). I think building my reader base will help get my product info out there as well as informing and hopefully educating my followers.
Thanks for entering me in your drawing! The book likes like it will be a huge help in this area.
I would like a bigger audience because of the feedback and the broader perspectie. Its all about the content and if no-one is reading then you don't know if its any good.
I do think the blog I started in 2005 has had a huge influence in my life, as I started doing many new things thanks to it and virtually met many fellow bloggers, through comments or not, that made me feel I was a part of a community. I didn't post that much for a long while, so I feel I must start again almost from the beginning with my brand new website… Especially now that I am creating my craft business. I won't do anything that I feel isn't “me” to build a bigger audience, but there might be many interesting things I still don't think about to do it !
More public means more reflection on my daily crafts and do's. But since my camera is broken, my blogging is low nowadays. So I've got plenty of time to read (books and stuff).
In reading over the comments, there are some common themes that I can also claim as my reasons to want more traffic: dialog with people of shared interests, exchange of ideas & creative energy, being part of the community, inspiring others in repurposing, and building business. I also want to be able to be with my twin boys as they grow and make their own mark in this world. Having a work schedule in my control will enable me to do that. Besides, it's so fun when someone connects with you on an idea, someone you never would have met physically.
I do product reviews and giveaways on one, so a larger audience is better for my giveaways & helps me find sponsors, etc easier. For my personal blog, it is fun to communicate with readers, so the bigger the audience, the more communication there is.
hi.
I'm from Germany and my blog has some kind of an audience, but the number of people visiting my blog really changes nearly every day. I really want to know how to increase this number and so promote my work and my etsy shop.
taschenmaedchen
i hope to make some money out of blogging so that i can save enough money to have a vacation in the US – it has been my dream ….. not being able to achieve yet even though i am approaching 40 soon.
I'm so excited for your ebook & I hope it brings you continued success!
Why do I want to build a bigger audience for my blog? Because as an artist I feel that it is one of the best ways (if not THE best way) to connect with a wider audience for my artwork. My readers are customers, friends, and supporters of my work and through my blog I hope they get to watch my work change & evolve, get to know me a little better personally, and sometimes even learn new skills or get inspiration for their own projects.
A big goal of mine is to publish a crafty book. Growing a blog audience, people who I've developed a relationship with and who are familiar with my work, seems like a logical first step. It's also nice to have a large readership when it comes to advertising revenue and the ability to get samples & books to review.
I'm trying to increase my blog audience not only to expose my work to other crafters, but also to educate my customers about the process behind my work with clay. Sometimes my posts are ramblings, sometimes I have a very specific topic in mind when I sit down to write, but I would love to gain a following for feedback and interaction.
Truthfully, to sell more stuff.
My blog draws readers in, then serves as a link to items I sell, or classes I teach.
That's the raw truth.
I want to increase my blog audience so more people will see the jewelry I create and sell.