What’s wrong? Oh you know, just thinking about the future.
Like flying cars and robots and colonising other planets and stuff? No, like my future and the blog’s future.
Oh, sounds kind of serious. It is, partially so, I mean it is just a blog it’s not life and death, but I’ve been here less than a month and it’s already something I enjoy doing more than a lot of things recently. 2017 was not a good year for me emotionally, but finishing the year off by quitting a job that I hated and going to Japan for three weeks was a real boon to my psyche. But it’s been three months since then and the money from my long service leave payout is almost entirely dried up, so either I go about getting a new job or…
Or? Or I try and make this my job.
This? Don’t be ridiculous. I can dream, can’t I?
You have 34 followers on wordpress, not exactly setting the blogging world on fire. I didn’t say it would be easy…
So what’s the point of this particular blog post exactly? I don’t know. I guess just to let my followers know that with their help I know I can succeed and achieve my goal. And that I’ve got big plans for this blog for the coming months whether I get a part time job or not!
Anything else? Yes, I can’t even begin to thank all the people who’ve liked my content over the past few weeks, it’s been such a boon to this poor writer’s heart, who’s always had the blogging spirit but never the drive or ideas to do so. But in 20 Question Anime Review’s I found a muse that’s a constant voice in my ear, pushing me to create more and more content.
Are you talking about me? Well, yeah. Otherwise none of this would be here…
I’ve never been someone’s muse before! Don’t get so excited, this is already weird enough as it is.
And I believe you wanted to ask your readers something too? Indeed. To all my fellow bloggers, you’ve already done so much, but I ask for your assistance in growing my audience. To the one’s who’ve reblogged and retweeted and recommended I couldn’t ask for more that would be selfish, but know I appreciate it every time you do. It feels like my words are going further than they have ever before and as a writer that’s all I could’ve hoped for. But what other advice would you give me to help grow my followers?
And you wanted to talk about collaborations too, yeah? Right, so obviously being new to wordpress blogging I don’t know a lot about collaborations, in fact to be blunt, I know nothing. For example whose blog do they go on? Do they go on both at the same time? Etc, please unfurl your great knowledge upon me so I can be a better blogger. Also and this is important, if anyone wants to collaborate with me, now would be a good time while I’m still unemployed! Drop me a message on twitter if you want to discuss ideas!
Was there site news too? Yes! Starting in March I’ll be doing 20 Question Manga Reviews! But as they’ll probably take a lot more time to organise, don’t expect more than one a week!
Cool, so that’s it then? For now, but feel free to leave any advice you have for an up and comer like me and once again thank you all for your continued support! Also, sorry if this post was a bit dry but kudos if you made it through ’til the end!
From my experience, blogs take a bit of time to grow but once it starts getting bigger, it snowballs
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I had a feeling you’d say something like that lol but fair enough, I won’t deny that I have a bad habit of hitting refresh on my stats page for longer than I should per day, but I guess that goes along with having too much free time!
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well if it can make a difference I started my blog last july and for the first month or so I had less than 10 followers
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That’s very humbling to hear. I did feel kind of weird writing this blog, hopefully it didn’t come off as too needy! Ah well, it’s a learning process…
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Not at all -we’ve all been there. The easiest way to grow your blog quickly is to engage with other blogs though.
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Also – February is kind of a slow month for everyone!
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I did not know that! Fair enough! Here’s to a more active March for all of us then! *raises drink*
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Don’t know much about collabs but if the format is the same as your 20 questions then maybe the first 10 in your blog then the other half on his/her site. Just an idea 🙂
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Yeah that could work! Nice idea!
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I would not worry too much my friend. Trust me on this: at one point we all started at 0. Karandi and I started blogging at around the same time. Now in no way do I even come close to having her qualities (she is seriously in a League of her own), but she is now at nearly 2000 followers. I have reached nearly 1150. All I am saying is : as long as you keep blogging like you are doing now, more and more people are going to discover you. The posts you write are highly original and well thought out. And it’s been a blast reading them each and every time. As Irina said: it can all of a sudden be a snowball. Sometimes there are weeks that you don’t seem to grow at all. And then there are days that you get 4-5 followers at the same time. Keep having that faith in yourself. You write high quality content, so never doubt that for one second!
As for a collab post, I have already got two lined up for March (if all goes well that is), but maybe I can do one with you somewhere in April or May if you are interested. Let me know 😉
Keep having fun! And the rest will follow soon enough 😀😀
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Thanks for the kind and well thought out response as usual! I’ll keep on keeping on and hopefully we can collab some time in the future!
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I can’t really offer much help about followers because honestly I hardly ever look at the stats page and just let things go where they do…
That said, the first few months are the absolute worst. No one comments, no one notices, it’s like you’re writing for yourself and it’s sort of hard.
But once you get to know the other bloggers and they you, it gets really fun!
And like Rai-san and Rin-san said, the follower count picks up by itself!
Talking about collabs however, I have an alter ego, so I can see this working out to be something strange and funny…..
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Thanks for the advice, I really appreciate it.
Also I’m intrigued about this alter ego! Let’s discuss something when you have some time! 🙂
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Aurie, I could so see you and Nairne, Matt and his “muse” doing a random collaboration together. That would be so cool! It would be the best! I hope you four can put something together!
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Right?!
We’ll work something out soon~
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Just imagine an alter ego showdown in 20 questions. Now that’d be something else…!
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Sounds good to me!
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Just keep at it. I’m a small blogger on all 4 of my pages, so I understand. You also have a great niche in the aniblogger community and you have a very creative review style that can catch on.
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Definitely don’t worry about the number of followers you have. Focus on getting out your content and interacting with others on their blogs, and followers will find you (eventually and then it does kind of start growing).
As for collaborations, each one is different. If you approach someone, you will probably spend a half dozen emails back and forth nutting out the specifics of that collab. Weekend Otaku and I started 200 word anime for the Winter 2017 season. We reviewed one show together on my blog and one together on his blog (drafting using google docs). At the end of the season, we mutually agreed to drop the show we were following on my blog even though it was continuing and just continued the one we were reviewing on his. That one was an every week thing, watch the show, set up the google doc, both add parts, then the person in charge of posting to post within a few days of the episode airing.
Then again, Irina and I collaborated for a debate about Black Butler 2 that was drafted quite quickly and we split the post in two with the first half on one blog and the conclusion on the other. We’re currently working on a longer project and have been exchanging emails for nearly a month while working away on bits and pieces inbetween our normal blogging schedules and dealing with real life. We’re nearly ready to post but are still working on final details.
Really, you just need to approach someone with an idea and be very open with your schedule (because delays happen when planning collaborations – everyone involved has external pressures).
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Thanks for the advice! I’ll take this on board!
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I believe this is my first proper comment here, so hiya.
Lots of bloggers have given really great advice through award posts, since some award posts contain explicit rules to “give one piece of advice to new bloggers” or something of the sort. I love reading all the tips (even though I’ve been blogging longer than the Spellbook suggests), so soak up the advice that’s out there.
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Hi and thank you so much! There is a lot of great advice and I appreciate it all, thanks for the follow too! I look forward to reading your blogs!
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