Wrapping Up #MMONBI

The Newbie Blogger Initiative was a great success, and in addition to all the new bloggers who got started, there were also a ton of articles on a multitude of topics about blogging. Since I’m such a list compiler, I’ve decided to put together this final compilation of all the advice that was given (and hopefully received!) during our newbie blog drive. Thanks for all your contributions!

Special thanks to Syp for getting us all together, and Binkenstein and Rezznul for reviewing and tweaking my categories.

Contents

Getting Started

• So You Want to Blog
  • Why Blog?
  • Identity
• Setup
  • Hosting
  • Advertising
  • RSS
  • Schedule
  • Final Steps
• Layout
  • Themes, Widgets & Plugins
  • Menus, Categories & Tags
  • Blogroll
  • Mobile Blogging

Content

• Writing
  • Just Do It…or Not
  • Write for #1: Yourself
  • Write Like a Pro
  • Language
  • Writer’s Block
  • Blogging Challenges
  • Mistakes
• Screenshots
• Podcasting

Community

• Building an Audience
• Connecting with Readers & Bloggers
• Numbers
• Comments

Find a New Read Today! #MMONBI

May is the official end our Newbie Blogger Initiative, but I wanted to get a jump before the end and introduce everyone to the bloggers who made NBI such a success! Sponsers provided advice and articles, and  tons of new bloggers came out of the woodwork and accepted the challenge to write, write, write about their MMO of choice.

Whether you blog, are thinking about it, or decided to join during the event, everyone can enjoy a new blog to read, so pick one and get cracking!

Last updated May 29, 2012.

If You Remember Nothing Else….WRITE! #MMONBI

May is just flying away, and there are a hundred and one other things I can talk about blogging and getting started. Last year, I’d provided a little snapshot into my own pet peeves when reading blogs: like all advice take it or leave it. There have also been a slew of helpful posts on hosting and things over at the NBI forums. I particularly enjoyed these three posts on setting up your blog, connecting with the community, and handling that RSS mess.

And while I could provide similar and just as well meaning advice on connecting with the greater community of bloggers (that’s kinda the cornerstone of this initiative!) the most important single piece of advice I could ever hope to give an aspiring blogger is this:

WRITE!

What’s In a Name? #MMONBI

Another day, another post for the Newbie Blogging Initiative! Before we get started, I’ve had a couple of questions about getting involved. Whether you want to be a blogger (or are a newbie!) or if you wish to sponsor the NBI, just head over to the NBI forums, find the appropriate section of forums (Sponsor or Newbie) and sign up! There’s already some good threads started where brave souls have ponied up some questions. Don’t be shy, we won’t eat you!

The Bard would tell us that our blog is going to be awesome no matter what we call, and in that, he’s not far wrong. Even if you call your blog Home Gardening Tips #101, someone will eventually find your boss articles depending on how you tag and categorize (that’s another article) but shouldn’t you make it easier than that for readers to find you? How many poor gardening enthusiasts are you pissing off?

Taking the time to name your blog is a great exercise for planning out the infant stages of your blogging project and can be a great advertising tool in it’s own right.

So You Wanna Be a Blogger? #MMONBI

Before we get into a lots of nuts and bolts of how to manage your blog, you really have to decide whether you want to blog.

While no one can really answer that question but you, here’s some things to think about as you contemplate signing up for your own writing space.

 

Be a Blogger Campaign | Newbie Blogger Initiative

I love reading blogs, I love keeping in contact with a cadre of other bloggers through twitter and Blog Azeroth, and best of all, I want you to ask yourself: Should I be a blogger?

For the month of May, in conjunction with a swarm of other bloggers across the MMO genre, I’ll be posting about the nuts and bolts of blogging, the good, the bad, and technical, to encourage you, and you, and yeah, you over there, to take your thoughts, stories, and screenshot folder, and share them through a blog.

I started my own blog in September 2009, somewhat as a whim, but primarily as an archive. What’s more fitting for a historian, right? You see, I had all these memories, experiences, notes, and other random stuff that kept getting posted, lost, and saved in random folders. I really wanted a way to organize my thoughts, my history with gaming in a place that wouldn’t be controlled by my guild associations or through the implosion of laptops.

Funnily enough, I’ve found that others have found some small kernel of value out of all that miscellaneous meanderings. Some people just seem to like, well, me (or my screenshots!) And through this process of sharing I’ve discovered a whole new world, or rather, a tiny segment of the larger gaming community that also shares my need to share and helps provide tips, advice, and musings about the game-worlds that they enjoy.

So this month, I open the curtain behind Jaded Alt, and take you on a micro-tour of the decisions that have gone into making my blog mine as well as some general advice (that I’d wish I’d had!) about starting and maintaining a blog and a web presence. If you have a specific question, leave a comment, or send me an e-mail. Take a moment to visit the whole host of gaming bloggers who will be providing advice and thoughts on blogging, and ask yourself:

Am I a blogger?

Special thanks to Syp over at Bio Break for organizing the hordes, and Greg “Rackham” Moran of The Jedi Gambit for the lovely graphic!

Meme the Sixth

I had such a nice surprise this morning, a lovely meme from Gnomeaggedon, as if it wasn’t enough that he announced yesterday that he’d finished the long, arduous climb to Battlemaster!

So, on to the meme! The challenge was to open my sixth sub-folder in my screenshot folder and pick my sixth image to share. I’ll admit I took a few liberties.

Liberty the first: This is just snatched from my plain ol’ screenshot folder since I don’t have a bunch of fancy new-fangled sub-folders.

Liberty the second: I have a lot of re-named screenshots that I’ve used to post. I skipped ’em.

Liberty the third: Secretly, I think I’m a photographer. Instead of taking a single shot, I usually snap off a reel of 2-6 screenshots. So, I went ahead and hop skipped and jumped over any duplicates of the same basic shot.

I’ll admit that I squee’d a bit when I saw what the roulette had given me, a screenshot I hadn’t used in the blog before AND one I was really happy with to boot!

Furtive Father Winter Guest Post: An Ode to Leveling Alts

This year, Ababeko of Red Cow Rise hosted the Blog Azeroth Furtive Father Winter event, a secret santa guest posting event. Effy of Effraeti’s RP gifted me with this amazing guest post. Enjoy!

Happy Holidays to everyone, and especially to Windsoar, the recipient of this special Furtive Father Winter Event guest blog!  Also a big Thank You! to Red Cow of Red Cow Rise for organizing the FFW Event and to Blog Azeroth our home away from our blogs and the meeting place of minds to come up with all these wonderful events to keep us motivated.

For those of you who may not be familiar, I am Effy.  I write the blog Effraeti’s RP, which is a conglomeration of short stories, transmogging ideas, roleplaying thoughts, raiding adventures and any other thing that I come up with – usually relating to World of Warcraft, but not always.

I had to do some serious research on Jaded Alt to try and determine someplace where we might overlap in subject matter until I finally circled back to the obvious.  As you might hazard to guess from the title “Jaded Alt,” Windsoar has her very own collection of alts on WoW.

Bingo!  I have lots of alts too!

After reading her post Making a Buck While Leveling Alt No. 2349, I tried her technique myself.  I quickly realized that a heavy schedule of questing and collecting to level did not quite work for me.  (And selling everything?!  *gasp!*  How can I be a packrat without numerous bankalts loaded down with low level mats and gear I will probably never use??)  ><

Windsoar’s idea was great.  I just really wish I could level an alt and actually MAKE money that way, rather than barely breaking even.  Small jaunts of questing are about all I can manage, which probably sounds weird since I am such a lore geek.

So in a sister post to Windsoar’s, here is an Effy guide to leveling alts.  This technique has earned me entirely too many toons over the past six months or so and now it can for you too!

Gifted: FFW Ahoy!

This week I finished up my FFW present, and sent it on to Dreamy at Drunkard’s Regalia.

If you’re interested in seeing me make a fool of myself in paint, you’ll enjoy it ^^ Be sure to check out Dreamy’s much more fun creations while you’re there!

 

Shared Topic: Where’d My Bandage Go?

This week Mia suggested we head back down memory lane and regale our beloved audiences with, if not moaning, at least a nostalgic bit of the game that has left us behind and is no more. While there’s a few things I could probably point to, like an old attunement post, what I’d like to talk about is something that’s still in the game but rarely if ever used.

Bandages.