Review- The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging.

This book was the first of the three I requested from my library to arrive.  I really wasn't that thrilled with it.  If you have a concept for a blog with a single focus, it would probably be an awesome book, but my blog is more like a blog magazine with different weekly sections than a focused on one thing blog book.

The book is split into three parts.  The first part is the "How-to" part of the book.  How to start a blog, how to find a server to host your blog on, why the ability to immediately react to something going on in the world or your life is advantageous, how to write in a more conversational mode rather than a more edited "newspaper" mode. These chapters were helpful. Then the section goes on to how to narrow down the focus of the blog, how to be seen as an expert at something within the blogosphere, how to expand your readership, get more followers, get more links back to your blog, getting other bloggers to link to your site and/or guest blog on your site, how to get up higher on the search engines results page.  These sections were not that helpful, because becoming an internet expert on something or having thousands of followers isn't really my personal goal in blogging, if it is yours read these sections.  The last chapter of this part is about building a community. I kind of already know who mine will be.  Mostly either A. People I know.  B. People I "know" online from Ravelry or Twitter. C. People who the last two groups know and are linked over here for a post or as a suggestion to read. D. People who accidentally stumble on here and either leave or stay.  ( I do actually have some good virtual friends  - and their pets because of interactions when I first started blogging) The part I found helpful here was using the comments sections to have conversations - by replying to comments (which I rarely did before) and actual conversation can occur and be joined by whoever else reads the posts and comments.

The second part is called "The Blog Revolution is Here!! Be a Part of It.  This is basically an excuse for the writers and founders of The Huffington Post to give themselves huge kudos and pats on the back, and kiss Arianna Huffington's  well connected ass. I'm not taking away the fact that the HuffPost did revolutionize the way a lot of people, myself included keep up with current events, form opinions and learn about breaking news.  They did totally, in my opinion force mainstream media to create more useful web presences as well.  However the syrupy nauseating, blatant "Yay us!" tone in this section was a real turn off.  If you are looking for lessons in ass-kissing for whatever reason, (well if you are the type of person who is - you probably aren't the kind of person reading my blog) this is the section to read.  With some Bush hating thrown in ( although this I pretty much expected from anything written by the HuffPost- I've learned to take that with a huge chunk of salt) and some celebrity guest comments.

The final part is the resource section.  The Huffington Post's blogroll- granted the book came out 6 years ago - but you've either heard of these blogs and follow or look at them or you don't, maybe 6 years ago they were good suggestions.  A glossary of blogging terms - if you are going to blog, you probably have a computer and can Google these terms if need be faster than flipping to a glossary which is 2 pages long 45 pages from the actual end of the book.  A Website Resource list - also somewhat outdated (MySpace anyone?) And the "Best of" several of what they consider the best posts from their site. 

I think I actually read the whole book so I could list it as finished on Goodreads and count it toward my 2015 Reading challenge.