link drive / subscription drive
In addition to saying a huge thanks to every last one of you reading this blog in the last year...I'd like to ask one simple favor of you as well.
Please consider "pledging your support" for k/o by linking here and using my blogroll and current clicks to visit other blogs. (Some of you have done this long ago...thank you!...I've noticed.) Linking is the old fashioned way to say, "hey, you might like this!"
Further, as commenter silence pointed out, you can SUBSCRIBE to this blog for free using my existing ATOM feed and a RSS reader like bloglines or google reader.
My preferred site feed is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/k/o
If you subscribe you will never miss a k/o post. And you won't have to "check in" here for new content. My essays will come directly to you, and you will show up as a reader in that blue box on the right.
I know this comes off as goofy...and pledge-drive-esque. But I'm serious. Please consider subscribing, it is one real way "essay blogs" like this can be viable. Further, if you like a piece here, please link to it. It's the highest blog compliment. If a piece worked for you, please tell people about it at one of the blogs you frequent or even in an email or on a message board. Your testimony says much more than my own.
I can't tell you what an impact linking has. A link is the single most powerful thing you can do to help me build sustainability into k/o. The blog world has a developed infrastructure. Links help new blogs like this one get heard and grow.
Links bring in new readers in the best possible way...by connecting them to content they are interested in at the recommendation of someone they respect: you. I want you to know that I appreciate every link I get. On top of everything, linking and RSS feeds are free.
I'm doing this link and subscription drive in lieu of asking for other modes of support. To survive k/o needs to grow its readership. This blog needs to expand its base of returning readers. Links, more than anything else, make that happen. More readers, of course, will empower the links that leave this page as well. That is no small thing. Outgoing links have an impact too, and 'spread the wealth' of readers with similar interests.
(FYI: All blogspot pieces can be linked from the timestamp below the piece. I also often include a permalink at the end of some of my longer pieces.)
If you're interested, here are some pieces from 2005 you may or may not have read, especially if you are new here. If you like them, please consider linking here and mentioning this blog. There's more like them in the archives and in the links on the side of this page, and, of course, links to other good blogs as well:
we all live in Richard Pombo's district
a woman's marathon
critical condition
herbie nichols: american enigma
at work today
it's everybody's pool
minneapolis 1984: mcpunks
what the meaning of we is
an evening with Paul Wellstone
late night chinatown: 1988
the white angel
a game of whiffle ball that nobody remembers
Please consider "pledging your support" for k/o by linking here and using my blogroll and current clicks to visit other blogs. (Some of you have done this long ago...thank you!...I've noticed.) Linking is the old fashioned way to say, "hey, you might like this!"
Further, as commenter silence pointed out, you can SUBSCRIBE to this blog for free using my existing ATOM feed and a RSS reader like bloglines or google reader.
My preferred site feed is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/k/o
If you subscribe you will never miss a k/o post. And you won't have to "check in" here for new content. My essays will come directly to you, and you will show up as a reader in that blue box on the right.
I know this comes off as goofy...and pledge-drive-esque. But I'm serious. Please consider subscribing, it is one real way "essay blogs" like this can be viable. Further, if you like a piece here, please link to it. It's the highest blog compliment. If a piece worked for you, please tell people about it at one of the blogs you frequent or even in an email or on a message board. Your testimony says much more than my own.
I can't tell you what an impact linking has. A link is the single most powerful thing you can do to help me build sustainability into k/o. The blog world has a developed infrastructure. Links help new blogs like this one get heard and grow.
Links bring in new readers in the best possible way...by connecting them to content they are interested in at the recommendation of someone they respect: you. I want you to know that I appreciate every link I get. On top of everything, linking and RSS feeds are free.
I'm doing this link and subscription drive in lieu of asking for other modes of support. To survive k/o needs to grow its readership. This blog needs to expand its base of returning readers. Links, more than anything else, make that happen. More readers, of course, will empower the links that leave this page as well. That is no small thing. Outgoing links have an impact too, and 'spread the wealth' of readers with similar interests.
(FYI: All blogspot pieces can be linked from the timestamp below the piece. I also often include a permalink at the end of some of my longer pieces.)
If you're interested, here are some pieces from 2005 you may or may not have read, especially if you are new here. If you like them, please consider linking here and mentioning this blog. There's more like them in the archives and in the links on the side of this page, and, of course, links to other good blogs as well:
Comments
I'll see what my own little blog can do for the effort.
I know this is a goofy idea, but a whole bunch of "serious" ideas weren't really getting me very far, lol.
I appreciate the shout out.
Just so you know, I had you in my blogroll (and in my Bloglines) before your link-plea. So, you know, I win.
:-)
I read your blog almost every day. I have only commented once or twice because usually I don't feel like I have anything useful to add; you cover it all beautifully, IMO. I mean, I'm not really into posting stuff like "You rock, k/o!!! Kick their butts!!!" And it seems like your diaries on the bigger sites are often received in much the same way... you know, very few comments and a ton of recommends. If your format had a "recommend" feature to it, you might be able to feel a lot more of the love.
You and your writing were actually sort of an inspiration for me starting my own blog. So far it's been a bit wackier, and a lot more linking, but I hope to someday get into writing some longer pieces.
Anyways, just wanted to let you know that I appreciate your writing very much, and I hope that you keep going.
Jan and Simple Singer and Medley...I've appreciated your links from day one.
(My traffic is such, ie. modest enough, that I see links come through clearly on statcounter....and technorati, blogshares and blogstreet all list referrers...so I can see how those links have an impact regardless of the traffic they generate.)
Thank you all, I've appreciated every link and noted them from day one...and really tried to reciprocate.
re: babaloo
thanks!
I will respost that piece soon, I just felt that having two meta pieces up at one time was uncool.
I'm not looking for "yeahs and hoorays"....though I receive them with gratitude...much better than "#$%@#"'s and boos.
I think what I'm really talking about with sustainability is my time constraints.
I've spent well over twenty hours some weeks on this blog....and over forty hours on some pieces. Book reviews....take time.
I simply can't and won't do that if the work doesn't have an impact...if it doesn't get to the readership that I think should read it. I write to have an impact more than anything.
A "wise blog soul" wrote me one time to take note of this: it's really hard to pour out your effort when readership is small and shrinking.
In the movies it's cool when people dig in and make things work despite long odds. Six months in...I've done that...this blog needs more readers, it needs to grow not shrink.
Also bloggers that I've met inspire more linkiness. But the real secret, like any business, is repeat customers. If and when I find the secret on getting that, or 'stickiness'in general, I'll be glad to share it.
One thing that bloggers can do for each other is submit prized posts to BuzzFlash or Smirking Chimp. You can submit your own post but may come across as blog-whoring, not that there's anything wrong with that...