Well, I'm taking the plunge and starting a blogger blog.It's an irregular look into the random ramblings of a mad poet.

In the blog, I hope to give some commentary on current events, a little poetry, a little rant about my day, a little humor -- in other words, a little bit of everything.

Really, I just started it up so I could leave comments on other people's sites, but just maybe I'll start using it.

Check it out here:

http://beingnumerous.blogspot.com/

I'm thinking of starting up a blog myself. The peer pressure is too great! Any advice on getting started? Would appreciate anything.

I'm thinking of starting up a blog myself. The peer pressure is too great! Any advice on getting started? Would appreciate anything.

Surprising as it may seem, in my opinion the first step is not to "run over to Blogger and sign up". The first and most important I think is to choose a name for your blog.

Although it seems like such a small task, it's actually the hardest part. Once you choose your name, you're pretty much stuck with it for your blogging career. Also, in a number of ways your blog's name helps to define what your blog will be about.

Another thing that will help with the identity of yoru site is the tagline -- which should expand on or explain your blog's name or your blog's general theme.

I chose a quote from George Opeen's "Of Being Numerous" -- which also serves as the _title_ of my blog because I dig Oppen and share his outlook on life and poetry.

Last would be to choose your blogging service. There are lots of blogging software options to choose from, but for your first blog, I recommend signing up with Blogger and being hosted at Blogspot. Why? Because it's free!

If you decide later that blogging's not as interesting a venture as you thought, you can drop it and it wont cost a thing.

Also, it's user-friendly and has extensive help/FAQ resources.

You can check their service out at:

http://www.blogger.com/

Of course, you are welcome to use the blogging functionality here on the Small Press Exchange -- but the features are not quite as rich as they are on services such as Blogger or Typepad.

What's nice about The Small Press Exchange, is that it allows you to "import" your blog entried regardless of what service you use through RSS feeds. Read below for how to do it...

What are Feeds (RSS and ATOM)?

These technologies allows your blog entries to be displayed in various places on the web. Using RSS and ATOM, The Small Press Exchange now allows you to _link_ your blog to your Small Press Exchange profile to share with people in your network. Most of the blog sites offer RSS or ATOM feeds. An example is provided below. If you use a different blog service please visit their help section and search for RSS or ATOM or syndication.

Setting up your RSS Feed

LiveJournal.com

Visit your journal on LiveJournal
The URL should read: http://www.livejournal.com/users/username
Copy that URL, then add "/data/rss" to the end of the URL. Example: http://www.livejournal.com/users/username/data/rss
Go to the Small Press Exchange and click Edit Profile.
Copy the updated URL into the Feed field (Homepage Feed) at tab and click update.
New updates from your blog will now be displayed on your profile.

Blogger.com

Visit your blog on Blogger.com
The URL should read: http://yourbloghere.blogger.com
Copy that URL, then add "/atom._xml_" to the end of the URL. Example: http://yourbloghere.blogger.com/atom._xml_
Go to the Small Press Exchange and click Edit Profile.
Copy the updated URL into the Feed field (Homepage Feed) at tab and click update.
New updates from your blog will now be displayed on your profile.

Let me know if these instructions are clear enough and I'll add them to the "Help" section of the website.

Hey figured out the feed thing -- on blogger, this was the URL I needed to provide:

http://beingnumerous.blogspot.com/atom._xml_

And it works -- check it out:

http://www.smallpressexchange.com/profiles/stevenl

Cool!

Took the plunge myself yesterday after reading some about blogs. Now I feel so technological, so contemporary, so world wide web. Last night I spent some time thinking about what I was going to post this morning. Lo and behold, when I got to work I discovered the company had blocked blogs and forums from access. Now I can't wast valuable time.

Seriously though, since we are all writers of some sort or another here, how do you think the surge in popularity of blogs will affect small press publishing? In a sense, once you set up a weblog and start posting, you are publishing yourself with a wider potential (and I stress potential) readership than with any press outlet.

Would like to hear what others think. :twisted: