The Follower Project

I have a silly goal.

I would like to try to reach 1000 followers before I start querying.

Hopefully this year.

That's an arbitrary number, and I know agents really don't care how popular your blog is, but it's just something fun to think about while I do my best at this networking with other writers thing.

Lately the growth of my follower count has been stagnant. Don't worry, I know why. It's because I haven't been discovering many new blogs lately.

I'm an extremely prolific blog reader, and a very loyal visitor to blogs I like (as many of you know), but one thing I don't do (which I probably should) is poach followers. If you don't know what that means, don't worry, it's not as bad as it sounds. Poaching followers is basically just visiting the blogs of people you see commenting on blogs you read.

You visit their blog, follow it, comment about it, say hello, and hope they'll do the same for you. I'm not saying I've never done it, because I have, but I don't do it often, mostly because I'm just lazy.

So anyway, I had an idea. If I was smart, like Alex, I probably would have planned ahead and made this into a blog fest, but no one's ever accused me of being smart. So I'm just going to do it today, and see what happens. The thing about blogging is that there's so much out there. So much content, and so many bloggers, it's hard to know who to follow. It's not all about who will follow back, because that's just selfish, but that is part of it. Mostly (at least for me) it's about how do I find blogs to connect with that have interesting content, which is actually relevant to what I'm trying to accomplish?

Well. I'll tell you how. You ask your friends. The people who run the blogs you already know and love. Chances are they read some great blogs you've never heard of.

So what I'm going to do, right now, is point you all to five blogs I love, that I think might be flying under your radar. They'll all be people I've never blogged about before (or at least not for a long time). I'll list them here, then you will go follow them, and tell them I told you to. That will make them like me even more than they already do (which is a lot).

Before I get to what I want you to do, I'll list the blogs. Here:

Micahel Offut - Micheal runs slckismet, and he's an interesting guy. He talks about books, and publishing, and his honesty is refreshing.

Adam Heine - Adam has an awesome last name. Add a -ken and he'd be a great beer. He also runs Author's Echo. Adam blogs about writing too, but he also loves Anime and Manga, and knows more about board games than anyone I know.

Sarah Ahiers (Falen) - Sarah runs Falen Formulates Fiction. She's a writer too, and knows the second most about board games of anyone I know. Her dog, Yvie, also writes the funniest Friday Funny posts.

Hannah Kincade (Palindrome) - Runs Musings of a Palindrome, and like Sarah, she's one of my Minnesota peeps! She also blogs about writing and publishing, and always finds the most interesting inspirational pictures (not inspirational like that, I mean as in inspiring you to write, duh). She also just got back to blogging, and we missed her so!

And here's one I know most of you don't know about, because it's nearly brand new. YA Confidential is run by some of the dopest ladies out there. Yes, it's a group blog, and I don't know if they have a follow back account, but this one is worth it for the fun design alone.

So. There's five blogs you should be reading and following. You know the rules. Go visit those links, follow the blogs, and told them I sent you.

Now here comes the important part. I don't want to just poach your followers, the people commenting on all of your lovely blogs. I want you guys to tell me who to go follow. Not just because they'll follow back (although that would be cool), but because you think I'd enjoy their blog, and you have an inkling that I might not already be aware of it.

You don't have to give me five, but please give me at least one blog you read in the comments, that you think I would like, and might not know about. You don't have to go through all the work to code the html. Just give me the link, I can copy and paste it into my browser.

Oh, and if you follow me, and lurk, and I haven't visited your blog to follow back, shame on me. Please tell me so in the comments, and I'll remedy that right now.

I don't expect this to astronomically improve my followers in one day, but it may be a repetetive theme for me, and if I get to 900 this year, I'll hold an awesome contest to get to 1000, and give a bunch of cool shit away.

NOTE: Google Friend Connect and Blogger have really been effing up the widget lately. If you visit a blog, and can't find the follower widget, hit F5 on your keyboard, to refresh the page, and it should come up.

ANOTHER NOTE: For the love of all things holy, if you run a blog, and your follower widget isn't right at the top, like mine, what are you thinking? Are you trying to make it hard for people to follow you?

A Moment of Silence

I don't post on weekends, so I'm using today to have a day of blog silence in remembrance of those who are gone.

May they rest in peace forevermore. Comments are off. Have a nice day.

Dragon Joke(r)s Part Cuatro

This is the scary post. The one where I show you the disturbing costumes.

Yes that's Jareth. His makeup was really good. Unfortunately he was missing one major component of the character, namely: a gigantic, bulging moose knuckle.

I know. This Ronald MacDonald/Chris Nolan Joker hybrid was the best costume at the Con. He epitomized the contradiction that is our current society's corporate greed. Only in America can you sell Whoppers, Big Macs, and Chicken Nuggets to our children while still not providing fair and affordable health care for everyone. Those in poverty can't afford to eat healthier when healthy food is so expensive, and health care takes a quarter of their paycheck or more, if, like me, they have a good plan.

Anyway, sorry for that rant. It really is a fun costume, and this guy was hilarious too. Really friendly, and ready for conversation in spite of his high freak quotient.

I'm sorry but that's all I got for scary day. There was a pyramid head guy from Silent Hill, but I didn't get his photo because I'd already done that at Anime Weekend Atlanta.

Happy Friday, and have a great weekend!

Non DragonCon Part Drei

This is the serious post. The one with the most awesome costumes. What does that leave for tomorrow?

This is Poison Ivy, from Batman and Robin. I think.

This is GLaDOS, from Portal and Half Life. Or else it's the other little eye guy from Portal 2.

These people are definitely from Portal. Looks like a couple of Scientists from Aperture Science, and a female test subject. The portal guns were really cool looking.

This is Doctor Who and some chick. Someone who watches that show will probably know. Someone talked them into holding some little toy man.

And this, my friends, is a travesty. I mean don't get me wrong, the stormtroopers had some of the best costumes at the Con, and they were really awesome dudes. But Darth? I don't know what's wrong with this guy. Darth Vader is probably the most bad ass villain in the history of stories, and this guy defiled his Sithness with this ridiculous costume. It's blasphemy if you ask me.

When I asked him what happened to his costume, he said he was Darth Vader crossed with The Green Lantern.

I've never heard anything dumber in my life.

Proof of Wandering Around Outside DragonCon Part Deux

This post is going to be the cute post. I'll show you all most adorable costumes, on the most adorable kids, and I won't say much.

This guy is dressed up as a character from some Anime that my daughter and her friend love. I try to keep track of that stuff, because some of them are cool, and I like to try to get into the stuff my kids are into, but I can't remember this one.

This is Dobby and Harry Potter. The costumes are pretty bad, but the photo is adorable because Madison is so obviously ecstatic.

This is Pikachu, from Pokemon. Madison loves Pikachu almost as much as she loves Pandas.

This is Ronald Weasley. It's a girl dressed up as Ron though, and that's just AWESOME.

This is the panda crew. You can't tell, but Madison also has a Panda backpack.

That's it for today. Stay tuned for cooler, and creepier costumes for the rest of the week.