The nature of blogging is temperamental, as the nature of bloggers tends to be willful and unpredictable. The really enthralling ones, at least. You see it in your favorite blogs: wildly passionate daily posts one month, barely connected erratic ramblings the next.

Blogging, for the most part, is best enjoyed when you can afford focus and energy, on both the parts of the writer and the reader. No one really enjoys those “I’m too busy to blog” posts, but bloggers usually have “real” jobs and responsibilities that result in our being “too busy to blog” occasionally. What to do… what to do?

I’ve always been a big fan of the unplanned hiatus, personally. My friends say it is because I prefer a sense of mystery. I say I just loathe those “I’m taking a break” posts.

Therefore, rather than plate a pile of misshappen half-baked cookies for you the last couple of months, Blog Nosh Magazine has been on a bit of an unplanned hiatus. We kept thinking we were going to update, then we got busy. Life. Who knew?

More precisely, 2008… Seriously, who knew?

The end of 2008 has come and all of us at Blog Nosh Magazine are looking forward to an energized and focused new year in 2009. Our resolutions? The return of daily featured posts, new NoshTube videos, and the launch of the promisingly tempting channels Race & Ethnicity, Travel & Expats, Personal Finance, Military, and more. We are finally revamping our Editors page and sprucing up the “About” information you all crave when considering submitting your work.

In the meantime, I am insanely proud to introduce you to one of our new Politics Channel Editors: Mr Lady from Whiskey in my Sippy Cup. Now that we see how well Blog Nosh Magazine can work, we are actively fleshing out the channels with as much diversity as we can get our hands on. Naturally, the flip side of the political coin was at the top of our list. Mr Lady’s post, What a Dream I Had, Pressed in Organdy, is the ideal introduction and hint of what finds you may expect from her.

Look for delicious daily posts beginning again January 5th! Until then, nosh on!

Nosh Notes by Publisher & Editor-in-Chief Megan Jordan from Velveteen Mind

{Originally published on Bird on a Wire}

This is not a plea for comments for THIS blog. I talk about my chronic commentitis here. I use my blog only as a reference point. Instead, this is a reminder that comments are like chocolate, really good if they’re rich and have some substance to them. And that if you can’t comment, you can still help out the bloggers that you like. A big shout out to Mommie Pie and Bloghernot 2008. I’ll be participating in a big way!

At the time of this blog posting, over 543 people receive this blog in their RSS reader (or via email).
Another 2,000 - 4,000 come to the site directly, depending on the day and the post. Add those up, and let’s say that around 5,000 people come here daily to read my stuff. (Hey, don’t laugh, I’m pretty jazzed about those numbers.)

If 1% of you commented, that’d be 50. (I’m bad at math. Did I do that right?) The average post on here gets a respectable 10 or so comments, but that’s about 1/3 of 1% then, of the folks who get a copy of each post. Ok, enough of the math class stuff.

This got me thinking about the other great blogs that I love.

I read several hundred blog posts a day. I comment on maybe five or six, if there is something I feel compelled to say. So I’m in there with you. I’m not commenting much, either. Does that make us bad ? Not really. If I’m able to leave a decent and thoughtful comment, I know that the other blogger will appreciate it. Sometimes, I even get a nice little email from them saying so. Comment Relish is a great little Word Press plug in that sends an e-mail message to users who comment on your website who have never commented before.

{Originally published on The Bloggess}

Yesterday someone asked me how to deal with trolls and haters. I have no damn idea.

Trolls are just like you and me. Only shittier. Or more honest. Or likely to murder gypsies. Fuck, I don’t know. I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know the motivation of everyone reading your blog but what I do know is that in real life you come across assholes and weirdos and someone out there is selling computers to these people. People like the guy who left me this comment:

“I was right, you aren’t that hot. Damn.”

I didn’t mind that some stranger thought I was un-hot but what was disconcerting was that in the photo the guy was referring to? I was seven. And totally hot.

The chocolate-smudged face of Blog Nosh Magazine is in the process of changing. For the better. We are loosening our belt to make room for more delectable goodness, and eyeing some snazzy new pants with an elastic waistband.

In other words, the response to our call for new channels and new Channel Editors has been overwhelming and we are moving forward with a move to WordPress, complete with a new layout and easier navigation.

Look for the relaunch of Blog Nosh Magazine the second week of September. In the meantime, I’d like to introduce you to one of the new editors we brought in before the open call and are eager to see what she will bring to the table:

Deb on the Rocks!

Okay, it sure seems like we keep bringing women in and still no men, but they are coming. Speaking of coming, let’s talk more about Deb. wink wink

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Sometimes I am simply madly in love with this magazine. Blog Nosh Magazine has changed the way I read blogs, as I now approach the internet as one massive This American Life story. On my better days, I so fancy myself as Ira Glass. (tongue firmly planted in cheek, thank you.) So many different perspectives, so much to find, opening my eyes to stories I may never have heard before if it were not for blogs. If it were not for your willingness to open your lives to us.

Our goal for Blog Nosh Magazine is to deliver as many diverse perspectives as possible, across numerous topics and genres, many of which you may never have been exposed to in your daily reading, let alone daily real life. This is made possibly by the work of our Channel Editors, of which we have close to 40. But even with a team that size, it is still not enough.

We need more. We need more eyes. More minds. More guts. More hearts.

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Less than two months in and Blog Nosh Magazine is growing by leaps and bounds, all thanks to you! In the pipeline, we have a very exciting site redesign with ease-of-navigation in mind, new channels (including Race & Ethnicity, Travel & Expats, and Personal Finance), dynamic new editors with even more diverse perspectives, and much more.

Today may be one of the biggest turning points for us, though, as we proudly announce that we are opening to private advertising! And for a very good reason:

Blog Nosh Magazine will soon introduce a quarterly print publication to complement our daily online magazine!

What serious blogger doesn’t dream of seeing their name in hard copy? Now is your chance.

Grab your piece of the pie!

One of the key elements of Blog Nosh Magazine is timeless content. As such, we plan to offer a quarterly literary magazine perfect for casual browsing-over-coffee-n-scones or in-depth reading during your daily (ahem) personal time. The ideal coffee table magazine that you can keep for years, so to speak.

Blog Nosh Magazine begs to have crumbs scattered across its pages, don’t you think? We do and we welcome you to be part of making this happen as an advertiser on www.blognosh.com!

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Originally published at Blogging Basics 101

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could post
our little hearts out, sit back, and watch the dollars roll in? The
truth is that there are very few people getting wealthy from blogging.
If you’re doing it solely for the bucks, you’re probably going to be
disappointed.

There are, however, a few ways to generate a bit of bloggy income.

The most obvious way to earn income is by having ads in your
sidebar, or elsewhere on your page. You can try selling these
yourself–a lot of work, but it works for some people. Many bloggers
have had success using an ad service that sells the ads for you, giving
you a percentage of the income. (They give you the code to insert on
your blog, and your ads will appear in that spot. Any ad service worth
its salt will offer you pleny of editorial freedom to block certain
types of ads from your blog.)

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Blog Nosh Magazine has been live for exactly one month today. One month! Look at all that we’ve accomplished in one month. All the blogs we’ve introduced to new readers, all the new genres we’ve explored. It has been a spectacularly satisfying launch and I have no one to thank but you.

Thank you to our readers.
Thank you to our bloggers.
Thank you to our editors.

The way Blog Nosh Magazine works is that our channel editors scour the blogs in their genre and choose the most moving or entertaining or enlightening posts in the archives of those blogs. The hardest part is learning to click beyond the front page of a blog. That is, perhaps, the hardest part of reading blogs for all of us. Taking the great leap into the archives.

Then again, as a blogger, one of the hardest things is to convince our readers that we are more than our front page. That perhaps those posts we wrote in the first week of our blog’s existence are just as valuable as the posts we write today. More interestingly, perhaps those old posts are also the most true. You never know.

We change as writers with every post we publish. It is, at the very least, interesting to shed light on our archives from time to time. Whether we do it through the “favorite posts” sections of our sidebars, the self-backlinks within the context of our posts, or by allowing publications such as Blog Nosh Magazine to focus the spotlight for you.

Thank you to the 44 bloggers that have allowed us to shine the spotlight on their work in this, our first month of Blog Nosh Magazine.

Although we only published her yesterday, allow me to share with you the story behind the process of spotlighting just one of those 44 bloggers…

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Originally published on Social Impressions

As you become increasingly active in social
media, you will find a wide variety of competitiveness across the
board. Some want to be regarded as A-list bloggers, to reach a top
status on social bookmarking sites, and to have the most number of
friends on Facebook. While some can maintain genuine relationships with
people, others see them as part of their massive network. Competition
is usually healthy, depending on the amount of competitiveness involved.

Although there are many gray areas between each level, I have
observed roughly five main levels of social media competitiveness and
involvement.

Lurker

Lurkers exist online; they just aren’t visible. These people don’t
actually participate. They quietly watch the activity on their favorite
sites. They may identify core sites and users that they admire or enjoy
and follow them religiously. Even the most offensive of posts won’t
incite a comment from them. Although these lurkers might sign up for an
account on a social site, they are usually the users without an avatar.
Their activity on these sites is minimal, and their contribution is
non-existent.

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Originally posted on Blogging Sueblimely

Words of wisdom from the world’s greatest thinkers are timeless
providing advice which is as relevant now as when first spoken. All of
these quotes could easily be applied to blogging:

Advice for Bloggers

1. They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Carl W. Buechner
2. When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion. Dale Carnegie
3. Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It
   is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense. Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. The ability to speak eloquently is not to be confused with having something to say. Michael P. Hart
5. My opponent can compress the most words into the fewest ideas of anyone I’ve ever known. Abraham Lincoln
6. Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. Rudyard Kipling
7. You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Albert Einstein
8. I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand. Louis Armstrong

Research Tips

1. First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak. Epictetus
2. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not
   believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
   not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your
   religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of
   your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they
   have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and
   analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is
   conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and
   live up to it. Buddha

Writing Tips

1. What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. Samuel Johnson
2. Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they
   will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above
   all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. Joseph Pulitzer

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