Tools of The Trade Week, Day 1: Five Things You Should Learn From Other Bloggers

Five Things You Should Learn From Other Bloggers

Hello, Reader, Writer, Critic subjects! You might remember me from my failed kingdom takeover from last spring, and your *cough* gracious leader was still kind enough to let me back so long as I stopped referring to you as peasants (she’s just that nice.) But if you don’t remember, my name is Catherine and I venture to you from the lands of Stray Imaginations, a prosperous blog from across the bay.

And I’m here to offer you five pieces of wisdom.

First, a disclaimer: I am a budding leader, still reeling from the transition of princess to queen. (read: I am a beginner and know almost nothing.) This became a problem when I promised Briana a guest post meant to teach her peas…I mean, subjects…how to thrive in blogging themselves—because, you know, it might be a bit more time until I’ve reached the status of ruling a thriving blog.

Then, a realization: Execution might be a vital aspect, but learning is important, too.

So, without further ado: Five Things You Should Learn From Other Bloggers:

1) What’s Interesting

When you begin reading blogs—namely, a lot of blogs, as it often happens—you usually don’t end up reading all the posts every day. That would be exhausting. Some posts just aren’t interesting to you. Some posts just aren’t interesting, period. If you find you’re skipping a certain kind of post, or style, or topic—and similarly important, other people aren’t responding, either—it’d probably be smart for you to shy away from writing those posts yourself.

2) What options are available

Blogger. Wordpress. Goodreads. Booklikes. Twitter. Pinterest. Top Ten Tuesday. Waiting on Wednesday. Stacking the Shelves. Netgalley. Edelweiss.  Hardcovers. Paperbacks, E-books. Basically, THERE ARE SO MANY OPTIONS. Even if you don’t do everything—which you shouldn’t, because again: exhausting—it’s important to know what’s out there and what will work for you.

3) What’s aesthetically pleasing

DESIGN! I love design, even if I have recently been struggling to get my own sorted out. If you head over to my blog anytime around the date this post is published, you’ll see it’s under some major construction (with scattered elements from my old and new design alike.) My new reveal probably won’t be perfect, but I do think it’ll be an improvement. With this go around, I paid more attention to other blogs and made sure to notice which aspects affected my first impressions. (Some Google research on design principles helped, too.) If, like me, you’re too proud or cheap or controlling to pay someone else to do your re-design, pay attention. What designs made you want to stick around, read more, and get to know a new blogger?

4) How to do certain things

Bloggers are awesome (obviously,) and some are even so awesome that they’ll tell the rest of us how certain aspects work, like commenting systems or blog buttons or basic html. I even follow a couple blogs that specifically post tips and tutorials, which is important if you’re a part of the category I described above. I’ve found this kind of information can be really useful. Plus, there are cool people like Briana who set up whole events to aide bloggers in their treacherous plights. I recommend starting a bookmark folder with important articles or tutorials for later use. (You might thank yourself later.)

5) What you like

Lastly, most importantly: Write what you enjoy. That’s how you have fun, and that’s how you connect with people similar to you. Sounds simple enough, right?

Like I said before, I’m nowhere near escaping beginner status. Learning is definitely a lengthy, on-going process, but it’ll hopefully be worth it in the long run. Either way, I’ll always have the blogosphere to thank.

(Speaking of which, thank you for having me, Briana!)

Lastly, some questions: How much do you pay attention to what other bloggers do? How does this influence your choices? What important lessons have you learned?

Happy August,

Catherine is a book nerd, word lover, and obsessive daydreamer. You could call her what she really is—a reader, a writer, and a blogger—or you could say she's a paranormal creature/tribute/wizard/alien/Divergent/revolutionary who will one day save the world, preferably while still a teenager (She did say she liked to dream, didn’t she?)