On the D-List

[alanajoli]

Thanks to slwhitman for pointing this out in her recent post. Kineda.com recently posted a quiz (linked there) to tell if you are an A-List blogger... or somewhat lower. It should come as no surprise to me, with the big gaps that I take in writing here, that I'm in the lowest rung.

So what can one do to improve one's status? Several very helpful folks have posted their advice (the links for which I also completely and shamelessly stole from slwhitman--after all, she's a C-List blogger, and I'm a lowly D-Lister, so I don't think she'll mind). Here are the basics as recommended by the Agent Obscura and Mother Reader:

1) Write a lot.
Corollary: Write stuff people want to read.

2) Write like yourself. Be true to your writing voice. If you've got a topic about which you're an expert, write about that.

3) Be part of the community. Post comments on other people's blogs.
Corollary: Don't get offended by comments people post on yours.

4) Promote your own blog. Do this through RSS feeds and other techno-savvy methods, as well as just by telling your friends about your blog, putting the link in your e-mail signature, and etc.

They give other really good bits of advice, so I'd recommend reading both articles, but those are the ones that struck me as things I might actually be able to accomplish. Sometimes I wonder how people manage to not only keep up with blogs, but books published in their industry, e-newsletters from publishers and periodicals, and all their own writing work. I remember shanna_s saying she spends mornings reading all her industry news, which I tried for about a week before failing miserably at keeping that schedule.

One of these days, I'll figure out a method that works for me! In the meantime, I'll start aiming toward the C-List and see how far I can get.

Comments

[jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com]

Interesting. They call me a D-lister even though Contra goes back to mid-1998, and I have pretty consistently posted 75% of the days in each month. I get 12,000 unique visitors each month, and that's to my hand-made primary site on duntemann.com. I have no clue how widely read my LJ mirror is. Technorati's own page tells me I have 42 links from 20 blogs.

I had hoped for at least C-list. So it goes.

[alanajoli.livejournal.com]

That is odd. I would have guessed you were a B-lister and never given it a second thought. I wonder if somehow they didn't pick up all the criteria?

[jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think I have it figured: They can't combine stats for a blog and its mirror. Most of my activity goes to duntemann.com, and it's unclear how well they can track that, given that the blog is pure HTML and not on a blogging server. My LJ mirror is fairly new, and while I'm sure it gets read, I'm also sure it doesn't get read by 12,000 people a month.

Crazy business.

[dmoonfire.livejournal.com]

Heh, D-list for both my in-character journal and my personal one. Apparently, no one post links to me. :)