Post: #1

OK.

I've read some past threads on here regarding this but I know there are some experts that use this forum so I'd like to ask a few questions.

I am looking to start a blog. First, as a vanity project but also to offer useful information to guys who might find it useful. Perhaps down the road if it were to become popular, I could monetize it but that is not a necessary goal.

So, as pretty much a newb, here is what I have researched so far:

Domain name bought at Name Cheap

I will host on Host Gator or Bluehost (prob HG as I can pay monthly to begin with)

I want to use Wordpress.

I want to build it on the Genesis Framework by StudioPress.

But, I want to buy my child theme from Elegant Themes, or ZigZag.


So my questions are:

1. CAN I use some other developers child themes with the Studio Press Genesis Framework? If so, who am I speaking to if something is not working right?

2. Is there a great book that explains the fundamentals of HTML, CSS and PHP to a newbie? (I know a very small amount but should know more)

Thanks.

Post: #2

You're asking technical questions when you should be focusing on your writing. How many posts have you written so far? Have you shown them to a test audience of people you respect? What do they think of your writing? Focusing on the details before focusing on the writing is putting the cart before the horse.

But don't take it from me, a guy who has never run a successful blog. Take it from guys that have and do.

http://markmanson.net/how-to-start-a-blog

Mark Manson Wrote:3. You Will Live and Die By the Quality of Your Writing

Every time you write and someone reads it, you are temporarily transporting them into your mind. You are giving them a unique mental experience and if you don’t make that experience enjoyable, you will lose them. It’s as simple as that.

You don’t have to be Shakespeare or anything, but you need to be conscientious in how you’re expressing yourself. For instance if you’re writing about fitness and citing a lot of nutritional data, then your readers likely don’t need nor expect you to be a wordsmith. But you sure as shit can’t suck with a keyboard.

Great writing is necessary but not sufficient. It, by itself, won’t make you hugely popular. The combination of writing, brand and engagement is what makes you popular. But bad writing will kill your blog off faster than just about anything.

What if you’re not a great writer? Most people aren’t when they start. There are a few exceptions (journalists and novelists spring to mind). But a lot of people such as myself, we figured it out as we went along.

You have to love to write. It has to be something you would do regardless of whether there’s an audience there or not. Before I started blogging I was a forum whore. I had thousands and thousands of posts across half a dozen forums ranging from politics to music to tiny local dating forums. This prepared me in a major way for blogging more than any English class did.

But at some point, you must take your writing seriously. Read literature. Study the greats, analyze books, attempt to mimic great writers as an exercise. Write short-stories and fiction in your free-time helps as well.

This is a skill you must practice and craft over a period of time. If you want to become a successful blogger then you have to take it seriously like anything else. If you wanted to be a computer programmer you would continue to study programming and learn new programming languages. If you wanted to be a web designer, you would study up on design principles, new software and practice them continuously. It’s no different with blogging.

http://tuckermax.me/how-tucker-max-got-r...work-week/

Tucker Max Wrote:9. Everything you just read about effective marketing doesn’t matter…unless you have content that people like.

Everything I wrote is true, and will work, and is relatively easy to do. But Tim has written about it before, Seth Godin has written about it, Jeff Jarvis has, Gary Vaynerchuk has, etc. It’s well known, at least to people who care about this stuff. But smart marketing only explains about 10% of my success. The most important point, the thing that trumps all the rest, is this:

CREATE AMAZING AND COMPELLING CONTENT THAT PEOPLE LOVE AND VALUE. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, flows from that central principle.

That’s the thing; there is no secret to being a successful writer. We all know what it takes: You have to write something lots of other people want to read. Sounds obvious, right? Well, it is obvious, but it’s also difficult to do. And there definitely isn’t a shortcut. It is HARD to create compelling content. It takes work, passion, creativity, and determination.

Take someone like Maddox, whose book The Alphabet of Manliness spent four months on the best seller list. He maybe does two things I talk about above–he gives his content away and uses an email list. His best marketing is just writing another post. Or Paul Graham. He doesn’t even have an RSS feed in his blog, but people created one to get his essays, because they are that good.

People like to focus on all this other stuff for a simple reason: it’s easy to do. And probably because they assume that their writing is already great, but that no one is reading it because of some secret that they don’t know yet.

Nope, sorry.

If you’ve done most everything above and still no one is reading your stuff, you need to go back and look at it. Ask yourself an honest question: Is your writing providing value to other people? If yes, you’ll find success in using the marketing tips I gave you. If no, you won’t. Plain and simple.

(bold mine)

Post: #3

this is the problem with media creation today: people are too concerned with how they're doing it as opposed to why they're doing it. have something worth sharing before having a way to share it.

Post: #4

Find your passion.

Write about it.

Passion comes through in a writer's work.

Post: #5

I recomment Matt Forney's book. I got the Kindle version for free when he was doing some promotion but it's well worth the proce for the material. He goes into the technical aspects that you are asking for but he's brutally honest about the reality of blogging - unless you treat it as a job you'll get nowhere.

http://mattforney.com/confessions-of-an-online-hustler/

Post: #6

McQueen is right, you gotta love what you are writing about.

People love reading stuff that passionate people write about.

Write about shit that gets you hard. Don't be niggardly with your emotions.

That being said, just start writing. Put it out there. Run up the flagpole and see who salutes.

Post: #7

Dupe thread.

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