HOW TO BLOG

The official countdown is on! It’s just three days to the real, actual release of Suite Scarlett . . . and that means three days until the BIG CONTEST with the FABULOUS PRIZE.

Many of you who have read the book already have written in to express a certain . . . affection . . . for Spencer Martin. In fact, he has gotten a RECORD number of marriage proposals. I have been keeping this information from him. If he knew how many people wanted to date and/or marry him, he would be impossible to control, and I need to bend him to my will as I write the second book.

Of course, I’m not just writing the second Scarlett book. I’m also writing this blog! It seems that many of you also blog, or would like to start! And some of you have written asking for advice on this topic.

I am, of course, happy to oblige.

Blogging is extremely hard work, and only very competent people can do it. However, if you get good at it, you will become rich beyond your wildest dreams, and you will probably get some kind of title. But in order to become a Successful Blogger, you have to learn a few basic rules. Master these, and the blogoverse is yours.

1. BE TIMELY

Yesterday’s news is so last week! Blogs are about now. NOW, NOW, NOW! Blogs are the vanguard! Every scientific, political, and social development on the planet is charted on a blog. Everything else is out of date. Burn your books! Throw your newspapers out the window!

In order to be a Successful Blogger, you had better know what is about to happen. And the only way you are going to find out is by hobnobbing with rich and famous people. This is what I do, day and night. I try to cover it up by suggesting that I just sit around in my house in mismatched clothes, getting food all over myself as I try to eat and type because I am chasing a deadline. This is all subterfuge and deception.

Right now, for instance, I am in a hottub with former head of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and his best friend, Posh Spice (who keeps bobbing up to the surface--it's like trying to keep a GOLF BALL underwater with her!). This is what I mean. I am right in the heart of it all. Also, it is very dangerous. I should not be typing while in water like this.



Hobnobbing is the goblin of consistent blogging. Or something like that.

Don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow? Make it up! Just be careful about Rule #2 . . .

2. CHECK YOUR FACTS

You want to be on the Internet? Well, you had better do your research. Nothing is permitted online unless it has been proven to be a 100% true fact. Blogs are regularly patrolled by the blog police, a crack team of experts on absolutely everything, and they read every single sentence of every single blog in the entire blogverse. It you mess up one time, they might let you off easy, maybe just erasing your hard drive or sticking gum in your USB ports. But if they see that you make wrongness a habit, they will come to your house and make you watch hours and hours and hours and hours of Youtube videos like this one.

3. WRITE SHORT POSTS

People don’t read long blog posts, which is why mine are never more than three sentences long. People go to sleep if you write more than that.



One sentence too many, and the readers will slip into a coma.

4. INCLUDE LOTS OF LINKS TO RELEVANT MATERIAL

Pretty much every word of your blog should take the reader somewhere else that is directly related, but not so interesting that they won’t come back again.

5. USE A LOT OF JARGON

People look to bloggers to give them new words, so by no means should you talk like a normal person on your blog. If you want people to take you seriously, be pompous and confusing—otherwise readers will assume you have no idea what you are talking about. This is why I always refer to my books as “algorithms of worditude.” This phrase has made me exceptionally popular among alphabots and biblionobes all around the Textosphere.



You may have to make up some words.

6. BE REGULAR

People don’t like to wait for blog updates! This is why I post EVERY SINGLE DAY without failure. Nothing stops me. I’m like the post office—neither snow nor rain nor or famine or grizzly bears stays this blogger from the timely posting of the posts. I think you will find, looking back at my archive, at completely unbroken sequence of posts dating back to 1992. You should be the same way.

In fact, every day you don’t blog, an Apple Store Genius is fed to a crocodile. No pressure.




The croc tank at the 5th Avenue Apple store, New York City.

7. SPEND ALL YOUR TIME ONLINE

What? What are you saying? You want sleep? You want food? You want to go out in the sunshine? You want to see your friends? Well, you will never make it in the dog-eat-keyboard world of blogging. You need to know what is going on on ALL BLOGS, ALL THE TIME. If you miss even one hour of one day, everything will change and you will never be able to catch up. You will be laughed off the Internet!

Real bloggers DIE at the keyboard.



Never unplug. Never.

8. BE USEFUL

It is a well-known fact that blogs provide the best advice in the world, and you can learn how to do everything by reading them. In fact, just ONE WEEK of reading nothing but blogs is better than going to Harvard for a year.

If you want to have a successful blog, you have to show people how to do things! In my blog, for instance, I give up-to-date, factual information on how to write books, how to be a writer, and how to write blogs. Now that I have explained these things, they don’t ever have to be explained again, so you will have to write something else.



Blogs are the most effective learning tool out there.

There you have it. The eight rules you need. I hope they were helpful.

And no, I did not forget that I had a Suite Scarlett to give away! Today’s RANDOM COMMENT WINNER is Cei Cei. Cei Cei . . . send in your address!

You could be THE NEXT RANDOM WINNER! Every comment is an entry!

If you can’t wait or don’t want to take the chance . . . go out into the world today and DEMAND a Suite Scarlett from your local algorithm of worditude emporium.