"Blog Suggestions" Topic

I have no earthly idea where to post this plea for assistance, so I am going to post it in the locals that I haunt the most, in the hopes that you more brainy individuals can render that assistance.

I'd like to start a blog about our miniatures, miniatures gaming reports, etc…

Thing is I know absolutely kaa-kaa about the best way to do this.

Any advise would help a LOT! And any insider suggestions too.

help….
Warren

I think you might get more of the help you're looking for with a post to the Blogs of War forum.
TMP link

Aside from that, my short form advice would be to check out Blogger ( blogger.com ) and Wordpress ( wordpress.com ) and take a look around. They seem to be the most popular free blog hosts around.

You'll also need a good digital camera with macro mode and an image editing program like Google's Picasa or Adobe's Photoshop Elements.

Finally, you'll need to be sure you have enough time in your schedule to regularly update your new blog. The iron law of blogging (at least in my experience) is that "occasional" updates = no readers. Make a schedule and stick to it, hell or high water.

I'm sure the Blogs of War crowd can offer more detailed help, but I think this covers the basics. Hope it helps.

Curryman brings up good stuff.

Wordpress is good and I have used Blogger, myself.

I can say that you can generally get by with a lesser camera, it's just trickier. Also, do not use pics as a crutch. Pics are great, but having a good "voice" to accompany them and articles and updates even without or when pics are not available are good too.

Also, I would say that unless you are really prolific in a subject, try to avoid focusing your blog too narrowly.

What are you hoping to accomplish with your blog?

-Eli
leadpeople.blogspot.com

Warren

I agree with everything Eli says. You do need to think about what you want to achieve.

Cheers

Vulture

(My Blog: link

"What are you hoping to accomplish with your blog?"

Well…

I've just gotten started at modifying various miniatures. Green stuff, attaching different limbs, etc…
I'd like to show what I've done.

I'd also like to post battle reports of our games (zombie, pulp, post apocalyptic, spaceship battles).

Plus various "frugal" alternatives to acquiring & supplementing one's miniatures collection.

Five months ago, I decided I'd like to start my own blog but like you I knew nothing about blogging or how to get started. So I asked for help and got similar advice to what you've been given here. I use Blogger as noted above and have found it incredibly easy to use. After just a few postings I convinced one of my gaming colleagues to start his own blog and I was advising him on what to do! Incredible! I'd never have thought it but I can say that producing my blog, Vampifan's World of the Undead, which you can view here link was one of the best decisions I ever made. The best piece of advice I was given is this – if you are going to produce a blog then update it regularly, preferably once a week, more if you can manage it. I post twice a week and I frequently pimp my site on various forums like this one, which is great for generating extra viewers. Now, after just five months, I'm getting over 500 hits per week! Best of luck to you, and when you do get started make sure to let us know here. If ever you hit a snag, don't hesitate to seek advice. There are a lot of friendly and helpful people here.

The networking aspect is anamazing and very enriching part of the experience. Attach your blog address to yoursig line on forums where thati s okay. Also, be kind and visit the blogs of those people kind enough to comment and make comments on their blogs too.

Blogging is as much about networking and growing the community as it is about showing off.

-Ell
leadpeople.blogspot.com

I was inspired by your post to crack out a quick article enumerating what you'll need to get a good start in the world of miniatures blogging. I don't claim it's the last word or anything (far from it!), but I think it's a pretty fair guide based on my experience thus far. Hope it helps.

link

I've tried both blogger and wordpress and from an organization and ease of use standpoint, wordpress seems to make this as easy as possible. In fact, there are quite a few hosting services now that will just up and host your domain + setup a wordpress blog for you and all you have to do is fill in some boxes and start writing posts. If you decide to get more into customizing your blog, blogger has a limited amount of customizing allowed where as you can completely reskin wordpress with your own theme (if you're so inclined)

Curryman mentioned this too, if you don't update the blog very often, it will be hard to retain readers. One of the other good features of wordpress is that it's search engine optimized, and it's something you don't have to worry about. By properly using categories, tags, image metadata (keywords) you will be surprised by the amounts of hits coming from google based on various searches, which brings more readers to your site. It's easier than you think and I hope more people do this, it's an amazing resource that is only growing for us wargamers.

meat
diy-terrain.com

Oh, and I should have mentioned, Pictures are always a good thing since our hobby is a very visual one.

meat
diy-terrain.com

Thanks for the advise, everyone. It's all helpful. Although I'm not quite ready to do the blogging yet you guys will be the first ones to know when I've started.

Remember to optimise you images for the blog, waiting ages for a page of large pictures can put folks off.

tell people what the next post will be about , it gives them something to look forward to.

The Black Tower,

Any hints on optimization of images. I just sort of fudge it on mine, but I'd much rather know what I'm doing.

Also, setting up the next post may work for some, but it does not always work for everyone. I am too all over the place in the hobby to really know what is going to be ready by next posting time.

For me, I'd much rather post what I have, when I have it and if it needs to be part of a series, then I'll come up with some sort of bit in the title to help identify it as such.

-Eli
leadpeople.blogspot.com

Personally, I try to keep my pics near a max size of 400x400 (usually thumbnailed to 150x150 with an option to enlarge), and save them as JPEGs at 60 quality. That generates good-looking photos that clock in around a svelte 30-40k so they load super-fast.

@Curryman – Thanks for the tips.

This morning I thought of another big thing that I like to see in blog I visit and that I try to maintain on my own – correspondence.

Make sure that you are responding to comments. Nothing bugs me more than asking a question on a blog or leaving a nice long comment and not seeing anything in the way of a response. I'm not saying you need to respond to every individual comment, but it is nice for your readers to go on and give a nice bulk "thank you" or to repond to specific inquiries.

-Eli
leadpeople.blogspot.com

I just jumped in with my feet foreword and here are my 2 blogs.

SciFi
theorky15mmscifi.blogspot.com
Fantasy
theorky15mm.blogspot.com

I am in no way a great blogger, but I was able to find tons of stuff on it. I had web pages for years and blogging is by far easer. I looked at other blog services, but like blogger.com. Also blogger links with my picasa photo account so I can add photos I all ready have, as well as picasa is a great photo tool.

I wish I could post as much as the others from this thread.

Noel