Comments on: Outstanding Posts Are Not Bestsellers

By: This Eclectic Life

This Eclectic Life — Tue, 22 May 2007 19:35:29 +0000

All eight of your points are excellent. I’m sure it depends on what type of niche you have chosen, but I enjoy using humor and tweaking words to spice up the posts. I find that being my own best critic is difficult. Usually I am a much harsher judge of my work than my audience ever is.

By: Vivien

Vivien — Fri, 18 May 2007 17:08:30 +0000

Thank you, Rory and Brian. I’m really glad to know that my thoughts have resonated with your.

Brian, I’ll be looking forward to your entry and your tricks of trade :-)

By: Brian Auer

Brian Auer — Fri, 18 May 2007 00:09:59 +0000

Hey, cool!!! I’ve never been tagged before! I’ll probably have something up this weekend for it. What good timing too, I just got done participating in several group writing projects… I know I won’t have a hard time finding a few others to tag.

Cool post too, you always manage to come up with good original stuff. I was following the trail back in time and there are a lot of other good articles too. How fun!

By: Rory

Rory — Thu, 17 May 2007 23:15:39 +0000

These are good points, Vivien.

I especially liked the first one, Let the thoughts brew in your head. This is good advice. You have an idea, and just let it kick around for a bit. Suddenly, the “thing” will happen that just propels it into existence – the introduction, the hard-hitting one-liner, whatever it is, it makes it come alive.

Thank you very much for the encouraging words, as well.

By: Dawud Miracle

Dawud Miracle — Thu, 17 May 2007 03:27:23 +0000

Trust me, not every post I write is great either.

By: Joey

Joey — Thu, 17 May 2007 03:22:03 +0000

You have made some great points. Number 4 ‘adding a personal touch’ also brings to mind branding. You have done a great job branding your blog. I have become so familiar with the Inspiration Bit brand that I am a buyer. So, I think that makes you a best selling author. At least in my feed reader.

The post I have with the most comments is not a post consisting of great prose. But, it is a post that was very timely in my niche and the conversation between myself and my readers grew the post into conversation and emails. You can write a tremendous piece but if the people who visit your blog can’t relate, take interest or be inspired by it, you probably won’t have a ‘best seller’ on your hands.

By: Vivien

Vivien — Wed, 16 May 2007 17:16:19 +0000

Andrew, you last post has received so many comments simply because you’ve asked readers for help with your coding problem and you got it. You’ve engaged them. Plus, your catchy title didn’t hurt either :-)
So perhaps trying the same tactics with your other more interesting posts, will help you to get the similar response from readers.

P.S. For some reason your comment was flagged as a Spam. I’m glad I was able to spot it in my short spam list and unspam it :-)

By: Vivien

Vivien — Wed, 16 May 2007 14:27:03 +0000

Yes, David, constructive criticism definitely helps. Unfortunately, some people can’t handle it very well, and get defensive or upset even though they’ve personally asked for it. It happened to me quite a few times – I’ve been asked to review people’s site or an artwork, but after getting my critical review I haven’t heard back from them anymore. Now sometimes I’m a bit reluctant to thoroughly criticize someone’s work even if they asked for it. Fortunately, there are others who appreciate my honest feedback and then both sides benefit from a productive discussion afterwards.

Dawud, thank you very much for subscribing to my feed. I don’t always write great posts either, so hopefully my not-so-good posts won’t make you to change your mind and cancel the subscription :-)

By: Dawud Miracle

Dawud Miracle — Wed, 16 May 2007 12:53:09 +0000

This is a great post. I grabbed your feed because of this post. So thanks.

I’ve learned over time that sometimes I nail a great post and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I don’t think I have time and write something quickly that becomes a huge conversation. Other times I carefully craft a post that I think will be a huge conversational piece, and gets little.

But what I do is consistent…I keep writing.

By: Andrew Rickmann

Andrew Rickmann — Wed, 16 May 2007 12:11:13 +0000

I absolutely agree with all of those points. I would also add that best-sellers are usually, for me at least, a surprise. My most commented post, my last one, was a bit of a throw away post that I didn’t really expect answers from.

I suspect that practicing all the points you have made above means that even throw away posts are well written and that can only be a benefit.