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I’d like to welcome all of you who followed a link on a friend’s blog, Facebook, or Twitter account to find this little corner of silliness. I’ll be switched, but the web traffic quintupled in two days. The reasons might just be found below. In the meantime, my thanks to all of my fellow authors and friends who contributed to the spike in traffic.
During a recent trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference I played the most popular parlor game with my fellow authors – exchanging business cards. This can be fun, it can be dangerous, but it is certainly educational.
I always ask if a fellow author has a blog and would like to exchange links and posts. I take the card, make sure I can actually remember who the heck it belongs to, and then stuff it in the little credentials holder that hangs around my neck. It’s safe there, won’t get rumpled, and won’t get lost.
The first thing I do (writing wise) upon returning from the conference is update my blogroll, send am email of thanks to the person for tolerating me during our visit, and then read their blog. Unless they are seriously unhinged (and none of them were) I elicit a blog post from them again and offer one of my own. Thus far several have responded and the posts crop up here as cross posts. It’s good for all involved.
There is just one problem with the whole system – dark business cards. I’m able to read most things given the right pair of glasses. When I designed my latest cards I took the colors into account and made sure they were legible in mediocre light. I had to destroy the first 1000 cards because they didn’t match the proof. Thankfully, the good people at Print For Change are outstanding Christians who deliver unequaled customer service. They pumped out a new batch that looked great in under a week – at no cost. Gotta love that!
Back to dark business cards – I was presented with at least five cards that held the name of the author in clear print, but the telephone numbers and email addresses (and, in two cases, the url of the blog) were so dark on a dark background that you couldn’t read them. Pretty cards, artistically designed, great photos – but illegible.
In a world where people just move on to the next item that could be fatal. I took the time because I valued their help in furthering my career. There, it’s out – we both win if we do this thing. And I’m glad to promote them: see the blogroll for the links to my friends. But if you didn’t care very much, or were forgetful about the person’s patter about their writing, those dark cards would spell an end to the interest.
Aside from the dark cards, we all went into a frenzy of Twitter, Facebook, Linked-in, and blog exchanges. I saw my traffic increase almost immediately. It exploded yesterday.
And, as a result, I’ll do two more posts today. I’m motivated. And you can read my cards in poor light.
In the meantime, here’s another dog picture. Seems she’s got a bigger following than I do. Have a blessed day. And glad so many new readers dropped by to see what’s going on around here.
Sleeping Beauty. Stormy at her best.
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