Postcards from the Funny Farm

Over the past year or so, I’ve met several excellent bloggers who really know their stuff. One in particular is Jacob Share who authors a few really “top-shelf” blogs. I call them that because their circulation is high along with their analytics. However, In addition to that, they have subjects relevant and helpful to me as a blogger. Group Writing Projects, is one of those excellent blogs. If you have a blog to promote or if you enjoy reading blogs, I want you to know about this resource. Getting into one of these things can explode a post. One of mine went from 27 views to nearly 3,000 as a result of a group writing project. Every little strategy helps, they are like seeds. After all, most of us internet writers secretly hope to be more popular in searches than stuff like women’s lingerie, do we not ;)

Jacob was kind enough to let me interview him and share it with you all. Please visit Group Writing Projects after reading, it’s an excellent resource. Here it is:

1. Who should use Group Writing Projects.

By announcing their group writing projects on my site, creators get more exposure for their group writing project and their blog, which in turn drives more traffic, participants and potential subscribers. Plus they earn more links for their project and its participants, which they can use to attract even more of the above. Finally, creators will also be able to share and learn best practices to make their projects even better next time.

Every creator is also a potential participant and participants have it good on Group Writing Projects, the only place they need to subscribe to stay updated on where the latest group writing projects are happening. It’s a great way to get blog post suggestions regularly, with the additional benefit of guaranteed links and attention to your article AND blog. The “random” appearance of gwps also helps bring your blog to readers that have probably never seen it before.

It’s win-win.

2. What is the benefit to your visitors?

Very few blogs can keep up a high rate of quality unless they’re making enough money to support themselves full-time or the blogger doesn’t post very often. For other blogs to have success, even their “lower quality” posts need to have value for their readers, and that’s the tack I’ve been taking with Group Writing Projects. Most of the posts on the site are newsworthy project announcements and results roundups that will only pull you in when you need them but that you’re nevertheless happy to see. Otherwise, higher quality, instructional and opinion articles come out appear every few weeks but my goal is to increase that frequency to once a week.

Taking a different angle with your question, Group Writing Projects doesn’t filter. The site will announce any gwp that comes to my attention, but I will not hesitate to recommend against participating if it’s justified. I have an article coming out soon with more on that, it will surprise some people.

3. What was your motivation to start this?

Very simple. When I first discovered and fell in love with gwps while blogging on JobMob, my reflex was to search for more and I quickly realized that there was no centralized resource bringing them all together. I decided almost right away that I would take on the project but I actually put it off for almost 6 months before getting down to work on it. Both my blogs started to take shape in November, and both were launched a few months later. I may do that again this year as well with yet another :)

4. When did you start?

Group Writing Projects was semi-officially launched in February 2008. I say ’semi’ because I had a whole launch planned but I froze the launch halfway along the plan. That’s the topic of a whole blog post in itself that I’ve promised my readers so I won’t go further here. As for traffic, it varies, by design. The announcement and results posts were designed to be easy for subscribers- quick to scan in your feed reader, with links to creators’ sites if you decide to participate. They also don’t have much interest for search engines, and so they don’t bring many people to the site but that’s fine. The “higher quality” articles tend to do well for the opposite reasons.

5. What is your defining objective with Group Writing Projects?

I make websites that help people. JobMob is about helping people find jobs, and Group Writing Projects is about helping bloggers to achieve their blogging goals. For example my recent Building RSS group writing project has only begun to help bloggers with tips about how to get more subscribers, and the upcoming free e-book for my readers will be so handy that every blogger will want it.

As for an objective, I will only be satisfied when I see gwps as a regular blogging device appearing on blogs of all sizes, in all industries and niches. That’s when I’ll feel that my work is done ;)

Thanks for the interview, Damien. If anyone has questions, they should just come over to Group Writing Projects and ask in the comments or contact form.

If there is one post worthy of you slowing down to read today, it is this one. The writing contest results are in and posted here. It was a truly enjoyable time gathering the posts for this writing contest. Congratulations to the winners. To all who participated I say thank you for sharing your amazing visions with me, my readers, and the interweb.

I chose this topic for my contest because I have always been fascinated by Amazing Visionaries. They range from Walt Disney (photo: wikipedia) to Pat Rodgers (my grandfather). By watching their moves, I have been able to recreate some of that success in my own life. And I have written about it.

I heard a story many years ago about how the new tellers at banks get to spend a week handling money … nothing more. The reasoning behind this was so that the tellers could detect a fact having been made so familiar with the real. When we study the look of a successful person’s moves, we too can avoid being duped by false success stories. Just like the well known authorize.net spots fraudulent consumers, so these posts will help you spot the bad examples as well as the ones to follow.

The stories mentioned here are the “real deal.” By collecting them and putting them in one place, hopefully it will rub off on us. If you enjoyed the links, please bookmark this page, as well as the permalinks individually, and share them with others. In my opinion, now more than ever, the world needs more amazing visions! I think you will be inspired by what you read here.

Below are the 6 winning urls for “Amazing Visions: Blog Carnival Edition 2.” After that are links to all the entries. Why hold them back when inspiration is so lacking in our times! I hope you enjoy reading all of them as much as I did. Stay tuned to Postcards for Edition 3 in the near future.

TOP 3

1. How I got Started with Blogging and Freelance Writ... by Michael Kwan
2. Mother Teresa on Love by Chelle
3. How to become what you want to become, in about tw... posted at I Will Not Die.

Honorable Mentions

1. An Entry from Torri’s Travels by Torri
2. Nick’s Entry on Randy Pausch posted at Romandock
3. Amazing Vision - Mahatma Gandhi posted at Growing Happiness.

Though they didn’t get in the top three, these highly well written posts are the rest of these amazing visions . . . Please read them, you will find strength and inspiration. (Thank you again to these bloggers!) -in no particular order …

Josh Waitzkin an Inspiring Performer by Isabella Mori

A One Man Peacekeeping Force by Alexander

She’s Inspiration by Katelynjane

How Hokusai can Inspire Designers and Bloggers posted at Designer Daily

The Los Lunas Decalogue Stone - How In The World D... posted at Shattered Paradigm.

Privilege to Be with a Loved One at the Time of De... posted at Andy, saying, “My dad was one of my greatest heroes. This is my tribute to his legacy.”

(and one of my own I just threw in at the end!)

Amazing People and Things by Damien Riley