Writing Tips at GarySpeer.com

I have to ask all of you who blog regularly: Does your blog target the Worldwide Web (www), or is it more of a local blog?

I’ve been reading a lot of stuff recently from some blogging “gurus” (I do NOT consider myself such, although I do a lot of blogging) lately who suggest that the way to make good money blogging is to focus on local blogging, as opposed to a blog aimed at everyone on the Internet. By way of explanation: Your blog may be aimed at a target audience of everyone buying, selling, or investing in real estate — or, it could be targeting Wilmington NC real estate.

In the first case, you might offer real estate investment tips that apply nationwide (even worldwide?). In the second case, you might offer specific property or Realtor listings and investment tips to the good folks in and around Wilmington.

Those gurus I mentioned above are suggesting that the real bonanza market for bloggers is to offer local advertising and local search results based on your specific knowledge and contacts right where you live, be it Springfield, Missouri, or Wilmington, North Carolina.

I would be curious to hear from any of you bloggers out there who are indeed targeting a local audience. What sort of things do you blog about? What sort of things are your local readers interested in? And from the perspective of any of us seeking to monetize our blogs — have you had success with a local blog making money from local advertising?

Leave a comment and let us know your opinions/experience at local blogging, please.

I have no requirements whatsoever that you be a “member” or that you be “logged in” to post a comment on this blog.

I made the decision some months ago, based on comments from other bloggers at various forums on which I roam, that anyone who chooses to can post a comment here — although I am notified of pending comments and must approve or deny them. I cannot understand, therefore, why anyone would feel the urge to register.

But that’s all right. Go ahead and register with your email address, and if you wish, with your name. BUT KNOW THIS –

If you register here and/or have registered here in the past, I am going to plug your name into a blog mailing list I am setting up for a sort of “occasional” or “irregular” newsletter. My plan is never to send you anything more than two or three times a month. Generally, if I can ever gear up for doing some article writing and Squidoo lens creation, I would be sending out a newsletter to the mailing list alerting you when I have lenses or articles for sale. Now, if you’ve hung around here long, you know I never have done such a thing before. But I have high hopes.

In a perfect world I would be able to earn enough revenue off this blog to make a comfortable living. In my version of the “real world,” I rarely make enough revenue from this and my two other main blogs to pay for monthly webhosting.

But my hopes are higher than that, and I wanted to post this so that you’d understand if you suddenly receive notice from my domain (garyspeer.com) that you’re on a mailing list or if you receive the first of my occasional/irregular newsletters.

And you will, of course, have an option at the bottom of any email you receive from garyspeer.com or any of my other domains to immediately cancel and not receive further email.

But why would you??

Some years ago, I clipped a cartoon from a copy of “Writer’s Digest” magazine and pinned it to my office bulletin board. It showed a couple of chubby guys rolling on the ground laughing at the base of a pedestal on which a giant toad was setting. The toad had his huge tongue out slurping across a ream of paper being held up by a laughing third chubby guy.

The caption on the cartoon read: “One more thing editors do with your manuscript.”

I kept that cartoon around as a dual reminder of my odd career: I am both a writer and an editor; one who creates the slurped manuscript and one who holds it up for the slurping.

As an editor, I’ve always felt my most important task was to clarify what the writer is trying to do and to help him do it the best way he and I know how. I hesitate to rewrite or heavily copy edit a writer’s stuff, because it is not MY writing. It is the writer’s stuff and the writer is entitled to take all the credit and all the blame for his unique content and expression.

But, really, what do you other editors do? How do you approach your jobs? Any of you out there care to share your experiences and comments with us all? Please share with us.

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