CBC10 Day 2

I’m exhausted. Who knew blogging could break you down and have you begging for your bed at 8pm?

We had 4 breakout sessions -- my classes were: The Art of Story Telling, Niche Blogging, From Blogging to Writing: Is there really a difference, and How to Interact with Online Communities to Grow Your Readership.

One thing I must say – just because you are a popular blogger (although, I hadn’t heard of ANY of these bloggers, but I don’t live in Utah and I only focus on book bloggers, so that’s no big surprise) doesn’t make you a public speaker. One of the panels totally crashed and burned because of that. It wasn’t a pretty sight. It made me wish I had stuck with my original class choice. Oh well – I guess they don’t have to worry about what I think since they have HUGE followings!

The two writing sessions were the best. They both talked about finding your “voice” – and for the most part I think they were talking about bloggers who write personal narratives, unlike what I do the majority of the time, which is read and report. But even I struggle with how I want the tone or inflection of my reviews to read – do I want to be funny or serious, or how bad do I actually trash this book? Or, even a bigger problem is my lip-sync syndrome: “Oh, I really wish I sounded more like so-and-so,” and then try to fake my way through a review hoping I mimic someone. A recommendation from one of the speakers was to go back and reread a particularly popular review, or one that you felt really good about and try to figure out what made that work. The problem with reviews, though, is it the review that was popular or was it the book? But something I’m going to work on going forward.

Finally, the closing speaker was CJane. Of course EVERYONE is a follower of CJane, right? Everyone except me! I’m not too trendy when it comes to blogs – no Dooce, no Pioneer Woman, no CJane or Nie Nie . I figure, they have enough followers, why on earth do they need me too? (I’m not linking them either!)

So, my 1st CBC conference is done. Not sure I would do it again. I think next year, I’m saving my $$ for BEA!

CBC10 Day 1

Just when you think you’ve got a handle on the blogging world, you attend an event like this and you realize you know absolutely nothing at all!

My head is spinning: Technical features, Twitter, Kirtsy, Whrrl, tags, pivots, SEOs, key words, media kits, FTC regs, giveaway no-no’s, -- good gosh how am I supposed to learn all this stuff? Can’t I just write book reviews and hope someone reads them?

The intimidating and embarrassing thing is – everyone there seemed to be on curve or ahead of the curve, except me. Do I Tweet? No. Do I Whrrl? No. Do I have key words in my blog title that makes me Google friendly? No. I’m I operating illegal giveaways on my blog? Possibly!

It was a full day of very informative, entertaining, and prepared speakers.

In terms of what I do here at GDD, I think the most revelatory came from Ryan Bell, a local Intellectual Property attorney in Utah. He spoke about the “material connection” a blogger and an advertiser or agent. In my case, that would be a publisher or author who may contact me to do a review of their book. Since the beginning of the year, bloggers must put disclaimers on their posts if they indeed have a material connection with the product (book) they are reviewing and the nature of the relationship. Although I’ve had very few contact from either publishers or authors, that is something that has become standard protocol. And it doesn’t have to be “legalese” – he said something simple, but descriptive is sufficient.

However, the most “Ah ha!” moment I had was when he started talking about giveaways. Anyone who book blogs knows that books are given away daily! Some blogs offer significantly more than others. I have only offered 2 giveaways in my blogging tenure, one I supplied myself, the other was provided by the author. Here is the kicker (and I am not an attorney, I’m just doing my best to relay from my notes what this man related to us): Giveaways are essentially lotteries – and if you are in a state that doesn’t have a lottery, you are essentially breaking the law. I’m sure there is more to it than that, but he only had 45 minutes to speak. Additionally, if you are asking people to submit multiple chances to enter a giveaway (1 chance if you Tweet, 1 chance if you Blog, 1 if you stand on your head) you are essentially are creating an “uneven playing field” and that could be against the FTC regs as well. Finally, the rules of the giveaway must be clearly stated, for example: Void where prohibited by law; Full official rules must be listed on the blog, a definite end date and eligibility restrictions should all be linked somewhere.

After hearing all that, I think my giveaway days are over until I hire an attorney!

As with any conference, after sitting in the same strait back chair all day, your brain becomes spongy, your back begins to hurt and your attention span wanes, so I’m sure there are more things I could have benefitted from or learned, but they are lost to some Tweet feed somewhere.

I better check into that when I get home.

I’m curious – how many of you Tweet? And if so, have you noticed an increase in traffic to your site?

Casual Blogger Conference!

While most of the book blogging universe is participating in the BEA (Book Expo America 2010) in New York, I'm headed in the other direction -- Utah -- for the Casual Blogger Conference.

Even though I've been blogging for over a year, I still feel like a ROOKIE, so I hope to immerse myself in all things bloggerific this weekend. If nothing else, it's a weekend away, in a hotel, with a king-size bed -- SWEET!

If you are going too, let me know, maybe we can hook up!