Looking To The Future

I’m not one to make New Year’s Resolutions, never have been, never will be. Okay, so I did make resolutions that one time when I was a kid but I broke them all on January 1st and it felt more like lying than making resolutions so I don’t do it any more. I may be a lot of things, and not all of them are good, but I really do try to remain honest-- especially with myself and my readers.

I’ve been reading the newspapers, magazines, and the many other excellent blogs throughout Blogsboro and the rest of the Blogosphere and I’ve noticed that a lot of them are doing year in review type stuff, with some of them doing a really great job of it, but for me 2005 is a thing of the past and I’m looking to the future and would like to share my future with the world.

I repeat: I’m not one to make New Year’s Resolutions so please don’t think that’s what I’m doing now because it’s not. That being said, I do have some thoughts as to what I hope the new year brings.

For starters: I hope to become a full-time writer/blogger this year. Currently I’m making money writing and blogging, just not enough to quit my day job. Hopefully that will change as I’m already working on new ventures including one new venture that has the potential to put money not only in my pocket but in the pockets of other bloggers as well. More on that later.

I’ve been writing online since the year 2000 when I published my first book, Carrot On A Stick. I actually quit my day job back then but the Dot Com Crash caught up with the Dot Com folks who were paying my bills so after a brief spell of being broke and homeless I went back into the cab of a truck and on the road again. I’ve since written for several other online publications and a few print publications but all those are gone as well. I started my first “blog” in 2002 with no clue as to how it was done. I simply used a plain web-page adding posts to the top of the page until loading time slowed to the point that my dial-up Internet connection would no longer load the page at which point I would edit out the oldest posts until the page would again load. I’ve since blogged using several different domains and blogging platforms until finally settling on Squarespace last January. I also upgraded to a high speed ISP.

I’ve explained to many of my local blogging friends that I began blogging and writing online as a means of promoting my books, but I’ve since fell in love with this new media as my influence, readership, and friendships have grown. In January 2005 BloggingPoet.com saw 16,418 page views. As of the posting of this post, the month of December 2005 has yielded 92,238 page views (down from October and November but typical for the Internet) and the year to date total is 773,526. I plan to see that upward trend continue. I also plan to use those numbers to benefit persons other than myself.

How do I plan to help others?

One way is by doing more music reviews of unsigned, independent bands and musicians. If you’re a musician looking for a review then contact me and I’ll tell you how to make the most of it. Simply sending me a CD is not the best way as there’s other things I need to know to do a good review. If you’re with a recording company then don’t waste my time as I no longer do that. I do still work with a few agents but that's because we're friends.

I’ve also got plans that will help some of the many struggling poets, artists, and journalists I know and hopefully some I don’t know.

Are you a blogger who’s impressed enough with my numbers that you think you’d like to be linked? Write something worth linking to, send me the hyperlink, and if I deem it worthwhile I’ll happily link to it. I wish I could say I regularly read every blog I link to but with something like a Zillion blogs in the Blogosphere I sometimes need a reminder that you exist. Don’t be shy, there are others who helped me get where I am simply because I asked, I’ll do the same for some of you.

Do you have a cause in which you’re deeply involved? I do causes from time to time. Ask me. Who knows, I might even do a story and if I can’t then perhaps you can become a BloggingPoet.com Guest Blogger and do the story yourself. If you can do e-mail then you probably know everything you need to know to get it done.

I want to give away a bunch of money to a worthy cause. Problem is: I don’t have a bunch of money, but what I do have are several great unpublished children’s books and the means to give the right children’s charity 50% of what the books net. And the cost to the charity will be almost nothing. (At least nothing that you’re not already spending.) I might also be able to get some corporate sponsorship for the deal. Are you with a children’s charity or a corporation who might be interested? Just for your info, my children’s blog, LaureatesKids.com saw 96,332 page views since March 2005. I’ll see if I can’t get it up a little more in the coming months.

I guess what I’m really trying to say is: I’m in this new media thing for the long haul. I’ve seen the good only a few bloggers can bring to a community and I believe we’ve only scratched the surface. I look forward to bringing new features and new friends to BloggingPoet.com in 2006 and I hope to count you among them. Who knows, maybe together we can make the world a little bit better than it was in 2005.

Don’t you think that a worthy goal for a new year?

Hey Poet, if you were a member of Poetisphere you'd know what the Poetisphere Poet Of The Week is all about. Don't you think it's about time you became a member of Poetisphere?

I’ve been meaning to do this all week so hopefully late is better than never.

In an effort to build communities and create more traffic for myself and others, I participate in the Rent My Blog Campaign hosted by BlogExplosion, which allows other bloggers to rent ad space on my blog in return for credits I can use to get more traffic. This week’s renter has been The Monoco Manifesto. Could it be I just rented my blog to the Unibomber? Enjoy.

Just a quick reminder: Tomorrow begins the nominations for the third annual Idle Handy Awards. This is your chance to influence public opinion and write the history of why the world is so miserable, while choosing someone we can all laugh at for the next year.

I've heard of Chinese backhoes and even Chinese dump trucks, but this tops them all...

Think you’ve seen it all? You haven’t-- not until you’ve seen this Chinese tanker truck hauling natural gas to people’s homes and farms in rural China. To say this is the most unusual tanker truck I’ve ever seen would be an understatement.

Link via: Dvorak

Iddybud-- one of Blogsboro's adopted daughters-- delights us with a year of Iddybud. I consider her well worth your time and expect 2006 to be the year she rises to new heights.

You can call me, Billy The Blog Prophet...

John Robinson, Editor-n-chief of our local daily newspaper, the Greensboro News & Record-- a large part of why my hometown is considered the center of the Blogosphere-- wants to know what you would change if you controlled the content of your local newspaper.

I can tell you from experience that John listens to those who make suggestions, and because Blogsboro remains the focus of daily newspapers all over the world, the changes implimented at the N&R stand a good chance of showing up in local papers everywhere. Why not tell John what you’d like to see in your newspaper even if your newspaper isn’t the Greensboro News & Record. After all, the editor of your paper is probably a reader of John’s blog.

Get all the latest Blogsboro news at Blogsboro.com

If I Were A French Fry

If I were a French Fry,
my best friend a milk shake,
my brother a burger--
what a meal we would make.

We’d have ourselves the best of times.
You know that’s what we’d do--
laughing, joking ‘til the day
we got ate by you.

As always, when it comes to my children's poetry, I've already posted the poem above to my child-safe and Mom Approved site, Laureateskids.com.

Ladies and gentlemen, poets, and prose slingers, and any other riff-raff that happens upon this sorry excuse for entertainment, it is indeed my pleasure to introduce you to Blogsboro’s first known blogging cop, Officer Bobby of the Greensboro Blogsboro Police Department. Could this be another Blogsboro first? Hey, this cop’s even got a sense of humor.

Link via Ed Cone

Get the latest Blogoboro news at Blogsboro.com

Or, Today It’s A Good Day To Be Me

It’s not everyday that I have praise for Microsoft (I am in-fact a Mac Made Man) but a recent check of my Squarespace referral stats turned-up something I found pleasantly surprising: A MSN search for “poet” finds me at number 3 out of 7,794,967. Now if I could only get Yahoo and Google up to speed. Poet, Poet, Poet...

It could be I’ve got a new favorite search engine. You reckon I should write Bill Gates a poem?