Sticky Readers

After aerobics class at Pepper Von's on Thursday evening, I quickly threw on some clothes and headed over to the Sacramento Bee, to see a talk entitled "Sticky Readers: How To Attract a Loyal Blog Audience By Writing More Better" by Margaret Andrews, who writes the popular local blog "Nanny Goats In Panties".

Margaret focused on good writing as the key to retaining a loyal blog following. All the marketing people say "content is king", but then are mysteriously silent as to what that means. To paraphrase Margaret, the gooder you write, the loyaller the readers will be.

Margaret has self-published a book with the same title as the talk through Amazon. I was curious about this self-publishing arrangement, because it might well be fun to self-publish some books some day.

I introduced myself to Margaret at a Sacramento Connect function in March, 2010. Tonight, I think she may have forgotten who I was, which suits me fine. Last year, I referred to her as my "nemesis", a rather-strong term that caught her by surprise. What I meant to say is that we are "friendly rivals", since we often jockey for that crucial eighth-place slot on Sacramento's Top 25 sites. Since she is now busy assembling a media empire, with her Coconut Queen video game and her new book, I'd better get busy too! Time's a-wastin'!

Afterwards, Sacramento Connects' Lisa Howard kindly favored me with a tour of the Sacramento Bee newsroom, the nerve center of the entire Central Valley! And I must say, we Bloggers are the Endorphins of said nerve center of said Valley!