“Full-a-Beans:” The LAGuide to Fame (if not fortune) through Blogging.
I don’t believe I’ve even written about my great aunt Edna in this column. For one thing, I’m not really sure what a great aunt is. For another, I have never understood how we are actually related, as my mother’s explanation of our family history is full of holes. Edna has a small house near downtown, a block or two off Old Boalsburg Road. You’ve probably passed it a hundred times—it’s the one with the purple shutters. Edna is a homemaker and with her husband, Ed, who is a horse of quite a different color, she raised two children—a boy and a girl—in that house. Edna likes to garden and knit, and does some volunteer work at the local school and hospital. Had there been a referendum on the ballot in 2012, asking whether or not Edna was destined for greatness the “yeses” would have received very few if any votes.
It is understandable then, that here at Stevieslaw, we were as shocked as anyone could be to find that Edna was a celebrity of sorts. Her blog, “Full-a-Beans,” has over a half million followers and her posts collect thousands of hits every day. The blog considers all aspects of choosing, planting, growing, harvesting and putting up (mostly green) beans. And the recipes are amazing. But Edna will often use her blog to castigate politicians and corporations when they say or do something inane or evil. Her “full-a-beans,” Award for bad behavior is so popular with her followers that political strategists feel it could turn an election. Her hard-hitting exposes are also widely circulated. The post: “Ho, Ho, Ho: Big AG and the Congressional push to limit home canning for health reasons,” was reposted over 40,000 times.
We believe that if mild-mannered, unassuming Edna can achieve near fame through blogging, so can you. To help foster your endeavor, we are pleased to publish, “Full-a-Beans:” The Less-intelligent-than-average American Guide,” to achieving fame (if not fortune) through blogging. In the guide you will learn:
1. The history of blogs and blogging—Did you know, for example, the etymology of the word blog? It is originally from the Greek, “betamumu” which can be liberally translated as “fast with tongue and feet,” but most recently borrowed from the Romanian, “blehg,” and the Italian, “pasbli,” signifying “without scruples” and “empty of real meaning” respectively. Now you have to admit, that just knowing of the word’s origin makes you more comfortable with anything you might write.
2. The Mechanics of Constructing and Posting a Blog—The Guide will present you, in three chapters of nearly 600 pages, with the detailed step by step procedure needed to create and post your blog on what we refer to as “the net.” Careful study of the chapters is highly recommended, although we will briefly discuss an alternate means of creating your blog. This, equally successful method, will require you to find a curious 9 year old and turn him or her loose on your computer for 40 minutes with the instructions to “make me a blog and I will cover your creamery ice cream bill for next summer.”
3. Methods for Attracting Visitors to Your Blog: The guide will provide you instruction in all the traditional methods of obtaining “hits” on your brilliant posts, from people other than relatives or very close friends. The use of categories and tags (or keywords) will be thoroughly discussed. Did you know, for example, that many naïve bloggers assume that a tag has to be related to the piece they have written?
4. The Ethics of the Internet: We introduce you to the great philosophers of the internet and to the extensive and intensive arguments about intellectual property rights and font size. The work of many of these towering giants of the intellect are hard to find, as their attitude to a person is, as Professor Stevens succinctly notes, to “never, ever, ever publish anything that might appear on the net.” We will present you with the arguments that led to the 85% rule—which, simply put, is the maximum amount of material you are able to take verbatim from another person’s post, at one sitting.
5. Going Viral: We consider the term “viral,” most commonly used when describing influenza or Ebola, in the context of the general state of what passes for humor among software engineers—known far and wide as the most humorous of all engineers. We will show you how to kick start the process of viralocity (we are so hoping that this near word goes viral), which has not been found to correlate with content, keywords, or web site (although there is a small correlation with font and font size), by casually mentioning the post in barbershops, beauty parlors and coffee shops around town.
Buy the Guide today wherever large, ponderous volumes are sold or pick it up on our blog, in 6097 handy installments. Get started. Someday, you too may be as nearly famous as my great aunt Edna.