The Mask Awards: The Best Blogs for Writers
I will occasionally highlight blogs that I enjoy reading (even if it's just from time to time) or services that either help me or I imagine would help writers in general. Each time I do this, I will add a link to each of the award recipients at the bottom of the post. The list of links will be linked from one post to another, so it will be easy to check out every one of the blogs or services that I've ever given the award to.
But, this isn't just for me. I want to continue to network with new people, new services, new blogs. To do that I need your help. Anyone reading this is welcome to nominate a few blogs or services for this award.
Who should you nominate?
- Blogs that post writing tips
- Blogs that post marketing tips (for writers)
- Blogs that help writers in other ways
- Book Review Blogs (especially those that focus on the Indie Crowd)
- Blogs that promote authors (either for free or for a modest fee or both)
- Services that help writers by propelling their craft into the next stage
- Networking services or blogs that connect writers with other writers
- Networking services or blogs that connect writers with other people in the book biz
- And so forth...
How To Nominate
Step 1: Grab the Mask Award pic. Click Here to go to the pic. You may link directly to the pic or save a copy of it yourself. Use it near the top of your post. Here's the URL if you need it:
http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k491/iberan_masquerade/Mask.jpg
Step 2: Grab the list of links from InLinkz. You will post this list at the bottom of your blog post. If your site does not allow Javascript, such as Wordpress.com sites, you may link to this post.
Step 3: Blog about one or more blogs or services, thereby nominating them. Tell your followers why you like them, what they do to help authors, and so forth.
Step 4: Link to this post so that others will be able to follow these instructions. If you wish to repost these instructions in your post, that's fine. I would still appreciate a link back.
Step 5: For each blog or service you nominate, add their link to the list of links at the bottom of your post. You'll have to do this after you publish your post. (As long as it is a link to a blog or service that helps writers in some way, it will stay. The nomination will be awarded, and I might even blog about them (and you, the nominator) later. I will only remove obvious spam links.) Though you are more than welcome to blog about someone already on the list of awarded sites, please check the list first so that you don't add a second link to the same blog.
Step 6: Add a link to your nomination post so that others perusing the list of nominations can find your nominations. Use "Nominations" as the title of your site because you aren't actually awarding yourself. (Yeah, I think I used the word "nominations" a little too much there.)
Step 7: Go to the sites you nominated and leave a comment, telling them they have been nominated. Encourage them to pass on the Writer Love and nominate other blogs.
Step 8: Rinse and Repeat.
And the first awarded sites are ...
Number One
Though I don't visit the site nearly as much as I use to, I have to give props to Protagonize, a lovely community of writers. Without this site, I wouldn't have a crew. I wouldn't have met Bec or Sharon or any of the original crew members. I wouldn't have come up with the idea of The Masquerade Crew. I wouldn't be blogging today. Protagonize was the first stepping stone to what we have accomplished so far.
Protagonize is a great place to mingle with other writers. Most of the writers are amateur, so it isn't the greatest place for networking professionally, though there are some writers on there that will give you some very professional advice.
The true value of Protagonize in my mind is the ability to collaborate with other writers. Are you stuck with writer's block? Are you tired of writing your normal genre? My suggestion: get on Protag and write a collab with some other writers. You'll learn a lot, perhaps even more than writing by yourself.
Number Two
Once I started blogging, the one site that almost single-handedly propelled us to where we are today is Triberr. You can network with just about any kind of blogger on Triberr, including writers. There's hundreds of them. I haven't actually counted them, but I assume there are that many writers who use Triberr.
If you're a writer who doesn't use Triberr, you are missing out on a great traffic source. We get more than 100 visitors in a day (more than 300 on a busy day), and most of our traffic is because of Triberr.
There is one hitch. You don't get this traffic scotch free. Though you don't have to pay for the service (they do have premium services which do require money), you do need to help others gain blog traffic for them to help you do the same. It will mean you will have a busy Twitter (and maybe Facebook) feed, but I haven't seen that as a bad thing yet.
