Transcript: Blogging: 10 Tips to Get You Started

HadleyBlogging: 10 Tips to Get You StartedPresented by Dawn, Mirabel Steel and Maureen DuffyDate May 6th, 2015

Mirabel Steel Thanks Dawn and I really want to thank you and Maureen for inviting me today, this is very exciting. Thank you for the introduction, I think you said a lot of stuff there about me. Yes, I've got Retinitis Pigmentosa since I was a teenager, mother of four children and I'm a writer, blogger, and speaker.

So, what I'd like to do actually because I really do have 10 tips and maybe more, I'm going to launch straight into what I'd like to share today. So, basically why I began a blog in 2011 I had been

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 1 of 44

writing my auto biography, and as everyone knows writing is a fairly solitary affair. And I think my family was wondering what on earth I was doing all the time.

And when I gave my first chapters of my book to a writing mentor she replied by saying yeah it’s okay for a first draft. And I really thought that I had finished it, so I thought oh well while I keep writing the book maybe I could share some little snippets of my pieces. So, my family and friends could comment, and what came from that was I started to blog with a friend who set me up which I'll talk about in a minute. But, the unexpected gain was that other people started to comment, people from around the world that I had never met really liked my stories.

So, that gave me a wonderful feeling of being able to plot a course of content, and I really thought about what I could write for others based on my own life experiences of a vision impaired person. About life and travel what would be good for them, so at the gateway to blindness is the name of my blog was born. So, what I want to say is for all of us who are blogging or thinking of blogging.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 2 of 44

As blind or vision impaired people, I believe that we already are at an advantage for setting up our blogs and for blogging. Because we already are very adaptable people we face being out of our comfort zone every day. We have learned special skills that help us to solve problems, and because we don't give up easily and I believe these attributes are what can really help us get into blogging.

So, I'm looking at some notes here, I use a CCTV. I have a little bit of vision to be able to do this. And I'm also using JAWS. So, I’ve just got some notes and I'm clicking a page. Okay, so when we start a blog what I'd like to say is it’s good to be realistic with your personal expectations.

Creating a blog does really take time, so starting with small steps and making them achievable is a really good way of not giving yourself too much of a headache. Your blog and your skills will improve as you progress, and as you get into blogging. So, the first thing to do obviously is to prepare your blog, and I would say know your niche’.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 3 of 44

So, who are you writing for, and what do you want to share? At the core of why you would begin a blog. How do you move into your comfort zone? How do you find your niche’? So, as a blogger I would say the way to do this is be aware of your talents. It’s interesting because we tend to overlook our talents very easily, its things that come to us so second nature that we don't realize that they are actually talents.

And these talents and your strengths are what can help you really work well within your blog. So, for instance if you’re a friendly person you might find that networking comes very easily, or if your punctuality matters to you most probably posting regularly will be something that your very good at. So, here's tip number one finding your talent plus your passion will equal your niche’.

So, I have a little exercise here for you, so after the seminar you can try this. You make a list, list one is note down your strengths make a list of those personality traits that define you. So, you'll friendly, you're punctional, organized, tenantious,

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 4 of 44

whatever they are. You make your list then list two is you name your passions, so jot down those things that you really-that really inspire you.

It could be cooking, travels, sports, writing, technology because when you blog you really need to be passionate about the topic that your blogging about. You'll need this passion to keep you going at those times when you think you’ve ran out of inspired ideas. So, if you try to match your talents with your passion you'll be able to come up with a niche’. Mine for instance is memoir writing as a vision impaired person and I love to share stories.

So, that's what I present on my blog. I might come up for air right now and just check that this is all working, so I'll just check in with you Dawn. I take good I'm not in a void, alright so look there's a lot to talk about and it is – I feel like I'm going [inaudible 00:10:18] at this. So, once you've decided on a blog name which I will say I can’t help you with. But you do a google search and you make sure that that has been-that you can take that name as your blog name.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 5 of 44

When you’re doing this it’s really good to know what your tagline is. And I've got here what's a tag line? Simply it’s a mini synopsis about you and your blog, so a catchy tagline makes you memorable while building your profile if this is want you want to do. If you’re looking at building more of an audience then this sort of catchy tagline is very important. And I've got tip number two, how to define your blog in a nutshell.

So, to get your tagline this is great to try writing under 12 words what you do and what your reader will gain. It’s very important to understand that we’re also-we are attracting an audience, and what am I going to learn and benefit by coming to your blog. So, if you can write that in your tagline it’s really telling me straight away no doubt what I'm coming to expect, so mine for instance is I have Mirabel Steel helping people to master the art of being blind.

And I use that a lot it helps define me, and I find that people are starting to learn that’s what I write about. So, you can add it to your email signature and it’s good to maybe put it on your business card, and splash it around all your social media

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 6 of 44

sites. So, that people remember your mini mission statement, so now that we've done that moving on. I've got number two point two avoiding frustration try collaboration.

I feel like I'm doing a jingle ad, so I began in blog spot.com and Maureen is going to talk to us more about platforms, because she is the social media expert. I just want to say that I manage to do blogging on my own in the early days my posts were purely texts, and I followed the prompts with JAWS. And I could with my assisted TV do everything by myself, but it was a little stressful.

A girlfriend set me up with a template we found the easiest-what I had to do and then after that I took it on by myself. So, I would say that if you are setting up it could be worthwhile having someone if you have no vision at all to help you just check out the templates, and get an idea of what's there. What happened for my blog is that later on I began a travel writing series, and naturally we had some great photos from my travel with my partner.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 7 of 44

And he suggested we put some visuals up to take advantage of these pictures. What I found was two things I suddenly had a collaboration so that post publish became his task, and I could let go of worrying about the design and all the technical stuff. So, I was very fortunate that it then seemed to be our collaborative journey. I also felt that I was now the CEO of my own blog, and I could delegate the task to my team member who very kindly took-shared this role with me.

And to this day this is how we work together. But I'm still in control of all the content and the writing, and all the decisions that we make. But he's very generously helps me by seeing that it’s all correct on the screen. The other thing I found by using visuals for me was that my readers enjoyed it too. It suddenly brought a lot of the stories to life for my sighted audience.

And also the content was still inspiring my blind and vision impaired readers, so honestly having a collaborator you both take pride in the work. And it’s quite an ideal situation so I do encourage you if you can find someone to help you from time to time it’s a great idea. Simply ask your family, ask

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 8 of 44

your friends there maybe someone who really doesn't mind.

And I have tip three here which is if you are trying to enroll someone I would suggest offering them something of value to them in return. So basically you’re swapping favors. Can you take them out to lunch or buy them a coffee. Can you get them a box of chocolates, or buy them a little book voucher. Something that just rewards their time for-for your time.

So, naturally though there are other frustrations that you will face when you’re working with another person. For instance what if your collaborator is busy? What if they’re not available when you are? So I would suggest as a solution is to give them plenty of time, and warning of your upcoming post, so they can fit it into their weekly schedule.

So, I would say try to be clear as possible as to what the job entails, how long you think it’s going to take, and have everything ready to go so that together you can really do it very efficiently. So,

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 9 of 44

we're moving on and I'm sorry if I'm going a bit fast, I'm just trying to cover all these topics. Next is writing the content which is the bulk, and the important part of blogging. Whatever you’re going to write, I think it’s important to have quality content and before we get to the quality, it’s what I am going to write.

I have a thing called an editorial calendar which is where you write down ideas, when you might want to post, are you doing a series, what is the series. And it’s a real – it’s like a road map to your blog, and your blog content, so it’s a travel destination it’s good to have an idea of where you’re going. But you also allow for detours because you may get other ideas that come in, and you can write on those.

So tip number four is map out a list of possible story ideas so this includes the titles, the dates, and the series, what I just said. And tip five which seems very quick after tip four, if you are finding keeping track of lots of ideas overwhelming as I do in my head. I find I get a lot of ideas and it’s hard to capture them all down, what I do is I just put them into bullet form in a file.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 10 of 44

And then I can come back and work on them later so that there just simply jotted down and I can fill in the gaps later. So, quality is essential as I said its being accurate and clear and every word counts. I think when you have a blog it’s a very self-disciplined work. You need to be aware of even having your own word count limit, and having a structure, how often you want to blog, and the size of your articles.

Which I'll talk about in a little while you are the editor and the writer, so you need to be willing to say no to some of your content. Not everything you write will go on your blog. I think if you produce great content it will get shared. So my motto is when in doubt leave it out you can always come back and improve it, and add it to a blog purse later. Again with files and folders being a blogger is also about being organized and I think as vision impaired people, blind people we're very used to knowing where things are and being very organized.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 11 of 44

And keeping files and folders very specifically, clearly labeled is one of the attributes of blogging. So just having a very good filing system with your blog titles is important. Tip number six how to get into the blogging spirit. So there are times of days when we all can write our best creations. I would say find out what time of day best suites your creative flow. I would talk to your family members to explain why it is important to you to create a special space, where you can feel free to have the time to write and to blog.

I feel empowered to claim your writing space it is important and I think we tend to put a lot of things before blogging. If we’re-especially as mothers and people with busy careers. But it’s important to grab a spot during the wait which is your writing and blogging time. And I would definitely switch off all your email and Facebook distractions. So don't check your social media – sorry Maureen, before you start blogging.

Because you just got to clear your head and write and that is one of the worst distractions actually checking our social media? As a blogger you need to self-critique before plubshing avoid the urge to

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 12 of 44

get that quick publish because tip seven is right and settle. So like [inaudible 00:21:00] a loaf of bread blog posts need time to settle. So you can write them put them in a draft leave them to one side, and then come back to them.

By doing that you actually will pick up things you didn't notice before, and you'll be very pleased you didn't publish and you'll be able to craft a much better post. So once you have an article ready also it’s important to proof read now proof reading with Jaws is not a second editor, he can miss things, capital letters can jump onto the screen, and a tab may shift your font elsewhere. So I highly suggest a proofreader in your family, or a friend just to check that the visuals and the typing hasn’t gone all skewish.

I do have-I'm very fortunate that my father who is a writer and editor looks at my work, and makes sure that it is all ready to go. So I’m very fortunate about that. I am going to now come back to Maureen before I launch into strategy and networking. So if we want to ask questions and how we're going for time.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 13 of 44

Maureen Duffy Hi everyone. This is Maureen and I am a professional blogger in other words this is how I earn my living. I think Dawn wanted me to start with telling you how I got here. It’s a long journey I've been blogging for a total of 11 years, when I thought about it it made me tired. I have gone from being a personal blogger to a professional blogger, I write on line professionally.

I'm also an editor for the journal of vision impairment and blindness, I write course content for Hadley. I make my living writing edits only in this field blindness and visual impairment, my first online work started when I was a professor at PCO. I started and directed the vision rehab therapy nest rage program there, I was there for 18 years total.

So I'm a recovering academic we decided to take that program online around 2001, 2002 to reach more people. And a lot more people to get a master’s degree. So I said I would be – I volunteered I think I volunteered to be the first program director to try it out. To my format and

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 14 of 44

surprise I loved it I just took to it, I understood how to put my courses online.

It’s very different than teaching in person, and I really loved communicating by the written word. It really changed my life I have to say, I'm doing something that I really love. In 2003 I decided I wanted to try blogging as a hobby, just a hobby. I started my own personal blog and I used blogger blogspot.com and I was anonymous. I wrote about books, films, and culture.

And I developed quite a following the blog is now gone, it’s – I took it offline I stopped in 2008. I had other things going on but that's how I learned, and that’s how I knew I could do this thing. So, in 2007 I was presented with the opportunity to be the editorial director of the website start up. Which at that time was vision aware.

I said yes I left my long time university position it was time to go, I loved the challenge so now I was a fully online person. We built that start up for three years a long three years, and in 2010 I saw the need to blog again. I said a website is a little

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 15 of 44

static and I think we need to do something to help the words jump off the page more and really grab readers. So there I was blogging again so I said we need a blog to supplement the website.

So I started again this time with the vision aware blog and it’s still going. It’s in its 5th year and I've been at it for five years. American Foundation for the Blind acquired Vision Aware 2012, and that’s how our start up works and that was wonderful. And they have kept it thriving since then best thing that ever happened. However let me tell you my blogging voice you have to find your voice, it’s changed so much.

When I went from a personal blogger to a professional blogger so I have been on both sides of the fence. I don’t know what you all are thinking about but it’s very different writing about your life, your daily life, things that affect you. That’s a personal blogger versus being a professional blogger like I am now, where I write about research news, scientific things. I have a lot more formal voice I think than I did when I was a personal blogger.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 16 of 44

So, you have to think about your voice and you have to try out a few different kinds of voices. I didn’t know what I was doing when I started I had no idea. There’s no blogging university it’s, kind of, learn it by going online and trying it and reading other blogs. Now my-a point that I want to make is that when you decide you want to write online your taking a risk.

Because all of a sudden you’re out there publicly, all the things you thought about or have opinions about, or talked about with your friends over drinks, or however you do it. All of a sudden it’s out there for everyone to see and for everyone to react too, and it’s good and bad. Sometimes it’s painful, sometimes it’s wonderful. When you start to put things online and you start to blog feedback from readers is great, good feedback.

Because it helps you to clarify your thoughts, strengthen your writing, I know that helped it for me. People challenged me a lot when I started writing the vision aware blog, and it was great, challenging, painful but great. But it helped me get

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 17 of 44

a lot better, and a lot tighter, and a lot stronger. The flip side and I think we all know this is that being anonymous on the web can absolutely bring out the worst in people. When people are freed from having to communicate face to face, sometimes the worst aspects of humanity emerge.

And you have to understand that and sometimes people say things they would never say to your face, their motivations are their own. And so you have to develop a little bit of a thick skin too, and I know it’s trite to say that but you can’t really take a lot personally. Because sometimes people say things that are hurtful for various reasons, just keep that in mind. It’s a big consideration before you take all your writing online.

But I have some additional tips for you where I come from being a professional blogger that’s a very strange thing for me to say but that’s what I am. I never thought I would be saying that, life is interesting. It takes you in an interesting directions. But I do have things from a point of view as a professional writer and editor because that’s what I do a lot. I edit peoples writing who write on the blog too as desk bloggers.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 18 of 44

First of all, I’m cited, I know a lot of blind bloggers and I made it a point in trying to find as many really good blind, visually impaired, low vision bloggers as I can and highlighting them on my own blog. So, I talk to them all the time and I’ll say “What platforms do you use? What do you use? What helps you? What’s the best?”

Everyone comes back to the same two. Blogger, or Word Press. Maybe some of you know something different – which we can get to in a Q&A part. But those two keep coming up for me all the time from my blind friends who blog. A way to really get yourself into it is study other blogs by other bloggers. Sure, blind or visually impaired bloggers, but bloggers in general. Get a feel. See how the good ones write.

See how often they write. See how they express themselves. It’s a really good way to immerse yourself and get in the swing of blogging. I used to study other people when I started, too. When I started as a personal blogger. I had no idea what I was doing. It’s probably not right to say that, but

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 19 of 44

it’s true. So, I read other people and then developed my own voice.

You also want people to know who you are. A good way to do that – and that’s what the web, what the internet is great for – is linking to other people and letting other people know about you. You can’t waive your hand and get someone’s attention. So, the way we get someone’s attention, and the way we get someone to pay attention to us is to link. Linking to other blogs can boost your traffic. That’ a word you’re going to hear a lot.

I’m not going to emphasize it too much now, because I know this is an introductory webinar. But as blogs get bigger we all become immensely concerned with traffic. It doesn’t affect what we say, but it’s how we link – how we get our message out there. It starts to change a little bit. However, let me add this, a lot of people now write to me and say “I would like you to link to my blog.”

Because if you go to the Vision Aware blog – it’s VisionAware.org/blog – you’ll see two great blogs there. There’s the one I run called the Vision Aware

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 20 of 44

blog, and there’s a second blog – which I love – and it’s called The Peer Perspectives Blog. All those bloggers are blind, visually impaired, or have low vision. Mirabel is one of those bloggers, too.

In the right hand column – visually anyway – I have a long, long list of links to other blogs. It’s blogs that I have discovered because I’m on one all the time. Blogs I think are great. People who say really interesting things, some are tiny, some I think have big audiences, but what everyone has in common in my blog wall – that’s what it’s called – is that they are blind, or visually impaired, or have low vision.

Anyway, people write to me and ask to be added to the blog wall. I always check someone out and the first thing I look for is how long someone has been blogging, how consistent they are, how often they blog per week, and I also look and see if there are big lapses of time when they just let the blog go dormant.

What I like to see, and what makes someone a good blogger, is that you blog regularly. Twice a

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 21 of 44

week, once a week minimum. I won’t even consider adding someone to my blog wall unless they’ve been at it for a solid three months, once or twice a week. That’s my minimum for what I consider someone who’s really invested in blogging.

So, keep that in mind. You need an editor. We all do. I do. We need editors. Mirabel talked about that, and I agree with her. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation are so important. The way people read on the web is different. Sighted people who read on the web spot read. Your eyes kind of move down the page. It’s not at all like reading a book.

People who have screen readers read differently, I understand that – or read a blog differently. But it doesn’t’ matter. Punctuation, grammar, and spelling leap out immediately at anybody. If I see a lot of misspelled words, and – it’s easy to do that. Still, it shouldn’t happen.

Punctuation is important, too. You need to make your sentences shorter – probably than normal. You need to make your paragraphs shorter – probably than normal. People don’t really want to

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 22 of 44

read a long, run on sentence online. So if you’re not great at punctuation, or grammar, or spelling; get someone to look it over and help you.

I know if I see that part is not really tight, I won’t link to someone. I will pass that – or I will keep checking back to see if they get better, but I won’t link. Your tone is important, too. I talked about your voice, but your tone.

Anger, sarcasm, irony; they usually don’t work. You need to be really straightforward in your expression when you begin blogging. Say exactly what you mean. Your friends may understand your sense of humor because if you’re talking face to face, or in person people get what you are saying. There’s body language, there’s inflection, there’s tone; you don’t have any of that on the web.

So, you need to be really, really straightforward. Especially irony. Saying the opposite of what you really mean, that doesn’t work. Just try to avoid that if you can. Frequency – as I said – at least once a week, preferably twice a week. In my own case – and I feel exhausted when I say this – I have

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 23 of 44

been blogging original material twice a week, for five years.

Sometimes I get a little tired, but I love it. If you want to have a successful blog that’s what you have to invest in it. Other blogging is okay, too. What Mirabel and I are trying to impress is, if you want to really make a splash and you want to be a blogger that everybody reads, and you have a lot to say about your life, you need to do it with some frequency.

My final point is to pay attention to copyrights. Especially when you’re quoting published material, or you’re using photos and graphics. This is a biggie. You really – let’s say you get a news release, or there’s a publicity release, or something that you get in your inbox. You really can’t just copy and paste that into your blog post.

You have to cite it, you have to link to the original source, you have to say where you got it, and you have to show that you’re quoting it. There’s a way to do that in a blog. Same with photos, same with graphics. It’s really tempting to just grab photos

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 24 of 44

from somewhere. Graphics are important, by the way, and I think Mirabel and I discussed that before. Maybe she’ll want to get into that a little more after I’m done.

You can’t just grab a photo from the web and paste it in. you have to say where you got it. If it’s your photo that’s fine, but still, acknowledge that. But you have to be really, really careful. When you’re small no one notices, but if you get a little bigger, people start to notice. What you really don’t want is that dreaded word ‘plagiarism’ to be applied to you.

I know, as a grad school professor, I was very attune to plagiarism. I could pick plagiarism out in five minutes. My students could never fool me. People look for plagiarism and you don’t want to be known as that. So, be really careful with your copyrights and acknowledge where you get everything.

Nothing wrong with that. Nobody will think less of you. It will make you look like a diligent blogger. Those are my points right now. I would say I’m

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 25 of 44

going to turn the mic back over to Dawn and maybe Mirabel has a little more to add.

DawnAll righty. Thank you, Maureen. And I apologize for that little delay. While some folks think of some questions I’d really like to start getting a few in so we don’t run out of time, and I know you both have lots more to say.

I’m going to start with Duncan though because he texted his in first. He is a professional musician and is self-employed, and tells us that he has his own website and is on Facebook. He wants to know how having a blog, how would that work for him in terms of helping him expand his sphere of influence? I’m not sure who wants to pick that up, but I’m going to give the mic so somebody can.

Mirabel SteelMirabel here. I just want to explain – because I have a website and I have two blogs and why I do that. I feel that the website is where I – it’s like my

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 26 of 44

business card. You can land on the website, you learn all about the different things I do and it can tell you what I’ve done. But the blogs are where I actually put my content, and I share my personal thoughts.

I think for Duncan the website’s great because it’s advertising what you do and can get you work, but the blog can take people behind the scenes, which is really fascinating to read. It just starts making connections and links and you might be able to write articles for other bloggers. You might be able to approach them to write a guest post.

I just feel that they enhance each other. So, Maureen, what do you have to say?

Maureen DuffyHi, Duncan! First of all, can you type in your – can you instant message your blog address? I want to see that. I’m always – or your website address. I’m interested in that.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 27 of 44

What Mirabel said is true. Your website – I don’t know what it contains, but I assume it contains information about you, maybe snippets of your music, maybe your schedule; thing like that. If I’m wrong – let me know.

But I think what a blog can do is really bring you to life. I think even more than Facebook could. Blog posts, for example, are great to – if you’re having a concert and you want to talk about the performance and you want to talk about how you reacted to the audience, you want to talk about how you prepare, you can give someone and inside look at the life of a musician.

Blogging is terrific for that, and I just think it gives a dimension to you that maybe a website – as I said, I don’t know your website – but it may be a website, or the Facebook can’t do.

MaleHello. I want to know the very beginning, when you go to a website, you go to – you mentioned Word Press, Blogger – what do they expect? Is there any cost? Any details about the very, very beginning.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 28 of 44

Maureen DuffyHi! Well, Blogger’s free. Blogger is what I started with. It’s free, it’s pretty user friendly, it allows you to do a fair amount with it. What I understand – and I don’t know, I defer to my blind friends on this – Blogger used to be a little more accessible. They did an upgrade and I think it may be knocked some people out of it.

But Blogger is totally free. So, if you want to experiment, I would say to start with Blogger. But Mirabel uses Blogger, I think. So, maybe she has something to say about that.

Mirabel SteelYeah. Blogger and Word Press are both free, but the more you go into things you can get other hosts that will cost you money. But there’s actually no need to. There’s lots of templates you can choose from, and both those platforms are free to start with.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 29 of 44

DawnI want to get another text question in. we have several, actually, but we have a question about where one can find some tutorials on setting up a blog, an what would be your recommendation for the best blind friendly, and screen reader friendly blog sites. That’s kind of two questions, but who can take those?

Male 2The answer is Word Press. I made [inaudible 0:45:03] here. I made very good experience with Word Press and the compatibility for screen reader and all that kind of stuff. I would strongly recommend to go with Word Press. There’s one other thing to say about these free blog sties.

It’s really only for blogging and non-commercial use. Anything commercial cannot go on a blog in this way. For that you need your own host and your own website, which is all possible with Word Press. I’m still developing a website, but I’m quite impressed with Word Press. It has it pitfalls, too. Nothing is exactly the way it’s described. There’s research and forums, but I think if you’re really

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 30 of 44

going for it, it pays off. You get a solution for all problems sooner or later. You just have to keep going at it.

Maureen DuffyAnd a domain name and how to start with your very first post. It just outlines everything. There is a learning curve to it, of course, but a lot of the answers can be found right there on the site.

Male 3Yes, can we get those addresses again? We’ve got WordPress.com?

DawnDo you have the websites on those, folks?

Maureen DuffyI think it’s $12 a year to secure an original domain name. They walk you through that process and

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 31 of 44

then the next thing is choosing templates. They have tons of free – they call them ‘themes’ instead of templates – and I picked a very, very basic one, and I’m still learning that very, very basic one.

But there are opportunities to go with a premium theme that allows you to do a lot of different things with video, pictures, lots of other features. I’m not there yet. So, I don’t even want to go to a premium theme yet.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 32 of 44

DawnSorry, Lynn. You’re trying to pick up the microphone and we’re not hearing you. So, I just cleared you. I’m going to give Mirabel and Maureen a chance to get back on. We’re having questions about Word Press and Blogger. Those have been answered. When we post the recording for this seminar we’ll try and get a resource page up there, too for you so you can refer to those again.

Mirabel I want to hand the microphone back to you because I don’t think you’re done.

Mirabel SteelNope. With blogging you’re never done. I did have a couple extra points in terms of, maybe, I’ve gone a little too ahead of where we need to be today. I guess I was just trying to cover all the topics. I wanted to suggest two things to get into before you start your blog.

You can experiment by reaching out to other places that may take a guest post. That way you’re not having to create your own blog, but you can

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 33 of 44

still get your words put out there and be accepted and your stories read.

There are a few sites that take a guest post, which is another topic in itself, but in general I would like to recommend this wonderful blog in Chicago called Vision Through Words, and Stella DiGenova, and Jeff Laudon who run this have always supported my work and they support all blind, and vision impaired people who want to write, who are poets, and you can send to them if you have a story, and you can just try out if this is what you want to do.

Of course, with Vision Aware with Maureen, and you can write to her, and I also have a travel one called Touching Landscapes. I like to hear from blind and vision impaired travelers, and we post their stories, too. So, that’s just testing the waters in doing that. The other thing to improve our stories, I find writing to writing competitions an excellent way to hone your skills because you learn to write with a theme, to a word count, and to a deadline.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 34 of 44

The benefit is, even if this story that you create doesn’t get accepted you then can keep it as a well-crafted, polished post for your own blog. So, I find them a great little store of little jewels to keep in reserve. So, I would encourage looking at writing contests. So, they’re just two points I wanted to finish on.

DawnThank you, Mirabel. We had a question about the tutorials and Gail suggested that you consider going to YouTube if you want a tutorial on getting started as a blogger, but we still wonder if either Maureen, or Mirabel, have ideas on tutorials for getting started. And we did have a question about – and Maureen, this might be yours – when you were quoting from another source, what sort of information needs to be in the citing on that.

Maureen DuffySure. I’m watching all the questions build up and there’s a lot of them. There’s a lot of good ones, but I’ll answer these two right now.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 35 of 44

Tutorials. I read a lot of tutorials myself when I started 11 years ago because I didn’t’ know what I was doing. Honestly, I’m going to have to look that up, but there’s a good web person, if you can give me your email address I’m going to find some of the better ones because, yeah. I think you need to really think about – you need to know a little bit of HTML. You need to know a little bit of that in order to even put a blog post up.

I think even some basic HTML – that’s Hypertext Markup Language – is helpful to start. Sometimes you even have to do blocks of quotation and things like that. So, there’s some basic HTML that I think is very good to know. I’ll find some for you if you just give me your contact information, I’ll do that for you. I haven’t looked at tutorials myself.

In fact, I kind of taught other people to do it, but that’s okay. I’ll refresh my memory bank. I’ll do that for you, no problem. Because you’re right. You need a little bit of information.

The other question was – oh. How to reference something. It’s not like you’re having a formal

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 36 of 44

journal, or an academic journal, or something like that. It’s different because on a blog, what you want to do is you simply want to take someone directly to the information that you’re quoting. You’re only quoting part of it. You don’t want to paste the whole thing into your blog post.

You’re only quoting part of it. So, what you do is wetting someone’s interest in it, and if you want someone to read the whole source material you simply put a link. Most often that’s what it means ‘sourcing’ something. If you’re quoting, or if you’re using material you link back to the source. I often just say “Here’s an excerpt from the article blah, blah, blah that I found in the Journal of Nature and Genetics” for example.

I just wrote about that. Really, all you have to do is link to it. That’s the beauty of blogging, as opposed to an academic journal, which I do in my other half of my life. An academic journal you look at the reference and you say “Okay, I’ll get to that someday”, whereas on a blog you can go write to it.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 37 of 44

Same thing with photos. It’s hard to find original photos, or graphics. I’m not saying make it graphic heavy, but it does give a little bit of interest to a post. You can go to Wikimedia commons – I do that a lot – and it’s free. Again, I’m always into things that are free. Wikimedia Commons, and you can do a search for any kind of photograph, and you see what Wikimedia has that’s publicly available, and for free that you can use legally and all you have to do is use the language that the person who supplied the photo has told you that you must use in referencing it.

You can use it. I know there are photo clipping services and all of that, but I started out being a personal blogger. So, I either took my own photos, or I learned where to get them for free. So, again, people tell you very clearly how you should reference things and put in a link. That’s really all you need to do.

DawnMaureen, thank you. And the questions continue and we’re running out of time. So, let me say a few things. Great questions. You’ve got some

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 38 of 44

enthusiastic participants here, Maribel and Maureen. What I am saying is that we will take Maureen up on her offer to get some tutorial suggestions for us.

We’ll just post them with the recording of this seminar on the ‘past seminars’ page. I will create a resource list, and we’ll include anything that Mirabel and Maureen send along, which will include, also ladies, how to get to your own blog sites.

I know that you mentioned yours in the presentation, Maureen. When I hand the microphone back to you Mirabel, go ahead and give it to us now so it will be in the recording. I’ll also get the information on how to register with your blogs onto our resource page because we have lots of interest here.

So, Mirabel let me hand you the microphone for the information on how they can start reading with you.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 39 of 44

Mirabel SteelThanks, Dawn. My life blog is called gatewaytoblindness.blogspot.com. My travel blog is called touchinglandscapes.com, and my website where you’ll find everything is Mirabelsteel.com. Thank you.

DawnMaureen, do you want to mention how they can get to Vision Aware’s blog again?

Maureen DuffySure. If you go to World Wide Web, Vision Aware – V-I-S-I-O-N-A-W-A-R-E.org/blog, two blogs will come up. As I said, Peer Perspective’s blog, and the Vision Aware blog. They’re very different in content, so it would be educational, and instructive to look at the two.

The Peer Perspective blog is very personal, and the Vision Aware blog has evolved into something more medical, almost scientific, where I look at research, and then break it down into normal people language – which we all need, right? [I] just

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 40 of 44

talk about what’s going on eye and vision research – low vision research – and things like that. I’m a low vision specialist, too.

I’m looking at all the questions and saying “Oh, my goodness.” And I want to answer everybody because that’s what I do for a living. We’ll get to all of you. I see some of you want the tutorials, too. I will definitely take care of that for you.

While you look at our two blogs, look at the blog rules. The best thing you can do is read what other people do and check them out.

DawnWell, folks, you can understand why I thought of Maureen and was so thrilled to meet and invite Mirabel to participate in today’s conversation and we knew we wouldn’t be able to get it all in, in a one hour segment, but I think we’ve gotten a lot in, and I think you’ve got a lot of interest out there, ladies. Some new bloggers have been born, perhaps.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 41 of 44

Can I just tell Duncan that if I follow the musician, I would love to have a blog from that musician? So, you may want to really follow up on that idea. Meanwhile, I want to thank Mirabel Steel, and Maureen Duffy for an outstanding job today. We’ve already seen a few text messages congratulating you on your content and applause with that.

As with all of our seminars at Hadley, we take the recording and clean it up just a tad, and then we place it on our ‘past seminars’ page on our website. So you go to Hadley.edu and follow the links to ‘past seminars’, and it will be there in a couple days. Along with it I’m going to repost the information on how to follow the presenters today, and again, if they pass along any websites that can help you get started in one way or the other.

There is just too much to cover, but I think you’re on your way.Maureen DuffyHi! I just wanted to say, I’m a citizen of the Web, this is where I live, and if any of you want to contact me, or any of you have ideas that you’d

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 42 of 44

like to pitch to me as guest blog posts – I can’t say I’ll go with all of them – but get in contact with me. It’s mduffy – that’s M-D-U-F-F-Y@AFB.net.

I love hearing from you and I can give you any kind of information that you need, too. Again, that’s the beauty of the web. So, let me know if you want to write for the blog. I’m open.

DawnThank you Maureen, and Dawn. This has been a wonderful opportunity and thrill to share our combined knowledge. I really appreciate it. I also would like to give my email address for anybody who may have written a question. [I’m] very happy to answer that, that we didn’t get to.

So, you can write to my email, which is Maribel – M-A-R-I-B-E-L - @springstudio.com/.eu because I noticed that we didn’t’ get to all the questions and I feell really bad about that. So, please shoot them across and we’ll be able to help you through our email correspondence, and I’d love to hear from you. Thank you very much.

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 43 of 44

Hadley.edu | 800.323.4238 Page 44 of 44