Blogger Interview with Stephanie Faris
Today I have Stephanie Faris as a guest for my second Blogger Interview. When I found out she had big success as a blogger on Myspace way back when, I knew I had to pick her brain. She’s a talented blogger, that’s for sure. She’s also a great author with a new children's book out called 25 Roses.
1. I read a post on your blog about your Myspace blogging days. Can you tell us about that?
Sure! I started blogging on MySpace in 2006 and gradually built up a readership. At my blog’s peak, I was averaging thousands of views a day…but MySpace ranked bloggers, so once you reached a high readership, people found you just by clicking on “Blogs” at the top of any page on the site. The MySpace blogging community was very strong from 2006-2008, then it started to quickly dwindle as MySpace started dying.
She beat a post written by Matthew McConaughey!2. I remember being sad when Myspace started dying. How did you decide to create a blog with Blogger?
Actually, I set up my Blogger account as a backup for my MySpace blogs because that site was so unstable. You never knew if you’d wake up to find everything you’d ever posted was gone. I moved from MySpace to here in 2009 and began posting every day, but I didn’t discover this great writing community Alex has created until last year. (Insecure Writer's Support Group)The group here reminds me of the MySpace community—only much better because many of us are writers and none of us are crazy! There were quite a few crazies on MySpace, as you can imagine.
3. I can imagine! What was your very first blog post?
I don’t have it anymore, but it was called “Nice Purse” and it was about seeing a former best friend on the street. We once shared all of our lives’ hopes and dreams and we’d now been reduced to just saying, “Hi,” and, “Nice purse” as we passed in the hallway. At least I have her to thank for that!
4. What do you love most about blogging?
The community. Writing and posting are fun, but it’s really all about interacting with our fellow bloggers. Otherwise we’d all just be talking to ourselves!
And there she is in the top 5!5. You have over 900 followers...any secrets/tips on how to gain followers?
In my early days on MySpace, I would post a blog and nobody would read. One day I went out there and started commenting on other blogs. Some of them commented back. I realized that if you want to have readers, you have to read other people’s blogs. When I’m reading blogs, I go through my comments on the past few blogs and read the blogs of those who have commented. That keeps me reading only the blogs of people who are still actively reading mine. You’d be surprised how often someone just stops reading anyone’s blogs but keeps posting.
6. What are the top 5 most-viewed posts on your blog? (Include links.)
I won’t say I understand why, but here are the posts with the most views:
Anatomy of an Internet Hoax
Writers Don’t Use Typewriters
The Foaming Fountain
More Blog Stops and an Exciting Week Ahead
Picturing Your Settings
7. Share your number one tip to bloggers just starting out.
The top tip is to post consistently. Whether it’s once a week or every day doesn’t matter. Just make it consistent. If you post only on Mondays, your readers will know to check in every Monday. Also, read, read, read. Most of us read the blogs of those who comment ours, so by reading other people’s blogs, you’ll get readers for your own.
Stephanie also has a new book available!
Hyper Round:
1. Favorite time to post blogs?
I set mine to post at 5 a.m. That catches all the people just getting up and the rest will catch it later in the day!
2. Blogger or Wordpress?
Blogger. I tried WordPress, but it doesn’t integrate with Wix, which is where I have my author site, so I switched back to Blogger once I started setting up my website.
3. Blog Hops: Yay or Nay?
Google’s algorithms see links as a good thing. The more sites that link to your blog, the more of an “authority” it will seem to Google. Blog hops give you that one extra link. That said—most of the time when I participate in a blog hop, nobody else participating reads my blog unless I read theirs first. So if you’re participating in a blog hop, read the other blogs—it’s probably the only way you’ll get new regular readers.
4. Do you host guests?
Anytime! I love hosting guests. It gives me the day off and brings another perspective to my blog. If anyone would like to guest blog, let me know. I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge in April and I have a few book promotions I’ve committed to do, but other than that, my blog is wide open!
Bio:
Stephanie Faris knew she wanted to be an author from a very young age. In fact, her mother often told her to stop reading so much and go outside and play with the other kids. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science in broadcast journalism, she somehow found herself working in information technology. But she never stopped writing.
Stephanie is the author of 30 Days of No Gossip and 25 Roses, both with Aladdin M!x. When she isn’t crafting fiction, she writes for a variety of online websites on the topics of business, technology, and her favorite subject of all—fashion. She lives in Nashville with her husband, a sales executive.
Find Her Here:Website / Blog / FacebookTwitter / Instagram
Thank you so much, Stephanie, for agreeing to be my second Blogger interviewee! You and Alex (my first Blogger interviewee) sure set the bar high!
Please leave her a comment! :)
1. I read a post on your blog about your Myspace blogging days. Can you tell us about that?
Sure! I started blogging on MySpace in 2006 and gradually built up a readership. At my blog’s peak, I was averaging thousands of views a day…but MySpace ranked bloggers, so once you reached a high readership, people found you just by clicking on “Blogs” at the top of any page on the site. The MySpace blogging community was very strong from 2006-2008, then it started to quickly dwindle as MySpace started dying.
She beat a post written by Matthew McConaughey!2. I remember being sad when Myspace started dying. How did you decide to create a blog with Blogger?Actually, I set up my Blogger account as a backup for my MySpace blogs because that site was so unstable. You never knew if you’d wake up to find everything you’d ever posted was gone. I moved from MySpace to here in 2009 and began posting every day, but I didn’t discover this great writing community Alex has created until last year. (Insecure Writer's Support Group)The group here reminds me of the MySpace community—only much better because many of us are writers and none of us are crazy! There were quite a few crazies on MySpace, as you can imagine.
3. I can imagine! What was your very first blog post?
I don’t have it anymore, but it was called “Nice Purse” and it was about seeing a former best friend on the street. We once shared all of our lives’ hopes and dreams and we’d now been reduced to just saying, “Hi,” and, “Nice purse” as we passed in the hallway. At least I have her to thank for that!
4. What do you love most about blogging?
The community. Writing and posting are fun, but it’s really all about interacting with our fellow bloggers. Otherwise we’d all just be talking to ourselves!
And there she is in the top 5!5. You have over 900 followers...any secrets/tips on how to gain followers?In my early days on MySpace, I would post a blog and nobody would read. One day I went out there and started commenting on other blogs. Some of them commented back. I realized that if you want to have readers, you have to read other people’s blogs. When I’m reading blogs, I go through my comments on the past few blogs and read the blogs of those who have commented. That keeps me reading only the blogs of people who are still actively reading mine. You’d be surprised how often someone just stops reading anyone’s blogs but keeps posting.
6. What are the top 5 most-viewed posts on your blog? (Include links.)
I won’t say I understand why, but here are the posts with the most views:
Anatomy of an Internet Hoax
Writers Don’t Use Typewriters
The Foaming Fountain
More Blog Stops and an Exciting Week Ahead
Picturing Your Settings
7. Share your number one tip to bloggers just starting out.
The top tip is to post consistently. Whether it’s once a week or every day doesn’t matter. Just make it consistent. If you post only on Mondays, your readers will know to check in every Monday. Also, read, read, read. Most of us read the blogs of those who comment ours, so by reading other people’s blogs, you’ll get readers for your own.
Stephanie also has a new book available!
Hyper Round:
1. Favorite time to post blogs?
I set mine to post at 5 a.m. That catches all the people just getting up and the rest will catch it later in the day!
2. Blogger or Wordpress?
Blogger. I tried WordPress, but it doesn’t integrate with Wix, which is where I have my author site, so I switched back to Blogger once I started setting up my website.
3. Blog Hops: Yay or Nay?
Google’s algorithms see links as a good thing. The more sites that link to your blog, the more of an “authority” it will seem to Google. Blog hops give you that one extra link. That said—most of the time when I participate in a blog hop, nobody else participating reads my blog unless I read theirs first. So if you’re participating in a blog hop, read the other blogs—it’s probably the only way you’ll get new regular readers.
4. Do you host guests?
Anytime! I love hosting guests. It gives me the day off and brings another perspective to my blog. If anyone would like to guest blog, let me know. I’m participating in the A to Z Challenge in April and I have a few book promotions I’ve committed to do, but other than that, my blog is wide open!
Bio:
Stephanie Faris knew she wanted to be an author from a very young age. In fact, her mother often told her to stop reading so much and go outside and play with the other kids. After graduating from Middle Tennessee State University with a Bachelor of Science in broadcast journalism, she somehow found herself working in information technology. But she never stopped writing.
Stephanie is the author of 30 Days of No Gossip and 25 Roses, both with Aladdin M!x. When she isn’t crafting fiction, she writes for a variety of online websites on the topics of business, technology, and her favorite subject of all—fashion. She lives in Nashville with her husband, a sales executive.
Find Her Here:Website / Blog / FacebookTwitter / Instagram
Thank you so much, Stephanie, for agreeing to be my second Blogger interviewee! You and Alex (my first Blogger interviewee) sure set the bar high!
Please leave her a comment! :)
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