Why Blog Your Stories?

[JudesSims]

I am in the process of creating a chapter guide for my stories. It's not as easy as it sounds...lol. I became ill so it's not finished but I think I need to find a way to highlight the fact that I have one.


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[Joria]

I am in the process of creating a chapter guide for my stories. It's not as easy as it sounds...lol. I became ill so it's not finished but I think I need to find a way to highlight the fact that I have one.


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Maybe put a link in your signature?

[experience]

@JudesSims I know what you mean. I only had twelve chapters (six for one story and six for the other) to convert from this forum to my blog and that took quite a bit of time. Tedious work. The fortunate thing is I created a story guide the moment the first post went up and I kept up with it. I can only imagine how exhausting making a link and posting it for every chapter and story you have especially if you have a few dozen chapters.

Are you blogging on WordPress? You could make a post and then make it a page so that it appears on your navigation all the time.

[JudesSims]

@experience No, I am blogging using Wordpress but I have my own domain name. Not me.wordpress.com. I do have all of the stories linked with chapters. It's just a matter of where to put them on my blog so that they show up better. Right now, they are on my top menu and aren't readily apparent. I'm going to try to put them on the sidebar to see how that works. First, I have to research how to do that.


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[Deklitch]

@JudesSims I have my own domain as well, and use Wordpress quite a bit for work, volunteer and personal things. I think I know  how to do that, I'll investigate and either pm you/post how to do it as well.

[JudesSims]

Thank you, Dek!

[JudesSims]

I think I got it. I put a link in the right column to my "Stories Index." http://JudesSims.com/stories-index  I hope this works right. Now, I need to put a "next" link at the bottom of each post page. Probably not today. LOL


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[Deklitch]

Yeah, it that sounds like it works I do think there's some kind of command/free add on to do that automatically for you, but will need to investigate.

[JudesSims]

I'm using a List Categories plugin. It's not working perfectly yet. Have a support ticket in. Fingers crossed!


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[Carl]

You can also  get so much better info on what pages are reading through tracking on a blog. You can view the popularity of each chapter and where people fall off and lose interest ( I really have to recommend statcounter). Plus there's the chance it gets wildly popular. I can see a few people who put a lot of effort into marketing and updating their stories making a little money with it, too. Remember how unique Alice and Kev was back in TS3 days? Not sure that person used ads or not, but most of us knew of the story of 2 homeless Sims trying to make it in Sunset Valley...

I can see it being easier to post blogs too. They usually have WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) editing, so you can easily bold things and insert images without having to preview it over and over.

I'm not surprised to see people say that sharing with multiple communities or breaking the image cap we have here is appealing. I don't blame bloggers at all and encourage them to share them here so long as they are tasteful.

[Tigerskin]

I'm a big reader of most the stories on here regarding sims but I do have to say generally if I realise it's on a blog, I tend not to bother. These are for the reasons others have stated, the newest entry is usually at the top, some are too bright to read comfortably etc.

I too like the site to thrive and its my preference to not go into blogs. I like to see comments from other readers and the writer, I love the community spirit. Saying that if I do go on a blogged story and it's easy to navigate etc, I will read if it interests me.

I'm more of a silent lurker than someone who comments all the time as well.

[Magpie2012]

I only have about a half dozen sims stories that I follow on blogs (which pales in comparison to the number I follow here!) But it is annoying when you go to the blog (without following a link) and suddenly you're at chapter 20 when the last one you read was 15! Thankfully most bloggers put up a contents/chapters page which removes some of that frustration! In general though, I'll probably check out the first chapter out of curiosity (thank the gods I wasn't born a cat) but if the site isn't reader friendly, I won't go back!

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[JudesSims]

I added a Stories Index on my blog for just that reason.

[simfulicious]

As a blogger, I would appreciate any feedback on how to make my blog better for you to want to read. I blog because it is soooo much easier to do

[Magpie2012]

I think the main things to remember is how user friendly is your blog? Can people get where they want to be quickly or is it a hassle! That's why the index/chapter links are so important! Also, don't get all fancy shmancy with weird fonts and backgrounds! Remember that some of the people who might be reading it could be visually challenged, so your powder-blue background with the purple italics just might look pretty to you, but to your potential reader, its a nightmare of squinting! I'm guilty of that, my wordpress (which I hardly use) is pretty standard white and black, but I have a picture of my Gen 3 heir from my Sims 3 legacy on the side and the writing over her face is white (it was the only colour that didn't look hideous across her gorgeous face). Also, I seldom use the darned thing so I don't really worry lol

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