A few bloggy notes

This is one of those boring, but necessary posts, like instruction manuals and class syllabi. 

1) A big BIENVENUE to all my visitors via Casey and Jessica. Enchanté! (Sorry, I lied about not speaking French to y'all).

2) Check out Casey's post featuring me and all the other lovely ladies who bought an ad on her blog this month! Includes a photo of me in France! Also, I'm participating in a giveaway, so y'all should totally get on that.

3) Check out Jessica's post featuring me and all the other lovely ladies who bought an ad on her blog this month! Includes a photo of Beau and Me at Rose's* wedding last weekend!

4) I'm sure everyone's heard about Google Reader peacing out because apparently Google forgot about their motto: "Don't be evil." As always, you can follow me on GFC (Google Friend Connect) or on Bloglovin (see both in the right column). Plus I regularly tweet links to my blog, so follow @belle_vierge for your daily dose of work complaints and sexy innuendo about Beau. (Just not at the same time). If you really want to follow me on instagram, I won't stop you, but I use it just a few times a month. I'm bellefille87.

5) I've been working on a real blog post that will answer the question y'all have been thinking: why did Belle change her blog's name? And what does "Finding My Virginity" even mean?! Stay tuned!

*Not her real name. As always.

You have read this article blog readers / giveaway / sponsorship with the title sponsorship. You can bookmark this page URL https://myclosetnadinesh.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-few-bloggy-notes.html. Thanks!

Selling Out... for the Sake of My Art

Confession: I’m a sellout.

There, I said it. I’m a sellout. I participated in a giveaway, I bought an ad, and I paid for my blog design.

But you know what? I’m okay with it. My conscience and I chatted, and we agreed on a compromise.

Participating in giveaways is okay IF: I respect the blogger hosting, and I give away something related to virginity/books/feminism/Christianity. Like a cherry pendant, specially designed for How to Lose Your Virginity.

Buying an ad is okay IF: The ad isn’t crazy expensive, and I respect the blogger hosting. This is actually the first time Jessica has had sponsors,* which I think is pretty cool. Her audience is big, but not overwhelming. She’s a military wife in Italy, and y’all know how I feel about living abroad. But the primary reason I decided to test the advertising waters with Jessica is because of how long she’s been blogging. She’s been doing it since before blogging was cool. As someone who still maintains her livejournal, after about nine years, I totally respect someone who is, essentially, a hipster blogger.

Edit 03/05/13: Okay, fine, I admit it. I bought a second ad yesterday, with Casey of We Took the Road Less Traveled. She has the same cool "I live in Europe, thus Belle is totes jealous" vibe to her blog (also a military wife, but in Germany). Her ads were on sale! I can't resist a bargain! Have y'all seen how many kindle books I buy each month?! Anyway. I'll be "sponsoring" her blog for two months because I'm cool like that.

Paying for my blog design is okay IF: I spend hours upon hours, days upon days, trying to find the answer to my CSS problem. Seriously, for the life of me, I could not figure out the CSS for my toolbar to extend across the entire width of my blog. That’s all I wanted. I was totally fine with my old design, that I had customized myself, but the damn toolbar only extended a few inches on either side of my Notre Dame photo. It looked so awkward. I couldn’t get it to extend to both ends, nor could I get it to stay the exact width of the photo. In desperation, I asked for help. The problem ended up being the template I was using, and the CSS solution was not simple. So Natalie offered to install this template for me, and I said yes. Change is good, right?

I don’t like the idea of paying for followers. I want genuine readers of my blog, not fake numbers. I believe in writing good content, in being myself, in taking risks.

But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that I’m a better writer than most of the bloggers I follow (sorry, but it’s the truth).** No one is going to read my work if people don’t know it exists. If I have to spend a little money to put my blog out there, then so be it. I did manage to gain a few genuine readers when I participated in the giveaway, and maybe I’ll gain a few genuine readers via Jessica’s blog.

Have you ever "sold out" for the sake of your art?

*I get that calling your paid advertisers "sponsors" is the cool blogger thing to do. I'm not totally on board with it. If I sponsor someone, I'm paying a charity money on behalf of that someone because that someone will also do something to raise awareness for the charity. That's sponsorship. Placing my button on your sidebar? That's an ad. Like I said, I'm only advertising with bloggers I respect. It's still just an ad.

**I get that blogging is about more than writing. It’s about community: sharing experiences, and crafting, and pretending life is perfect, and cooking, and viciously fighting over who has the best significant other/pets/children. But can y’all please learn the difference between your/you’re, and it’s/its, and they’re/their/there? It’s (it is) not that hard. And maybe less pictures, more writing? I’ve already stopped following the people who pretty much only post pictures all day long, and/or only host giveaways. YAWN. Also, when I say “better writer,” I don’t mean “better blogger.” Some people like all the pictures and giveaways. Nor do I mean “better person.” I just mean my writing is grammatically correct, and most of my posts are more than 150 words long.

You have read this article blog design / blog readers / giveaway / How to Lose Your Virginity / sponsorship with the title sponsorship. You can bookmark this page URL https://myclosetnadinesh.blogspot.com/2013/03/selling-out-for-sake-of-my-art.html. Thanks!