The first discussion of the day was on the Beanery Writers Group blog. Presented were tips to building a blog readership, some of which were already being practiced. First was to publish regularly, avoiding long periods when nothing is posted. This is important to maintain the interest of the readers, and is something I’ve been trying to encourage our members to do. Long periods of absence cause readers to lose interest and go elsewhere. The calendar on the side of the blog notes if anything is posted on the current date. The list on the lower right corner of the ProBlogs website lists the latest posts on their website. Blogs should attempt to stay in the top five count. Interaction with readers is important. We need creative ways to encourage readers to comment on our articles. We are most interested in comments on the writing---content, style, critique. However, controversy, especially those that effect writing, can invite readership participation. This leads us to one point that we are not doing: leading readers to our best posts. We need to add a “best posts” category. It was suggested a “best post” could be determined by the number of comments it receives. We need to know our niche and stick to our topic. This might be difficult, as we are an eclectic writers group, so our topics will be as varied as our genres. But we are a writers group, which takes us back to commenting on writing style, content, presentation and critique and not issues of politics or theology. To date the beanerywriters blog is the third most hit blog on the ProBlogs website, and the top writing (of 69) blog. It has over 3400 hits, a number that cannot come from the limited membership we have, nor from other blogs on the ProBlogs website. Counts show that Monday through Wednesday receive the most hits; Friday through Sunday are low. Carolyn’s husband suggested students, who are otherwise occupied on weekends, are the main visitors to the site. However, there is no record of who is making the hits. A statistical evaluation was given on the ProBlogs site that showed 62% of the blogs become inactive on the day they are created. We also discussed morality issues in writing stories. More on that tomorrow. Two prompts were given: The Biggest Lie I Ever Told and How I Felt When Someone Lied About (or To) Me. Our meeting was well attended by nine writers, two of whom attended for the first time. Carolyn | 
