Piersall Wendy - Mom Blogging For Dummies

Mom Blogging For Dummies

by Wendy Piersall

Founder of Woo! Jr. Kids Activities Blog Network

Foreword by Heather B. Armstrong

Founder of dooce.com

Mom Blogging For Dummies

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River StreetHoboken, NJ 07030-5774

www.wiley.com

Copyright 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2011930316

ISBN: 978-1-118-03843-7 (pbk); 978-1-118-12824-4 (ebk); 978-1-118-12825-1 (ebk); 978-1-118-12826-8 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Author

Wendy Piersall started blogging in early 2006, thinking quite literally that Maybe one or two other moms might be interested in hearing about my past experience as an entrepreneur. Little did she realize what she was getting into as her blog quickly snowballed into a now five-year long career. Thanks to blogging, Wendy has written for Entrepreneur.com, been featured on the Today Show, ABC News, and WGN-TV, and has traveled all over the country to speak on Web 2.0 business topics. She currently earns a living from her Woo! Jr. Kids Activities Blog Network, making more money than she ever was able to in a regular job.

Wendys experience as a marketing professional and blogger has allowed her to view the industry from a number of very diverse perspectives. She has worked with ad agencies and corporations and understands the brand and business side of mom blogging. She has also written on a wide variety of blog topics and established over 25 blogs, allowing her to understand the needs of bloggers in many different industries. She has earned a living from blogging in many different ways, so she has direct experience with all the topics covered in this book, knowing firsthand what works and what doesnt work. Mom Blogging For Dummies is a book she has wanted to write since 2007, and hopes it can serve as a guide for any mom who wants to turn a blog into a career.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my husband Dave and my three children, who always inspire me to be a better woman and mom both personally and professionally. They also put up with a lot of frozen-pizza dinners and dirty laundry while I was writing this book. Additionally, its dedicated to my parents, who have always supported me through the really horrible and best times of my life. This book might never been written if it werent for my father and his love of technology; he taught me how to crudely code games on our TRS-80 Radio Shack computer before I was 10 years old. He gets all the credit for my geeky ways.

It is also dedicated to the mom-blogging community as a whole, especially to the amazing women who absolutely deserved to be mentioned in this book and werent. I couldnt squeeze all that talent into a ten - thousand -page book, let alone a 384-page book. None of us would be where we are today without the help and support we have given each other over the years. Im so happy to be able to share all this knowledge with you, and hope we can continue to pay it forward as we welcome more women bloggers into the momosphere.

Authors Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible if it werent for some truly amazing people that I am proud to call colleagues and friends. Thanks so much to Ellen Gerstein, whom I met at BlogHer many years ago, and has gently (finally!) coaxed this book out of me with much patience and skill. Thanks also to Amy Fandrei, Jean Nelson, and the rest of the Wiley team for helping me to turn my thoughts and knowledge into a book that turned out better than I thought possible. And hugs to WordPress For Dummies writer Lisa Sabin-Wilson for helping to show this new book author the ropes in the publishing world.

There are far too many bloggers and social media professionals who have taught me so much over the years, and I wish I had the room to thank all of them. But there are a few who can take some real credit for where I am today, and those people are Darren Rowse, Liz Strauss, Rick Calvert, Kelly McCausey, Marla Tabaka, Ted Murphy, and Char Polanosky. There were a few professionals who made themselves more available than necessary to help with the research for this book, especially lawyers Evan Brown and Christopher Borders from Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP, whose combination of legal smarts and web savvy made their help indispensable.