thelesbianlifestyle.com

Well, I can utterly relate to this post and applaud you for having the lesballs to say it out loud. I have been part of the blogging community for less than a year and came back from vacation the last night of nominations to find out that I was up for best blog in the sex/short story/erotica category. That description fits my blog to a T. I write erotica. I’m a single mom with a full-time freelance job who loves to write and this is just one of my three blogs that I try to keep up with. It’s not easy. However, it’s not my full-time job and I’m not OUT there in the public eye. Very few of my reader know my actual identity. It’s just something I’d rather my mom didn’t read, ya know? Without any time to campaign on my part I found myself in the top three, up against two long-time and seasoned professionals in the business: Sinclair Sexsmith at Sugarbutch Chronicles and EssinEm at Sexuality Happens. These two, admittedly amazing writers, host workshops nationally, are very well-known and highly popular sex educators, and have been at this for much longer. Sinclair, who took the category (despite my many votes to derail him in my category by hoping he’d take the lifetime achievement award!) handily. He’s had Sugarbutch Chronicles running for 14 years now. I’m not throwing around any sour grapes. I actually HOPED I might win but never expected it. Still, I listened to the podcast perched on the edge of my seat and was actually disappointed not to win. There had been no change in my stats either so my assumption is that it turns out to be very much a popularity contest and given that I won’t be doing a national tour to talk about the benefits of dental dams or denouncing femme invisibility, I don’t think I’ll ever have the kind of readership as do my very-worthy fellow finalists. That said, I’m still really tickled that I made it as far as I did as fast as I did and kudos to you (three months!) as well! Here’s to continuing to write the good write and loving every minute of it, regardless.

I’ve read Sappho’s post and will defiantly take all of this into consideration for next year. I’m really not sure how to go about it other than splitting categories up by number of hits a blog receives a month. Any suggestions?

You might try what e_lust has done and take away the popularity-contest factor. They now have a panel of anonymous judges (who cannot vote for their own posts, btw, so you could have certain judges for certain categories lest they overlap) who vote on each week’s offerings. I was heartily surprised that I made it into the top 3 considering how many people spent the week I was away on vacation (and entirely unaware of what was happening) rounding up support from all of their friends to vote. And yes, I’ve heard plenty of tales of people voting from 3, 4, and more different email accounts. My feeling at this point is that I was really lucky to land in the top three with two very popular and prominent finalists. This year, I will do more to contribute posts to more public places, thereby generating more traffic to my site…but in the end? For me, it’s about the chance to write and reaching people who really do enjoy what I do. So, my thanks for the chance and I hope I get another one next year!

When Kelly started The Lezzys, it was a smaller group of bloggers in the running – Dorothy Snarker was a babyblogger and there was only one category. I had the most votes, but dropped out because I thought the voting was probably not accurate since no way were that many people reading my blog at that point. Curly McDimple won – she also had a great blog.

We all go through a cycle of building readership and marketing our sites if we want anyone to read our words. That’s how it works. Online awards are a popularity contest and are won by the people who can get the most voters to vote. Big period.

When Kelly split the awards out into categories it seemed a good choice to allow more blogs to earn recognition. I agree the system needs refining but the bottom line is those blogs wouldn’t have an army of people helping her (it took Riese a while to get there) if people didn’t both read and were committed to making it a blog of choice to read.

I personally believe that once a blog has won the “big” award, it no longer be considered because it, like voting for legislators is done more out of habit than content and keeps new bloggers from getting recognized on a grander scale. But, the bottom line is this is Kelly’s award and she decides and not everyone is going to be happy.

Look at news sites, blog sites, and magazine – people like to read about 1. the news and 2. entertainment. There are a million of both of those types of blogs. Only a few get to the front row in either category. They have a hook or just plain old fabulous content.

I had quite a big success running my old blog. I met a lot of interesting people, I got my writing in front of people who helped me improve my writing, and I became well enough known to get other offers to do other things. It took years of building an audience through marketing and becoming a person to the readers – they liked coming into my living room through my story telling.

Some won’t read your blog because it’s not their cuppa’ – regardless of how much work you put into it. If it’s for fame you do this, then craft your content to fit what sells – if it’s your own personal satisfaction you’re working toward, then don’t worry about awards.

And, seriously, I have to agree with the commenter on the earlier post – the bold is not helping you at all.

A lot of contests are popularity contests. And, I’d argue that to be a winning blog, you’d have to be pretty damn popular. I mean look at you. You’ve single-handedly taken over TLL with your italics and bolds.

If you blog because you like it and you want people to read your opinions, that’s cool. If you’re blogging for fame, you have to blog what’s popular like Lori said.

So yes, it’s sad that a website won the best new blog award. But it won because its popular. People like it. That’s what makes it the best right now. Best = popularity, lots of readers, great content. So, don’t be a sore loser. Change your game and try again next year.

I am always a little late looking at these comments but I will say that this article had nothing to do about being a sore loser. It had more to do with equity. I didn’t have a chance in hell of winning and was surprised to even have made the top three so I was good with myself. My point was that the category need changing for next year and I used a dramatic title and themed article to catch the attention of TLL which I did. Best New Blog should be a blog done by a singular person started within the year, not a website that adds a blog with 8 authors on paid staff to reach their already embedded audience of thousands and thousands. The winners this year were really an Entertainment Blog and they entered that category. They lost. I am not eligible next year for best new blog so I was not writing this article for me but for next year’s entries so that there would be a category for Best New Blog written by one person – that is the blog that needs and deserves a boost from an award like this.

I also believe that the blogs should have to choose a category to enter and stick with just the one. That way, one “popular” blog as you say does not monopolize the awards giving each category a unique set of entries. This way it makes it a little less about a “popularity contest” overall and a little more about the best blog or most popular blog in each category – a distinction that should count for something.

As far as people voting for a website because they like the blog, I don’t agree with you. I think people vote for a website with a blog because they like the website. As I will explain in a minute, not all reasons people go to a website, is for content. So, I think there should be one new category added – Best Website containing a blog. Now, since my other new rule was each blog can only enter one category, the big websites have to choose. Do they want to compete for Best Website or for Best Entertainment Blog or some other blog category? Since no one will know which category the other sites will be entering, it won’t necessarily be the “most popular” blog who wins. It will be the the best blog who enters into each category. Just a few thoughts to make the process a little more like a content contest than a sheer popularity contest all across the board, because as we all know from high school: popularity does not equal the best people with the best personality. Similarly, in the world of websites and blogs, sometimes popularity is based on pack mentality, money for advertising, exposure, and the glossy look. None of those things equal best content. I’m just saying….