A Review — And Yet Another Niche On The Web
I was very surprised this morning to discover a new incoming link to Becoming A Writer Seriously. Of course, I clicked on it to see just what it was. It turned out to be a particularly nice review of this blog by Jeanne Dininni at Writer’s Notes.
Jeanne is working in an interesting environment which surrounds her blog, one I had not run into previously. She is part of the Orble online community, which describes itself this way:
Orble.com is a community of writers who provide an independent source of news, features, opinion, and entertainment.
Orble is essentially a facility that provides writers with free blogs and websites, in a setting that offers opportunity for cross-promotion to build readership and access to income, though admittedly small, via Google’s AdSense. Orble also offers an intriguing directory of its writers, who are ranked according to their “karma,” which I take to mean activity via posts, comments and traffic. Jeanne, it turns out, is a top-ranked writer at Orble [congratulations!].
Perhaps Jeanne will pitch us a comment to explain more about her own blog, as well as her experience with Orble.
In the meantime, I suggest you take a look at her recent post pulling together links to discussions about tools and resources she’s come across in recent months. I’m particularly intrigued by the one-stop dictionary resource she shares. And the tools she’s found are most unusual, including a headline analyzer and a website grader. The first of these will be useful to many readers of this blog. And the website grader will appeal to anyone with a website or blog. I was dismayed to learn that my personal website ranked only at 21 percent — got work to do there. Becoming A Writer did better at 57 percent, and the grader provided some valuable insights to follow up. Jeanne also points to a Blog Rater, but it only sorts out between G-rated sites and those less savory. I’m G-rated, by the way.
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Comments
About the time difference: I meant that it’s seven to eight hours later in Australia than it is on the West Coast of the U.S. (Wasn’t thinking when I wrote that! Sorry!)
Jeanne
Jeanne Dininni Regarding the time difference — I know all about that. I live 6 months a year in the Philippines, the other six in Mexico, sometimes two months, 3 months there — I NEVER know what time it is!
I’m also writing a history focussed on 1805 that straddles the international date line which was not yet invented. You talk about confusing! The British involved talked about event happening on Monday, while the Spanish talked about the same events happening on Sunday.
Tom
Tom Colvin Tom,
Just found out today that there are 5,658 members at Orble. Quite a few of them are obviously not active in blogging there, however; though that number does represent the total potential Orble-related audience for an Orble blogger’s posts when they appear on the Orble home page. (That doesn’t count traffic coming from elsewhere on the Web.)
By the way, thinking about your dilemma with the International Date Line makes my head spin! Glad my time-difference problems are limited to figuring out what time it is in Australia when I submit my blog posts!
Cheers!
Jeanne
Jeanne Dininni Funnily enough… I followed the Writer’s Notes blog here…
I find both blogs quite useful. I’m an Orbler myself (fictionalworlds.net, under the awesomeness that is domain hosting), and I find it to be simply amazing for the fact of its community.
Plus, they pay for a domain name. Which, in my books, is just one more reason to love them. I’m Canadian, not Australian. But I like Australians 
Anyway, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut… so, there you go.
~Dianna
Dianna I visited your blog and find it particularly interesting. I’m always inspired by young people with aspirations and energy. Go, go, go! I’ve also just written a post drawing attention to your new series about blogging.
Tom Colvin 
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Tom,
Thanks so much for your kind words about Writer’s Notes! I really appreciate them!
My fourfold purpose in writing this blog is to provide information, inspiration, encouragement, and resources to help my fellow writers succeed in both the craft and the business of writing. I try to cover topics that are of interest to both writers and bloggers, to provide a forum where my readers’ input is encouraged and valued, and to offer support to my fellow writers and bloggers in whatever way I can.
I began blogging back at the end of January, 2007, after discovering the Orble network. Based in Australia, Orble is a blogging community which provides free blog hosting and technical help to its bloggers on its site at Orble.com. For bloggers whose blogs appear promising, Orble often covers the expense of a domain blog, which includes the blog hosting fee and domain name purchase.
About the middle of May, Orble offered me a domain blog, and now, instead of being a subdomain of Orble.com, my blog, though still part of the Orble community of blogs, is located at WritersNotes.net, which has brought me greater traffic. Lest you think I’m located in Australia, I’m not. Though a number of Orble bloggers are, I and many others are located in the U.S.
One great thing about blogging at Orble is the power of community in attracting attention to your posts. Your posts generally appear on the Orble home page, as well as on the page of the category in which your blog falls–even if yours is a domain blog. This way each new post is available for all the members of Orble to see, as well as anyone else who visits the Orble home page. (While I’m unsure how many bloggers there are at Orble, I know there are approximately 3,000 blogs; though some bloggers have multiple blogs.)
Orble also provides excellent technical help and advice, as well as instruction in the various skills needed to blog successfully. At this point they do tend to discourage paid posting for such companies as PayPerPost, though I, personally, have not yet reached a decision to stop writing such posts, which provide me with much-needed income.
The thing I’ve found most challenging about blogging at Orble is the time difference! Depending on what time of year it is, it’s seven to eight hours later in Australia than it is in the U.S.! This can become a bit confusing when setting the time that I want a blog post to go live when I don’t want to post it immediately! So, I have to think twice before I set the time and date, to make sure I have them right!
There are quite a few interesting template options at Orble, which allow you to create an attractive blog. The only thing any potential Orble blogger should be aware of is that one sidebar belongs to your blog (the left one) and the other belongs to Orble (the right one). Orble uses its sidebar to list and link to Popular Orble Posts, Breaking Orble Posts, and Orble Blogs.
Hopefully that info will be of interest to at least some of your readers, Tom. Thanks for providing me with a forum to share it! And thanks again for your very generous post about Writer’s Notes!
Best wishes,
Jeanne