“Had I stopped after the first “failure” you would never have heard of this site. You would not be reading this right now. How much is lost because people simply give up.” – JC
(Keep Grinding People)
Tag: blogger
EC Quote Friday – MayChallengeDay6
Yayy, I made it through the first week of the May Challenge! Is anyone else playing? Because I feel like the only one lol. I rest on Saturdays so unfortunately I will not participate in this challenge on Saturdays so I will see you all Sunday. I plan to incorporate some flash fiction and poetry into Week Two, time permitting. In the meantime, below is your EC Quote Friday:
Black History Fun Fact Friday – Timbuktu
Timbuktu is a city in the West African nation of Mali, situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Founded by nomads, it is most known as “The City of Gold.” While some scholars and proposed travelers attempt to debunk the “myth” (claiming to have reached the city where the homes are made of mud bricks), Timbuktu was one of the most important centers of trade and intellectual life in West Africa, flourishing through participation in long-distance trade networks directed north across the Sahara. The city is known as having traded goods that flowed through the center including salt, ivory, and gold. One of the reasons for Timbuktu’s wealth is the water supply. There are many wells containing sweet water in Timbuktu, where the Niger in flood canals delivers the water to the city. Grain and animals are abundant, so that much milk and butter is consumed.
During the fourteenth century, the story of Timbuktu as a rich cultural center spread throughout the world. The beginnings of which can be traced to 1324, when the Emperor of Mali made his pilgrimage to Mecca via Cairo. In Cairo, the merchants and traders were impressed by the amount of gold carried by the emperor, who stated that the gold was from Timbuktu. Furthermore, in 1354 the explorer Ibn Batuta wrote of his visit to Timbuktu and told of the wealth and gold of the region. Thus, Timbuktu became renowned as an African El Dorado, a city made of gold.
A great book to read is “From Babylon to Timbuktu” by Rudolph R. Windsor:
“Until comparatively recent times, knowledge that black Africa was the seat of highly evolved civilizations and cultures during a time when Europe stagnated was limited to a small group of scholars. That great empires, such as Ghana, and later, Mali flourished for centuries while Europe slept through its Dark Ages almost has been ignored by historians. Thousands of years before that, civilization began with the black races of Africa and Asia, including the Hebrews, who were jet black. Because of the scarce literature on the contributions of blacks to world civilization, most people today hold the erroneous opinion that the black races have little real history. It was not known, for instance, that the ancient Hebrews, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians, and Egyptians were black. Now, a growing body of literature is presenting the illustrious history of blacks and their enormous contributions.”
And that’s it for this week’s episode of Black History Fun Facts. Below is last weeks episode in case you missed it:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Why I Go #UNDERGROUND
If you could go back to Harriet Tubman’s days and with what you know now, help her to free more slaves based on your knowledge of the future, would you be able to help her? With what you know about history today, would you be able to assist her in carrying more people to freedom? With all of the technology and historical knowledge and books and slave narratives and everything you’ve stored away to this point, could you honestly say that you could help her? Many of us don’t even know what direction the sun rises and sets in, let alone navigate without GPS. This is why I watch shows such as #Underground.
What amazes me is that when a Tyler Perry movie comes out, we don’t hear nothing about how we’re tired of seeing black men in dresses. I don’t hear anything about how we’re tired of seeing black men and women run around joking all the time about nothing. We make excuses for that. We don’t hear nothing about Fifty Shades of Black, Get Hard, or throwbacks like Don’t Be A Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood. When Noah and Gods of Egypt came out, I didn’t hear nothing about all the biblical inaccuracies that can be proven just by reading the first few chapters of Genesis. But when it comes to a show comprised of information we need to know, now we’re tired of slave movies even though many of our brothers and sisters don’t even know what the half of slavery was really about and the psychological trauma it still holds today.
I’m still hearing people say that the light skin slaves were house slaves but this is not historically correct. The Mulatto was the first to be sold because the mistress did not want to look at the proof of her husbands infidelity with the “niggers” every time she looked at those children. Not that mulattoes were not in the house, but the point is they were “field niggas” too. There was a ranking system based on skill and worth and it didn’t matter what color you were a slave was a slave. Whether in house or in the field none of it was esteemed over the other you was still a slave. Some of us still think Rosa Parks was the first to refuse to give up her seat on a bus. She was not, but that’s the point. There’s still lots of people who don’t know. We don’t know what Reconstruction was about. We don’t know what Jim Crow was about. We don’t know what The Harlem Renaissance was about, or for a more earlier term, The New Negro Movement. We don’t know what The Civil Rights Movement was about. We don’t even know who The Black Panthers truly were aside from the hateful militia group people tell us they were. Prince just died and they say he had no will. Prince was a man who sued people all the time in regard to the legalities of his career. He’s not the kind of man who would not have a will but this is what they tell us. The point is that we don’t know half of the black history that we think we know and even what we think we know, we don’t really know. What Harriet Tubman and the many others had to endure, I had to endure too. For we are all connected, the human family. We are the bloodline and the experiences of our ancestors still runs through our veins. They say that if you don’t know your history, that you are bound to repeat it. This is why I go #Underground.
Throwback Thursday Jam – 911, Wyclef ft. Mary J.
This was the jaaammmm
Stella Spring Giveaway: The Grand Prize Winner!!
I am proud to announce the Grand Prize Winner of The Stella Trilogy Spring Giveaway! Today’s winner is really special and close to my heart, its my baby sister! Abiyah Ysrayl aka Princess. It was hard gathering pics of her where she’s actually smiling! LOL I know you a warrior baby girl but I need you to show those pearly whites today cause you did that. Abiyah is so supportive and it paid off. This contest was so perfect but I’ll detail that in the next post. So anyway, baby sis was Entry #77 which is funny because she’s a twin AND she snagged the #1 Spot so she got her double portion prize.
Congrats Baby Sis! You did that. Yaass.
What’s So Special About You?
Lately, I’ve been asking myself, “What is the benefit of subscribing to your blog/email list?” The answer to this question loomed over me and really got me thinking. “Is there a benefit?” What is it that I’m offering that makes subscribing to my email list or blog such a big deal? What is it about it that will make readers feel, well, special?
I was happy to discover this article: 7 Emails You Should Send Your Subscribers (But Probably Don’t). While advice is always “take it or leave it”, Will makes some great points. For instance, in this post he explains the kind of content you should include in your email newsletter. One set of questions I zoomed in on that really convicted me and got me to thinking was this one:
What sets apart all those bloggers who can rapidly build an insanely engaged audience from those who have to beg and plead just to get a handful of shares?”
This question convicted me because I’ve been thinking a lot about the content of this blog. I noticed that often bloggers receive the same support over and over again. The same five or ten people who like and comment on every post. While this is most excellent, I became concerned about the direction of this blog and whether or not I was reaching you. While I don’t intend on reaching everyone, it became a deep concern that the people who were once interested in my blog no longer were. So I thought, could it be content? But my content has not changed. Will went further with his questioning:
What sets apart all those bloggers who can rapidly build an insanely engaged audience from those who have to beg and plead just to get a handful of shares? Is the answer really just “great content?” Content is important, but plenty of bloggers put just as much time, energy and care into their content as those in the top tier, only to experience 10% of the results.
Exactly! Someone finally said it. For the record, I’m not in the business of begging, but Will’s questions did trigger something and I’m excited it did. I have long wondered if content alone was the key to a successful blog (I use successful loosely sense it is so dependent on your own definition of success). Now, as a blogger content is something we hear a lot. But, is blogging just about content? Or is there something else that is needed to keep an audience? Well, I kept reading:
So what do the big guys have that the little ones don’t? They have a relationship with their audience.
Ahhh. There it is. The relationship. Blogging is not just about content, it is also about the relationship! This is why I have also created an email Newsletter because its more personal. Like Will, even though I know the author is speaking to a large group, getting a personal email still makes me feel special as a subscriber. Even though my blog posts are sent directly to the emails of those who follow me (via email) an email list is still more personal and, contrary to popular belief, not old fashioned. A study by McKinsey revealed that, “E-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media — nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined.” But now I had more questions. This time about Newsletters:“Is there a huge benefit to subscribing to my email newsletter?” One thing that got my confidence up is a point Will made in this article. He said to be more personal in your email list. Instead of sending links of your recently blogged post, talk to us as if we are sitting at the computer/tablet/phone reading you. This got my confidence up because it is something I’ve always done. I never just list my accomplishments and upcoming events in my email newsletter. This can be boring. Readers can follow my updates just by being on my Social Media so again,“What makes subscribing to my newsletter so special?” If someone follows my blog and social networks, why should they also follow my email list? Some people include links to their recent blog posts in their email newsletters. I do not. It doesn’t make much sense to me. I don’t really get how that can be productive when I already have followers of my blog who get the latest post in their email. You mean I should also send them additional emails with links to my recent blog posts? Is that an email newsletter or just another blog? I didn’t know, but I kept reading because I’m not blog perfect and there is still so much I need to learn. As I read on, I discovered that Will makes another great point. An alternative to providing the link in your newsletter to your recent blog post:
…. too few bloggers consider the pros and cons of each approach before making a decision. They just send a link to their posts because that’s what everyone else seems to do.
This stood out to me. It stood out to me because according to my own personal experience as well as research on clicks in a post, people do not use them much. They may click on a link once but that’s pretty much it with only a few (and I do mean a few, like probably just three of your best friends) exceptions. This means that the chances of someone clicking on multiple links in your newsletter or blog post to go to additional sites are slim. This is one of the reasons I don’t like posting links in my blog post of other sites without some explanation of what the link is about. I don’t want you to miss out on the info just because you didn’t feel like clicking the link. Like now, at least you have some insight into Will’s article even if you didn’t click on it! (It is however, important to know that while people may not be interested in clicking links, that doesn’t have anything to do with the success or failure of the post. That’s right, we don’t care. What readers care most about is ease of navigation. Though we may not want to click on, it won’t affect us coming around unless your blog is extremely difficult to navigate. In fact, readers are probably not even thinking about clicks until you said something. The 3-Click rule is outdated. Kind of. Yes people don’t want to click on lots of links, but the number doesn’t have anything to do with it. Today its about ease of convenience. You can have one or five links and most people won’t bother to click them period, which I discovered by measuring how many opens my emails get verses clicks on any links in the actual email. There are always more opens of the email than clicks on links in the email. Common sense thus told me its better to say everything in the body of the email instead of having people follow a link). Another point to remember about just including project updates and advertisements / announcements in your email newsletter is this:
Just think about how rare and uncommon it is to receive an email that asks nothing of you. Its sole purpose is to educate, inspire, and help you.
Isn’t that the type of mailing list you’ll tell others about? Isn’t it the kind of list that survives the occasional inbox purging when you get tired of all the emails you’re receiving? Isn’t it the kind of list whose owner you’ll tend to trust?
This is why I try to keep my advertisement to a minimum. As I’ve stated before, I do think too much promotion is something that exist because it lacks the balance of the other components that can make it work. I thought also about the email lists of others I am subscribed to and how much I really enjoy the ones that offer me guidance, such as author tips and article links, without always asking me to purchase or donate something. These are the kinds of email list and blogs I want to follow, the ones that inspire and inform in addition to whatever else is being offered. But still, there is so much Will spoke about that I would like to improve on in relation to my blog and email list and it all begins with the question: “What’s so special about you?”
The PBS Blog 