While I’m Away…

My bags are packed, the house sitter has arrived, the tickets are in my pocket and we’re about to run out the door to the airport.

I’m going on vacation for a couple of weeks. I know it seems like I do this a lot but V and I are in ‘do it while we can’ mode on the advice of friends in the lead up to the birth of ‘Mini-Rouse’.

The next two weeks will not be a dead patch at ProBlogger though.

Previously when I’ve gone away I’ve tried a number of strategies (blogged about it here) but this time, in addition to a couple of advance posts that will go off I’ve got two things in store for you:

1. Guest Bloggers – the last couple of times I’ve been away I’ve tried a variety of ways to include guest bloggers here at ProBlogger. This time I’ve invited a small group to participate. I’ve chosen them because they are each experienced in an aspect (or two) of blogging and should bring a wide variety of expertise and perspectives to ProBlogger.

They are Toby Bloomberg (from Diva Marketing), Rachel Cunliffe (from Cre8d Design) Aaron Brazell (from Techno Sailor – and regular ProBlogger columnist), Wayne Hurlbert (from Blog Business World), Brian Clark (from Copyblogger) and Peter Flaschner (from the Blog Studio).

Some of these bloggers will blog a number of times while I’m gone – others will probably only post once or twice – but between them I’m confident that ProBlogger will continue to do it’s thing (in fact most times I get guests on board things improve).

2. ProBlogger Case Studies Series – earlier in the week I asked bloggers to submit their ‘stories’ of blogging. This was in a response from readers asking for more case studies and wanting to see examples of how others were developing commercial blogs.

The result was that over 40 people submitted their stories. I was amazed to see the diversity of submissions and have chosen 14 of them to feature over the next two weeks. Each day one story will be posted from a different blogger.

You’ll notice that there is real variety in terms of experience level, grasp of English (I had quite a few submissions from bloggers for who English is a second language), blogger age etc. I could have only published the more polished, experienced bloggers stories but wanted to showcase a real variety of stories.

The point of these stories is that they are case studies – this means that they are incomplete without your participation. After reading each story you are invited to reflect upon it and the blogs mentioned. Feel free to make suggestions, ask questions and interact with the blogger.

Please do this constructively – while you might not agree with each blogger’s approach or may not connect with their topic, they are putting themselves out there both in the hope of helping others and in the hope of improving their blogs. I respect this and hope you will also.

Another 25 or so stories were also submitted by other readers. At this point I’m not able to publish them all – but depending upon the feedback I get from readers to this initial series I’ll consider posting more on my return.

Hopefully between what the guest bloggers have to offer and the case studies ProBlogger will meet you where you’re at. Have a good couple of weeks.

So without further ado – let’s get into the first case study….