Reading Roundup: What’s New in Blogging Lately?

This is it! Our last roundup before 2015 implodes in a concoction of fireworks and warm champagne. I hope you’ve enjoyed them (the roundups, not the warm champagne but hey, to each his own), and I’m looking forward to sharing the best of the bits and pieces I find on my safari through the internet in the new year.

Now, without delay – your news!

100 Pinterest Trends of 2016 // Mashable

I cannot get on board the “coffin nail” trend, but I am all about teaching kids to code. If you blog on any of these topics, start optimising your current posts for Pinterest now!

6 Tools for Selling Products on Instagram // Social Media Examiner

I’ve bought quite a few things I’ve seen on my Instagram feed, and it can be a great way of selling if you have something visual to show. If that’s you – then click on over.

108 Experts Give Advice to New Bloggers // Blogging Thing

You are going to need to save this one and refer to it later… a lot. It’s huge! so much to take in. Pin it maybe? Either way, gird your loins and dive in.

Idea Sex: How New Yorker Cartoonists Generate 500 Ideas a Week // 99u

I’m always fascinated at the creative process, and how artsy people come up with so many ideas – this insight into cartoonists and their work was fantastic. It was a great reminder that you have to have lots of ideas (and put aside time to have them!) for you to mine out the workable ones. You have to have the shite ideas to get to the good ones.

Speaking of which…

Viewpoint: How Creativity is Helped by Failure // BBC Magazine

Everybody loves a peek into the real lives behind the curated ones of others, and I like that spin on this idea of an exhibition showing the stuff-ups before the final good copies of designs and illustrations. Life isn’t always the end product, and end products didn’t just fly out of the heads and hands of creatives, fully formed. Sometimes it’s a long road of wrong to get to the right destination. That’s normal. You’re normal!

Hat tip and glass clink to Ash Ambirge from The Middle Finger Project for those last two. Good stuff!

image credit

A Really Big Guide to Finding Images For Your Blog (And How to Use Them Like a Pro) // The Blog Tyrant

Not only does Ramsay give you plenty of places to find great pictures for your blog and social media, but he goes one step further and shares a bunch of tools and resources to help you use them right. Bonus legal info too! On point.

9 Tips for Launching Your Business on Instagram // Ivanka Trump

Or upgrading and updating it if you’re already established. The lasses from HeyMama take you through the non-negotiable basics if you want to get traction on everyone’s favourite visual platform. Will probably also make you want to rip your jeans.

3 Podcast Episodes to Help You Grow Your Email List // Aweber

And who doesn’t want to do that?! You might even spot a familiar face in this list, chatting to the tune of $1.3m a year blogging.

Why We Unsubscribed 250K People From HubSpot’s Marketing Blog and Started Sending Less Email // HubSpot

The dreaded graymail. We all have it, and want to know how to manage it – now HubSpot is doing something about it. Could you do it?

7 Lessons I Learned from Blogging My Book // Huffington Post

I remember when The Pioneer Woman did something similar… so for those of you thinking there’s a book in there waiting to be serialised, check out this post first. Blogging and book writing are very different beasts, best not to confuse the two.

So are you going to blog a book? Delete 45% of your email list? Come up with 500 ideas a week? Or say “screw it, it’s Christmas” and eat a bowl of truffles?

Stacey Roberts is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net: a writer, blogger, and full-time word nerd balancing it all with being a stay-at-home mum. She writes about all this and more at Veggie Mama. Chat with her on Twitter @veggie_mama or be entertained on Facebook. She’s probably eating truffles right now.