If you’re a regular reader you probably know I’m a big advocate of using pen names. Whether it’s to fulfill people’s impression of who a blogging author might be, or building a more intriguing “character” , if it makes it more interesting, I just do it. You may also remember my post When A Pen Name Backfires where this actually caught up with me and I lost an opportunity to get some free publicity for one of my blogs. I’m not sure what is about that blog but it’s really good at getting attention.
First of all it’s a product blog, saturated with contextual advertising and blatant affiliate links. It’s not some secret undiscovered niche, it’s really fairly well covered. In fact the idea isn’t even original, I found a link in someone’s Digital Point signature checked it out, took the concept gave it my own look and feel and ran with it. In all honesty it’s really not that great a blog, in fact the weblog review gave it a 1 out 10. It only got the 1 because it is updated every day. It’s not even profitable it’s made less than $100 in 6 months.
Here’s the strange part it’s my only blog that has ever spawned a media request for an interview. It’s my only blog where articles I’ve submitted to submission sites have gotten handwritten emails asking for more articles (yes I can tell hand written request from an auto generated one). It’s my only blog that has people using the syndicated articles writing and asking me for more. Here’s the kicker, last week I got an email from a Woman’s magazine that is starting a new blog on line and is looking for guest authors to write one or two columns a month. It’s not Cosmo, Lucky, or InStyle, but it is still a magazine I’ve heard of and seen on the newsstands. Really makes me wonder what it is about that blog that attracts so much attention.