New Gig & New Group

I got a new gig this week and I'm so excited. On Monday, I applied to be a blogger for Athens Patch. If you haven't heard of Patch.com it is a community newspaper online. Several communities have them, but not all. People in the community post news items so you can get truly local news. I was accepted. WooHoo!

Monday night I wrote my first article. It was on the book signing I attended at Avid Bookshop on Sunday night. Tuesday morning I pull up Athens Patch, looking forward to seeing my post in the local voices. Lo and behold it was front and center! I so wish I had taken a screen shot, but I was in shock. Anyways, my article was the lead story for a couple of hours. It was late in the day when it finally shifted to the Local Voices column. I'm thrilled it continues to be one of Most Popular Blog Posts.

So that's my new gig. I'm hoping to post there weekly. It will be more focused on bookish news than what I do here on my blog. There are many reasons for writing for my Athens Patch. Mostly, I want to bring more book news and events to my local community. But I think it is also bringing new exposure to my blog. I have a profile over there and traffic has been up this week after a little slump last week.

I hope you will read my posts at Athens Patch.

I've been working with a group of bloggers for the last couple of months. It has been great. We promote each other by tweeting and stumbling, etc. but we also provide support and education. I've learned so much and getting to experiment with things that I couldn't do on my own. Just this week we unveiled our new website and we started a Thursday meme where you can link your favorite post each week. The only rule is not to link a post from your blog. Anyone can participate, even if you don't blog but read great content somewhere feel free to link up. Please stop by Book Bloggers' Collaborative to find great bloggers to follow.

Related articles

• Tips on Thursday: Act Locally (girl-who-reads.com)
• Doing business locally? Share your blog at Patch.com (publicityhound.net)
• Modifying the Rules of PR to Reach Bloggers (contentmarketinginstitute.com)