The moment has come: You have done everything you should have (meaning, you followed my explicit written directions down to the letter and you have written great sample blogs) and luckily for you, your chosen topic was open and needed a new blogger covering it. You get the magical e-mail from Lisa–you have been hired!
What now you ask? Easy! First and foremost, you read the Blogging Handbook that Lisa will send to you via e-mail, from cover to cover. When you first open up the .pdf file, I’m sure you’ll gulp like I did: That handbook is 118 pages long. Unfortunately, I don’t know anyway of learning what is in there without actually reading it. I have tried laying my head down on top of a book to learn via osmosis, and thus far, it hasn’t worked. If anyone ever does have success learning that way, please holler; I want to hear about it.
Once you have made it through the Handbook (and considering it’s a handbook, I was actually pleasantly surprised at how easy and interesting it was–much preferable over the other manuals I’ve read in my life, like how to operate my toaster) and follow the directions inside of it, you should be ready to post blogs. She covers everything from beginning to end–how to register, where to go, how to link pictures, how to link websites–so by the end, you should be ready to go to work. The problem is, Lisa will usually give you a beginning date to start blogging, and it rarely that day or the next. It is usually one week from the “You’re hired!” e-mail, and can even be up to a month later. She doesn’t take kindly to you posting before your official start date (everyone say “Duh!” all together) but the great news is, you don’t have to be able to post the blogs in order to write them. This time period between the hiring and the actual start date is a great time to get a head start on the blogs themselves. Remember, Lisa likes blogs written in advance and postdated, so this lead time gives you enough time to stockpile some blogs for just this purpose.
Worried about having enough ideas? Check out my blog tomorrow for suggestions on how to come up with ideas for your topic, something almost every blogger worries about at some time or another. Good luck, and congratulations on the new job!