( Joodie Shy )

As I proclaimed on July 1st, I would be practicing a NaBloPoMo (or National Blog Posting Month) and I spent the next 30 (or so) days attempting to post something daily. Occasionally I followed along with their suggested prompts, other times I had feature story ideas of my own. Overall, the experiment went great! I’ve found 30 days to be a very magic number for me. Which bring me to the month of August. Another month. 31 days of opportunity… (And an extra day for some magic making!?)

August is my experimental Niche Topic Blogging Month. In many ways it’s quite similar to the concepts of NaBloPoMo:

Pick a topic for a month. Write one post every day relating to your topic. Deepen your relationship with your writing and your audience.

The only difference for my experiment is that I get to choose the topic and address it from any angle I want. Also, a daily post is not required. Now, this is definitely something you can participate in as well. The goal is to focus your writing, learn your audience, and learn what works (and what doesn’t). Many blogs begin with a clear niche they’ve carved out and fit neatly in to. I, however, have always preferred a more organic style of blogging. You can cultivate a better relationship with a blogger if what they’re writing about also, directly relates to their personal lives, values, and changes.

This creates my favorite types of blogs.
Case Study: See Gala Darling, a woman who writes in general on the topic of fashion, self improvement, confidence, and courageous living (among other things). Does her blog fit easily into a niche? Not exactly. Her posts always reflect her current adventures (international playgirls are busy), the changes going on (new man, new dog), as well as her own personal transformation (learning how to deal with money)… You know, the stuff that’s not included in our how-to-live manuals that come out at birth (wait, we don’t have those? oh…)

So in a sense her personality is her niche. Her style is her niche. But will you find your name listed in a blog directory category listing? No. So how do you then market your writing? … And the experiment was born…

• I will be spending this Niche Topic Blogging Month (NiToBloMo?) of August writing about transformative travel and change that occurs during a brand new travel adventure.

There are no fancy badges or applications to fill out. This is simply a writing experiment for my blog. So look forward to 30 (or so) days of great, focused writing on traveling, packing, planning, changing, preparing, fearing, and experimenting.

This perfectly relates to my current situation, while at the same time focusing on the core propelling it all forward, travel. My niche for the month!

Tags: change, learning, Travel, writing