How does one find blogging partners?

I need a partner

 

My Target Profile

      I will begin this editorial with a story:

      Ever since the very first newspaper was created, publishers have included a "Letters to the Editor" section.  There, readers could write down their thoughts and opinions, and get them out there for everyone else to read. 

      What kind of person writes a letter to the editor?  Well, it would be a news consumer - someone who has an interest in what is going on in the world, and keeps him/herself informed.  Then the writer would have some thoughts and opinions thereof on the event or issue.  And, the person would be ready, willing, and able to take the time and effort to compose content of sufficient quality to make it through the publisher's screening - all for zero pay. 

      This is the target profile of the partner I am seeking for my project.  I know they are out there - in significant quantities, because newspapers today STILL print these letters.

My Project

Three political perspectives

      A decade ago, I conjured up an idea for a web project:  a political blog consisting of opinion articles from multiple perspectives.  The topics would be any current news event or issue, preferably national issues.  There would be the libertarian perspective (that's me, of course) and also articles from the conservative perspective and the liberal/progressive perspective.  The relevant perspective would be clearly labeled.  Authors would be encouraged to use the most persuasive verbiage they can muster to convince readers to see things their way.  I call this "hard-core" politics.  May the most eloquent and persuasive writer draw the greatest number of converts!

      Until the day comes when I have recruited partners to pursue this lofty dream, I instigated the next-best option and created this blog with just ME commenting on the news.  You're reading it now.  As you can see, the content consists of rather short articles - about 800 words each, on average - accompanied by plenty of pictures.  The attempted style is light-hearted, a bit humorous, always entertaining, related to a current event or issue, and always as persuasive as possible. 

      I promoted the blog as best as I could.  Did it take over the Internet by storm and did my articles all become viral?  Well, not exactly.  It would be more accurate to say that nobody outside my immediate mailing list came.  Well, what do you expect?  Single-perspective political blogs, regardless of perspective, exist in the cybersphere by the truckload.  Who cares about some lowly libertarian?

      But if I could create my true target web project, with competing "hard-core" perspectives, what might happen?  Well, nobody can predict the future, and as any entrepreneur knows, every day lots and lots of GREAT ideas fall flat.  At the low end, the project would be a great outlet for guys like me with hard-core political opinions and lots of time on their hands to write them.  At the high end, it could take off, and scores of internet readers would subscribe and visit regularly.  And we could even make some MONEY!

Competition

      What is my competition?  Has anybody else out there put up a blog or website along those lines?  In the process of searching all over the Internet, I reviewed hundreds and hundreds of political blogs and websites.  (Details on how and why to follow.)  All I can say is:  I have not found one like that.  A sizable chunk of political blogs are single-perspective, like mine.  Many, of course, contain opinion articles from a diversity of viewpoints, but I have NEVER come across one where articles are compartmentalized or labeled as "The Conservative Perspective" or "The Liberal Perspective" and so on.

      One possible contender is Left Right News, which makes an effort to identify left-wing versus right-wing reporting.  However, the writing therein is more like "stick-to-the-facts" news reporting, not "hard-core" editorializing.  Also, it exists in a binary left-right universe, with no room for libertarians or any other political viewpoint.

      So working under the assumption that no one has successfully done what I envision, I really want to move forward.  But it cannot happen unless I have partners.  And not only to write articles from their declared perspective, but also to help me promote the blog.

      But how do I find them?  It would be nice if newspapers, in whatever media they exist, would provide contact information on their letter-to-the-editor writers.  But they do not do that.  Furthermore, I'd have to dig thru every newspaper in the nation, which is not practical.

      And that means I must search for blogging partners using the Internet.

 Two Strategies for Internet Searching

 

Searching the 'Net

     Searching for someone via the Net can be broadly divided into two strategies:  Active, and Passive.

      Passive searching means that I go to a website and put up a post, ad, notice, or blurb describing what I'm trying to do - in this case that I am seeking blogging partners.  Then I just sit back and wait till the responses come pouring in.

      I have put passive posts such as this all over the internet, on every social media website you can possibly think of:  Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Redditt, political forums, blogging forums, pen-pal hookup sites, and lord knows how many others.

      Here are my results:

      Zip.  Zilch.  Nada. 

      My target profile person evidently is unlikely to stumble across such a post and respond.

      But there was one exception:   Craigslist 

      Millions of visitors log into Craigslist every day, and absolutely everything there gets attention.  Plus, they had a category which was just what the doctor ordered, called "Community", and therein was a subcategory called "Politics".  So I selected the "Houston" location - nothing special about Houston, other than I happened to live near there - and put up an ad saying I needed political blogging partners.  And lo and behold, someone - a dude identifying himself as a conservative - replied.  Hey, I thought - I have found The Holy Grail !! 

      At this point, let me explain that this search process is a game of numbers.  For every potential blogging partner I may happen to stumble upon, only a small portion of them are likely to sign on in the end.  Once I explain to them that I need an unpaid volunteer who is ready, willing, and able to commit to cranking out political articles on a regular basis, all on the hope that we MIGHT make money some day, most will decide: this is not for me.  And even if I find a volunteer willing to do it, the day will come when they move on to other things, so I need backup writers in the wings.  One single potential respondent is not enough.  I need more.  LOTS more. 

      And I'm not exactly looking for a writer in Houston - rather, I am looking for writers in: the United States.  With that in mind, I copied-and-pasted my Houston-based Craigslist ad over to a handful of other locations around the nation.

      And next thing I knew, Craigslist shut me down!  It seems that they have a strict single-location policy.  If you attempt to post identical (or very similar) ads in multiple locations, that is considered "spamming".  (More on spamming later).  And once they shut me down, I could not communicate with the one dude in Houston who replied.  I lost him.

      Well, no big deal.  Craigslist is not the only free "classified ad" website on the Net.  I found a couple of others who allowed nation-wide ads, and put some blurbs out there.

      Here are my results:

      Zip.  Zilch.  Nada. 

      Evidently, none of these other sites can compete effectively with Craigslist.

      What about Facebook, with all its zillions of members?  Well, I haven't figured out a way to send something to ALL of them.  There evidently is no button whereby I can make EVERY member a "friend".  I joined some groups for politics and blogging, then put posts on each group page saying I need a blogging partner.  I presume these posts are visible to everyone in the group.  But, they quickly scroll further and further down the page as new posts are entered.  And trying to REPEAT a post is spamming.  (More on spamming later.)

      On my next brainstorm for a passive search procedure, I thought about buying paid advertising.  Mind you, my budget for recruiting a blogging partner is a big fat zero.  But let's see if I can find a cheap deal.  First I shot an email to a site called Wake Up To Politics, a non-partisan political news site that has never sold advertising.  I inquired about buying, say, a business-card-sized space on his page.  But got no response.

      Next I did a bit of research into what it would take to BUY some advertising.  I quickly realized that I would be competing against marketers and retailers with goods and services for sale.  It was way too expensive for a non-profit like me with an ad budget of zero.

 

      So much for the passive search strategy.  Let's try an Active search:  that's where I locate and identify specific individuals who fit my profile, and contact them directly, telling them what I'm looking for.  As one might expect, it's a much more labor-intensive process.

Internet troll spamming

      Right off the bat, the biggest obstacle was anti-spamming restrictions.  Previously, when I thought of spamming, I envisioned hackers and phishers and trolls and porn-mongers and other internet trash.  I never considered myself a "spammer".  But if you attempt to use a social media site for other than its intended purpose, such as sending or posting too many identical or similar messages, that is considered "spamming".   (My multiple-location attempt on Craigslist was considered "spamming".)

      Like the newspapers that don't give out letter-writers contact info, no social media site (that I know of) gives out its members' email addresses.  Thus if you want to communicate directly with a member, you must use the site's internal "messaging" feature.  Then the moderators can parse the messages to find spamming violations, and shut you down.

      One potential source that really got my hopes up were the political forums, where members post comments on hot issues.  They had a useful feature whereby you could search members' profiles, which included a declaration of their political lean (conservative, liberal, etc.)  Also, by actually reading their posts, I could evaluate whether they were actually capable of WRITING content, as opposed to just copying-and-pasting.  I found several potential candidates, sent them messages, and actually got some positive responses!  But next thing I knew, the moderators shut me down for spamming, and I lost contact with my respondents.

      Next I tried to find target-profile writers by examining blogs.  The best candidates were small, single-perspective political blogs with relatively low visitor counts.  If I could find an email address, I'd email them.  No anti-spamming risk was involved if I used my own email!  In the most diplomatic terms possible, ask if they (or a colleague) would like to partner with me.  I sent out about a hundred of these.  This process consumed many, MANY man-hours.

      (Side note:  Although such sites exist out on the Web in huge numbers, finding them required some creativity.  You cannot really use a search engine like Google because it ranks them by popularity, and thus the big, established, high-volume, money-making sites all appear first.  Nobody at those businesses could be expected to so much as give me the time of day.) 

      Anyway, here are the results from all that work:

      Zip.  Zilch.  Nada. 

      Actually, a small handful were courteous enough to reply back to say that they were not interested.

Email list

      Another avenue I examined was purchasing an email list, yet another way to avoid anti-spamming problems.  I contacted a vendor to ask what kind of target profile lists were available.  What I hoped for was a list of people who had visited political websites such as the hundreds of them I had visited.  No, I was told, no such email list existed.  But they did have mailing lists of voters and political donors.  After some consideration, I concluded that voters and donors did not make potential blogging partners.  Definitely not worth spending money pursuing.

 

Other ways to scour the Internet

      One of the best ways to figure out almost anything is to go to Google and just type in what you're looking for.  So I entered: "How to find a blogging partner".

      The first search results directed me to several sites designed to hook up publishers looking for writers or writers looking for publishers.  Some of these sites were specific to the journalism and blogging industry, while others were generic "freelance" sites where you could hook up with someone with any skill imaginable.  But all of these sites had one thing in common:  it was all about money and employment.  Sure, I could find oodles of writers out there just chomping at the bit to produce blog content for me, but the first question right off was:  how much will I pay?  Again, my budget for this project is a big fat zero.

      Alternatively, I could put myself out there as a freelance writer.  See "Joining an existing website" below for how that worked out.     

      Another option that appeared in the Google search results was:  "Hire an Internet consultant."  In fact, the word "hire" appeared all over the place.  (Repeat with me:  "Project budget = zero".)  Actually, I did poke around some for an Internet consultant.  I found a guy who would give a free introductory consultation, so I wrote him and explained what I was trying to do, asking if he had any advice.  Naturally, I never heard back, which is not surprising at all, considering that I'm not a businessman with a product to sell.

      Other search results said: "Use social media" (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, etc).  That appeared lots of times.  I already discussed my experiences with that; see above.  Even if I could effectively use social media thusly, let me also point out that the vast majority of posting therein is just copy-and-paste.  Not good odds for identifying writing competency with only that to go on.

      Then there was:  "Inquire within your network."  Hmm.  Problem is, I don't have a "network".  The people who have a "network" of potential political blogging partners are those who are employed in one of these fields:  journalism, academia, government, or law.  I am not now, nor have I ever been employed in any of those fields.  Neither do I have any relatives or acquaintances thereof.

      And finally there was this gem:  "Contact visitors who leave messages on your blog".  Well that would be great if one already had an established blog that got sizable numbers of visitors daily, all logging in and leaving comments.  But it doesn't do a thing for someone trying to get a blog started.

 Joining an Existing Website

       "If you can't beat them, join them!" is an expression we often hear.  So I scoured the Internet for ways that I could become a contributor of editorials on someone else's political blog.

Earn money as a blog writer?

      The first obstacle, right off the bat, was that they all wanted me to send in my resume, listing all my credentials and experience as a writer or journalist.  And how much SALARY I wanted.  Well, as explained above, I have zero credentials in those fields.  Simply having a blog out there that hardly anyone visits doesn't carry much weight.  And I'm not really searching for employment.

       I could go back to one of those "freelance" websites and put myself up as a writer looking for work, requesting only a pittance for pay, or maybe even work for free, just to get some certifiable experience.  But I'd be competing against writers with long resumes full of impressive credentials, so odds of landing anything would again be pretty low.  Besides, even if someone did hire me, I would have to write on a topic of THEIR choosing.  Now we're talking serious WORK here, and if I do that, I need to get paid something worthwhile.  And then I'm back to square one with my lack of experience.

      A small-time political blog, in contrast, would probably not care about credentials.  But here again: the vast majority of them are single-perspective.  A conservative or liberal blog host has no use for libertarian like me.  And as explained above, I've already tried contacting many small-time bloggers trying to sell my project.

      What about joining another libertarian on his/her blog?  Well the whole idea is to have COMPETING perspectives, in order to bring in more readers and grow.  This is not what I am looking for.

      Now, if I could find a website out there that is already doing what I envision - editorials from at least three competing political perspectives - then YES, by all means, I would contact the host and ask to join, and I'd do it for free!  Not having found such a platform is, however, a double-edged sword:  no apparent competition, should I be successful some day in launching my project.  But also: no backup option.

 An Act of Desperation

      One final option I considered was making up phony bios for a pair of fictional partners, all in a desperate attempt to "jump-start" my project and attract some REAL partners.  Yeah, I could write a conservative article and a liberal article, and make them sound authentic. 

      The problem here, never mind the deception, would be keeping it up.  Political articles must be timely in order to be relevant.  Writing a single pair of articles is one thing, but having to continuously crank out that garbage, in the hopes of someday attracting someone, is simply not doable. 

       And so, dear readers, there you have it:  a great idea for a website with potential to take the Internet by storm.  But I can't do it alone.  And I am totally out of ideas at this point.  Somebody out there must know somebody out there you can send my way.  Help!