Barefoot Bloggers: Write to Save the Planet

Introduction

Barefoot Bloggers

Write to Save the Planet

By: Karin Kloosterman

Published by Green Prophet Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Karin Kloosterman

ISBN 978-0-9878365-0-2

This ebook is licensed for single use only.

Contact Green Prophet Press publish@greenprophet.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author/s.

BAREFOOT BLOGGERS - INTRODUCTION

Words connect people across our global village in powerful ways. When applied to solving environmental problems, they can translate cultural values, tell stories of hope, kickstart kick-ass business ventures, and mobilize green foot soldiers for change.

If you are passionate about the environment, and want to accelerate the exchange of information, and the impact of change, this guide is for you. It can help you grow sustainable businesses using new and rapid communication tools to help you put out PR fires. You can use it to start your own personal green blog, or to launch your career in green business blogging. It covers the gamut. Drawing on the talents of the world’s best green bloggers, from my own blog Green Prophet to the Sierra Club, Greentech Media, and Treehugger, this group of 10 writers will guide you through the 1-2-3s for writing to a green-inclined audience.

This guide is your private coach and it will turn you into a champion writer for the environment. Think of our writers as your personal green writing coaches –– cheering you on and pointing out tips that can help you leap over the blocks we have stumbled across through the years.

Following this guide might even help you make money doing what you like to do best so you too can work barefooted like many of us do. Barefoot Bloggers covers ways to make money; there are tips on how to write for search engine optimization, how to approach celebrities for interviews, and how to find ideas when you are really stuck. Finally, since me and writers at Green Prophet cover the unique religion aspect of environmental issues in the Middle East, we thought to include essays on writing for the faithful –– including eco-tips on Islam, Judaism, Christianity and more.

Because each writer featured in this guide has a world of tips and experience to offer, follow each word and learn from the experts: think of following these chapters as a process which will teach you the range of blogging styles, from business writing, to writing for non-profits. We can even help you transition from blogging to mainstream journalism if that’s the path you want to take.

Through this guide, we will go on a journey––using the self-hosted blog platform as the perfect tool for self-publishing environmental stories.

And of course for creating environmental action and change.

Karin Kloosterman, Editor of Green Prophet

Forward

By William E. Swing

As someone who is a beginning blogger and who sometimes writes about the environment, I was amazed at the breadth and depth of helpful information available to me in this book. And plenty of encouragement as well!

But the most profound surprise came in the book’s approach to religions for example the chapter on Green Blogging Guide on Islam. –– writing about or for a Muslim audience. I have been ordained for fifty years and have witnessed close up the ways that people of one religion tend to describe people of other religions. Most times, original source material has not been read, accuracy has not been prized, and sensitivity has given way to intemperate generalizations.

Show a little respect and do your homework are major themes of this book.

In addition Kloosterman and her guest authors provide avenues to Green Muslim sites and a recommended reading list.

Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Navajos, and Zoroastrians are given quality attention as well for their acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of life. Usual books about comparative religions seem kind of sterile when compared to this book's singular and passionate approach of seeing faiths through a natural lens.

Were I a professor of religions looking for a text book for my class, I wouldn't hesitate to choose Barefoot Bloggers even if it wasn't written for that purpose. While being a resource and a cheerleader for neophyte bloggers, Kloosterman has also fashioned a green course into the mysteries of most major religions. Perhaps she is barefoot because she has taken her shoes off in a gesture of reverence.

By Rt. Rev, William E. Swing, President, United Religions Initiative

Retired, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of California

The Basics to Barefoot Blogging

You’ve been thinking about it for a while. Now is the time to untie your shoe laces and take off your socks...in this chapter we are going to go on a quick tour of setting up a blog, and how to get started on your writing.

It seems like everyone on this planet has a blog. Some are great and most others start with a great idea, and then fall the way of the hobby blogger: the blog begins full of enthusiasm and then peters out. Rather than lose momentum for your cause or project, I want you to think of blogging not as a hobby, but something you will do full of passion and professionalism. When people ask you what you do, include green blogger as part of your resume.

Blogging software, we should remember, is just a tool like email, the Internet, and your computer. With the free blog software from Wordpress.com, which is open-source, or the free software offered by Blogger.com (owned by Google) you can be an environmental blogger and news maker before finishing the end of this chapter.

It’s that easy, and fast.

But I suggest you put just a little thought and planning into your process before you launch. Not too much and don’t worry, you can change your course of action even after you’ve started.

By the end of this guide, my aim is to turn you into a professional first-rate environment blogger, or blogger with green-inclined readers in mind. If at any time in this process you have material to share with me, please send me a line with some links to your work at karin@greenprophet.com, and I will be happy to give you a quick evaluation.

Now, let’s look at the tools you will need to start blogging.

Checklist:

Laptop, iPad or smartphone for writing

An Internet connection (high speed preferable)

Digital camera or phone camera

Server for hosted solution if you choose wordpress.org.

A URL name (for self-hosted version)

Time, enthusiasm, ideas

A laptop, iPad, or desktop PC at home are the basics. You might consider blogging at an Internet cafe or public library if you are concerned about your safety or protecting your identity. There are tools you can find which will let you blog from your cell phone, but over time it will be difficult to engage with an audience readily using a cell phone unless you have an iPhone or something similar. A digital camera is always good for helping you upload your own images and to avoid copyright issues, and if you want to upload videos, buy one with an high density video function.

While there are dozens, hundreds, possibly even thousands of sites that will let you start a blog or web journal for free, I suggest going the self-hosted route because in the long-run it will give you more flexibility and control over your content, and it will give you options on monitizing your content later on. There is nothing wrong with making money at what you do, and we will explore more on that in later chapters. If you are writing a blog for an existing organization, ask the tech person managing the existing website to help you link your blog through the main website. It is not professional for an established NGO or green business to use a free blogging hosting service.

The difference would look like this:

www.greenprophet.com

www.blogger.greenprophet.com

It looks more professional to have your name only in the URL, wouldn’t you agree? If you approach your blog as a professional outlet from the outset, chances are other people reading it will treat it that way too.

You can find many books on how to use wordpress.org, the self-hosted version of the software. You can find most of the resources you’ll need online, and for free. This guide isn’t going to give you all that technical know how. However, once your blog is set up, it’s a pretty easy tool to navigate, even for those with very little technical experience.

Dazzling from Day One

If you think blogs can’t look professional, go ahead and look at the Wordpress Showcase to see other sites like the Harvard Gazette a news site, which uses the blog platform as a content management system. I am a fan of Wordpress because it’s open-source, free, always updating, and has a very easy to use, and customizable interface, which will be important for you as your blog grows, along with your technical knowledge. It’s always handy to have a go-to tech person at hand should something go terribly wrong though.

The question comes up about finding a hosting provider, the server upon which your blog will live on. Choose your first server wisely, simply because it’s not always easy changing servers. When we first started Green Prophet I really wanted it to be on a server that runs on renewable energy. We found a company in the United States running on wind. Every couple of days after our traffic would spike, our site would shut down. It was gone with the wind, apparently. But this blip affected our growth, and Search Engine Optimization.

The company just couldn’t provide us enough juice on a shared hosting space. There was no choice but to go the conventional route. In the end we found a company that didn’t advertise itself as a green server, but which does use renewable energy –– since it is based in Texas where wind power is proliferating. The choice is up to you.

My advice is to find a company that has good customer service so that if your site crashes during a high point in your career (and hopefully it will from traffic overload!), you’ll have a partner to speak with and work with to get it back up and running quickly.

Like I said earlier, writing on a blog publishing tool like Wordpress requires a little technical know-how. Not a lot, and certainly technology natives born into the age of the Internet should navigate through the technical aspects quickly. You’ll learn as you go, and get better all the time. Don’t be stuck on the details of making your post look perfect. Most important is that the text is well written. Since this guide is intended to be a resource on writing, I am only going to touch on the technical side of blogging.

Most challenges you will come across will have a solution. And as someone who’s been blogging for more than a few years already, I can say that the journey uphill is steep but levels off pretty quickly over the first few weeks.

When I first started