This wiki page contains notes from the Edinburgh Beltane breakfast session with authors David Shenk and Ken MacLeod, plus some pointers to interesting web articles.

Please note: The notes are my personal record of the event, it is not a transcript!

Please feel free to add your tips, or links to other articles, on this page!

Top tips for blogging (taken from the presentation)

• Jump in and get started- it only takes 5 minutes to set up a blog, most of the ‘big blogging names’ started off unknown and built their reputation through writing compelling stuff! And practise makes perfect, your blog posts will get better with time.
• Keep an eye on comments- instant feedback is great (and can be formative), but make sure they’re respectful! And keep your blog spam-free to earn respect from fellow bloggers.
• Be bold- networking online is just like real life. You have to introduce yourself and let people know why they should be interested in you. And you can return the favour by commenting/complimenting, or adding blogs you admire to your ‘blogroll’
• Gain and keep credibility. That means posting regularly, and not compromising quality- if you don’t have time to carefully craft a post, include your thoughts about another blog/article. And definitely don’t delete anything you later decide is rubbish- own up and post an amendment, or face losing your integrity in the blogging world!

Our picks for informative Blogging articles

How to write great blog content
http://www.problogger.net/how-to-write-great-blog-content/
How to write Killer Blog posts and more compelling comments
http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/killer-blog-posts.shtml

Notes from the presentation

About the authors

David Shenk is a writer based in New York. He has 6 non-fiction books to his name, and has been blogging for 3 years.
He began blogging whilst researching his latest book, ‘The Genius in All of Us’, which questions the idea of ‘innate ability’ and lays out evidence for development as a dynamic process with many factors aside genetics contributing to intelligence and other traits.
He wanted to share his learning experience with the public, and the ‘push back’ from other opinions. His writing is even better with “a vigorous response”.

Ken Macleod is a Scottish science-fiction writer who started off as a scientist, before moving into computers and IT.
His first book was published in 1995, and with his second contract he was able to move from the ‘highly paid word of IT to the desperately pressurised world of professional writing’.
He started blogging, like many, as a place to vent his views on politics. He found that he naturally gravitated towards blogs talking about his interests, including science literature.
He acquired a position as ‘writer in residence’ at the ESRC genomics forum, a small social science network which aims to pull research together and digest it into an understandable format for ‘policy makers, agitators and the general public’. A main focus is cultural engagement as a means to disseminate the research, and they have had considerable success in engaging the Edinburgh literary community.
For example, packaging the research on DNA under a ‘forensic science’ label means they could get writers such as Ian Rankin involved in high-profile events which attract large audiences.

There was a brief discussion about the phenomenon of blogs.
There is an ‘ecosphere’ in the online community featuring large clumps/clades of blogs surrounding social sciences and ‘hard’ sciences. They began as a spin off from a print magazine, ‘Seed’, which eventually shrivelled and disappeared, while blogs exploded!
The community is also prone to sudden collapse and almost imploded when Pepsi started two ‘science blogs’ which essentially consisted of PR for Pepsi, there was a great uproar and lots of scientists left the community.

Some blogs are massively successful and attract many thousands of visitors. PZ Myers, a developmental and evolutionary biologist, posts his controversial (‘militantly atheist and militantly liberal’) views on peer-reviewed science attracting a huge following and sparking hundreds of comments. There is a large community who argue, agree and disagree vicariously with his views.

A quick poll of the room showed that a ‘significant minority’ already blogged, and around half the room are interested in starting.

David
Blogging is a very welcome new world in science communication, a great way for really interesting people to get their views out. There is an informality, a freedom (no word limit/minimum) and there is the feeling that your words can really mean something to somebody.
Some blog posts invite discourse, and you can invite other authors into a ‘back and forth’ dialogue which you don’t see in standard publications.

Ken
Likened this to the beginning days of print when ongoing conversations were featured in print, until it changed to the press as we know it today.
Blogging is also misrepresented by mainstream journalism, who refer to ‘bloggers’ when they actually mean ‘people who write anonymous comments under blog posts’. These individuals are neither representative of bloggers, or people writing comments on a well-managed blog.

Keep an eye on ‘spam bots’ and spam posts. Bloggers should be ruthless with spam, abusive comments or other comments that derail a conversation.

David
Advised that he dealt with a situation of abusive comments by addressing it in a post, advising that he would not screen for negative or positive attitudes (in fact he would invite criticism), but that he would be screening for politeness. The situation was resolved as his critics remained negative but framed this in polite comments.

Q: How do you get started and does it take a long time to blog?
Ken
Blogspot and Blogger are examples of websites which are completely free, you select a template and start.
David
Suggested Typesetter and Wordpress also- the free services deliver a perfectly respectable blog. There are built-in features, such as a check box which you can tick to publicize your blog in many ways. In fact, it’s so easy that bloggers should exercise caution- people will be reading you!
Ken
Initially approved every comment but found this really slowed the conversation down. There are options to receive emails about comments being received. A blog can take up as much time as you want!
David
Regarding the actual posts, they can take a long time- if they are to be accurate, say what they’re supposed to and the author can look back and be proud of the post. Writing well takes time, but is a good opportunity to thrash out ideas and get instant feedback. When time is short, blog posts tend to suffer and become shorter!
Ken
Agreed that blog posts are shorter when there are more distractions, but you discover abilities by exercising them.
Oh, and never blog when drunk is sound advice… apparently!

Q: Do you get any monetary gain from advertising, or any other means, on your blog?
Ken
Has not set up this feature and hardly notices adverts on other people’s blogs. There are Google ads which some people make money from. A lot of people just enjoy the ancillary benefit of self-promotion i.e. linking to nice reviews, upcoming events etc.

Q: Published authors have an established reader base to link to which is a good starting point. How does everyone else ‘drum up trade’, publicize aspects of research and pick up interested readers?
David
Writing is a rewarding process, but writing a blog you don’t feel is being read is a ‘time sponge’.
Authors don’t necessarily have an advantage- it’s all about connections and getting talked about. You mention other blogs in your blog, you get mentioned in theirs. People have to link to you, talk to you and talk about you.
Most people already have an online presence nowadays. You have to network in the virtual world. If they have blogs, point them to what you are doing. There are also ‘blog rolls’ where you can add blogs you admire- either because you genuinely admire them, or in a ‘quid-pro-quo’ basis where they list your blog on their site.

The bad news is it is difficult to get noticed amongst so many other blogs!
The good news is, most major bloggers started off as ‘unknowns’. People who write really interesting, compelling blogs create a buzz, get noticed and attract enormous audiences.

Ken
Clicking ‘publicize’ options will ensure your blog appears in search engine results. Google has an option for searching blog posts.
Also, researchers will be known to people in their field. Connect to these people in the online world.

David
Don’t be shy about sending an email/message saying ‘I admire your work’ and directing them to yours, or sending someone a blog post you think they would find particularly interesting.

Q: How do you evaluate the reliability of information on a blog?
David
There are not the layers of trust associated with a traditional newspaper or magazing, where you trust the editors judgement in filtering out junk.
The internet is an ‘anarchic frontier’, but there are clues like the institution a blogger is connected to, the links they have made and the style of the blog post. If a post doesn’t make sense or contains obvious mistakes, people quickly start to ignore it.

Q: Are you concerned about making your blog accessible to a wide audience, or do you write for a niche audience?
David
Believes in the widest possible audience. As an ‘ambassador’ for science to the general public, he feels it’s his job to ask the ‘stupid or embarrassing questions’, understand the answer and construct a blog post which is suitable for his 13-year-old daughter and anyone else.
Ken
Writes for readers with similar views to his own, and is not attempting to reach a massively wide audience.

Q: How concerned are you with originality, and making each post sufficiently original? Do you use other social media platforms, and how do you avoid repeating content online?
David
Tries to make an original point in everything he writes. In the case of insufficient material, he will comment on another blog post he admires.

Ken
Recycles old articles to scavenge as blog posts. If an article is several years old and ‘gathering dust’, he will jazz it up and post online to increase the circulation and awareness.

David
Is not a ‘Twitter master’, but will tweet about an upcoming talk and post on facebook. Self-promotion is all about repeating information in as many networks as possible, and at the heart of the matter, and author should be proud of his work and want to get it out there!

Q: The themes and benefits I’ve noticed are: Self-expression, critiques and self-promotion. Have I missed any?

David
Communication through words is very special. There is the potential to reach many people OR a small number of exactly the right people you want to reach. It’s staggeringly quick to do this!

Q: There is a difference in credibility between blogging as ‘The Head of Department at MIT’ and ‘Bob the unknown’. What are you allowed to say as the representative of an institution?

David
There is a reputation between an institution name which carries weight, but bloggers rarely write on behalf of an institution. Formally, and presumably legally, the words are your own and not representative of the institution.

Ken
Remember that anything stupid, foolish or misguided you say will last as long as civilisation.

David
There is an ethic that a blogger leaves everything online, even if you later decide it is idiotic or embarrassing. The etiquette is that you update, acknowledge that you said it, and clearly show the mistake and process.
Ken
This seems to have spontaneously arisen as this is what admired bloggers did. Sneaky changes can trash your credibility.

Q: What do you think about blogging ideas or results which are not peer reviewed? Would you recommend publishing or will people pinch ideas?

David
There are different minds. It can be good to get your name associated with ideas as early as possible. People will know you were blogging about it first, and you can always go back and demonstrate your post and there’s a clear time stamp to show your ideas.
That said… people can rip it off, and publishers are very reticent about authors blogging about book ideas.

Q: Has blogging changed your writing or liberated you?
David
It is liberating to reach so many people so quickly. Newspapers used to be considered quick! It does come with some new dangers- there is a temptation to get ideas out there ASAP- which can lead to sloppiness. ‘I’m glad it exists as one of many fora to have a conversation and share ideas’.

Summary
David
A blog as a first publishing experience can sometimes feel like there is no effect/readership. But you can quite often have an effect without realising it, it may take a long time or you may never find out- but if what you write means something to you, then the chances are it means something to someone else.

Ken
‘In the words of Terry Wogan, an occasional email floods in!’ And you realise you’ve sparked an interest, which has led someone to investigate more and eventually pursue a degree in political science. And sometimes you see your comments posted elsewhere online, to your credit (or embarrassment!).
Any practice improves your writing skills, and I especially found that my style got clearer and simpler over time as I stopped emulating the people I admired and developed my own signature. There is a self-education process and your blog posts will improve over time.
In the words of poet Mike Ford: “Say what you mean, bear witness and iterate”.

Blogs mentioned in this session

• David Shenk @ The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/david_shenk/
• David’s blog (http://geniusblog.davidshenk.com/)
• Ken MacLeod’s blog (http://kenmacleod.blogspot.com/)
• PZ Myers ‘Pharyngula’ blog (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/)
• Highly Allochtonous- A geoscience blog from Edinburgh (http://all-geo.org/highlyallochthonous/)
• Why Evolution is True (http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/)
• “Real climate – Climate science from climate scientists” (http://www.realclimate.org/) vs. “Watt’s Up With That – A climate contrarian blog” http://wattsupwiththat.com/