The Best Daddy Blogger Ever

My friend Keith of Almighty Dad has issued a call to all of the Daddy Bloggers.  He is working on a post in which he is going to rank all of the dad blogs so that he can come up with the top dad blogger. It is a great gimmick and something that I am sure will generate quite a bit of traffic for him. People like awards and they like notoriety so these types of posts are an easy way to garner attention.

Now before people go off half cocked about this or suggest that I am trying to wreak havoc let me clarify a few things. I think that Keith is one of the most genuine bloggers I have ever encountered. He works hard and he is authentic. Those are qualities that I don’t see in every blogger. Those are qualities that I wish I did see in more bloggers.

He has real content. He doesn’t fill his blog with endless giveaways and contests. He and I don’t see eye to eye on many things. There are more than a few posts where we have been diametrically opposed or close to it, but that never hampers our friendship. I won’t lie and say that we are anything but online friends because that is all we are. Maybe it could be more, but I don’t get paid for speculation. I just know that I appreciate his being a straight shooter and mature enough not to take disagreement personally. So I wish him much success with this.

I don’t expect to be highly ranked on his list. It is not because I just moved from Blogger to WordPress, although my stats have taken a hit. Nor is it because this isn’t a post where I try to suck up to him. Besides, that wouldn’t matter. I say this because from a honest evaluation of my blog versus others I don’t have the same numbers. I don’t have the same traffic levels, I don’t have a huge Facebook fan club or enormous Twitter numbers. Nor do I get the number of comments that some others do.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t see myself as being devoid of social media influence. I have quite a bit. I know an awful lot about how this all works and there is a lot that I could do to build things more quickly around here. I am not ignoring the value of Self Promotion or other challenges that come with blogging. There is a reason why I write about The Problems with Blogging. I like this medium. I am not blowing smoke when I say that you can Be A Better Parent Through Blogging.

There is not a day that goes by where I don’t think about ways to improve my blog. I want to do a better job of promoting my best content. My About page is constantly evolving so that it contains links to some of those posts that people love. I have a growing list of places that I guest blog for. I can also say that blogging has led to a number of paid writing gigs. I use Sponsored Tweets to earn money on Twitter.

But I do a lot of unconventional things here. I am prolific and have been known to go on posting tears producing anywhere from 3-8 posts a day. Some experts claim that people don’t have the time, inclination or patience to read more than a short post of around 500 words. I exceed that consistently. I don’t stick to just one topic. You’ll find a lot about parenting here or me talking about a favorite toy. You’ll find fiction and all sorts of other stuff floating around here.

So I suppose that some of the experts will say that I am sabotaging my efforts. They’ll be able to give you a list of things that I am not doing as effectively as I could be and that may be true. But I have no intention of changing my style, at least not without significant financial compensation and even then it is questionable. The loyal readership comes here because they identify and or enjoy this place. They know that I am particular kind of crazy. Not everyone will like or appreciate me and that is fine.

TheJackB is my online home. It is a cafe and a bar. It is a therapist’s office, an orchestra pit, a symphony and a garage. It is a zoo and a theater. It is a million different things and none. And as I repeat often, it is the platform that I am using to promote myself and my services. It is a virtual sandbox that just might serve as the training grounds for the project/job/story that makes me enormously wealthy or at least comfortable.

Whatever it is, it makes me happy and that is something that is invaluable. Where I come from that is enough to make me The Best Daddy Blogger Ever and that is pretty cool.  Stick around for a while because the fun is just getting started.