I was recently asked to blog about single life for PsychCentral. I think I have quite enough outlets for my blogging. “Living Single” over at Psych Today has been my primary blogging site for a while now. I also have this blog, “All Things Single (and More).” In addition, I post occasionally at the Huffington Post.
I am, though, always interested in reaching new readers, so the PsychCentral opportunity was appealing for that reason. And, truth be told, the offer was attractive in another way – they claim to pay more than the small token payments I get from Psych Today. Because I don’t have a regular paycheck, a new source of income for doing something I love is always welcome.
I decided to try out the PsychCentral possibility for three months to see if I like it. You will not be surprised by the name of this new blog – it is “Single at Heart”! In the first few posts, I’ll be introducing myself and my approach, so readers of my other blogs will probably not find much new at first. But then I’ll be off and running.
Below, I’ll describe what I plan to do at each of my blogs. All of them (except for the one from the Huffington Post) will feed into the new site, coming very soon, that will aggregate feeds from several dozen bloggers who write about single life. I don’t count the new site as a new blog, because neither I nor anyone else will be writing posts just for that site. Instead, existing singles blogs will feed into that site.
#1
“Single at Heart” at PsychCentral
The posts at this new blog will be devoted entirely to single life. The themes will be very similar to the ones I write about at “Living Single” at Psychology Today, except that Psychology Today, I occasionally include posts about other topics such as deception. Also, there will be fewer very long posts at this new PsychCentral blog. During the three-month trial period (October through December, 2011), I’ll post there an average of twice a week.
#2
“Living Single” at Psychology Today
Everything will continue as usual at “Living Single” except that I will post a little less often than usual – probably about once a week. If I like my experience writing the “Single at Heart” blog at PsychCentral – so, if it really does draw in some new readers and if it really does pay more than Psych Today – then I will continue to post more often there than at Psych Today. Even at a reduced rate of posting, I hope to continue my “Living Single” blog for a long time.
#3
“All Things Single (and More)” here at BellaDePaulo.com
I think of this as the most personal of all of the blog sites. I mean that in two senses. First, I sometimes share more personal thoughts and experiences here than I do elsewhere. Also, the blog is totally under my control.
Not everything I post here is personal. Sometimes I use this space when I’m already posting quite often at Psych Today and I don’t think I should dominate that space too much. Sometimes I just have something quick I want to mention. Other times, I want to post on topics other than single life.
I don’t try to maintain any regular schedule of posting here. I just post when I have something to say. I also like to use this blog to feature guest posts, though I also do a bit of that at Psych Today as well.
#4
My contributions to the Huffington Post
I’m ambivalent about the Huffington Post and write for them less often than I used to. I’m among the many bloggers who are unhappy that Arianna Huffington now makes huge amounts of money on the site but pays her bloggers nothing.
The logistics of posting have also changed since the site merged with AOL. It used to be that whatever I posted would appear immediately, exactly as I wrote it and under the title I submitted. Now the posts are moderated. Some are sent immediately to individual bloggers’ archives, meaning they never appear on any of the pages. Sometimes the posts do appear on one of the pages, but not until days after they were submitted. Usually, the titles are changed. I like that when the new title is an improvement, but some are not. There is some light editing as well; so far, that’s been fine.
When something does get posted on one of the Huffington Post pages – especially if it gets posted in a prominent position – the reach is amazing. I can’t get exact numbers of page views, but when I type in my name in the Blogs section of Google, my posts from Huffington almost always come out on top, even when they are considerably older than my posts that appeared elsewhere. That’s worth something when you are trying to raise consciousness, but I’d still like to be paid!
