blogging

How to Choose a Blog Topic

Black Bloggers United #PowerHour is finally in Birmingham!

The highlight of my Saturday this past weekend was attending the first Black Bloggers United Power Hour event to be held in Birmingham.

Black Bloggers United, an organization dedicated to enhancing and highlighting black content creators, hosts monthly blogger meet-ups in cities across the country with the help of regional directors. (You can read my interview with BBU Birmingham regional director Keoshia Kyneard of BusyDoingMe.com here.)

Chatting with local bloggers over my favorite Starbucks tea reminded me why I love blogging so much in the first place — community. Writing can be a very lonely art, but through blogging communities, both local and national, we writers can find our tribe.

Some of the ladies who attended Saturday’s meet-up had yet to start their blogs. I couldn’t help but put on my coaching hat and try to figure out what was holding them back. They all had the same answer: “I want to write about too many things!”

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Black Bloggers United is coming to Birmingham

Black Bloggers United, an organization dedicated to enhancing and highlighting black content creators, is hosting its Power Hour event in Birmingham for the first time on Saturday, April 15.

The #bbupowerhour meet-up is scheduled to be held from noon to 2 p.m. at the Starbucks located at 1927 11th Ave South.

Founded by blogger and event planner Victoria Mason, Black Bloggers United began in February of 2015 as an Instagram account and has since grown into an international movement hosting webinars, monthly chats, local workshops and more with members in over 70 countries and eight regional directors in North America.

I recently had a chat with Birmingham-based blogger and vlogger Keoshia Kyneard of BusyDoingMe.com, who serves as the BBU Birmingham regional director.

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How to Host a Virtual Summit

Last month I hosted the first See Jane Write Virtual Summit featuring live online Q&A sessions with 8 female writers and bloggers with noteworthy accomplishments to their name. During the summit, attendees learned how to build a tribe to support their blog, books, and other writing projects; how to work with brands as a blogger; how to start a freelance writing career; how to market and build buzz for their blog, book, or brand; how to use writing to discover their authentic selves; the art of personal blogging; how to lead a group book project; and how to use their blog to write and publish their first book.

I decided last fall that I wanted to host a virtual summit but it took me several months to finally pull it off because I kept making excuses. I don’t have the time, I told myself. I don’t have the money, I said. But eventually I looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Javacia, you can either make excuses or make a difference. But you can’t do both.”

So I got to work. Still a journalist at heart, I started by asking myself the 5Ws and H.

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What See Jane Write Members Wrote This Month

Tyece Wilkins of Twenties Unscripted once said, “Your core relies on your outer tribe and your inner scribe.”

And y’all know I live by the Danielle LaPorte mantra, “Find your tribe. Love them hard.”

My tribe keeps me going in part because they keep going — and keep wrting. I try to set aside time at least once a week to scroll through the See Jane Write Facebook group and read the blog posts, articles and poems See Jane Write members are writing.

Here’s a look at some of my favorite pieces my Janes published this month:

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Personal Branding Tips for Writers

Chances are you hate to hear the words, “You need to build your brand.” Thinking of yourself as a brand may feel gross or even wrong. But it’s not. Building a personal brand simply means defining and clearly conveying what you’re all about — who you are, what you do, and why you do it. 

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