No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog

Little Book with Big Blogging Ideas

I was in the mood for a book on blogging, and after finding this title on Tom "Duffbert" Duff's site, decided to give it a read.

Contents:
Fifteen Minutes to Fame
Thirty Minutes Away from the TV
An Hour at the Screen
Take Your Time
Think Like a Writer

This is not one of those "how to create a blog" books. "Nobody Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog," by Margaret Mason, is a book that will provide you with some excellent ideas for content. Each chapter consists of about 20 ideas for a blog entry. If you suffer from writers block or have no idea what to write, this book will provide you with some ideas. As you may gather from the contents list, each chapter will require a little more time than the preceding one. "Fifteen Minutes to Fame" includes a topic that will get you away from the computer - your family. Spend some time with them and you will come away with a blog topic. Specifically, the author recommends that you spend time with your children, as they will provide you with some great material. I have already put this one to use, when I blogged about losing a tooth. The section, "Take Your Time," is at the other end of the spectrum. In this chapter, Mason recounts some blogs that require thought and time, such as one where you post a picture of everything you eat for a week/month/year. Even those midnight snacks. Somewhere between these two extremes, she asks you to provide some item that will date you - like posting your high school senior picture. Sure, we may all laugh at it, but the result is that you may get others to do the same and you will definitely get some comments. And we will be back to see what other embarrassing thing you may have for us.

The book is a quick read, at only 128 pages, but you walk away with some thoughts for blog posts. Some may not suit you or your blog, but they are entertaining reads, nonetheless. If you haven't posted something in quite a while, want to jump start your blog, or are lacking for ideas, this book will get those creative juices flowing.

Case in point: She recommends taking pictures of items in your closet. I took her advice and shot that picture of a Lotus Collection sweatshirt and wrote about the memories that it invoked in me. It was a fun post, as you don't know that trouble that I went to, to get a good picture (it could be better still). And then when it came to writing the post, that I was amazed at how much I was able to recall. I am now looking through some other closets for similar stories.

I will keep this book close by, for those times when I am hard pressed to write about something. Not everyone will be able to use every idea in this book, but they do help you to put more of a personal touch to your writing and to your blog. Hopefully, you will post more and not let your blog become stagnant or stale.

I've already taken some of her advice. :-)

DON"T BUY BEFORE READING THIS!!!

Hi Folks,

I went to pick up this book from the Public Library. I expected to get tricks and techniques about blogging.... None of that.... This is a slim book and most pages have content on half the pages only. I could tolerate this lack of quantity if at least the quality was there. Not the case at all. It is a good book if you have some cash to throw down the toilet and if you like "streams of consciousness" random general thoughts that don't fly too high. Basically, a bunch of half-baked platitudes. I know that writing a book is not easy and I am not kicking the author's duff for the pleasure of it, but it needs to be done. Someone has to tell her that she can't take us for walking wallets. The Canadian retail price is $24.99... That's scary... for so little! The general public deserves a better effort. Maybe on her next book... Maybe she has talent, I never read her other stuff. However, I know she will need to get to the keyboard and work harder.

If you are not sure, go to your Public Library or to Barnes and Noble to browse it first. Who knows, it might be good for you. However, if you want tips to write a better blog, you have to find something else.
Just for your info, I just finished Brad Hill's Blog book for Dummies. It is pretty good ... and Hill worked hard at it AND you will find lots of good tricks that will save you lots of time. Good for total beginers and low intermediate. Cheers!

"...What You Had for Lunch" Provides Food For Thought

"No One Cares What You Had for Lunch" absolutely delivers on it's subtitle: "100 Ideas for Your Blog". Ms. Mason has provided a short, easy read that can get you started when you are blocked, provide color and flavor when you get bland and stale, and get you thinking creatively when you are tired of the same old, same old.

I read my copy on a Saturday afternoon in my hammock, but I will return to it often as my blog develops. Some of these ideas you can implement as is, and some are meant for you to think about and personalize. The idea of this book is to motivate you to keep at it, to keep it fresh, to keep it original, and try to evolve your blog into something that lives on its own.

Ms. Mason is a successful blogger herself, and she reads blogs far and wide. Therefore, this book provides an experienced perspective on blogging. However, she has written it so that bloggers of all levels will find it useful and understandable. I read my copy on a Saturday afternoon in my hammock, but I will return to it often as my blog develops.

I'd rather know what you had for lunch after reading this book

I received this book for review on a whim. I assumed it would give interesting and insightful ideas for blogging - not! While the book gave 100 ideas for blogging, they were for personal lifestyle blogs designed to invoke comment and conversation. That's fine for some, but I simply didn't care for the touch-feely personal ideas the author had.

The title of the book was accurate. She right, nobody cares what you had for lunch, but for some reason the author wants you to care what she had for lunch! It's all about things she'd like to see in the blogs she reads and while I don't spend hours each day reading blogs, I know I'd quickly get bored of a blog that had such ideas as posting your high school yearbook pics or the contents of your purse.

The meal on the cover was clearly more appetizing than the content of the book!

Pros: Great for insomniacs!
Cons: Yawn...I'm sorry...still groggy from the book. Oh yeah cons...very personal ideas about what a blog should be and lacks universal appeal in the blogosphere. Unless you are interested in learning about the author...pass on this book. Few if any of her 100 ideas would get people to return to your blog.

Great Motivation

There are lots of good ideas here and a style that makes me want to write. It'll take me a year to get through all the suggestions, and for that I'm very grateful.

And like one of the reviews below wrote, this book is a perfect reminder that good people are out there doing great things on blogs and that you, too, are able to join them.