I am spending about 60 days in Las Vegas to work on assorted content and audience building projects. If you are interested in building audiences and that sort of thing I encourage you to follow my series called 60 Days in Las Vegas. You can find Part 1 HERE and Part 2 HERE and Part 3 HERE and Part 4 HERE and Part 5 HERE and Part 6 HERE and Part 7 HERE.
March 1
Some Notes – I slowly dragged my butt out of bed. I had a short chat with Brandon about the future Come to Belize Video. And then I wrote 60 Days in Las Vegas – Part 7 My 30-Day Review in the interest of reviewing my progress in front of my computer over the last 30 days in Las Vegas. You can read it HERE
I figured that I should take a few days off from posting to Facebook groups. I did post some Death Valley photos to my own Facebook page along with a post that I am on Strava. It doesn’t hurt to grow that following when it doesn’t really take any extra time.
In the evening I published Part 1 & 2 of the 60 Days in Las Vegas series and posted Part 3 into drafts. I also started my first of 2 bison short stories called Arie 2/Bison 0. My bison stories are pretty cool stories from my first bike ride in 2011.
While trying to fall asleep I then drafted some poetry.
March 2
Some Notes – This morning I started by posting 3 posts to Medium. A photo essay about Hoh Rain Forest, a short story about loading my bike for the first time in Nova Scotia called Oh shit this is way too heavy and I imported one of my old poems.
I think the plan for Medium is to post more of my personal stuff. I will slowly import my old poetry, my short stories, photo essays and import my website tree & environmental posts. And so today I wrote my first photo essay about the Hoh Rain Forest.
I had a video update with Aidan. Things continue to slowly move forward with a potential t-shirt and clothing line.
I am feeling lazy today. I was able to write and finish 2 poems from my drafts of last night. They are called Every Night and The Smallest of Things.
Andy Sward at Million Bottle Pledge did a real nice Facebook post about me today.
I organized all my poetry drafts and notes. I didn’t realize I had so many half-started pieces.
March 3
Some Notes – Today I thought I would attempt to tackle SEO’s (search engine optimization). I discovered that none of my blog posts are SEO compliant. This really really sucks. I had no idea my blogs were not SEO compliant. This is a huge extra load of work dumped on me.
After a few hours of research I have come to the conclusion that holy crap this is hard and unbelievably overwhelming. I ended up with an actual headache and had to take nap this afternoon.
Later in the evening I was able to get one of my recent posts about pulling a bike trailer “SEO and readability compliant.” I can’t believe how much work it was, and I can’t believe how much work I have to do to get my other blog posts SEO compliant.
What a nightmare.
March 4
Some Notes – I started my morning posting 2 posts to Medium. A photo essay on Peggy’s Cove Lighthouse and my Are you that guy? short story.
And the spent a good hour getting a second blog post SEO compliant only to have the session expire and loose all my work?
After breakfast I was able to get my Mahogany tree blog post and my California Part 1 blog post SEO compliant.
I actually thought I was grasping this whole SEO thing. And then I learned about Breadcrumbs. And it became a nightmare trying to figure that out.
I was also basically able to get my stealth camping post SEO compliant. The amount of work is mind boggling.
I also spent a little time on future bike gear blog post.
March 5
Some Notes – I started my day with further SEO research. The one thing I will mention about this SEO research is thankfully WordPress has made it about as easy a guy like me can hope for. When I say a guy like me, I mean someone who knows nothing about nothing when it comes to this kind of stuff. They have an online course through Yost. Yost is a search engine optimization plug-in for WordPress. And in the dashboard Yost helps you through everything as well as one can hope for. If it wasn’t for the way things are laid out, I would be 100 times more screwed than I already am.
I posted my bike trailer blog post to 11 bike groups.
I got my What you don’t see blog post, Alternate route for Saskatchewan and Alberta blog post and my How much to bring on a bike tour blog post SEO compliant. Along with most of my planning your 50,000 km bike route post SEO compliant.
I have started my second bison short story called Pedalling cowboy style.
March 6
Some Notes – I posted 3 posts to Medium – my money saving blog post, my first bison short story and I imported a poem from my website.
I posted my stealth camping post to 7 Facebook groups and the SK & AB alternate bike route post to 4 Canadian Facebook bike groups
I have finally started researching and started creating a list of freelance journalists to reach out to.
March 7
Some Notes – I posted my bike trailer blog post to 12 Facebook bike groups. [Between all the groups this post would end up with crazy amounts of comments and post likes. As in 100’s of comments and many 100’s of Likes.]
I sent my first emails to potential freelance journalists through my magazine researching. I sent an email to freelance journalist connected to Canadian Cycling magazine, from Explore magazine and Wired for Adventure magazine.
Researching potential freelance journalists is a lot of work. I scan a magazines website looking for writers and editors. Making notes on any potential writers I find. I am looking for direct contact info and whether they are freelancers. Freelance is preferred as the potential journalist may think my story is a better fit for another magazine they write for verses the one I am researching them in.
I am also Googling their names for any other online information I can find on them. I learned to Google their names along side Muck Rack. Most journalist are on Muck Rack and it’s a good place to find their social media profiles and other articles they have written.
Ideally, I am trying to find as many potential names (journalists/editors) per magazine. Then I have to narrow them down to my first choice. Then I research (scan and read) a lot of their recent articles. Looking for some kind of connection. Something that I can add to my pitch/intro email to personalize it.
I also started working on fist sponsorship proposal since getting to Las Vegas.
March 8
Some Notes – A lazy day with almost nothing accomplishing. I posted 2 posts to Medium. I imported the poem – Every Night I Whisper and the short story – Do you need a host tonight?
I researched 2 more magazines and emailed 2 more freelance journalists through Canadian Cycling and Wired for Adventure Magazines.
I went to bed early but couldn’t fall asleep.
March 9
Some Notes – From a work perspective not the most productive day. Organized my notes and took some personal time. I wrote a blog post on Avenue of the Giants.
