Author Interview with Chad Gramling

Chad Gramling from Word Up has been chosen for the next Blog about your Blog author interview. I have asked Chad a series of questions about some personal things, blogging and blog about your blog. I hope you enjoy the interview.

First of all, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Are you married? Girlfriend?

I am married (of nearly 6 years) and I have one daughter.

What do you do when you are not blogging?

I work full time as a product manager at a credit union. It really is almost as glamorous and exciting as it sounds. Beyond that, I’m either writing, watching baseball, or spending time with my family.

I recently enjoyed the release my first book, Baseball in Fort Wayne, from Arcadia Publishing. I have had three signings (all of which went well). I hope to continue writing and one day do that full-time.

In addition to some follow-up ideas I developed in the course of Baseball in Fort Wayne, I have written a full novel manuscript that I am currently shopping to agents and publishers. For information check out Distant Replay.

I wish you success on any of your other future ventures, as well as Baseball in Fort Wayne. I am a proud owner of your book.

Let me ask you a few general questions about your blog.

When was your blog created?

WordUp was started in January of 2006. Before that, I had started several different blogs, but never stuck with any of them.

Why did you choose your blog topic?

WordUp was originally designed to help further my publishing efforts. It has evolved to become more of a creative writing outlet since its early beginnings. But I still use it to help promote my writing efforts.

Where do you see your website in one year?

Hopefully WordUp will grow in visitation from people who are looking to read it. I call that “legitimate traffic” versus the ploys and tactics used to get hits. I’d rather have 10 people who visit because they really do want to read it versus 1,000 people who stop for 2 minutes or less where they do little more than critique my design. I hope for the same with my other blogs too.

Do you have any new upcoming projects or ideas you want to announce?

At NoOtherRock, I am planning a web ring of sorts, but am still very early in the stages and cannot share the details. Sorry.

Well I’ll be looking forward to that. I’m not too much into religion, but keep us posted!

What do you rely most on to get traffic to your blog or website?

I rely on others to share the love. I do a lot of BOTB at BlogExplosion, but don’t know how much legitimate traffic that provides. I also do a lot of cross-promotion on my other blogs when there are posts of interest.

And the final series of questions, a little bit about Blog About Your Blog

How did you find us?

Matthew invited me at the very beginning while in ShoutBox at Blog Explosion.

That must of been forever ago. I just remember you as a good blogger and basically wanted you as a part of our blog.

What do you like most about BAYB?

I really like having the ability to have a forum to announce blog posts that have me really excited. Sometimes I create something and wish everyone would read it and comment on it. It makes me feel better to blog about it twice I guess (maybe I consider it to more like BRAG About Your Blog than BLOG About Your Blog).

What new feature would you like to see?

A BAYB Channels might be a nice feature. For instance, when someone visits, they can select the “Blogging” or “Sports” channel to isolate it down to posts only from those bloggers in the channel. I know the categories is kind of the same, but not sure it does it very effectively.

Not sure how we can do that, but that’s exactly why I added categories to our sidebar. With a blog ranging in so many different topics we need it.

A “BAYB Bloggers Profile” page would be cool too.

We have worked on something along those lines as you can see, however we don’t have anything solid. I don’t even have my own profile, but it’s something that will definitely evolve in the future.

What do you like the least?

Not to say they don’t provide a relevant niche’ but the “Make Money By Blogging” bloggers seem to overwhelm the blog. I’d prefer to have a little
more balance.

I’m not sure I agree, but I do see blogging as a topic seem to take over.

Who have you chosen to be the next one interviewed?

You mean I’m not last?
Simply because I think he is contributing a lot of good things to the blog-o-sphere and because I would personally like to read more about him, I am selecting Secret Simon of The Secret Life.

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