Glory glory, y’all, it’s a yeah write prize week.
Virgins!
If this is your first time here, welcome! Please take a moment to read the yeah write FAQ and the guide to writing a winning yeah write post. I’d love for you to read them both before linking up so you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into. Then grab a button from the sidebar—it contains the code you’ll need to add to your post before clicking the blue button to submit it. We’re glad you’re here.
Addicts!
If you’re returning to yeah write for the second or third or 54th time, welcome back! I’m glad you had enough fun with us the first time around to bring you here once again. Just in case you missed it, yeah write can be found on Twitter @yhwriteme even though I occasionally use my @freefringes account to get the word out to a larger group of followers.
New weekly random drawing
During the 12 days a month the grid is open for submissions and voting, yeah write is currently getting about 12,000 page views with 15,000 outbound clicks. I am deliriously proud of its low 23% bounce rate, meaning a whopping 78% of its 500 daily visitors stays to visit more than one page. Even though I enjoy many more intrinsic than extrinsic rewards from curating the grid each week, I do collect enough from my advertisers to pay for hosting fees and Web design with some funds left over for an occasional prize for a yeah write winner.
For the next few months, that prize will be an advertising space for your blog or project here on yeah write. The space will be perfect for getting the word out about your second blog or a personal project. Everyone on the grid will have a chance to win.
The fine print
Each week, I’ll use random.org to select a number from 1-75 and, using your post-voting position on the grid (after it re-sorts in order of number of votes), if your number hits, you win a 125×125 ad for the following week from Tuesday to that next Monday. You must be on the grid once it’s been re-sorted to be eligible for the prize. If you somehow win the next random drawing, your ad will stay up. I will always use the random number generator to give us a number from 1-75, so if we don’t get to 75 blogs and the winning number happens to be 75, no prize will be awarded that week.
Use your own logo or blog button for the ad; if you don’t have one, I’ll whip up a simple one for you real quick. You can advertise a personal project, a blog giveaway, a small business, a friend’s blog or project. As long as the concept, product or service advertised is legal, it’ll be up to you, and I reserve the right to reject an ad for any reason.
Goodbye, comment karma
With this new weekly prize, comment karma is retiring, effective immediately. It’s been meaning to spend more time with the grandkids anyway. Please continue to spread the fantastic yeah write comment spirit; it’s become one of our signatures. The encouraging support and the wonderful writing make us what we are. Well, that and the free-flowing bathtub gin. Moonshine makes everything better.
Updated superfecta challenge
With comment karma now on a beach in Bermuda, the superfecta challenge that could earn your blog a whole new redesign is now being adapted to winning one each of the following spread over five consecutive weeks without your taking a break from being on the yeah write grid for those five weeks:
- editor’s choice
- Flood’s lurker’s favorite
- Emma’s lurker’s favorite
- Jennifer’s lurker’s favorite
- popular vote
Four individual judges and one collective jury, just how life itself should work.
Thank Goodness It’s Going Okay
Whew! Finely printed rules will be the death of us all, right? Which is why I don’t call them rules, I call them really strong guidelines that make for a TGIGO experience for everyone both here on my blog and on the grid.
TGIGO suggestions and reminders:
- Brewing idea: try using your Twitter username, including the @ symbol as your allowed 20 characters under your thumbnail avatar on the grid instead of your own name, blog name, or post title. If you’re not on Twitter (why aren’t you on Twitter), use the title of your blog. That will help voters match up your thumbnail with your GOTV (get out the vote) tweets on voting day
- Quick tip: whatever username you decide to use under the thumbnail, put a space between each word, even if it’s a Twitter username. If you run all the characters together, your name might get cut off somewhere weird. Example: instead of @mannahattamamma, try @mannahatta mamma
- You must have a link to today’s post already inserted into the link you’re planning to add to the grid before you try to submit it. This backlink can either be the permalink to this post or a coded super cool button badge found in the sidebar of the post
- The grid is limited to 75 spots. If the post you’re planning to link has already been linked to several other blog events, please consider linking with us an original post
- Add personal posts only, please: no commercial, giveaway, sponsored or otherwise promotional posts are allowed on the grid. Never ever link to your own linkup
- If you keep getting error messages and your post is coded correctly, please send a help tweet @inlinkz and Aris will be happy to help you figure out what’s going on. Why you guys insist on running into problems after I’ve gone to sleep for the night, I’ll never know
- Please tell us a story in your yeah write post. Whether funny or tear-jerky told with words and/or photos, please give us a beginning, middle and end with a central conflict that is resolved before the story ends. Be mindful of your rhythm, pace and tone, and keep it simple—superfluous adjectives and adverbs are the devil’s handiwork
- Bring us your best stuff. Check out the past few winners’ posts for excellent examples. To become a better writer is to become a prolific reader, and we’ve got plenty of good reads just for you
Yeah write #54 is open. Be good, guys. Be good guys. Be, good guys.
Is there a button that says, “I THINK I read them all”? I think I did.
Finally, done reading ya’ll 🙂
It’s my first week, and I loved reading all the posts!
Looking forward to reading the posts I haven’t yet. So far…SO good!
oi! I finally squeezed in some writing this morning and came over to link up and the spots are gone! Oh well, good luck guys! I’ll enjoy reading your posts! Cheers to another great week on the yeahwrite grid!
#3 is a private blog 🙁
This is just fab! Look at all those pictures! Love seeing a FULL GRID!!!!!
I’m half way through and enjoying every read.
I totally forgot to do the twitter thing in the name.
Dang it.
I took care of it for you. Kinda cracked me up since it was your idea in the first place. 🙂
is there supposed to be an underscore? My twitter is @WilyGuy
YEEHAW! I was finally able to link up! I was certain that it would be filled by the time I got home! Thank you for hosting!
Tardy to the Party,
Kerry at HouseTalkN
I love that: “If you aren’t on Twitter (why aren’t you on Twitter)” … I just said the same thing to a friend this morning.
So cool to see even more familiar faces here this week!
Erica, for the record, you are awesome. Thank you for all that you do here.
Thanks, Heidi! Deb has mentioned something about a trip to Bermuda. I await our final plans.
okay seriously? this linkup has been awake for less than 24 hours and you’re rocking at 61 links? I’m OLD. I move SLOWLY. Could there be a turtle grid? And now that you’ve used my name in the “please spell it right” example, I must rummage around and find a post. But before I do that, I’ll say to anyone who reads this comment that you really, really want to win a blog re-design from Erica. I mean, not quite a shiv in the back badly, but…close-ish. Here’s something else: somehow we yeahwriters have to get YOU to that beach in bermuda, so that you & comment karma can have a drinky winky together. god knows you deserve it.
Your comments here and the blurb you write near the yeah write button badge on your blog always make my day. Thank you.
I’m curious, how many hours per week do you devote to this? you are truly amazing for making this happen, week after week. YOU ROCK!
I’ve never added it up, so bear with: let’s see…
about two non-consecutive hours writing, rewriting and editing the opening post.
maybe 30 minutes preparing the weekly email blast
ten hours over two days tweeting out the posts
four non-consecutive hours validating votes and tweeting GOTVs on voting day
about an hour writing and editing voting day post and preparing voting email blast
24 hours worrying and kvetching about it to my husband.
So that sounds like 17.5 hours each week, not counting the constant anxiety.
Thanks for asking and thanks for the compliment!
Wow! That’s a lot! Thank-you!
Wow! That is a lot. Now factor in comment time, caring for your honey, and your children (unless you successfully gave thm away)— just don’t know how you do it!!
If it weren’t for my 3-year-old climbing on my head all day, I could probably get that 17.5 hours down to less than 20 minutes.
Hahahaaha!! I believe this!
Back for my second rodeo…prizes…did someone say prizes?!
My Twitter handle cut off under my name. It’s @msannomalley.
I’m linking up with a longer post. It’s actually an essay that will end up in a memoir I want to write about my moving to South Dakota. I’m posting it in honor of the one year anniversary of the move. So you all get a sneak peek at this book I’m working on in small bits. 🙂
Okay, in for round two. I went back and changed last week’s badge for 53 to the “Yes, I read them all” badge (but kept the old link). Then added the new badge to a non-fiction article this week. Hope everyone enjoys it!
Now off to add #yeahwrite54 to my HootSuite tag list and start reading!
FINALLY got the dang button to work in my post, so I’m linking up! It’s been a while. I miss you guys.
I have been trying to link up for hours now but it won’t let me upload a thumbnail no matter what I try. : (
Loved linking up for the first time last week – it was so fun to find new blogs and read all of your comments!!!
very excited for all the exciting new changes. and prizes? Well, i jus tLOVE prizes!!!
I have no idea why our @ sign didn’t show up, but that is our Twitter name. I’m a rule follower. 🙂 Ellen
A new weekly drawing! How exciting! Thanks for always working to make things more and more interesting and fun, Erica.
Virgin here! I’ve been lurking for a few weeks… finally joining in. Excited to read all the posts!
Welcome! Have fun with us this week!
I input my Twitter name under my avatar but for some reason it’s not displaying correctly in the grid. There should be two “o’s” (aka, “imkendratoo”…unless I typed it incorrectly!