Tennis Served Fresh is a blog that covers fashion, technology,
advertising, design, food, architecture, and other topics related to
the world of professional tennis. It’s updated daily.
I work for the man, but I am trying to launch a freelance writing
career. Tennis used to be a hobby/interest, but I’m trying to make it
into a moneymaker for me. That’s where this blog fits in.
I took on this project after I got laid off from my last job. I wanted
to do something that would keep me sane.
Why tennis? I’d been blogging about the sport on and off for the last
few years (on a personal blog). I decided to start one with that as a
specific focus.
Since January 2007.
1,000 or so unique hits a day.
Tennis Served Fresh is a blog for anyone interested in a fresh take on
tennis. We don’t report scorelines, and we don’t do a lot of match
predictions either. I blog about the things that drew me to the sport,
and I hope to infect others with the same energy.
I’m always thinking up story ideas, so it’s hard to log. But if we’re
talking about sit-down-in-front-of-the-computer time, then I would say
about 2 hours a day.
As I’d said earlier, it’s just a fresh take on tennis.
I’m not one to brag, but this site has been well-received for being
well-done. It has an edge. And I have a background in journalism, so
every once in a while we’ll get some exclusive nuggets that are
definitely worth reading.
1) Fact-checking is easier than you think. A quick e-mail to a
company’s publicist — with a response in return — can quickly turn
your “hearsay” post into a credible story.
2) Develop a voice. Don’t just cut and paste links. Make us feel like
you’re different than the thousands of other folks blogging about what
you’re blogging about.
3) Comment on other people’s blogs (or send them fan mail). For a
blogger, it’s nice to know that people are responding to their work.
It also gets your foot into the community by seeing your
handle/website URL on different blogs.
4) Cite your sources. You’re not an island out there. Linking back to
other blogs/websites will endear you to other bloggers, and really –
isn’t it nice to get credit for your own work?
4) Think of “columns”. It might make it easier for you to produce
content if you have certain themes to return to every week. For
instance, you can always designate one post a week to “news round-up”
or “book of the week”. It saves you the trouble of thinking up
something original.
5) Blog consistently. It doesn’t matter if it’s once a day or 16 times
a day (a la Perez Hilton). But make sure you develop a schedule that
your devoted readers can follow.
This blog can be visited at http://cornedbeefhash.wordpress.com/