Having guests in your house

It's tough being the host. Last year when I started the 52 Blogstars project, the beginnings were awesome. Some posts brought enough traffic to match my most read posts and I was thrilled.

However like many other projects involving too many people, it lost steam quickly. People started failing – either the quality was no match for the previous posts or they just didn't bother coming up with their share of the work. Perhaps I should have been a more pressured host, sending individual emails every week for 3 weeks before the due date? Perhaps people thought they had too much going on and dropped out – after all, life does get in the way. By the middle of the year it was gone. Those who wrote were amazing.

It doesn't put me off having guest bloggers!

I would like to have several different influences writing here. Regardless of whether you're just a hobbyist or a professional artist, a drawing maven, amateur writer or a business coach. I want diversity. Write a tutorial, a small poem, a guide for better business practices. Diversity.

What I need is an exclusivity period – ideally 2 weeks. 14days after your post goes live in here you can cross-post to your own blog. And I need you to promote your post on this site across your social media platforms.

If YOU would like to guest blog in rock+purl, here's how you can get in on the action:

• write a tentative title and outline (Example “how to cook pea risotto. the post will have approx 12 images indicating steps, I will talk about the best type of rice and why” “I wrote this piece on the beauty of snow falling on my garden” “this is how you can achieve a headstand”)
• Send one image – an inspirational this-is-my-best kind of image. One thing I've noticed is, the best the images are, the longer the visits stick around for – and you want your post to be read thoroughly!
• Tell me about yourself – are you an all around crafter, just a knitter, just an illustrator…. A small bio and a link to your blog.

Send it all to {blog at rockandpurl dot com}. I will give you access so you can write your post, I will schedule it, we are both happy.

The idea is to make it free-flowing and for your post to be a pop of inspiration and fresh air.

What do you say? Get in on the action!