Hi everyone,

Today I thought I’d share with you my own Huffington Post story. I will talk to you about how I got published, I will share my posts with you, and what happened after I got published. In the end, I will give you my words of wisdom (aka what I really think).

The beginning

So, I started blogging here about 8 months ago and I joined a few Facebook groups to get a few ideas and figure out how I could become better at more general/ lifestyle-ish blogging. From time to time I would see people in these groups talk about being published on the Huff Post and how great that was. I knew the Huffington Post, I read it from time to time, and thought to myself, ” Hey! I will give this a shot” and I did.

1st attempt

I filled in a bloggers form. This is a page that you can fill in and upload your post. My post was something very dear to me. I thought it was a good post and actually believed if I ever had an opportunity at being shared, it would be with this post. I clicked the submit button.

No response.

I then read that many people were emailing Arianna Huffington herself, so I did.

No response.

A few months went by and I wrote another post. I thought I’d give it one more shot and that’s when I heard back from Arianna.

What happens once you get the OK?

You get an email saying that your post has been accepted and you will be receiving a new email with passwords to set up your blogger profile/page.That happened and then I made my profile. The hardest part for me was choosing a decent picture. Yeap. I know. Vain but, well, don’t wanna look like crap in my Huff Post Profile! I actually asked my friends which one they preferred the most. Most of them agreed on this one pic. I disagreed, and chose a completely different one!!

Then?

Well, once you submit your post it gets published in one or two days.

Tips?

I learnt this the hard way, so I am going to tell you a few secrets.

1. Always choose a picture from the royalty free image section the Huff Post blogger page gives you cause otherwise you end up sharing your post with no picture appearing except for some boxes.
2. Add links to your page cause that way people can come to your website. I actually added the phrase

If you want to read more of my adventures, make sure you check out my blog at http://www.mypinkrambles.com

at the end of my blog post and it got published without any editing.

     3. Make sure you proofread your article and don’t rush to press submit.

Is it worth the fuss?

Well, this depends on why you are sharing your post on the Huffington Post website. It looks good on your media kit. I was happy to see my name on a bigger platform. I enjoyed seeing the ‘likes’ and the comments on Facebook or my other social media.I did get approached by a few websites to write a few blog posts for them though (unpaid) and actually did write one.

BUT my page views did not go up. I only got 20-30 extra page views whenever one of my posts was shared. I did not get blog subscribers from this experience.

And anything else?

Oh yeah! Now the good part. I got plagiarised! 4 times. My blog post, the one I wrote about opening and closing a business in Greece, got copy pasted on websites and two personal blogs. Everything!! Like…. every single word. The irony is that the plagiarists were Americans talking about going to university in Greece and opening a language school in Greece. I mean…. c’mon!!! One of my plagiarists was actually in publishing!!! What did I do? Well, I sent messages and tweets to the websites and asked them to take my post down or at least mention me as the writer. I also contacted the Huffington Post.Nothing has happened though. I will now take harsher measures against these websites. Do keep in mind that some websites can repost a Huff Post article, but this was not the case! 

Will I write again?

Sure! It’s just me sharing something I have already shared here, so why not? It’s not like I have a super-duper popular blog and am missing out on traffic. It’s not like my Huff Post blog posts are reducing my DA numbers.

So, there you have. Now my words of wisdom.

WOF

I say go for it. Try it at least once. So, you don’t get paid. Big woop. Did you start blogging cause you wanted to become a rich blogger?

My posts

You can click here to check out the 5 posts I have published.

Subscribe to my blog if you liked what you read. It does put a smile on my face. Maybe give my Facebook page a ‘like’ so you can get notifications of when I post? Connect with me on Pinterest / Twitter/ Instagram.

Talk soon!

xx

Jo