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Welcome lovely Kiwi mummy bloggers and those that love to read the posts from our talented bloggers.

As you know this site was established in 2007, being the first blog aggregation site in NZ and we want to continue growing it for our readers, bloggers and our brands.

Love Anna and Michelle xx

The 6 things I learnt as a beginner blogger

Posted on Sunday, March 19, 2017

It all started with an epiphany, my business idea and name came to me in a flash…..hah that was the easy part! I posted my very first blog in June 2016 and naively expected the world to come to a stand still in awe!!!! Well that never happened, nor actually did much happen at all! Skip to present day, 10 months later, boy have I learnt a lot. If only I knew these things then, or at least took the time to acknowledge that I needed to know these things. I still have a long journey to go. However I wanted to share my learnings so far, as you never know, it may help you on your journey.

Know your niche

Ok so every one talks about the important of knowing your niche. What that actually means is be very specific about what you want to offer, and the market that you want to be in, to attract followers and potential clients and customers. Well of course I knew my niche! “Organization” (Professional Organisation) and the market was people that need help with organizing their home and lives………narrowed it down to busy women in a certain age group 25 -65. Sweet I thought that’s my niche. It was not until I had a coaching session with a business coach, who basically laughed when I described it, I realised , with her help, that it was just way too general and I was trying to be everything to everyone and not actually narrowing down my content to a specific market. This has also meant that I have been engaging in too many communities online and not focusing on the community specific to my niche.

With the help of my coach I was finally able to pinpoint my niche and I cannot begin to tell you what a clarifying moment that has been for me. I am so focused now, much clearer on where I can find my community and deliver to them great online content as well as services and products.

Develop Online skills or Pay for it

What was I thinking!! Building a website on my own. I knew I had to have a website…well I couldn’t be a successful online entrepeneur without one. Family members were not going to do this for me and I did not want to pay for someone to build me one. So I had to dive in and learn. Can I just say that it’s so important to take the time to learn all about the technical side of website development and management. Learn code …it’s such a good skill to have if you are going to be doing all the website work.

You need to reach out to learning communities online for this and there are actually a lot and so much content for free. I purchased Building a Framework from Abby Lawson. If you are going to set up a blog this is an essential guidebook, such a fantastic and amazing value for money resource. However I still had to find tutorials on the details on how to create the actual website, if you have never done this before you need to learn the technical side. So I spent one whole weekend buried in website development. I didn’t even know what a “plugin”was when I started. I did succeed and then realised that I quickly had to learn how to manage and run the website. My advice is to research what website is best for you. I am not talking about “template” I am talking about platform. I started off in Wordpress but I was spending so much time figuring out all the back end stuff and endless Plugins and upgrades…….constantly nervous that I was going to crash the site. So I eventually moved to Squarespace …for me that was the best move for two reasons; Online support is fantastic and there is no back end management as such. It’s like going from a PC to a Mac. Ok so it’s not open source like Wordpress however if you are ok with that then it’s perfect. I now comfortably make changes and improvements to my site and I have also learnt some code so I can personalise some elements…..yes I have come along way in my knowledge but had to work at it.

However if you don`t want to do any of that and have the resources go and get a VA (Virtual assistance) Google them if you want to learn more. Yes it’s one of those jobs that didn’t exist a few years ago.

Learn to schedule your time

I cannot believe the time I wasted doing things that did not add any value to what I wanted to achieve . Learn this one quickly, learn how to set goals and achieve them, yes there is a skill in this and if you are not good at it then get good at it. I use a planner and have set monthly, quarterly and 6 monthly goals and have developed project plans to achieve them. I tell you if you are time poor you absolutely have to do this. Again there are some excellent resources online to help you with this. I have found “You got this” from Alexis at Strange & Charmed a very good tool, she also has amazing content for women developing their online business.

My rule of thumb I use (now) is….will this help me to achieve the goals I have? If not, then don`t do it.

Seek Feedback

You cannot do this on your own! I have always engaged in support communities online, there are a lot of great Facebook groups and other online groups where you can safely engage and learn from others. It is such rich information that you get from people that have been there before and know the pitfalls and can help you get through them. You have to be brave sometimes and ask questions, you will be amazed at the support you get back.

So go find your community and get engaged!

Recharge and look after yourself

You have to do this, without you there is no business, no blog, no content…so you have to keep yourself healthy and focused. Taking time out and stepping back and recharging is essential. You will eventually crash and burn if you don’t and the only person that can help you here is yourself…so put your big girl pants on and take responsibility for yourself and take it seriously. I certainly have struggled with this, you can read all about my struggles and what I did about it in my post on the challenge to do nothing.

Never give up

There have been a number of times when I just wanted to give up, especially when trying to work out some technical issues and feeling soo dumb…..and seeing all these great bloggers and online entrepeneurs quoting all the thousands of followers and their success. I sit here at my desk thinking I’m never going to be as good as them, who wants to read my stuff…blah blah.

But I have a dream and I will succeed and yes it’s going to take a lot of graft and yes I’ll make mistakes, however I know that I will get there. So “never give up” is my anthem that goes around in my head when things get hard.

By no means am I any type of expert on blogging and online business however I have certainly learnt a thing or two and continue to learn. I have a long way to go however I wanted to share the realities of venturing into this world……my last word on this is that it is sooo much fun and rewarding and I absolutely love it and it’s totally worth the effort.

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Triple Threat – A.K Leigh

Posted on Saturday, March 18, 2017

I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley. I thought that the idea of triplets working together to solve cold cases, with some romance thrown in, sounded like an interesting idea.

Triple Threat

They’re beautiful, accomplished, and they have identical interests…

In their spare time, identical triplets the Farris sisters work together to solve cold cases. Lizzie uses her skills as a Criminal Profiler, Nina her Scenes of Crime Officer experience, and Carrie assists through her work as a both a Forensic Scientist and Forensic Anthropologist.

Romantic and idealistic, Lizzie is picky about men. But despite the good-natured teasing of her sisters, she refuses to settle for anything less than ‘The One’. She loves her life, her job as both a profiler and a university lecturer, and her sisters, and won’t make changes for anything less. If that makes her unrealistic, then so be it.

Gabe Montcoeur has just moved across Australia from Perth to Cairns and starts a job as a journalism teacher at Cairns University: the same university where Elizabeth Farris works. On the surface, the move seems innocent, but he has an ulterior motive. Gabe wants to elicit the aid of the Farris sisters in solving the murder of his family members, and the only way to circumvent their notorious ‘no contact’ policy is to reach out to them in person.

But when Gabe meets Lizzie for the first time, the attraction is instantaneous — and mutual. The deeper they fall into each other, however, the more guilty Gabe feels about his real motivation for getting close. Lizzie wants the real deal, the one, true love — can Gabe ever offer her the future she deserves if he keeps holding on so tightly to the past?

My Review

I have to admit, that books that focus on twins, are not my favourite, I don’t think that I’ve come across one about triplets before though. I think that if anyone else were writing it, I’d have the same concerns that I do with twins; using the usual twin cliches, using twins as an obvious plot device, only using twins because they are twins. If the author in question is a twin, then it’s different, our author in this case is an identical triplet, so obviously, they have the insight to write from that perspective.

There was a lot I liked about this book. The mix of crime novel and romance made for interesting reading, two of my favourite genres. I liked Gabe and Lizzie, I liked the way that their romance played out. The book is a quick read and quite short, so I did wonder if it would have been slightly better if there had been a bit more room for things to be developed a bit more. The romance happened quickly, despite their plans to take things slow. The mystery was cleared up fairly quickly too. I would have liked a little more time spent on both of these things.

This is the first book in a series of three, I’m not sure, but I would expect that the next books are going to focus on each of the other sisters as they find their man. I did think that the question of Gabe and Lizzie wasn’t completely resolved in this book. (It’s not that there’s a cliffhanger, or that the question of their relationship was left up in the air, more that there’s certainly room to find out what will happen next with them.) I’d be keen to read the next book in the series and find out where the story is going to go. I found this an enjoyable and entertaining read.

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