2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop: Registration Open!

Today I am very excited to announce the opening of registration for the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop which I will co-host again this year with two new co-hosts: Leanne @she can quilt and Beth @Cooking Up Quilts. The goal of the 6th annual New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop is to provide advice, tech help, and introduce new quilters to the online community.

If you are a new quilt blogger and considering participating, you might not believe this now, but the best part of the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop are the participants; in other words, you are the best part of the blog hop! The hosts are here to provide guidance and occasionally we try to steer the ship, but the amazing value in this experience are the connections you will make with peers who are going through the same things that you are. Lifelong quilting friends can and have absolutely been made through this event in the past.

If you have questions you would like answered prior to registering, please feel free to leave a comment and I will do my best to answer your questions. Everyone will come with a different set of experiences, expertise, questions, and expectations, and I want to stress that this hop is to improve your blog, increase your blogging skills, and get more involved in the online quilting community.  The focus is not on helping start up online businesses (note that online business owners with blogs that meet the criteria are welcome).

2017 New Quilt Bloggers Participation / Sign Up Criteria

The technical criteria to participate in the 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop is as follows:

1. If you have been blogging mainly about quilting (this is, after all, the New QUILT Bloggers Blog Hop),
2. for more than 2 months and less than 3 years,
3. writing at least 4 posts a month,
4. are willing to agree to be actively involved in the blog hop through visiting and commenting on the other blogger’s hop posts,
5. and are willing to participate in the group discussions by signing up to join Slack (available for desktop and as an app for mobile devices).

Please indicate your interest in joining by filling out the registration form.

Additional Details

• Note that after you indicate your interest by filling out the registration form, you will not receive email confirmation until the beginning of March at the earliest.
• We will accept 100 participants for the blog hop this year. The sign up form will be available until February 28th, 2017, or until we reach 100 participants.
• Participation in the blog hop will consist of a significant time commitment. We believe that the more time you can dedicate to the blog hop, the more you will get out of it.
• Tentative Schedule
  • Early March: Welcome participants via E-mail and get everyone into the Slack group to facilitate and begin the conversations.
  • March: Get to know one another through a series of weekly planned prompts through the Slack group.
  • March: Optional structured blog critique groups will be conducted.
  • April: First half (2 weeks) of blog hop.
  • May: Second half (2 weeks) of blog hop.

Advice for New Bloggers

One of the hallmarks of the New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop are links to posts that we put on the Advice for New Bloggers resource page. This week we have a group of Top 10 Tips posts aimed at helping new bloggers.

Ten Tips for New Bloggers from the thinking closet

10 *MORE* Tips for Bloggers from the thinking closet

Top 10 Tips for Beginner Bloggers from lifewire

One last treat for today comes from Christa Watson of Christa Quilts, who says, “Being on the hop a few years ago when I was first starting out really helped me make connections and get to where I am today.” Christa is offering a limited time offer of 50% off her new Craftsy class, The Quilter’s Path. You can get this special deal by clicking on the image above or the previous link. Note that the discount expires April 4, 2017, and the discount will not appear until you put the class in your cart.

Looking for Ways to Participate?

If you are an alumni or blogger who has been active for longer than 3 years, we would love to have you share this information so that as many new bloggers can be exposed to this opportunity as possible. We would also love to grow our list of Advice for New Bloggers posts. If you have previously written something or would like to write a post that we can link to about anything you wish you had known earlier in your blogging adventure, please contact myself, Leanne, or Beth by leaving a comment on either of our blogs or emailing us for further details.

Also, if you fall outside the parameters of this group, we are excited to note that Angie from Gnome Angel is going to be picking up her Craft Your Blog site and extending offers for interaction culminating in one-on-one mentoring, so that is a resource that we highly suggest! For more details on what Angie is envisioning for Craft Your Blog, you can read her post about it here.

Thank you to our Sponsors!

The 2017 New Quilt Bloggers Blog Hop is being sponsored by an awesome selection of companies, and we are excited to be partnered with:

InLinkz.com