Follow the blog

Come on, you are welcome to Follow this blog; even Paul Bunyan (or is that Harley Davidson) does!

Two or three times a week I receive emails from people who say they'd really like to follow my blog but can't figure out how. It's really quite simple and there are several options. I can see by the Visitor Counter on this page that lots of people stop by every day or two, but aren't followers. I like knowing who's reading my posts, like to know that it's not just ghosts but real people. So here are the Follow This Blog basics.

In the upper left corner, you'll see one of the several Follow buttons.

At the top of the blog page on your computer, you'll see the words, "Follow," Share," "Report Abuse," and "Next Blog." Click on the "Follow" button. It will open the pop-up window, below:

The pop-up window gives you options. You can follow publicly, meaning your name or a nickname which you choose, or, you can follow anonymously. If you look through the list of people who already follow my blog, you'll see some folks who choose to remain anonymous. Either way is fine. If you have a blog or website, you might want to follow publicly, because more people can find you that way.
Another way (there are actually 4, count them FOUR, different ways to choose to follow this blog) shows up in the next photo:

Simply click on the Join this site button. You'll get the same pop-up bottom as the other options.

By clicking on the Join this site button, you'll need a Google account, which takes about 2 minutes to start. Or you can follow anonymously, same as the above options.

Or, you can click on the "Posts" button under the "Subscribe to this blog" on the right side of my blog:

You can choose to receive an email when I post a new story, or with the options in 1, 2 and 3, you can put a little blurb on your Yahoo or Google page that keeps updated every time I post something and you simply click on that little button on your Yahoo or Google page to read the blog post.

So many options, all there to make it easy to follow the blog. The more people who follow my blog(s) the more my blogs are taken seriously by people curious about my books and website. You can follow with a photo of yourself, or if you're a shy person, you can let the blog site generate a ghost-like image. Or, if there really are ghosts who follow my blogs, then they will all be invisible but they can still Follow.

Like I've mentioned before, no one can contact you by looking through my followers unless you list your blog or website. Anonymous people remain anonymous, even to me. Being a follower does not expose you to spammers, I can't contact you, nor can other followers. And if you do choose to get a Google account, you don't have to use G-Mail or anything else Google (I have a Google account because my previous smartphone required it, but I don't use it any longer, it's just an account I don't use, but it does make it easy for me to subscribe to other blogs that I follow). Nothing bad happens if you follow my blog, I promise. And, since I post once a week and sometimes the stories are about marginally interesting things, you'll simply receive a notification that I posted something, making it convenient for you.

If you are interested in checking out some of my other blogs, here's the partial list:
My columns from magazines I write for: http://jimlongscolumns.blogspot.com/
Bi-weekly newspaper columns: http://ozarksgardening.blogspot.com/
Herb of the Year (Roses 2012): http://herboftheyear.blogspot.com/
My recipes blog: http://jimlongsrecipes.blogspot.com/
My Dream Pillows stories: http://jimsdreampillows.blogspot.com/
I post to those more sporadically, but there are different photos and stories there that you might be interested in. And with even those, you can choose to hit the Follow button, just like this site. 

Even this cornstalk horse follows this blog!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to write about something fun in the next post.