A shameless self promotion.

When I posted the First Quarter Statistics Report, I mentioned that I would put the idea of using business cards to promote the blog offline into play to promote the blog at anime conventions I attend. This is recommended for getting your(self and your) website known to people who don’t know much about the interest (or just blogs in general), and to introduce your website to those who haven’t came across it before.

After reading a post by Darren Rowse of ProBlogger on promoting your blog at events relevant to your blog, it inspired me to print up my own business cards using a pack of Matte Ivory Business Card templates from Avery you can find in a stationary store, and a tutorial on making business cards using OpenOffice.org. For a fee, I could hire someone to make a set for me, but I really wanted to make my own to expand my creativity.

I succeeded in handing out one at JAMPcon, but the person I handed it out to is mostly a MySpace user; this person is on my friends list, but seem to have no interest in my blog (these are the kinds of people who don’t know what a blog really means other than using a blog themselves as a personal journal). I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I handed out a card to someone and just added me to their MySpace profile but had no interest in the blog; at least I made an impression at all.

Before I printed these up, I should have gone over on how many I needed; I ended up printing out 40 of them. I intended on printing just 10, but you never known on how just many people one could meet. Handing out one at a first-time event (of 400 Otaku) is already an accomplishment.

Coincidentally, Otaku Blogger Danny Choo wrote a post about business cards (or “Meishi” (名刺) in Japan) he hands out when he runs into potential clients when I began writing this post.