Some of the best advice I’ve seen on keeping a blog is, “Make it easy for people to comment.” It sounds simple, but it appears to me that bloggers are so worried about dreaded spam that they want me to jump through hoops just to comment. I won’t do it. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

I hate spam too. I do. Really. I don’t need a larger er…ummm…well, you know. And my abs are just fine, doughy though they are, but I’m willing to stay on top of the spam to make it easier for you all to talk to me. I want to hear from my readers! And if you have to sign away your first born just to tell me what book you’re reading, why bother?

There is nothing more annoying (when reading a blog – there are definitely more annoying things in life) than composing the perfect scintillating comment only to find out that first I have to sign in to some sort of account or be anonymous (if that’s even an option) and then after I do that, I have to do a word verification (not my strongest point), and then wait for you to screen my brilliance before it even shows up! Not to mention, if you haven’t noticed that signing into my account takes me away from your website, well, you really should know that because I might not bother to come back for a while.

The second best bit of advice I got about keeping a blog is to respond to every comment. I definitely try to do this, even if it’s just, “thanks for stopping by” because we all like to feel like someone’s reading our comments when we take the time to leave them, don’t we?

It’s true that while I have a nice handful of regular readers, I don’t get a lot of comments, and if I were someone like agent Nathan Bransford who regularly gets 150 comments, I couldn’t answer them all. But until that happens, if you leave one, I’ll try to send you a thank you.

Okay…rant’s over. What do you think? Do you leave comments when you’re forced to walk over hot coals to do it?

*I know that one of you who reads this blog regularly requires all kinds of sign-ins for comments, and I want to say that while yes…I am sort of thinking of you here, it was someone else’s blog that really set me off…so please don’t feel targeted in any way! I love you, and would never do that!!!