So what happened to Fashionable Maven …..

In August 2009 I was on holiday with my parents in the South of France at our usual haunt Hyeres – yes a place not on the usual tourist destination map (so please don’t visit) bitching about how no one talks about the forty plus market or actually serves it – so my mother said “what is stopping you” so I decided to an affiliate blog …..

The next major dilemma was what to call it ………. So a friend suggested Fashionable Maven. Now I have seen loads of blogs start and then the blogger is the next big thing since sliced bread but they never blog consistently and it tails off – so my idea was I would commit one year so from April 2010 to November 2011 I blogged 6 days a week – Monday to Friday I added three articles and Sunday one- so I actually went over my one year by 6 months.

I did everything from writing, uploading and linking – on 1520 articles  - which may not seem a lot but doing this and organising it and all the other things which happened over this 18 months – let me say it takes discipline and passion and we did what we set out to achieve. Plus we then revamped another blog and started another so the work load tripled ……..actually 4587 articles !

We did all this to see if number things would happen and we learnt a lot along the way.
·        Word of mouth – peer to peer selling is the best form of selling.
·        Readers identify with the blogger ……
·        People do click through and buy- but a lot depends on what the consumer thinks of the retailer & their site!
·        There is a lot of bull talked about the internet by so called guru’s …..I have drowned in it.
·        Affiliate companies are the most passive aggressive people I have ever come across- go on bite me 
·        Dealing with affiliate companies is like splitting the atom in the bathroom sink …….
·        There are more myths about social media and bloggers than unicorns in the woods and the little people who collect the crocks of gold under rainbows!
·        There are 100’s of people making money off gullible retailers due to the retailers fear and lack of interest in the internet – if they just sucked it up and looked and learnt they would save a fortune on the bottom line and make money from the internet.

So I hated the name Fashionable Maven – by the end of 18 months with a deep passion as in nails down a blackboard – so it’s dead now and we are Mrs D.

Fashionable Maven was the first step on what will be a long and successful career in blogging …..