The first day of Blaugust is always the busiest. My feed is swamped with posts of all kinds from blogs I’ve never heard of. The majority of posts tend towards a few topics: The Start of Blauguest, people’s Blaugust plans, and the Welcome to Blaugust post. This one is no different:

Welcome to Blaugust! Huge thanks again to the Comittee and the Mentors who have kept the event running this year!

I already wrote about my plans for the event, so I thought I’d share how I go about reading blogs during Blaugust. As Blaugust has grown over the years, it’s become impossible to read every post from every blog. The easiest way to burn yourself out is trying to do so.

First off, I start with Owls Dynamic OPML syncing with FreshRSS so I’ll get posts from every Blaugust participant, at least for the first week or so. This has the added benefit of adding new blogs automatically as they sign up. Before this, I would just take the participant list at the beginning of the event and add everyone to my RSS reader so I would never see the latecomers.

As Blaugust has expanded outside of the MMORPG, and then the gaming blogosphere at large, I’ve been introduced to blogs I wouldn’t have other wise discovered. These are blogs that are far outside my usual interests and I’m hoping to find a few more to add permanently to my feed this year. Though I do like to keep an eye out for any new gaming blogs that pop up, they’re my favorite.

The first week, I’ll skim titles as they come in and click around on sites I’ve never been to. I primarily read from my RSS feeds but I do like to get a sense of what blogs look like for a little bit first. I tend to ignore the rest of my non-Blaugust feeds for the majority of the month.

Around week two, I’ll grab the feeds that I’ve found myself clicking on the most or that I’m looking forward to their next post and put them in my Blaugust 2026 folder. I’ll then make an effort to read them as they come in and leave some comments if I have something to say.

At the end of the month, I will move the blogs I have been reading the most into my permanent feed folder structure and delete the Blaugust 2026 folder so I don’t lose any of my favorites.

Not every blog can be for everyone, and that’s ok. I hope that Blaugust helps you expand your audience and introduces you to new blogs you’ll keep reading all year round!

(Even if it isn’t this one 😊)