(Cross-posted at Planting Liberally)

Yesterday I spent some time outlining what I think the three waves of liberal blog-sprawl will be: technological support, grassroots "how-to" guides, and institutional support.

With an eye towards making that second wave happen, I started my own online book, called "How to Write a Local Political Blog", at http://www.plantingliberally.org/HowToBl og.   For more details, follow me over the flip!

The outline for the book is as follows:

• Getting Started - your own domain vs. a hosted server, Blogger vs. SoapBlox, etc.
  
• Where do you get information? - Local town newspapers, other blogs, city voterfiles and state campaign finance offices, etc.
  
• Building a readership base - using LeftyBlogs, "pushing" your blog to local journalists and candidates, etc.
  
• What makes a good blog  post? - commentary on news articles, the rant, the snark, the candidate interview, etc.
  
• Developing a Community - using comments and posts, organizing "blogger's happy hour", etc.
  
• Making money from your blog - using BlogAds, selling T-shirts, setting up tip jars
  
• Advanced Blogging Technology - RSS syndication, trackbacks, taxonomies and folksonomies, etc.
  

Of course, all of this structure is up for debate.  What I've put together is a loose outline of my thoughts based on a few years worth of reading blogs, a few months of writing my own local political blog, and some shooting-from-the-hip hypothesizing.  Other people will no doubt have much better ideas and contributions to make.  Consequently I've set up my site so that anyone can register and get started with editing the book right away, if they feel like it.  Just click any of the links listed above, or go to http://www.plantingliberally.org/HowToBl og, roll up your sleeves, and start writing!