AllThingsDogBlog.com has an interesting challenge on today’s Mutt Monday post: she’s challenging bloggers to describe the day in the life of a pet blogger.
I’d like to say that many of my days are spent like the photo above, out with the dogs and taking photos. Most days, though are spent like this:
Before I head upstairs to my office (with my supervisor, Felix), my day starts about 7am. John and I usually have a quick breakfast then I walk the dogs for about 45 minutes before it gets too hot while John cleans up from breakfast. Since we’re both at home full-time, we divide up the work, depending on the workload that particular day. Along with DogTipper and CatTipper, we also publish several travel blogs (Lovetripper.com for romantic travel and destination wedding info and DogGoneTexas.com about Texas getaways) and we do freelance writing for travel and pet publications, too, so we do a lot of juggling!
While I walk the dogs, I try to plan out my day a bit in my mind but, as soon as we return home and I feed Irie and Tiki, I head upstairs to check the daily calendar. I really, really try to put everything on my calendar so I don’t forget anything!
Typically my first task is to go through my email. Because we have multiple sites–and have been running sites since 1998 (forever in Internet years!)–we get a LOT of email. I weed through everything and tend to those I need to address immediately, mark others for follow-up, and then turn my attention to the social media accounts. I post a Facebook post most mornings, check on comments and follows, then do the same for Twitter. Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, and YouTube are checked less frequently. I then check on the giveaways and make sure they’re progressing OK, answer any reader questions, and end giveaways if they wrapped up overnight. (During the afternoon, we package prizes, if we’re shipping them, and John takes them to the post office.)
Then it’s time to roll up my sleeves and get to work! During the morning hours, I try to get a lot of my writing done, whether posts or freelance work. This week our freelance work includes a travel article for a Louisiana travel magazine and our weekly pet360 column about adoption and rescue.
I’ll work until 12:30 then I stop for lunch until 1…then it’s back to the computer! During the afternoon hours, I work on upcoming Event Barkers Twitter parties or other special events, site promotion, additional writing, invoicing, and all the other business aspect to this job. I often do product reviews in the afternoon, too, when I’ll either shoot a video or take photos of the product and write up a review. Right now I’m behind on reviews because we’ve spend a lot of time on our upcoming Texas with Dogs book so I’ll be doing a lot of afternoon reviews this week!
Speaking of the book, we’re currently receiving chapters from the publisher to check. We carefully check the typeset chapters for any errors the copy editor might have missed. We’re also indexing the book as we go. That project should wrap up very shortly then we’ll be turning our attention to promotional plans for the book, which will be out on Nov. 1.
Most days, I work until about 6pm but, on Wednesdays, I stop earlier to get ready for the week’s DOG TRAVEL EXPERTS show. I stop and make plans for the show, check in with guests, and make an early dinner. The evening dog walk takes places after dinner during the summer months when it’s a LITTLE cooler.
Whether there’s a radio show that night or not, I usually return to work about 7:30 or 8pm and work until 10:30pm. It’s a very full day, seven days a week!
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