No Hard Feelings

You can't be mad when you look at that face...Ok that picture is totally random, but I hate "all text" posts so I felt obligated to put a cute picture of Marcy in here.
Some things have happened over the past few weeks. My feelings have been incredibly hurt by other bloggers in the blogosphere. As a blogger you face the dilemma of whether or not to keep these feelings to yourself or post them out in the open. I have kept quiet until today, because I knew that 95% of blogging is wonderful and I love that...so why gripe on that other 5%?
I am bringing this out to you all today because I honestly didn't know some bloggers felt the way they did towards me until a few hours ago.
I made some changes to Wifessionals a few weeks ago. None of you knew I was pregnant at the time, but I was so sick. I was so behind on the blog and I knew that I just couldn't keep up with what I had been doing before. I know more decisions like this will have to be made when I have a newborn in the house in a few months. The biggest change that I spoke about was my decision to no longer host large giveaways. The week I announced this, I was pretty much on bedrest and was nauseous almost 24 hours a day. Ryan saw me miserable and I honestly couldn't fathom planning another big giveaway. They take hours to set up, run, and then purchase and ship the prizes. I was exhausted and they were taking time away from me getting to post about things I actually love.
After about the second month, those large giveaways weren't benefitting me all that much. I continued to do them for my sponsors and most of all for small bloggers to find new readers. You can ask my close blogging friends and they will back me up. While participants were gaining 200 followers in 4 days, I would gain less than a fourth of that, but that was fine with me.
Recently girls have told me that many bloggers think I stopped the giveaways because they weren't benefitting me anymore. Anyone who has worked with me, asked me for help on their blog, asked me to co-host a link up, come to me wanting advice...I know they know that isn't who I am. But having people thinking that about me hurt...and I cried...a lot.
I spend 40+ hours on my blog a week...about 20 of those are dedicated to V-Blating, answering emails asking for help, talking to girls about personal things going on in our lives, helping other bloggers figure out ways to grow their blog. I bend over backwards on a daily basis to try and do everything I can to create relationships with other women and help them in any way I can.
I have sponsors on this blog. I have also discovered that some ladies were only sponsoring me to get in on my big giveaways. Since my Ads stay booked out for awhile, some of my sponsors that are lined up, signed up before I cancelled doing the giveaways.I create relationships with my sponsors. I don't want them just to gain 500 followers. I interact with them, help with with any blog design issues they may have, become friends with them and try to introduce them to like minded readers. That is the whole basis behind my new giveaways. My sponsors aren't going to gain 200 followers in 4 days like in the past, but I am confident that the new readers they do find will be ACTUAL readers, not just a number.I do not have any issues with giveaways. I do not look down on other bloggers who want to host them and I would never discourage anyone from participating in them. I have won some myself and they are fun. But when they start making you miserable to plan and you don't want to do them anymore, you have the right to stop...and that's what happened with me. I was so sick with being pregnant and I just couldn't fathom planning another one when I was already behind on so many other things. For other bloggers to take that as me just quitting them because they weren't benefitting me anymore (and telling other bloggers that) was unfair. I never wanted people to see me making that decision, as me telling any other person in the world that they should quit giveaways or they are bad. I just personally wanted to move in another direction on my blog.So with all of that being said, I didn't write this post to get a bunch of comments from blogging friends. I also don't want to beat a dead horse.I want to put this out there because if there are any women who feel I was or am ever being fake, untruthful or selfish with my motives on this blog - that is not the case. If you ever feel that I am, PLEASE email me. That is never my intention and I would love to talk to you...Lastly, if you are currently lined up to sponsor me, but wish to withdraw it due to the fact that I am not doing big giveaways anymore, that is totally fine! I will not be offended and if you email me I will refund your money. I promise to keep it confidential and there will be absolutely no hard feelings. I know how picky I am when it comes to sponsoring, so if you signed up with certain expectations and now things have changed, it would only be fair for me to open this up to you. I have already done so for a few girls. I think some are scared it will hurt my feelings, but it won't! I would rather have you be honest than to regret or be unhappy with sponsoring me.Thanks for letting me chat with you....
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