FAQ

• Guidelines to Hosting a Carnival
• Sign Up to Host a Carnival
• How to Promote the Carnival
  
• What is a Blog Carnival?
• What is the Carnival of Real Estate?

Here are some general FAQs to explain the ins and outs of carnivals:

General:

Q. What is a blog carnival?

A. It’s a monthly summary of the best blogging posts on a given subject that appeared in someone’s blog during the previous week. A different blog hosts the carnival each month. Read more about how carnivals work.

Q. Are there carnivals for other topics?

A. Yes. There are carnivals for general topics (business, education, investing), niche topics (reality TV, caption contests, Ohio politics), and bizarre topics (cockroaches). See ‘em all here.

Q. When does a new Carnival of Real Estate post come out?

A. Deadline submission is 8:00am (Pacific Time) on the 29th of every month. Results will be posted on the host blog on the 1st of every month.

Q. Why would I be interested in the Carnival of Real Estate?

A. To stay up-to-date with the real estate industry; to see what’s being blogged about and discussed in the real estate community; to learn about new real estate trends geographically; to discover new bloggers; to energize yourself/your company; to network; to learn new tricks; to get the creative juices going; to help innovate; to stay current in the business… whew, you name it!

Q. How are each months’s top posts picked?

A. Each month, the host will select the blog posts they feel are most interesting and worthy to appear.

Q. How is each week’s “Pick of the Month” entry determined?

A. To add some further fun to the carnival, a “Pick of the Month” will be named each month by the host blog. It is entirely up to that month’s host to make that decision.

Q. Where can I find an archive of all the previously published “Picks of the Month”?

A. “Picks of the Month” is located on the left hand side of this blog. If you manage a blog, feel free to keep an archive on your blog as well.

Submitting posts:

Q. How/where do I submit a post for review and possible addition to the carnival?

A. Please submit your post using the Blog Carnival Submission.

Or, you can just e-mail your entry to

• Please include:
  – Article URL (permalink)
  – Article title
  – Author name
  – E-mail address
  – Blog URL
  – Brief summary of the post

Q. What are the requirements for submitting?

A. Ideally, anything that is relevant to real estate can be submitted. It should be original content and has to be a recent post. Also, the post shouldn’t just be a compilation of someone else’s quotes or thoughts – the majority of it should be original content created by the author.

Q. How recent does the post need to be?

A. Less than one month old

Q. What topics are allowed?

A. Anything related to the real estate industry.

Q. What is the deadline for submitting?

A. 8:00pm (Pacific time) on the 25th of each month. If you are late, it is up to the host’s discretion to review your article for submission.

Q. Will any post that is submitted be included in the carnival?

A. No. Only the Top 3 -10 posts should be listed. But, the host can include additional posts if he/she feels they are really well done and deserve to be included.

Q. May I submit more than one entry per month?

A. The maximum number of entries is two per blog. In the case of a multi-author blog, only two total entries can be submitted. In the case where an author contributes to multiple blogs, they can only submit two posts, regardless of how many blogs they contribute to / run / manage.

Q. What if my blog has multiple authors and contributors? Can we all pick our best entry and each of us submit one?

A. No, only two posts from each blog address should be submitted per month.

Hosting:

Q. Who can host the carnival?

A. Anyone that regularly submits posts to the carnival can become a host. The key words here are “regularly submits posts,” since it wouldn’t be fair for blogs that don’t participate regularly to host the carnival if they are not sharing in doing the work by writing posts, submitting, and being active in the carnival.

Q. I want to host a future Carnival of Real Estate — how do I do that?

A. E-mail us to get on the list and then start submitting posts to the carnival on a frequent basis. Remember, only frequent contributors to the carnival can host a carnival.

Q. What is involved in hosting a carnival?

A. You will need to set aside about 2-3 hours to read and pick the best posts that were submitted to you. Then you create a post on your blog, summarizing and linking to the top 5 – 10 posts. Publish your carnival post by 3 P.M. (Pacific time)  on the last day of the calendar month.

Q. What is the schedule of who hosts the carnival?

A. You can check the schedule here on the Carnival of Real Estate site under “Carnival Hosts” in the right-hand navigation to see who hosted in the past as well as who is coming up.

Page updated August 10, 2010