We Have Lift off (and a Dragon Tattoo Exclusive)

This morning, I’m thrilled to announce, the Dragon Tattoo Blog Hunt launched into the blogosphere.

Here’s the official hooha on the social media campaign:

In anticipation of the March 19th U.S. theatrical release of Dragon Tattoo, Music Box Films will launch a clue-based Blog Hunt around the web on March 10th. Top bloggers will publish articles about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with an embedded clue leading readers to the next site in the Hunt. Readers will follow these clues for prizes including film tickets, books and posters. The contest will focus on blog topics covered in the film including technology, writing, violence against women, and tattoos. The Blog Hunt will begin on the movie’s official website where the first clue will be published.

And because I love all of YOU so very much, I’m giving you an exclusive clue – or rather to the answer to one of the clues.

Yours truly wrote one of the blog posts for the Blog Hunt and it’s published on Copyblogger. So, if you’re playing along and you get to the clue that talks about ‘copy’ and ‘blogging’ you’ll know right where to go. And now on to the post:

Blogging Lessons from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

A 40 year-old unsolved murder mystery. Strange cryptic codes in a bible. Sweden, sandwiches and many, many cigarettes. The badass-est female protagonist since…forever. And an author who has, posthumously, caused quite a ruckus in the book world and in the minds of conspiracy theorists everywhere.

Yes, I’m talking about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. If you haven’t heard of it, the rest of us are inviting you to come out from under your rock. Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest) is topping bestseller lists as we speak and the theatrical release of Dragon Tattoo hits the U.S. next week.

I had the good fortune of screening an advanced copy and, of course, my mind went blog, blog, blog. Because that’s what blog obsessed people like us do. It’s almost like we’re wearing blog colored glasses as we look out onto our worlds. Here are the blogging lessons I learned from this tattooed ‘girl’…

Gasoline feeds a fire, but first there has to be a spark

At one point in the movie, a man lays under a car. Having just flown off the side of the road, both he and the car are demolished, gasoline is spilling out everywhere…and he waits, watching, trapped. Finally there’s a spark…and then fire, total combustion.

So often we have all of the ingredients, right? The design is just right, the writing is perfection, the research says that there’s a need for the content….but then, nothing. No traffic, no comments, no buzz. Why? What’s missing?

There has to be a spark. Maybe it comes in the form of a new partnership, a referral or an outside event (like a shortage of light bulbs) that makes your product (candles) suddenly burst into high demand. Or maybe you have a life changing event that triggers your passion, maybe you read a book that causes something to click in your brain or your heart.

And then, there’s no stopping the heat….

Read the rest of the lessons on Copyblogger’s slice of the sphere and get the next clue in the Blog Hunt!