3rd Annual Holiday Gift Guide for Boaters

This week, for the third year in a row, I published a holiday gift guide on the Daily Boater. Just like the previous two years, the 2012 edition includes a mix of fun, unique and practical gift ideas that any boater or nautically minded loved one would enjoy seeing under the tree on Christmas morning.

Once again, the gift guide includes products from trusted partners, such as a little cookbook filled with 800 (count 'em!) practical recipes: The Boat Galley Cookbook. Our favorite 'dream big' MegaYacht Wall Calendar is back for the 3rd year in a row, as well as several other products that I personally put to the test.

Of course, no self respecting boating gift guide is complete without personalized boating gift suggestions, and since I also own BoatNameGear.com, it was easy to come up with a few ideas. You'll find some neat gift items - mostly related to eating and drinking - in the Personalized Nautical Gifts section of the Gift Guide, and you'll find a mix of personalized and non-personalized boat-wear ideas in the Boating Apparel area.

Enjoy the 2012 Holiday Gift Guide for Boaters at DailyBoater.com.

If you have a unique product you'd like to include in next year's guide, or perhaps in our Father's Day gift guide, please contact me.

Batting 1,000

Last week, Nautical Sites Media hit another milestone when I posted the thousandth article on the Daily Boater.

One thousand.

As I mentioned in my last post here, I couldn't do it alone. In fact, number 1,000 turned out to be a guest post by Carolyn Shearlock.  But whoa - 1,000 seems like a whole lot of articles about boating for what I still consider to be a young publication.

I hope people are enjoying the content and keep coming back for more.

Speaking of the Daily Boater, advertisers have started signing up for a new program called the weekly Marine Product Review. This is a program I started in partnership with Mark Sutton of MarineProductReviews.com in which we review a nautical product each Wednesday, and make sure that the product being reviewed gets as much publicity as we can muster across our mutual sites and social media accounts. This is the only paid, advertorial content on the Daily Boater, and to keep the quality high we reserve the right to turn away advertisers whose products we don't want to review.

More information for potential advertisers can be found here, and the first few reviews we've done so far can be found here.

Independence Day

Just a quick note to say Happy 4th of July to all our fellow Americans.

It also happens to be the anniversary of the Daily Boater, born on the Fourth of July in 2006. Wow - hard to believe we've been turning out articles about boating almost every day for six full years.

I couldn't do it alone, and I probably don't say this enough - Thank You to the many great contributors over the years that made the Daily Boater what it is today, including Vincent Pica of Atlantic Maritime Academy, Mark Sutton of Marine Product Reviews, Carolyn Shearlock of The Boat Galley, Sean McQuilken, Captain John Jamieson of SkipperTips.com to name a few. Your articles have helped visitors to the site grow by 300% over the past two years. Thanks for all you do!

Multiple Mentions Of Nautical Sites

It's been a good week when it comes to PR for Nautical Sites.

Monterey Boats put out a blog post yesterday that mentioned several of my websites, and included links, in an article about boat names: The Name Game

And on Monday, BoatUS announced their BoatUS Angler “Catch of the Month” photo contest, which has four major sponsors - one of which is BoatNameGear.com!

The latter news has already been mentioned in a few publications across the country - including the Paramus Post, the Bladen Journal,  and Captain Ken Kreisler’s Boat and Yacht Report (THANKS TO ALL FOR INCLUDING THE BOATNAMEGEAR LINK) - and I suspect more will follow.

Here's the full release from BoatUS...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: D. Scott Croft, 703-461-2864, SCroft@BoatUS.com

Take Your Camera on Your Next Fishing Trip and You Could Win Big

BoatUS: Contestant Callie Shumway of Bellefonte, PA

There’s a lot to pack before you head out for the spring fishing season. Just don’t forget the camera to take shots of your catch to submit to the BoatUS Angler “Catch of the Month” photo contest at www.BoatUS.com/angler/contest, which kicked off this week and runs monthly through October 31.

Monthly winners, one freshwater and one saltwater, will receive a one-year BoatUS Angler membership with basic on-water towing and roadside assistance, a $50 Visa gift card and a “prize pack” filled with fishing and BoatUS Angler gear. In addition, winning photos will appear in BoatUS Angler Magazine and Tacklebox monthly fishing e-newsletter. 

Monthly winners will be automatically entered to win the grand prize in November: an upgrade to unlimited on-water and on-road towing assistance, a high-quality fish replica from The Fish Mount Store, and a $50 gift certificate from BoatNameGear.

BoatUS Angler’s roadside assistance “club” for boat trailers and tow vehicles and its on-the-water towing service helps anglers spend more time fishing and less time worrying about breakdowns. Visit www.BoatUSAngler.com for more. Anglers can also check out all of the photos submitted at:
 www.BoatUS.com/angler/contest

About the sponsors:

BoatNameGear offers a unique, hand-picked selection of high-quality personalized gifts, clothing and gear. BoatUS members enjoy a 10% discount on all products plus free shipping on all orders of $99 or more. 

###

Local Boat Shows

BoatNameGear occasionally exhibits at boat shows in and around Connecticut where I live. The shows give me a chance to see a few existing customers in person, get feedback on products, get the name out there, and meet all kinds of great people. If time permits, I also get the chance to talk to folks about the other sites in the network - I usually can find a story idea or two for Daily Boater or the new Northeast Boater.

This is the back of the booths at SailQuest in Mystic, CT, last year. SailQuest is moving to Milford this year.

And since Father's Day is one of the website's busiest times of year, I was especially excited to find a couple of events right in my home state right before things get really crazy for the big holiday. The two events are in-water boat shows, and both are on the Connecticut shoreline.

This will be my first time at the Brewer show, which should be interesting - I'm told the land vendors like me will be "in the shed". I'm looking forward to it! Westbrook and the surrounding towns are great boating communities, so it seems like a good location for a show.

I'm also looking forward to SailQuest, which will be my third time exhibiting at the show, which is every year it was held. I'm also hopeful the show will draw a bigger crowd than it has in previous years due to its new location, free admission, and the fact that the promoters have now had two years of experience. It will also be a bit of a homecoming for me as I grew up in Milford and spent many a summer boating in and out of Milford Harbor.

If you're in the area, please stop by:

Brewer Spring In-Water Boat Show
LOCATION: Brewers Pilots Point Marina, Westbrook, CT
DATE: April 28 - 29, 2012
MORE INFO: Brewer Spring In-Water Boat Show

SailQuest Boat Show
LOCATION: Lisman Landing Marina, Milford, CT
DATE: May 18 - 20, 2012
MORE INFO: SailQuest Boat Show / WindCheck

Tools I Use

Some of this web stuff gets confusing sometimes. When people ask me what tools I use to do one thing or another with my websites or social media, I am always happy to help. But on the tools that I "set and forget", I am often living proof of why that phrase exists.

This post is about those tools so that the next time someone asks, I can refer to or share this link...

For this and many of my other blogs, I usually use Blogger, which is free and is owned by Google. In fact, many of the tools I use to run my business are both free and owned by Google.  These include my ad-serving software, analytics tools, email and calendar. While I am comfortable and happy with Blogger, I am also testing out WordPress for a new site that is launching soon, and so far it is great... WP is also free, but not currently owned by Google.

For some of the trickier stuff that I sometimes forget about (when they are working smoothly)...

When I write a blog post on the Daily Boater, it instantly shows up (title, link and summary) on the Daily Boater Facebook page. This happens thanks to a free app called  networkedblogs. (You can get it by viewing one of these posts on Facebook and clicking on the networkedblogs link below the post: http://www.facebook.com/DailyBoater/posts/308912592489987).

The 2nd thing that happens automatically.  That same blog post I mentioned above is also sent to Daily Boater Twitter followers as soon as I post it on my blog. I don't have to log into Twitter as frequently as I used to. This is thanks to TwitterFeed.com. Free. Non-Google. I haven't looked into it, but this tool could probably replace what I use networkedblogs for, as it looks like it allows me to post to both Twitter and Facebook. I only use it for twitter. On the other hand, Facebook pages have a setting that now makes this service obsolete (on my FirstBoat Facebook page, every post I write directly on Facebook from that page gets automatically tweeted  from @FirstBoat / to do this, go to your Facebook business page, edit your page, and click on resources.)

This one is big...
The 3rd automatic thing that happens when I write a blog post on the Daily Boater is it gets sent out via RSS. When initially setting this up, I found RSS, which I believe stands for Real Simple Syndication, not so simple. However, with yet another free tool from Google called Feedburner, my blog posts on Daily Boater are automatically syndicated. This allows the blog post to:

1. show up on the home page of FirstBoat.com
2. Get delivered to my RSS subscribers' emails
3. Show up in peoples RSS readers or iGoogle or myYahoo home pages if they "subscribe" to my feed.
4. a bunch of other stuff that I can't think of right now. Which brings me back to my original point in this blog post. I have relied on a lot of great automation tools as I ramp up this growing network of web properties, and when they work well, you don't have to even remember what they all are!

Okay, now it's back to work using these and other tools... contact me if you have any questions implementing these things or about other solutions I use to run my business.

Captain's Quarterly...

Has this turned into a quarterly post? I've got to get here more often!

It's been busy, but I had to tell you about some numbers. They look good on all fronts, but there is one shining star that I want to highlight.

The Daily Boater.

Yes, traffic was up in 2011 over 2010 - I've been writing more, adding more guest bloggers, and getting the word out to more readers. But what really caught my attention is the growth the site has experienced, especially this month.

January 2012 traffic is up on the Daily Boater by 134% over January of 2011, and unique visitors have increased for the same period by a whopping 167%. 

Admittedly, the gross traffic numbers are not huge, but they have been increasing each year since I started the Daily Boater with my first post on the 4th of July, 2006. In fact, 2011 as a whole saw a 119% increase in unique visitors over 2010, and unique visitors increased by 140% for the year. 2010 numbers were higher than 2009, and so on.

Keep in mind that these numbers do not include the thousands of people that read Daily Boater articles in newsletters that come to their email, or on FaceBook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.  Or the people that read the Daily Boater articles that are syndicated on FirstBoat.com, TakeMeFishing.org or so many other sites that grab our RSS feed and republish with (and sometimes without) our permission.

Bottom line, if you have products or services to promote to the boating community, you need to be advertising on the Daily Boater. Contact me if you want to get involved.

Holiday Gift Guide 2011

It's that time of year again!

As the publisher of a network of boating sites, I feel it is my duty to suggest a list of gift ideas for boaters. Of course, it is also a chance to highlight products and services from some of the many contributors and partners I work with throughout the year (MegaYacht News, SkipperTips, Victoria Allman, etc.). And, in the interest of total transparency, it's an opportunity to promote some of the products I sell on my own sites, especially BoatNameGear.com.

You may think that the 2nd year of doing something is a little too soon to be calling that thing an "annual", but I am confident the Daily Boater Holiday Gift Guide will be an ongoing tradition. Stay tuned!

So, without any further b.s., here is the announcement about the SECOND ANNUAL Daily Boater Holiday Gift Guide hosted on Pitch Engine (Pitch Engine is a great service for hosting and sharing professional-looking press releases, BTW); and here is the link to the actual Gift Guide itself on DailyBoater.com: dailyboater.com/2011/11/holiday-gift-guide-for-boaters.html 

If you don't hear from me here again before Christmas, I hope you enjoy the holidays!

AJC

Hello November

I'm just coming out of 4 full days without power, and my back-up office (Panera Bread on the Berlin Tpke) was shoulder to shoulder with a mix of families and business people getting warm and charging their phones.

Power has now been restored to both home and office, so back to a higher rate of productivity... and on that front, there is news.

BoatNameGear
BoatU.S. has once again selected BoatNameGear products as their contest-giveaway for all their members for the month of November and (hopefully) beyond. You can see the BNG logo at the bottom of this page: http://my.boatus.com

Also in BoatNameGear news, the transition of e-commerce platforms away from Yahoo and over to Volusion is nearly complete. The new back-end will make an easier store for customers to shop in, and should make managing it easier for me. It will also be less expensive, allowing me to pass more savings on to customers.
* If you'd like to spend 5 minutes and help me test a couple of things on the new site, please send me an email (andrew@nauticalsites.com). No technical expertise is required.

Daily Boater
In other news, the Nautical Sites network continues to add advertisers. Daily Boater (my boating news site) is excited to welcome EdgeWater Power Boats on board. Check their site if you want to help support my business (Just looking at it will help!)

DailyBoater also is now the proud owner of its own facebook page. Please give it a 'like' when you get a chance - http://www.facebook.com/DailyBoater

Okay, enough with the requests and updates... there's a lot of work to be done! Thanks to everyone for their encouragement and support!

Industry Stuff

Went to my first CT Marine Trades Expo yesterday and saw some great presentations. The folks from the Connecticut Marine Trades Association did a good job pulling the day together. Some folks from an Internet services company spent a couple of hours convincing the local marine businesses in the room that they should have a website, and that they should use it to increase their sales. I stuck around for a presentation after lunch which included a panel of boat salespeople from around the state sharing some ideas on how to sell boats in these tough economic times. All four of the panelists described ways in which they really went outside the box to get their boats in front of people, including showing their boats in local parades, at malls and airports, and even at non-nautical fairs such as an apple harvest festival!

The group also stated that they have significantly reduced or completely done away with print advertising; instead they are getting involved in community initiatives, and marketing on the web - placing ads on boating websites such as those in my nautical sites network. Would this be a good place for a shameless plug? You bet! Contact me directly if you'd like to advertise on my boating websites. You'll get a tremendous value for your money, and you'll reach the recreational boaters that are most likely to be interested in products and services like yours.

Readership of the Daily Boater has continued to grow, and I've been trying to give more back to our readers. As such I have engaged a new guest author to write a weekly column for the site. Whether you are a novice sailor or have years of experience, you'll enjoy the insights of John Jamieson. Captain John teaches sailing skippers the no-nonsense cruising skills they need for safer sailing worldwide, and now he shares that experience on DailyBoater.com. Of course, if you want all-Captain-John all the time, sign up for his FREE sailing tips newsletter at http://skippertips.com. You can also become a paying member for instant access to 425+ articles, video tutorials, newsletters, and free eBooks.  The articles that Captain John has contributed to the Daily Boater are available for free at the following link: http://www.dailyboater.com/search/label/Captain%20John

On a national note, I have been continuing to try to collaborate with the NMMA, and just this week they placed a link to BoatNameGear.com on their Grow Boating resources site - the website for the organization charged with the task of increasing participation in boating. Here's the link - scroll down to the bottom to see the t-shirt picture and link to BoatNameGear: http://www.growboating.org/toolkit/promotionalmaterials.aspx

I also exhibited for the first time at the Newport Boat Show last month with a booth for BoatNameGear. The weather was beautiful, which helped the crowds come out in pre-recession numbers. I am pleased to report that we put a lot of personalized gear into the hands of folks from the northeast, and met a lot of nice people from not only Rhode Island, but also CT, NY, Mass, New Hampshire and New Jersey. People came from everywhere for this show. I was able to snap a few photos from the Newport show which you can check out here.

I opted not to do the local Norwalk Boat Show the following weekend, and that turned out to be a blessing as the show was practically rained out. Next up: probably Hartford and Boston in 2012.

Hopefully I'll have some updates before then!

One Crazy Summer

I haven't posted anything in a while because it truly has been one crazy summer.

Just this morning the Daily Boater was featured in a British boating newsletter, with a nice write-up about our boating news site: Boats On TV Newsletter.

But what really kept me busy this summer was all the exposure that Boat Name Gear has received. The timing couldn't be better, as Boat Name Gear will be exhibiting at the Newport (RI) International Boat Show next month for the first time (if you are going to the show, please let me know via the Boat Name Gear facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=235880156440536).

What exposure? The best kind - inexpensive and widespread. One of our endeavors has even helped encourage people to boat! Over the past few months, Boat Name Gear has been one of a handful of top-brand sponsors of a contest being administered by the NMMA. We are in good company with likes of Sperry Top-Siders and BoatU.S. - all offering prizes to encourage people to invite their friends out boating (Welcome to the Water Contest). We gave away dozens of t-shirts with the "Welcome to the Water" logo across the back, and each of the winner's boat name embroidered on the front-left chest. Also, Boat Name Gear has been in the Sun Sentinal, the Baltimore Sun, and in an editorial article in the Miami Herald.

On top of this, we've been adding a bunch of new products - including environmentally-friendly premium polo shirts, fleece blankets, and sailcloth boat bags.

The other sites in the Nautical Sites network, including FirstBoat.com, Daily Boater, BoatlinX and the Boat Name Blog,  have been adding advertisers such as Empire Covers.

All that, and we survived Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene - only one of our websites was down (FirstBoat.com for a few hours, and yes, we're finding a new web host company), and none of our Internet orders were lost or even delayed. For some pictures of some boats and marinas that were not so lucky, check out our collection on the Daily Boater.

There's more, but there are not many more boating days left this year in the northeast. We'll see you soon in Newport!

On Take Me Fishing

I was excited to open the email I got this morning from the Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation (RBFF) when I saw the subject line:


TakeMeFishing.org Adds Live News Feed, Expands Coverage of Boating and Fishing

Excited over an email? Very. I knew my conversations with the RBFF over the past few months were panning out and that my Daily Boater blog was among the first few news sources the RBFF had selected for a content partner in their new boating and fishing news section of their site. I knew the Daily Boater feed was already live and sending stories to the TakeMeFishing.org website. Now they were sending out a press release to promote their new news area, and probably mentioning their partners in said press release.

I was, of course, a little disappointed that they didn't mention the Daily Boater by name in the press release. I guess they couldn't list everybody, and mentioning partners like ESPN and Field and Stream were probably the safe choice. And actually, listing those household brands will bring more people to the article and more people to the news feed, and thus more people to DailyBoater.com. So it's still a big win.

And of course, I'm very excited to be part of the launch of this service on TakeMeFishing.org, and hoping that syndication deals like this continue to spread the word about my growing network of nautical sites.

By the way, the RBFF's press release failed to include the link to the actual news feed page they were announcing, and I had trouble finding it from the TakeMeFishing.org website, so here it is in one click: http://www.takemefishing.org/community/news/home

I wonder if ESPN and Field and Stream are mentioning this news on any of their sites.

Everybody Loves NY

I stopped by the New York National Boat Show on Thursday to check out the boats, as well as to scout out story ideas, advertising leads and the competition. There are more pics on the FirstBoat Facebook page, but I included a few below, and also a write-up on the Daily Boater.

Love the classic look of Silverton Yachts

This seems like bad business. Shouldn't they have at least shown up and talked about their product?

Deadliest Catch in the house. These guys were a riot.

Chaparrals always look sharp.

Providence (and more) Boat Shows

I attended the Providence Boat Show yesterday (see my Daily Boater article for a few boat pics) and met lots of great folks. Attendance was not great when I was there (and I heard it was even worse on Thursday), but I was there on Friday afternoon during business hours when people who can afford boats were working at their day jobs; I suspect traffic will pick up over the weekend.

Hopefully I'll be seeing many of the exhibitors I met again over the next few weeks when I exhibit (for BoatNameGear) at the Hartford Boat Show, the Northeast Fishing Expo, and the big New England Boat Show in Boston.

Not exhibiting, but I'll be doing a similar drop-in at the New York Boat Show next week and will try to bring back some stories and pictures... Stay tuned.

Press Release: Holiday Gift Guide for Boaters

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Daily Boater Releases its First Holiday Shopping Guide for Boaters

Unique nautical gift ideas specially selected for boating and fishing enthusiasts

Newington, CT - November 24, 2010 - In an effort to facilitate holiday shopping for people who have boaters and anglers on their list, the Daily Boater today announced their first annual Holiday Gift Guide for Boating Enthusiasts. The editors of the Daily Boater handpicked items that will be sure to please anybody with a passion for the boating lifestyle. The guide includes unique nautical drinkware, fishing trips, life-saving boating gadgets, products personalized with a boat name or a nautical chart, and more.

The products and services selected to participate in the guide were chosen from small businesses across the United States, including Autotether, BoatNameGear.com, Caron’s Beach House, SeaSquared Charters, MaraMAPS and MegaYacht News. Andrew Canepari, publisher of the Daily Boater, stated, “If you have someone on your shopping list who enjoys boating, this guide will certainly make your life a lot easier. We chose products we like from small businesses that we trust to provide excellent service, especially during the busy holiday season.”

Many of the featured products include personalization and should be purchased early to accommodate production and shipping time for the holidays. Shoppers should check with each individual store for their delivery policies. The Daily Boater Holiday Gift Guide is available online at:

http://www.firstboat.com/gift-guide

or

http://www.dailyboater.com/2010/11/gifts-for-boaters-our-holiday-gift.html

The Daily Boater, the official blog and newsletter of FirstBoat.com, delivers boating news and information daily. The publication’s goal is to help people have fun and boat safely. The site’s community of boaters interacts under the well-known FirstBoat brand on LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter, and directly on www.FirstBoat.com and www.DailyBoater.com as well as through several syndicated publications.

Contact

Andrew Canepari, Nautical Sites Media

andrew@nauticalsites.com

Direct: (860) 249-1166

###

By Way of Norwalk

Stopped by another boat show this past week, this time in Norwalk, Connecticut. The Norwalk show is the only big show in Connecticut with boats in the water this year, and as such draws a pretty good crowd of boating enthusiasts from across the state. It takes place on Connecticut's gold coast, one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, and is just a stone's throw from New York City. Add in the fact that the show is located both geographically and chronologically near big shows in Newport, Annapolis and Boston, it's no wonder the show is a great place to see a large selection of yachts, boats and boat products.

Similar to my trip to Newport the previous week, I rushed in and out of the Norwalk boat show in two to three hours - I again spent less time at the show than on the road. But it was still enough time to see all of the land vendors, and walk all of the docks and even board a couple of the bigger boats. I got to speak with some interesting folks I know including the president of the Conn. Marine Trades Association, the editor-in-chief of WindCheck Magazine, and the guy who sells Nantucket Baggs at every boat show I've been to in the past year. Also met a bunch of new exhibitors (new to me, but most of them seasoned exhibitors, actually), many of them based right here in Connecticut and New York - some of them offering services nationwide, and some of them just trying to reach northeast boaters.


Anyway, got some good photos and story leads and had a few good, albeit short, conversations, and was impressed with the crowd for lunchtime on a Thursday. The parking wasn't bad, but would have been rough for someone to just pop-in during a lunch break from the office, so I suspect the crowd got even bigger as the day and weekend wore on.

Next up for me is the Boston Fall Boat Show, and instead of just a few hours I'll be on-site all weekend, exhibiting as BoatNameGear. I'll also have our new northeast sales rep on-hand if anyone wants to discuss advertising on our nautical sites network .


Here are a few photos from the Norwalk show - you can see more on flickr.

Remind me to used this on DailyBoater.com next July 4th.

I call this a "Billy Joel" boat, because it reminds me of the style he cruises in around Long Island.

An electric boat

Geico: The bigger, faster, brighter the better.

A view from the docks

The Lagoon 400 - this catamaran looked as wide as it did long.

see more on flickr

Haute Yachts

Very flattered, honored and excited that when Haute Living - a leading network of luxury lifestyle publications - wanted to do a story about boat names, they turned to me.

Thank you to Diane Byrne for thinking of me and mentioning a few of our Nautical Sites in this article: Haute Yachts: Patriotic Boat Names

Stay tuned for more news soon, hopefully.