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Blogging Advice

Kit

Maester
If you think it's too much/too varied/too incohesive, you can do different distinct sections on your blog page- laid out like a newspaper or something. That way, people who are only interested in the ____ part can find it easily (hey, it's the purple-lined box!) and not get impatient wading through the rest.
 

Ankari

Hero Breaker
Moderator
Yes,I should have stated that my blog module allows for multiple categories. That would be the strategy I'd take.
 

gavintonks

Maester
I run a Facebook page for a client and it is hard work, you need content to drive interest and it takes time. When you have the right content and engage properly the people come, we had a spike of 9000 last week in 2 days, it is damn hard work and lots of competition, I have some help with people who post and comment which helps a lot, but people vote with their feet always.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Share with my (hopeful) audience the experience of creating a universe and writing a novel.
I want to give my opinion on any fantasy media (games, books, movies, etc).
I want to give more information on certain aspects of my universe (the dialogue in my thread under World Building made me see the need for this).
I want to weigh in on publishing. The discussions in the Publishing Forums is a great example of what I would write about.



So, is this too much? To varied?

I guess that I don't understand why I, as Joe Internet Surfer, would want to read it. Sure, it's easy enough to put out a blog, but how to make it worth something seems to be the trick.

When you write a book, you spend a lot of time thinking about your characters and about how to make the reader have interest in them. The same thought needs to go into the blog, right? If you're just doing it "for the fun of it" to record your thoughts, that's one thing. My understanding, however, is that you want to use it as a marketing tool.

The first question you have to answer is: why will people read my blog?
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
To expand on what BWFoster78 has written, I want to:
  • Share with my (hopeful) audience the experience of creating a universe and writing a novel.
  • I want to give my opinion on any fantasy media (games, books, movies, etc).
  • I want to give more information on certain aspects of my universe (the dialogue in my thread under World Building made me see the need for this).
  • I want to weigh in on publishing. The discussions in the Publishing Forums is a great example of what I would write about.

So, is this too much? To varied?

Here's the fact of the matter:

Running a successful blog is hard.

1 - The more narrow your subject, the more often you need to post. For an author, we're talking three times a week.

2 - In order to retain readers, you need to create value for your audience with each post. If you're an author, there's very few readers who are interested enough in publishing - which appeals to authors - to read about it regularly. An author needs to focus on the characters and the story, yet in a way too subtle to give away the details - and you need to, in some ways, be a character yourself. That doesn't mean be fake. It means find a piece of yourself, and your writing experience, to focus on with your blog, instead of posting every last thought you ever have.

3 - You need an attractive and functional layout. That means finding someone to make a banner and tinkering with the aesthetics and functionality of your page at length. Oh, and to do it effectively, you need to understand design. It's not enough to have the information and "look good." Where do your eyes track when you look at a page? Do they find the important information or not? Are all those awesome graphics distracting from your text? - if you have no experience with it, the chances are they do. If the body of your page isn't black text on a white background, you should probably get help with your design.

4 - You need to network. Everywhere. That means promoting your blog on twitter and facebook, and through forums, comments and web communities everywhere. It means having the guts to ask people whose blogs are better than yours to help you out by swapping links, joining in activities, or "retweeting" each other's posts. It means having content good enough that they will want to, and hoping your readers don't abandon you in comparison with the people you're promoting.

5 - You've got to be likable, damned the ego. You are a part of your brand. That's it, that's all I can say about it.

6 - After about a year, your efforts and your resourcefulness need to increase or your blog will soon begin to stagnate and shrink. A growing audience means that you need to grow in value. The good news is, if you've done it right, there should be plenty of opportunity and resources to refocus your efforts. The bad news is, if you've done it wrong, you won't have those resources, and unless you put even more work into it, you've probably peaked at nowhere.

In my opinion, if you're doing the above to promote a book, you're going about it the wrong way. If you want to promote your book, put together a basic content-promotions webpage to link to, and just network with an eye towards finding people to review your book. It's worth noting, an amazon page is already a great content-promotions page, but you can also build a tasteful page to talk about your characters and your story. If you want, you can include a mini-blog that needs only a fraction of the work to maintain. As an author you don't need people to come back to your web page. You need them to move on towards placing an order for your book.
 
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