An Author Blog is still one of the best ways to build platform
By Anne R. Allen
If you tell your non-writing friends you’re thinking of starting an author blog, you’ll probably hear some noise about how blogging is “totally over.”
People have been pronouncing the demise of blogging for a decade. Google “blogging is dead” and you’ll see thousands of entries.
But it turns out the blog is a pretty resilient medium.
Your friends are right in one sense: the “make a zillion-dollars-by-blogging-about-blogging” blog has passed its sell-by date. You can only teach a finite number of people how to make money teaching blogging until the market is saturated and everybody goes back to the current version of selling Amway.
But that stuff has nothing to do with author blogs. As an author, you’re blogging to get name recognition and publicity for your books, not to sell advertising. That means most of the rules of business blogging don’t apply to you. The money comes when you sell your books.
Author blogs are easy, fun, and only need to appeal to your target book readership, not vast hordes of consumers. They’re a venue for entertainment and information, not a hard-sell advertising machine. And they don’t have to take much time. Posting once a week or less is fine for an author blog.
Even beginning authors can benefit from an author blog, and blogging will pave the way for your future career.
Here are some reasons to start an author blog:
1) You Need a Website—and a Blog is a Free Website.
Sending out a query when you don’t have a website can be a waste of time—whether the query is for a book review, guest blogpost, or a publishing contract. Some publishing professionals reject on that alone.
If you’re getting form rejections on a polished query, this may be the reason. Stop revising the query for the millionth time and start blogging.
Yes, you’ll hear a lot of people saying you need an expensive, self-hosted blog, because OMG what will happen when you get ten million hits an hour and your blog crashes?
Don’t worry. It’s not going to happen. It’s an author blog.
Book readers aren’t techno-snobs. They don’t disrespect somebody based on their website’s URL.
Blogger (blogspot.com) works great for a lot of authors. When our blog was there, it got up to 5000 hits a day—and never crashed.
Setting up a WordPress.com free (non-self-hosted) blog is a little techier than setting up with Blogger, but most authors can do it on their own. And I’ve heard good things about setting up a blog at Wix.
You can also blog free on a number of sites like Goodreads and Medium.
2) A Blog Gets your Name into Search Engines Faster than a Static Website.
A static website gets less traffic than an active blog, so the search engines won’t notice it as quickly. The more active the site, the more likely the search engine spiders will find it.
A “spider” or” web crawler” is a software program that “crawls” through websites and reads information to create entries for a search engine index. Spiders begin with a popular site, index the words, and follow every link found within the site.
A blog that’s getting hits and comments and people share and link to will get noticed by the spiders.
3) Interacting with Fans and Attracting Readers
Author blogs are one of the best marketing tools out there, even if you don’t have anything to market…yet.
That’s because a blog is a fantastic place to make friends with people who may later buy your books. If you’re blogging about a topic, historical period, or setting of your book, you’ll attract people who’re interested in the place, period, or situation in your book.
These connections are pure gold.
It’s not that you want to hard-sell your book to everybody who wanders by. These people can become contacts who introduce you to corners of the Internet you might never have discovered otherwise. They can also introduce you to agents, editors, writers’ conference directors, and other professionals who’ll make all the difference in your career.
4) Other Social Media is Subject to Faddism.
Facebook has made it tougher for people to see your posts if you don’t pay to boost them. And we don’t want to forget MySpace or RedRoom…oh, whoops, I guess we already have.
Plus you might lose your account altogether. A few years ago, a lot of people found their Facebook accounts deleted because they used a “fake name” (even if the so-called fakery involved putting “Author” after their real name.)
That meant they had to start all over again getting friends and followers. It took months to get their following back—and some never did.
5) Control of your Brand.
Every author needs to protect their “brand” —which is a jargon-y way of saying your name. “Stephen King” is a brand. Ditto “Janet Evanovich” and “James Patterson.” People buy a brand because they know what they’re going to get.
Unfortunately, the Internet is infested with trolls, hackers, rage addicts, and spammers who can ruin your brand. One friend’s Facebook account got hacked by some diet-drug spammer who hit all her Facebook friends with insulting ads. Several promptly “unfriended” her before she even knew what happened. She got branded a hustler and body-shamer.
Unfortunately, stuff like this happens every day.
On your own blog, you can defend yourself. There’s that nice “delete” button. A troll, spammer or furious fool shows up and you click the button. All gone.
You can also create your own look that will attract the kind of readers who are most likely to be interested in your work.
6) Establishing Yourself as a Professional.
A blog is your online calling card. It’s like your own newspaper column. Writing to deadline and coming up with a topic once a week (what I recommend for authors) is great for building your writing muscles and impressing others with your professionalism.
Plus writing for a blog teaches you to write for the digital age.
By checking your stats, you can see immediately what posts are getting the most traffic and learn what works for a Web-based audience.
You’ll also learn to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) keywords, bulleting, sub-headers and white space to draw the eye through a post. This is useful for composing any kind of content for the Web.
When you have books to sell, you need to know how to write guest blogposts (one of the best methods of marketing your book) as well as other Web content. Practicing on your own blog, even before you’re published, gives you a big advantage.
7) Practice Improves your Writing.
Blogging is writing. This is your medium. If you’re a fiction writer, you’ll learn to write nonfiction—and develop copywriting skills—which you’re going to need when you’re marketing your books.
Writing for an immediate audience is different from writing alone in your garret. Comments and shares give you the boost of adrenaline that actors get when there’s a real audience as opposed to acting in rehearsal.
That boost will take your writing to the next level.
8) A Blog is a Solid Plank in your “Platform.”
Whether you’re planning to self-publish or you’re going the traditional route, every author needs a “platform” sooner or later.
Sooner is better.
When should you think about your platform?
As soon as you’re ready to send out a story or submit a manuscript to an agent, or get ready to self-publish.
How can an agent or reviewer tell if you have a platform? They Google you.
The results are a good indication of your platform.
Self-publishers especially need to work on platform building. Many book marketers say authors should spend most of their social media marketing time working on platform rather than selling books directly.
Build that platform and the sales will come.
Blogging is one of the fastest, easiest ways to do that.
But I Tried Blogging and Failed Miserably!
If you’ve tried to start a blog and ended up abandoning it after a few months, you’re not alone. Most blogs are abandoned after 3 months. But you can succeed if you realize that an author blog is totally different from a business blog. And 90% of the advice on blogging is for monetized business blogs. It doesn’t apply to you. Author blogs can be “slow” (once a week or less) and FUN.
For more on how to have a successful author blog check out my post on 10 Tips for Successful Author Blogging.
by Anne R. Allen (@annerallen) February 18, 2018
A version of this post first appeared at Author Marketing Experts in December 2017.
What about you, scriveners? Do you have a blog? Have you been thinking about starting a blog? Did you have one and abandon it? What keeps you from blogging?
***
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Yes, yes all this, absolutely YES! I’m lumbering back into action on my blog–as I’ve done before– and it’s all exactly right in spades here Anne.
Another angle to shoot down is the old zero-sum whine of “if I’m blogging I’m not finishing the WiP”. As if. For all the hours I sit staring at a blank screen, first of all: like that’s my blog’s fault or something! But truthfully there are LOTS of things I can blog that I could never put in a book. Maybe that’s an epic fantasy thing, but probably 70% of all world-building belongs in a Compendium of some kind, not in between sweeps and thrusts in a sword fight.
What you said about marketing yourself really struck a chord too. I found oftentimes that writing the book could put me “in the zone” but I did not at first feel so comfortable replying to people online, answering questions about the book plot, etc. That has gotten better with practice, and the blog, plus my FB presence (related-linked) has been the chief reason why.
Everybody do what Anne says here! In fact, do what Anne says all the time. That’s the ticket.
Will–I’ve just come from reading your post today on forgotten Fantasy classics. Great stuff. And perfect for drawing in new fantasy readers.
Also, what you say about stuff that doesn’t fit in the book is spot on. All that world building and scenic detail that keeps a book from “flowing” is magic on a blog. Excellent advice!
Great tips Anne, thanks for clearing the air!
Mark–Thanks for stopping by!
When I queried my first book, before I even signed the contract, my publisher told me I had to get my butt online. I needed a site and social media presence. So I combined both with a blog. That was almost nine years ago and I’m still here.
And I agree with Will above – you can blog and write at the same time. I did so with my books. Not nice to just show up online when I have a book to promote and that’s it.
Alex–Yes, you’re still here. In a major way. 🙂 Your blog has expanded into the IWSG, one of the top writers groups online.
You’re right that it’s not nice to just show up online when you have a book to promote. It’s also stupid, because everybody will be scratching their heads saying “who are you again?”
Hi Anne — I’ve been following your Slow Blogging rules for six years now at Wordmonger (csperryess.blogspot.com). I think your point about writing being what we writers do is particularly salient here. Most my writing energy goes into teen fiction, but I blog about etymologies, anagrams, spoonerisms, odd spelling rules, & such. Though my passion is with fiction, it’s been really good for me to keep up my research skills & non-fiction writing skills. Plus, every week I get to learn something about words, & I get to digitally meet people. Not a bad deal at all.
CS–Has the Wordmonger been going for 6 years? And you still find fascinating things to say every week. Yes, it’s great for building those nonfiction muscles!
Hi Anne – Great piece, as usual. I’ve had an active blog for 5 years and I swear it’s the best return on time out there. My posts have a regular following and that generates loyal readers for my books which is nice. But the bigger payback comes from making connections with what I call force multipliers or key influencers. Because of the blog, I’ve gained credibility with people having far more reach than I could ever achieve on my own. It’s led me to guest blog invites, media interviews, screenwrite opportunities and now being part of a film documentary. I’ve also learned how to write commercial web content which is a nice cash bonus to pay the bills while I work on more books. And it’s all because I started a litle blog to have fun. Blogging is far from dead!
Garry–You make an important point I stress in my book. They say you need to “know somebody” to break into publishing, and a blog is a great place to meet “somebodies.”
You mention all the opportunities that have come to you through the blog. That’s been my experience too. A blog is a stepping stone to so many things!
Will nailed it. Just do what Anne tells you to do and you’ll be on the right track. Seriously.
Testify, Ruth. The only person I know who’s righter than Anne, I married!
Haha! Okay you guys, obey!
Truth!
I’ve learned a lot by blogging and the analytics are fascinating at times.
Louis–Analytics can teach you so much, can’t they? Learning what posts resonate with people teaches you what kind of things will be popular in your other writing.
Anne, this is spot on with every single point. Blogging gives your author website a constant flow of SEO mojo, which a static website–or a Facebook author page–can’t match. Without it, an author may not appear at the top of Google search results for their own name. For example, I share a name with the mayor of a town in New Jersey–I sure want MY website in search results, not his latest town council meeting. Having a blog serves up lots of my links to Google for readers to find.
Every post can be a mini billboard for your latest project. Plus, a blog is a great way to showcase your writing. The design can help to show your author “brand,” fix your primary genre in readers’ mind, and “illustrate” your books and bio with interesting visuals.
Carmen–Thanks for the testimonial! As I keep saying, blogging is about making friends. And what you want MOST is for Google to be your friend. (There’s a stockbroker in San Jose named Anne R. Allen. She used to come up all the time in my searches. Now she doesn’t appear until the 3rd or 4th page. I suppose she hates me now. 🙂 )
I like the way you’ve put it. “Each post can be a mini billboard for your latest project.”
Hi Anne,
Very timely post! I came across it as I was collecting the hotlink for your blog to feature on mine!
I just recently re-vamped my website and blog because, as you said, it’s the foundation of an author’s brand. I see my website as a showcase for my works, and my blog as a showcase for me as a writer. But not just a showcase for me – one for my genre, and for other writers in that genre as well. 🙂
Roh–Sounds like you’ve got a good handle on how to use your blog to market your brand. Featuring other writers in your genre is win/win. You draw genre readers, and you also draw readers of the other authors you feature.
As you know I write and post almost every Sunday. It’s a good habit to form, moves me away from my fiction and challenges me to find a subject to write about. I love blogging.
Beth–You’ve got a great blog. It’s of interest to anybody who reads women’s fiction and also to Boomers. I love your eclectic choices of topics. I always like to stop by on Sundays.
Thank you for the great information, Anne! As a freshman writer I had no idea how many layers were involved in self promotion and brand building. After going to the Central Coast Writers Conference I reluctantly launched a Facebook page and started a blog. I even dared to call myself a “writer”. I have a lot to learn but blogs, like yours ,sure do help!
Lori–Welcome to writer-land! Good for you for starting a social media presence, and starting a blog! There is a lot to do, and it can seem overwhelming, but you can ignore a lot of the advice out there. Not all applies to every author.
I strongly suggest you pick up the book I wrote with Catherine Ryan Hyde, HOW TO BE A WRITER IN THE E-AGE; A SELF-HELP GUIDE. We wrote it for writers just like you. It’s on sale for only 5 days for 99c for the ebook. It can save you a lot of time and grief.
There’s so much information out there about writing and marketing, so it’s good to know what you need to pay attention to and what you can ignore. And there are lots of predators out there ready to pounce on newbie writers. You need to know how to keep yourself safe in cyberspace.
Best of luck!
Congrats on owning your title: Writer.
I see so many ‘aspiring writers’ and I want to scream at them, “all you have to do to be a writer is WRITE! Being a PUBLISHED author is where you’re more subject to the whims of others.”
Anne, I established a website in 2015, and a blog is one of the tabs. I visit it twice a month or more, depending. But I often feel like I’m writing to nobody. I get several hundred visits per week, but never any responses. I always post the notice of a new blog entry on my Face Book page. I’ve recommended your blog several times, along with Hope Clark’s Funds for Writers.
Fred–Thanks for recommending me. Hope Clark is one of my heroes. She’s great isn’t she?
I don’t know if you’ve picked up a copy of my blogging book, but it might give you some pointers on how to get more comments. Make sure you have a call to action at the end, asking questions and suggesting things people might want to talk about involving what’s in your post. Ask for their own experiences.
Also, you may want to work on your headers. Weak headers are the #1 reason for slow blog traffic. Lots of tips in my book for how to get more traffic. I know it can be pretty frustrating to blog for crickets, but there are ways to change it. The book is only $2.99 for one more week! 🙂
Hi Anne
I quite agree. I started blogging a decade ago. I wanted to practice writing and also see if there was a market for these words. It was largely invisible until I started commenting on other related blogs. This drew visibility and readership. Readership doubled after I did an online interview. I finally got my first book out there last year. By then there was established interest in my work, I was known by peers, visible online, and so forth.
Dave–You followed a lot of the tips I give in my blogging book! Blogging is social media and social media is social. You gotta visit other blogs! Also guest blogging is probably the #1 best way to get visibility–for your blog and your books.
Then when your book comes out, you have a ready-made audience. Congrats on doing it right!
Excellent and succinct pointers as always Anne. And I’d never heard of FB pages being deleted because a name with ‘author’ attached appeared fake. When will that nonsense end. FB would be better spending their time finding and booting FAKE Russian bots sliming Americans. 🙂
Debby –Amen re: Russian trolls. They are conquering us and destroying democracy better than any nukes. FB means well, but seems to be pretty powerless. Deleting author accounts didn’t make anybody safer.
It appears that way Anne. But in comparison to some of the nonsensical things FB does deleting pages and taking down harmless posts, I just meant their spider crawling efforts would be better directed at finding the destroyers. 🙂
I keep sending my students to your site here so they will believe me, when I say they simply have to have a social media presence (other than Instagram) BEFORE they approach a publisher!
Your points about controlling a blog where you can’t control other social media you may be on is absolutely spot on. Great post as usual, Anne!
Melodie–Yeah. Instagram doesn’t exactly show off your writing skills 🙂 …. And if you have no social media presence, that can be an auto-reject. They won’t even bother to read your pages, alas.
I think the benefits to aspiring writers of blogging are huge. You meet so many wonderful people who share advice and views. You have the opportunity to participate in prompts and be exposed to other people’s creativity and though processes. Benefits cannot always be measured through immediate financial gain.
Robbie–Exactly. As I say in my book, if you need to know “somebody” to get ahead in publishing, blogging is where you meet those “somebodies”. I’ve got an agent, two publishers and spots in major magazines, anthologies, and newspapers because of my blog. All stuff that would never have happened if I was chasing dollars instead of establishing a brand.
I’ve been blogging consistently since 2008, first on Blogger and now on Tumblr. All the tips you give are great, but there is one additional tip I like to give: moderation. Granted, you can get spanked by trolls and spammers, especially if you allow people to comment anonymously, but if you moderate your comments, you can save yourself about 95% worth of aggravating spammy/trollish comments.
In other words, instead of allowing a spammy/trollish comment to sit out in the open for everyone to see until you get around to checking your blog. you can simply set your comments to “moderate”, so when people comment, their comments go into a queue, where you can decide “yay” or “nay” to publish them.
G.B. It depends on where you are in your blogging career. If you’re beginning and you want comments, it’s better not to hold them for moderation. Many times people won’t come back and they feel they’re being subjected to “gatekeepers” and paranoia. Most beginning blogs don’t attract trolls or spammers right away. (And you can teach your spamblocker to keep out a lot of the spam.)
When you’re starting out your goal should be to get followers and commenters, not to display paranoia.Later, if you do get trolls and spammers, you can moderate if you get a barrage of spam or a troll attack. .
What we do here is moderate all NEW commenters. Once you’ve been approved, you can comment on any post. But we don’t hold all comments in a queue because that stifles interaction. Our spamblocker gets 95% of spam anyway. Blogger’s spamblocker is a little less efficient, but it’s still pretty good.
My feeling is a blog should aim for the best READER experience, even if that means a little more work for the blogger.
I agree with your point about being a newbie you want comments up the wazoo. i speak from personal experience when I was trolled/spammed for about 3 years after I’d started blogging. I moderate out of necessity and to be honest, it doesn’t bother me to visit a blog that does either or. I do stop visiting if the blog owner displays some animosity with their moderation, which has happened to me a few times over the years.
G. B.–You’re right about the trolls. I actually had a chapter in this book about dealing with nasty people on your blog (Delete, delete, delete) but my editor had me take it out. He said I should save that for my book on staying safe online. But I hear you. I’ve had to deal with those nasties myself. Of course when I blocked them, they found my email address and started sending me death threats. There are so many psychos our here in Cyberia. 🙁
I’m getting ideas just from these comments. I’ve been a slow blogger these first couple years, just enough to feature every month in the Archives index.
Now that I’m writing/revising hardcore and can see the Querying monster looming up at the end of the tunnel, I’m trying to find how to feature my actual WIP in blogs, how to start finding New Adult readers, how to master SEO. Like the Wordmonger gentleman I usually cast a wider net in blog topics; I like language and history. (Gonna check out his blog…)
Anne, I have your book. Now I need to read your book! 40 hours in a day would-be-nice syndrome.
Gabriella–Be very careful about putting your WIP on a blog. Most agents won’t take anything that’s been previously published, and putting something on your blog is technically publishing it. It’s much better to include things related to your WIP. Talk about the kind of car your protag. drives. The setting of your book, and things of interest to your demographic, like films and news stories that affect them.
You’ll find lots of tips on what to blog about in the book. I hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for the advice! Your book will dovetail into my life nicely RIGHT HERE. Yes, my links to first chapters are outdated and I will take them down.
Blogging does get you high rankings in the search engines. In fact, do a search for about anything and blogs and Wiki entries will fill most of the top 10 entries.
I’ve been blogging since 2005 and while I have seen a ton of change during that time, I’ve not seen anything to indicate blogging will die like My Space.
Spunk–Yes! Blogging is the best way to make friends with Google, and all authors need to get as cozy with search engines as they can. The demise of MySpace was one of the weirder things that has happened in the e-age, and people are always afraid that kind of fall will happen again, so they keep predicting it. But blogging isn’t just a site. It’s a form of communication. And that’s not going to go away.
Yes! The blog LIVES while the other social platforms become fads. Very important!
Lex–You’re absolutely right. As I said above, blogging isn’t a site, it’s a form of communication. A very effective one. It’s not going anywhere. .
Hi Anne,
Thanks for your post!
I am in the early stages of creating my author platform (about 6 months) but have just started trying to blog each week. It can be hard to find the right topics, but I think I am slowly figuring it out 🙂 It was great to read this, as it has encouraged me to keep to my new weekly regime.
Thanks for the great post.
It’s nice to also read through other blogs from the commentors here for inspiration too 🙂
Poppy–Blogging once a week is the way to go. The more you blog, the easier it is to come up with topics, I find.
And my new blogging book has tons of suggestions on what to blog about depending on your genre and audience.
Our commenters are the best! Best of luck with your platform-building.
Thank you, Anne 🙂
I cannot thank you enough for clarifying about having a writer’s blog in the Blogger space. I’ve been hearing so many contradictory opinions and was quite frazzled about starting out all wrong. So good to know I have not committed some major mistake right at the outset. I’m just setting up my writer’s blog and your blog post is just what I needed.
Savita–That is exactly why I wrote this book. Most of the advice out there simply doesn’t apply to authors, and authors are going through a lot of unnecessary stress trying to follow the wrong rules. Best of luck with your blog, and do consider buying the book while it’s still on sale. It will save you a huge amount of time and stress.
Shameless admission. I love my blog because it keeps my skills sharp while I’m editing my novels. I find it a fun exercise – and though some weeks it seems to take forever to get the darn thing down – I love how it allows me to control my message and share the best of who I am. And while I’m at it – thanks for your wonderful blog. You really know how to “speak” to writers.
Brad–Thanks! Honing your writing skills is my reason #7 and it’s sooo important. Blogging makes you a better writer. and teaches you skills you can use in lots of other writing.
Plus, as you say, it allows you to control your message in a way that other social media (and even interviews) do not. You can be at your best!
Hi, I was steered here by Paper.li…I have a Blogspot book blog too. Seven years of addressing the crickets.
The computer counts how many people (?) open each page. I know some are hackers and some are spambots. I wanted to attract a salon of readers whose comments, links, quarrels, etc., add value to the blog; Scott Adams’, Suzette Haden Elgin’s, and the Nielsen-Haydens’ blogs are/were great in their own right but the comments make/made them even greater. No matter how many times I’ve steered readers to those three shining examples, I’m lucky to get an e-friend to type in “Nice post.”
On the other hand, when I’ve posted about a book–even if my opinion of the book is low!–quite often someone asks for it, maybe even buys it, in real life. So I keep posting about books…
Priscilla–Welcome! Book bloggers are an author’s best friend, so do keep posting about books!
If you’re not getting comments on non-book posts, it may simply be a problem with your headers, SEO, or your call to action. Some simple tweaks can really boost your traffic, so do consider picking up my book, which tells you how to do those tweaks.
The spambots can be heartbreaking. I have a small Blogger blog I started as an experiment when I was writing the Author Blog book. One week I was totally jazzed to see a huge boost in traffic. But when I took a deeper look at my stats, I saw that a huge majority of hits came from Russia. None of that was real traffic. It was all spam. Sigh.
Your posts are exactly WHY I have a blog…and a twitter and a tumblr and…
I *thought* I was just going to have a couple blog posts so that my website wouldn’t be empty, but here I am, 3 years later, blogging regularly.
Then, a couple years ago you posted about reserving your name on all the social medias so that you can control your brand and I really took it to heart.
Thanks to your suggestions, I found the PitchWars group on twitter (and now run 2 support groups for it on fb), haven’t missed my weekly blogpost in over 2 years (even if I’ve done a re-run while on vacation), and even got a cleaned up blogpost published in the ISWG’s essay anthology.
I read other blog advice, but if it doesn’t align with your ‘slow blogging’ philosophy which I find works best for me, (combined with your reassurance that author-blogs aren’t there to make money/be smarmy click-bait), I ignore it.
Morgan–How fantastic to know my blog has been helping you! Thanks for letting me know. Yes. No smarmistic click-bait necessary!
And thanks for talking up the IWSG. Their Pitch Wars are great. And congrats on getting a piece in their anthology!
You rock!
Mine is set up at wordpress.com. They have a 24/7 hotline which is great for me. I’m pretty sure my cat is more tech savvy than me. It will be up this week or next.
I’ve sent out a half dozen queries for my book but I am holding back until I get the site up. I’m disappointed with Facebook. I will give it a try with my author name and see what happens. On the other hand I’ve had surprising success with Twitter. I’ve had a lot of one on one conversations with authors and publishers.
As always, excellent info. I know I speak for all when I say we appreciate it.
Bryan–It’s taken me a long time to build up my FB author page. I had much more luck with my “friend” page. And Twitter is great for making first contact with people. But I use both mostly to drive traffic here. This is where real conversations are a lot easier.
I’ve never had to use WordPress tech support, but I jumped from Blogger to WP.org and have a webmaster who handles that stuff. But I’ve heard good things about WP tech support.. That’s definitely one of the BIG perks using WP over Blogger.
Glad to hear I am not the only one having success on Twitter. I am thinking about my WordPress account also.
Mark–Twitter is great for making first time connections. I make them all the time. Then take the conversations to the blog or email. I know there are lots of trolls and bots on Twitter, but it’s easy to ignore them..
Nice to know that blogging is still worthwhile. Right now, I’m using Blogger, but once my book comes out, I’ll probably switch to WordPress. Thanks for the info.
Ken–Blogger is fine for most author blogs. Switching can be a hassle. I would have been happy to stay on Blogger if I hadn’t been hacked and pirated. But the hack was my own fault for having a weak password I never changed. 🙁
Thanks for the great advice, Anne. I have just downloaded The Author Blog and working my way through it. Starting with this, my first comment on a blog. I have a book coming out in October , Murder Served Cold, through Crooked Cat Books and am working on building up my social media presence. Finding your book was very timely. Many thanks.
Paula–Congratulations on making your first blog comment!! That’s a big step. I remember when I was terrified to comment. I lurked for months. Also congrats on your forthcoming launch! You’re doing this in plenty of time and you can have a nice social media presence by October. I’m glad you’re finding my book helpful.
Thank you Anne
Yes, it’s easy to block them.
I just had an interesting experience in the last two weeks. A person professed a desire to engage my proofreading service. She sent me a sample of her book and I went through it and commented all the findings using Word2016. She claimed to be unable to see my comments because she was using Word97. After many emails back and forth, I realized her sample was created in the same version of Word as mine.
Doesn’t that seem odd to you? I gave her the appropriate treatment, as you suggested.
Mark–That’s very odd indeed. When I was a freelance editor, I twice had clients that did really strange things like that. Finally I realized that one woman had Alzheimer’s and the other was on some kind of meds that made her unable to retain new information. That’s the trouble with online connections. You can’t see the signs that would wave big red flags if you were meeting in person.
You make a good point Anne, thanks
This is a good post, Anne. Thanks for sharing. 🙂 — Suzanne
Suzanne–Thanks for stopping by!
I’d add that an important function of website is not to just be a part of ‘Brand’ but actually owning the domain with your full name/pen name is a good thing for your copyright protection. The earlier you reserve and own it the better. Even if you have no website/blog. These days domain ownership can be used as legal tool to help prove ownership of content/brand etc (not 100% legal advice, just something to be aware of, depending on country/state).
Adrijus–I’m not sure buying a domain name will protect the copyright of a book or even a blog. Unfortunately, scammers can buy a similar domain name ( say, “AnneRAllen.net” when I own “AnneRAllen.com”.) I read daily horror stories of authors being hacked and pirated. We had this blog pirated at one point, but the fake version was hosted in Brazil. No way to fight that in a court, unfortunately.
But it is very wise to choose (and display prominently) your author name as soon as you start blogging and/or querying. I see way too many new authors blog anonymously, which is a waste of time and energy.
So I agree that settling on an author name and making Google aware of it needs to be done as soon as possible.
It’s not gonna protect from scammers or pirating but more in a case of going to court and disputes. The date of domain acquired with your credit card could be used to prove the author owns the copyright and ‘was first’. Kind of like musicians send themselves a ‘master’ CD with all the songs in post or author can do that with manuscript. The date and the original file prove that author is the original source. So that’s more where I’m coming from. Not an every day use case but something that could be of use in rate cases. 🙂
I wrote half a dozen books and I’m about to self pub one every few months. I need a web site/blog and I’m totally clueless. I really don’t understand computers. Where should a rank computer armature with zero skills begin? I have a domain name, I’ll e pub first and then add POD later. I see your site is very nice and you hired someone to build it, I can’t afford that so what do I do?
Rachel–I have written a book that is aimed at authors exactly like you. It’s called “The Author Blog: Easy Blogging for Busy Authors” and it only costs $2.99 for a couple more weeks. (Link to Amazon is in the sidebar. It’s also available at Kobo, iTunes, and Barnes and Noble.)
It tells you how to set up your own FREE blog, step by step and you don’t even need a domain name.
We did very well with a free Blogger (blogspot.com) blog for many years until we got so popular we needed more security. But that’s not a problem most author bloggers have. My book will answer all your questions.
Thank you so much for this – it has come at exactly the right time for me. I’ve been neglecting my fiction while busy with consultancy work and self publishing non fiction, so was thinking of starting an author blog to create some accountability and spur myself on.
I’m writing historical fiction so am thinking about sharing my story of how I got into it (when I wrote a parish history to raise funds for my church), interesting aspects of my research and why I love the Victorian period.
I’d be interested to hear about ideas for the most engaging content in this context; I need to find some other blogs and compare what they do. Any suggestions for good ones gratefully received!
Julie
Julie–That is exactly what I advise authors to do. Start a blog where you can talk about your research, the period you write about, and even post out-takes from the story that you have to cut. My book will tell you how to avoid pitfalls common to new author blogs and save you a lot of time.
Author blogs are everywhere. One I really enjoy is Tara Sparling’s https://tarasparlingwrites.com/ .
Just Google the names of some of your favorite authors with the word “blog” and you can find lots.
Thanks Anne – I bought the book after leaving my comment actually! I’m looking forward to making a start.
Julie–Awesome! I sure hope you find it helpful. I’ve had several readers contact me to say they followed my directions and started a blog. I visited the blogs and they looked great. It’s easier than most people think, because blogging has got so much more complicated for business bloggers. But authors aren’t business bloggers and we can do easy-does-it, old-school blogging . Have fun with it!
Anne, the book is wonderful – so many tips I didn’t know about. I’m on chapter 10 and in the fourth tip you talk about not having too many blogs. I already have a site juliecordiner.com which is for my consultancy business (I’m an education/school funding consultant). I haven’t kept it updated lately, as I’ve had a long-term assignment which is tapering down now, so am intending to look afresh at it.
I do have a Books page there, where I’ve put my parish history, and as this gave me the idea to write historical fiction, it would be easy to use this for my fiction and add a fiction blog page. But I’m wondering if it wouldn’t sit right with my business pages on there, and whether it’s ok to have two completely different blogs on one site. A while ago I bought Nick Stephenson’s Author Cats package and was intending using that with a new domain name, but I could just overwrite the existing WordPress template and have it all in one place. I’m just uncertain about whether that’s the right way to go.
To complicate matters, I co-write non fiction to help school leaders manage their budgets, and have a separate website https://schoolfinancialsuccess.com where my co-author and I take it in turns to write blog posts, and we sell our non fiction from there as well as on Amazon. We have someone who does the technical stuff for us (thankfully).
I’d rather not try to keep up with the mechanics of an extra site if possible, but just wasn’t sure if it would sit right putting the fiction on part of my consultancy site. What do you think?
Many thanks
Julie
Julie–My caveat about too many blogs mostly has to do with workload. You’ve got a lot on your plate in terms of blogging already.
But I think you could expand your current site to include your historical fiction if you add “author” to your job description (and you are an author already, and it gives you authority.) Try putting your historical fiction on the books page and see what happens. If you can blog about education and mix it up with posts about the research for your novels, that might integrate the two so you don’t have to start another website.
Thanks Anne. I’ve been blogging to find my voice and polish up my writing so that everything I post is as good as I can make it before I release any kind of book. I’ve not been active enough in creating traffic though which is still something of a mystery to me. Is it wise to add something to posts saying it is my property?
Closet–Finding your voice is a great reason to blog! My Author Blog book has lots of tips on how to get more traffic. There are lots of ways you can improve your SEO, and get your posts shared in social media.
As far as putting a copyright notice on your blog, some bloggers like to remind people that their work is copyrighted. (It’s copyrighted whether you put a notice up or not.) But that will often keep people from sharing, which is one of the best ways to get traffic.
What isn’t a good idea is to put a big legal-sounding threat about private property in a prominent position on the blog. Paranoia drives normal people away and won’t stop pirates. (I don’t think a copyright notice does either, but some people do.)
Thanks for the tip on sharing, Anne.
What perfect timing for me find your blog! Thank you for this wonderful post that has indeed pushed me to a decision.
Ingrid–I’m glad to hear it. Happy Blogging!!
Arr, it be a good thing when you writers be blogging. But I be thinking it be at least as good if a character (such as meself) takes it into her head to write a blog. Me matey Pat and me we be having more fun than 67 pirates tapping into a keg of rum. And if’n me book it gets published we gots us a great way to let our fans know.
PS: They help staff at wordpress they be wizards!
Babablog–Haha. Blogging as one of your characters is fine as long as you only plan to write one book or series. Otherwise, you’ll have to start another blog and social media persona for each book or series. And that can lead to some very bad places with your health and relationships. .
I totally agree a blog is a great way to sustain your brand. I’ve been penning posts (including one just the other day) about my works in progress as a way of adding intrigue to readers’ minds–to get them thinking about the characters and situations I develop, and also to touch on some of the research I’ve conducted for the book I’m writing…all in the name of one day getting the full story, in the form of a book, in their hands. Hopefully, by the time they have some idea about the story because of all the advance blogging I’ve done, they’ll be more than eager to sit and read the entire book! Jay
Jay–It sounds as if you’re doing it just right. You’re paving the way for your first book launch so you don’t have to scramble when it’s ready to go!