What A Terrified Writer Should Blog About
So when I decided I wanted to be a published fiction author the one thing I heard over and over again was “You need a blog.” And my first thought after that was always. “Ugh.”
What would I say? How would I build this thing so it looked right? Why would anyone care? All important questions.
If you’re a nonfiction author of course it makes sense to have a place to write all about what you’re writing about. For a fiction author? Hmm. What do you say?
“Here’s my books. Buy them.” Not good. Not what anybody cares about right?
And how many times can you say it before it becomes annoying? About once. Like ever.
But you do need a place to list your books so reader’s can find them and for new releases but blogging? What in the world do you put on there?
Here is a list of things you can put on your blog to keep it interesting, use in your newsletter (yes, you need one) and still make it fun for you.
- Excerpts of your stories
- Whole short stories to bring reader’s in.
- A daily (weekly, monthly, whatever) serial that keeps people coming back
- Audio recorded author notes talking about how you came up with your story.
- Interviews with your characters (One at at time. Tell them to get in line. Mine all want to be heard at once)
- Video yourself in a bookstore, at a book signing, on vacation, on a hike, etc. talking about inspiration or why being an author is amazing or why being there is helping your author life.
- Your hobbies, your quirks, What you like and don’t like. (I post about being a nerd, my Pinterest addiction and my tv addictions)
- Pets. People love them and their personalities. I post about my English bulldog and people love him. These make great posts on Social Media as well.
So before you even launch or get your blog up spend some time putting together an editorial calendar (just use a regular calendar, digital or paper) and writing some posts so you’re ready to go when you launch.
Think about themes, colors and what your books are about. How they make you feel and what your branding is going to be. What your covers are going to look like. Spend some time checking out Amazon and what the book covers in your category look like.
Go to their author websites and see what looks good. This will help you decide what you want your site to look like. What you want on there and more importantly what you don’t. I launched my site nine months before I published and all I did was blog on there. It worked very well for me. More about this in a later post.
I use design-seeds.com to choose my color palette. I have to be careful or I look up and two hours have gone by before I’ve even decided. It’s so beautiful!
Don’t worry right away about the technical stuff. First decide what you want. What you need and what you don’t. Start small. Don’t get overwhelmed. The only person you’re in the race with is you.
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Happy Blogging!
l
