Start now: Timing is a critical element of your blog, so start your blog well before your book publishes, as ongoing buildup promotion is essential. Blog to jump-start the success of your book, as you’re putting a hook into the pond of multimillions of web searchers who want to connect with you.
Look for model blogs: Before you create your blog, spend time reviewing possible models for your blog. When you see what’s already working out there in the crowd for existing authors, you can create your own style based on those successes. Perhaps you’ve already identified the popular blogs in your niche. If you haven’t, here are some examples of blogs that show author brand, personal touch, audience-interest-driven posts, and clear format:
Tricia Goyer (triciagoyer.com/blog)
Mary DeMuth (marydemuth.com/blog)
Thom Hartman (thomhartmann.com/thom/blog)
Additional examples of preferred author blogs can be found at internet writingjournal.com/authorblogs.
Choose a template: Choose a format close to your favorite model blog and then customize it from there to save time. Review the different formats at blogsrater.com and technorati.com.
Choose a theme: Themes (aka templates) define the look and feel of your site. They take some of the pain out of choosing a color scheme, display font, and column size that can easily paralyze the average non-design-oriented writer. How you choose your theme differs depending on the site, but you can usually get a snapshot or preview of how your site would look with each theme applied. Click the picture you like best, and voilà! Your site will look like that.
This is where you can change your mind most often. Theoretically, you could change your site’s theme daily (even hourly, but don’t plant that in your brain), but that would drive away readers who come to expect that blog content is updated frequently, but that your style remains consistent.
While each blog host offers different choices for its themes, focus on these areas:
Number of columns: One-column templates focus all the attention on your writing. Great for personal journals, not so great for building a community. A sidebar column with pointers to other areas of your site allows readers to navigate better, view the types of topics you cover, and perhaps see other sites that you visit (a “blogroll”). Add a second sidebar column for symmetry if you have a lot of sidebar content.
Column width: You can usually specify a fixed width for each column. Often you can choose a “flexible” width that depends on your reader’s screen size.
Colors: As a writer, you want to make sure your content is readable, so choose your background colors and fonts accordingly.
We operate in a new paradigm of web-based promotion that requires thinking and communicating not from your own perspective, but from the perspective of your audience. This is a new community era that does not take well to selling. Instead, communities want everyone to share great things with them. It means joining your audience community, paying attention to and responding to comments, and giving solid valuable information instead of advertising. What does your audience want? What motivates your readers? What are their hopes, dreams, and needs? The more you know the answers to these questions, take them into consideration, and deliver solutions, the more you will build audience for your writing.
With valuable content presented in the way that buyers can connect to, they will be naturally drawn to your books. Remember, top publishers have always understood that audience definition is key to creating the success of any book.
Your first blog post is best created as an introduction to yourself in a Welcome post. Shake hands, tell folks what you’re doing, and show that you are sharing and searching for friends with similar interests. Because the content of your blog is by its nature personal, readers want to see a flavor of the real person in the author.
Your blog post impact is a combination of content and presentation, so use these elements in each blog post:
Strong headline: Use a great title and first sentence with SEO keyword tags.
Date of post: This is typically added automatically by your blog system.
Blog post text: Content ideas below. Shorter posts have become the norm, but maximum length is one short, edited intro paragraph, two or three body paragraphs, and one final short sentence, with second level subheads. Leave the last sentence as an “open for discussion” feel to attract the crowd, such as a question, a vote, or a request to comment.
Visuals are important: Be sure to include photos in your blog. Images of 200 × 200 pixels are best for sharability. A related image or logo can work for this purpose. Use a file name and descriptive text caption. Your camera phone or iStock photos are fine. Videos are also a big plus and discussed later in this book.
Links: To your other author platform locations, to friends and associate blogs, related articles and posts, etc.
Comment boxes: You moderate what comments will appear. Try to get as many comments as you can, starting with asking your friends and associates for comments, and sharing your own comments with them reciprocally. Responsiveness counts: Answer each and every one of them.
Permalinks: When you post, two things happen immediately: The post goes to the top of your site’s front page, and a specific page gets created for that post. That specific page, called a permalink, breathes life into your post after it ceases to be new. One reason blogging is successful as a format is because it combines the immediacy of the always-current front page with the always-available archived posts. It is that permanent link that makes your posts available to search. So after you’ve written this amazing and informative post explaining the roots of the Great Depression of the 1930s to modern readers, that post does not disappear off your front page and into the dustbin. Search engines track these permalink pages to allow people to find them years down the road. After you’ve been blogging for a few years, you’ll be surprised (and occasionally amused) by the amount of traffic your old posts get. If you either link to someone else’s post for commenting on your blog or want to notify someone of a specific post of yours, don’t point to the blog’s home page; make sure you use the permalink, too.
Creating Content for Blog Posts
How do you tailor content to your audience once you understand the needs and interests of your audience? As an example, our author clients form a large audience for this book. I’ve tirelessly listened to authors’ issues and concerns about platform for many years and am responding with the solution—this book. I know well that my literary agency clients generally don’t have much time available after doing their day-to-day jobs and writing a book; these clients have demanded a complete, pre-digested, easy-to-follow formula for creating their own author platform. In deciding the table of contents and coverage, we have tailored the content of this book for that audience, which
