How to Start Blogging: A Definitive Guide for Authors

It may seem strange to start a blog guide with this, but I’m trying to save you a lot of time, heartache, and trouble.

Blogs are not very beneficial to the average author.

However, blogging is still a popular way for authors to promote themselves and market their books. Why? Blogging works, but only if certain conditions can be met. Few authors are able to meet these conditions. This post will explore what it means for an author to blog effectively and meaningfully in order to build a long-term platform, and how this can help with book marketing.

To clarify: “Blogging” is defined as the publishing of material on a website that you control and own, usually your author’s website. It’s sometimes confused with writing for blogs or other websites, but I’m not talking about that in this article.

Another complication is that “blogging” has become an outdated term. It’s a term that’s not used very often anymore: keeping a personal “log” of thoughts and experiences. As discussed here, blogging is online writing that you do for free or, better yet, a strategy in which you create articles, columns, interviews, etc. Shared on social media and found through search.

How to be an effective blogger

You’re more likely not to succeed if you think of blogging as “less important” than your published book or other writing. Although blogging is less formal and less researched and is more geared towards online skim-reading and social sharing, it still requires the same level of skill and practice as writing a novel. The more you practice, the better you get at it. But I’ve seen many authors quit before they have put in enough time to really understand the medium.

To blog for a long time, you must enjoy the process of blogging and online writing.

If you take the practice seriously, you can use all of the content you create for your blog in another format, or even within another publication. The best of my blog posts are condensed in a book called Publication 101. This required a great deal of editing and reformulation. Online writing cannot be thrown into print without much work. But it shows the depth and value of my blog.

For nonfiction writers, blogging is easy, but less so for fiction writers.

Nonfiction authors and experts are in a good position: their subjects lend themselves to blogging. This is especially true if they teach workshops or interact regularly with their readers. These writers will know the most common questions, topics, and problems. Knowing your audience is a great way to start a blog.

Fiction writers are also able to have a successful blog, particularly if they can focus on a particular topic, theme or subgenre. Unpublished novelists may find it difficult to build a following with a blogging platform. Nonfiction writers are the opposite: blogging can lead to a book contract.

It’s no wonder that advice on blogging is so confusing and contradictory: it depends a lot on the genre and audience you are writing for.

Effective blogging requires consistency.

Consistency can be classified into two categories: frequency and subject.

To get any momentum, you need to commit to at least 2-4 posts per week. It’s possible to achieve traction with just one post per week. You should aim to post several times a week when you first start. As you continue to blog and build an audience, you can reduce the frequency.

Topic: Consider this when creating headlines for blog posts. When you take a look at your headlines over the past month, you should be able to tell what your blog is about and for whom it’s intended. Your potential readers should be able to know whether they will benefit from or enjoy your posts.

Many authors find it difficult to stay focused on a single topic, or even a specific subject, either because they are bored or because they believe their readers will be bored. It isn’t easy to gain traction when you are constantly changing your approach and offering something new.

If you want to start blogging but are worried about the time commitment, consider creating a blog with multiple contributors. This is where many authors from the same genre or who target similar audiences join forces. This will reduce your workload and increase your audience at first since more people will be marketing and promoting the site.

You need to be patient if you don’t already have a large readership.

People may not even be aware of your blog for months. It’s not your fault; there is a lot of noise and demand for attention around us.

It’s not true. This is not true, which is why consistency in blogging and posting about a topic is so important.

It takes some time before you see a tangible sign of increasing activity or interest.

What topics should you blog about?

The sequence of events is as follows:

1. The publication date of an author’s book is approaching (or the author wants to get a traditional deal). She is aware that she must market and promote her book, and/or create a platform.
2. She hears (or finds) that blogging can be a great way to achieve #1.
3. She wonders, What should I blog about?

This series of events has caused many writers to blog poorly.

What is the answer to your question, “What should I blog about?”

If you’re asking, you shouldn’t blog. My position on this is a bit stubbornly Zen. If the action seems forced or contrived from the beginning, the blog could be doomed. Rarely have the best bloggers been told what to do. This is not something that authors should be forced to do. You shouldn’t feel that coming up with new ideas is a chore; your real problem should be having too many suggestions.

But I’m not going to be a total defeatist! I’m encouraging experimentation. Let’s get you thinking about what you could blog about if you are interested in blogging for fun.

Here are a few models you might want to consider, depending on how difficult I find them to be (assuming that you’d like your blog to pay off).

Easy: the literary citizenship model

You can find out more about literary citizenship here if you are not familiar with it. This is a way to celebrate and bring attention to writers, books, and writing–the things that you love and support. This model is perfect for unpublished poets, novelists and memoirists.

Blogs that promote literary citizenship can be used to:

• Book reviews or recommendations made informally
• Interviews with members of the community, usually authors.
• You can also create “media consumption” posts, where you list what you are watching, saving or collecting.

Benefits: You’re creating a network of contacts while you create excellent content on your website. Each author wants to be noticed (or gain a new fan).

Where is the difficulty? There are many literary citizenship activities online. A unique angle will be needed to attract a large audience, although this is true for any blog effort.

Write for other writers.

What I do. Many authors have valuable advice and insights for other writers. The audience of both aspiring and established authors can be huge. The downside: connecting with other authors doesn’t always increase your readership. You end up in an echo chamber of other writers.

Benefits: If you teach writing or mentor other authors, you may already have content that you can use to create your first blog posts. You’ll be able to generate ideas quickly, and you can build your traffic by sharing your advice with your readers on social media.

Burnout is the main problem. It’s hard to keep the blog fresh and exciting after a few decades. As your readers grow, they may outgrow the blog.

Write about your expertise in Easy-Medium.

Anyone who writes and publishes nonfiction should consider this option. This works well with nonfiction that is prescriptive or how-to. It can also be used with memoir. If you are writing a memoir on addiction or care for elderly parents, for example, your blog could offer advice and stories to people who may be going through similar situations.

Benefits: You will quickly create relevant content for your readers and easily repurpose it if you speak or teach.

The difficulty is: Certain categories, like travel and cooking, are highly competitive. It may take some time to find a unique angle or voice.

Medium: Behind the Scenes

Write about your research, current news, or events that have influenced the creation of your book or other work. You could also organise competitions or events that encourage reader participation, like having readers choose the characters in your novel or selecting the best cover. Readers will likely be interested in knowing more about your context and ideas and participating in your future writing.

Benefits: For most writers, discussing the things that inspire their work is natural. You will also likely discover and engage your most loyal fans.

Where you may have difficulty: You might run out of content quickly or post less frequently. You may hate the idea of engaging readers in your work. This is a difficult approach for unpublished novelists because people may not be familiar with their work or care about the process.

Essays about daily life or personal experiences are difficult.

Some writers have success with informal missives, which comment on the day-to-day events or reflect on their own lives. It could also be a regular posting of media, such as videos or photos.

Benefits: It can be an outlet for creativity or a practice, particularly if you blog regularly. The intimacy may be appreciated by fans of your work (though some prefer an air of mystery).

The difficulty is that not everybody can write about themselves in an entertaining way (and others don’t even want to). It’s difficult (or even impossible) for writers who haven’t been known to write about their personal lives unless they are superlative writers.

The list is not exhaustive, but it gives you a good idea of some of the more common topics.

Think about how you can bring the voice of your perspective or topic to a theme, subject, or topic without repeating everything that’s already been said. It’s easier said than done. After 18 months, I finally found the right angle. I realised that I am best suited to writing about digital media and business advice for authors.

Successful blogs have a focused message and target a specific audience. This makes it easier to gain attention and build a group around similar interests or viewpoints.

No one should blog alone.

Before you begin a blog, find out who else is already blogging about your topic. These are the influencers. Begin by reading their blogs, sharing their posts and leaving comments on their blogs. If possible, guest blog on their behalf. You should not see the other bloggers as competition, but rather as members of a community who could eventually support your work. They’ll recommend you or send traffic if your blog generates conversations and is of high quality. Identify the community leaders or people you want to develop a relationship with.

Select the best blogging platform.

Do not build your blog on a platform different from the one you use to host your author website. Search engine optimisation and a long-term marketing plan require that everything is under the same roof. If you already have a Squarespace author website, start your blog on Squarespace. Please don’t do it on WordPress or Blogspot.

If your website platform doesn’t support blogging, it may be time to change platforms. Here, I discuss the basics of author sites.

WordPress is a great option if you do not have an author site or you are doing a blog with multiple contributors. It is well-supported and constantly developed. About 20% of websites run on WordPress. This is my guide on how to host your blog or website. It shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes.

Blog Launch: Before You Start

Consider the following before you begin.

• Tagline and blog title. While there are no rules, new visitors must understand what the blog is all about and how they can benefit from it. If the title of your blog is clever, metaphorical or unclear about the subject matter, add a tagline to tell and sell the angle. Michael Hyatt has a very popular tagline, “Your Leadership Coach.”
• Readability. Don’t make the text too small or too tight, and don’t use white type against a black background. Ads or a difficult-to-navigate design can also hinder readability and send readers elsewhere.
• About Page or Bio. If the content of your blog is interesting, readers will want to learn more about you. Please do not make your readers search for it. Create a separate webpage and include a contact method.
• Comments. Develop a policy on how you will moderate or handle discussions. Will you review every comment before it goes live? If they are not spam, will comments be automatically published? You’ll get more comments if you have an open commenting policy. However, you should receive email notifications when new comments arrive, in case anything inappropriate or spammy gets through. Major blog platforms like WordPress help you automate your comment system so that spam is automatically eliminated. Install Akismet if you are having trouble. This is the industry standard plugin for eliminating spammy comments.

How to write quality posts that are read and shared

It’s hard to define quality. Much depends on how your readers or audience perceives it. Or what type of content they find engaging. Your posts will be better if you understand your audience better.

Here’s how you can increase the likelihood that your post will be shared and read.

• Don’t be afraid of length. People started thinking, for some strange reason, that the ideal blog post is 500 words or less. This is not true. Google will actually rank your content lower when it comes time to search if you have shallow content. Social media works best for short, quick statements, comments, and sharing. Most of the most popular posts on this website are longer than 2,000 characters. The longer the content is, the easier it must be to read, and this brings us to our next point.
• Make your content more scannable. People skim through online content to decide if it is worth paying attention to. Your content will either be saved and read later, or the reader will take their time to read it from start to finish. Add subheadings, bulleted or numbered lists, bold lead-ins and plenty of paragraph breaks to your content to make it easier to scan.
• Always start your post with an image. I’m sure you have noticed that my posts always start with images. This increases the perceived value, and the photos are used to share the posts on social media. The image doesn’t have to be directly related to the post. It can be a metaphor, just as long as the image is colourful and attention-grabbing. The opposite of what you’re looking for is to blend in.
• End the post with a question. To get people more active in the comment section, it’s best to end the article with a specific question that asks people to share their knowledge and experience. Active comments are seen as good because they increase the time spent on your content. This is a sign of search engines’ engagement and, therefore, contributes to a better ranking for your blog.

The headlines of your posts are crucial.

Would people click on your headline if they only saw it (e.g. on Twitter)? The headline is the first thing that people will see when searching online or browsing search results. It’s therefore a major factor in whether they read your post. Consider these factors:

• Does the headline make sense? Blog post headlines are not a place to be cute, clever or abstract. You should also consider keywords in the headline to help search engines find your blog post.
• Does the headline seem intriguing or provocative to you? While I don’t advocate clickbait, it’s not a bad idea to create intrigue or mystery or play upon people’s curiosity. Clickbait is when the headline does not deliver on its promise, or if it is sensationalised in order to attract clicks.
• Is the headline a benefit to you? We all have limited time online and are always thinking WIIFM. What’s in it For Me?

Here are some examples of blog headlines I helped a writer improve to make them more precise and keyword-focused.

• Original headline: Randomness, mostly related to books that aren’t mine
• My Summer Reading List: I’ve loved the books and am still waiting for others
• Original title: Turn, turn, turn
• Better headline: What if you’re dreading the change of seasons?
• Original title: Want to Have Coffee?
• Better headline: Overcoming Obstacles that Prevent You from Meditating

Create cornerstone content

The cornerstone content is any article, page, or post on your website that consistently attracts new readers, either through search engines or referrals from other websites. Cornerstone content is often a comprehensive and definitive article that addresses a commonly asked question, problem, or issue. It may also feature a popular author, thing, or popular cultural phenomenon that is frequently searched.

You can find the cornerstone content of this blog under “Most Popular Posts”. Each one links to 101 posts about how to publish.

Cornerstone content can be a PDF or manifesto. Chris Guillebeau’s 279 Days to Overnight Success has attracted thousands, if not millions, of people to his blog.

You’re a nonfiction author, so this is something that comes to you naturally. Create a 101 guide or FAQ on a topic you are familiar with, or a tutorial about a subject you get asked about often. My most popular resource on this website is Begin Here: How to Get Your Book Published.

This strategy will require some creativity if you are a novelist. Consider the following:

• Create an insider guide or travel guide for the region in which your book takes place. Think about other themes that you could use to inspire a fun project: a collection of recipes, a character’s favourite movies, books or music, or the research and resources necessary for your book.
• List your favourite books by mood or occasion, genre/category. When you can, tie in current events or media that look similar. For example, if your audience loves The Bachelor and you are a romance writer, you could create a list of books for fans.
• Create FAQs or guides if you have an avocational interest (or a past occupation) that has influenced your novel.

Even one cornerstone piece can reduce your workload and attract readers to your website through new content. The cornerstone content will attract a steady flow of new readers to your site over the course of several weeks or months, some of whom will even become loyal subscribers.

You should read How to Increase Website Traffic if you are serious about it.

Share and browse your posts easily.

It’s hard to understand the full scope of a blog with a minimalist design. Although a minimalistic design has its benefits, I find that a sidebar with tools for navigating my blog’s history and the hundreds of posts on it increases engagement.

• Calendar/archive. New visitors to your blog might want to explore your older posts. Offer a calendar or archive of your posts to make it easier for new readers.
• Search by category. Your blog content should be categorised into 5-10 categories that will appeal to your audience. If a person reads an interview or a book review that they find interesting, they might want to look at all of your previous interviews or reviews. This can be made easier by categorising posts and making them visible.
• Most popular posts. It’s useful to tell new blog readers, in a sidebar or box that is consistent with your blog design, what the most popular posts are.
• Share functionality. Make sharing your post on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else easy by adding share buttons at the bottom of each post. Most blogs have this functionality built in.

Search engines can help you discover your content.

It is important to have a separate post on search engine optimisation. You’ll do well with SEO if you:

• Use WordPress or Squarespace, which are already optimised for search engines.
• Make sure that each post has been categorised and tagged correctly.
• If your site is self-hosted, then install a href= “https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/”>WordPress SEO by Yoast/a>, which will give you both the tools and education you need to optimise your content for search. Install WordPress Search Engine Optimisation by Yoast if your site is hosted on your server. This will provide you with the tools and knowledge you need to optimise content for search.

Install Google Analytics if your site is self-hosted. It’s free and easy to install. Once Google Analytics has collected data for at least one month, you can look at these:

• How do people find your blog? How do people find your blog? Your social media presence? By other websites that link back to you?
• What keywords bring visitors to your website?
• What are the most popular pages or posts on your website?

Knowing the answers to these three questions will help you decide what social media networks you should invest your time and effort in (at least for blog promotion), which other websites you could partner with (who sends you traffic, and why?) and who on the internet you might want to work with (who are you sending traffic from? You can also determine which content is worth developing on your website (which content will attract visitors in the long term? ).

Regularly create lists or roundups.

Linking to other blogs is a great way to get people to notice your blog. If you do it in a helpful way, it’s beneficial for your blog, readers, and the websites you link to.

Weekly link roundups are common in the publishing and writing community. Elizabeth Craig is an example. Create lists and roundups that are relevant to you. You should be committed, passionate, and consistent to achieve the desired results.

Interview people you find fascinating regularly.

It’s very rare to find an interviewer or series of interviews that is thoughtful, informed and thorough.

Consider themes, hooks or angles to create an interview series for your website. You can run it as often as you like, but only if you have the time and resources to do a quality, well-researched interview. These series are also a great way to expand your network and build community relationships.

Be a guest at other sites.

When you appear as a guest on another website, it’s a great opportunity to link back to your site and social media accounts.

If you want to know how to write a guest post, then pitch sites with a larger audience. They should also have readers who are a good fit for your work. For a great introduction to how to do guest posting, check out this Copyblogger article. Alternatively, if you don’t like writing guest posts, you can offer to be interviewed by other bloggers as part of their interview series.

When you appear on another website, promote it on your social networks. Create a link from your site to the interview.