So You Want to Write a Blog Part 2 (Personal Development)




So, I have a blog now. Do I just write?
Not exactly. You have to think about what you write. It needs to fit your theme and audience — if you’re writing to writers about writing, writing about politics will probably feel “off”. You can be an essayist in your blog and write about whatever crosses your mind, but it may be harder to convey a theme in your blog.  On the other hand, John Scalzi, a science fiction writer with a multi-book contract, writes about everything from writing to politics. His blog, fittingly, is called Whatever. If you’re as big as John Scalzi, you can write whatever.

How do I know what to write?
If you have a theme and an audience, you’re doing them no favor by just free-writing. This is your personal/professional presence on the Internet. If you’re a writer, it’s a chance to market yourself. You can compose directly on the screen, but compose. cut and paste to make the document flow. Proofread. Read it aloud to yourself like any other document you want to write to impress people. 

The blog should not be too long, in order to cater to today’s readers. I’m divided on how excerpts of novels and short stories should be presented in blogs, but I think that short excerpts are the best.

The 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020 (Brewer, 2019) suggests that one should have a list of topics for six months or a year. This works great if one writes weekly; I write daily (which is insane, but so be it). I do have a list of weekly topics, but intersperse those with more personal observations about being a writer.

Other suggested tricks
The 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020 (Brewer, 2019) has a chapter that presents several other reader- and SEO-friendly suggestions for blogs:

  • Short paragraphs and headings, as you see here. This works well for informational blogs; not so much for narrative.
  • An SEO tag in the title. I have a few that I use for my blogs, although I sometimes forget these because they’re new to me.
There are probably more tricks, but I haven’t learned them yet. I am still working on getting readership for this blog, but it may increase after I get published (I hope). 


Reference:
Brewer, R.L., 2019. The 29th Annual Edition Guide to Literary Agents 2020. Writers’ Digest Books.

Making a plan

I’ve been playing with a social media plan to get more readers. Apparently, writers need to do more than write to be successful, unless they get picked up for a $3.4 million book deal with TOR like John Scalzi and get major name recognition.


General goals from my plan:

  • To reach more readers
  • To have a vibrant community to talk with
  • To share my works with people 
So far, my presence on social media is as follows:
  • I have 20 regular readers here on Blogger
  • I have not gotten a comment on Blogger (other than fraudulent sales pitches) for over a year
  • I have less than 20 followers on Twitter
  • I get 2-3 likes a day on Twitter
  • I have 79 followers on Facebook
Time to set outcomes:

  • To get 30 regular readers on Blogger
  • To get 3 comments a week
  • To get 30 followers on Twitter
  • To get 10 likes a day on Twitter
  • I have 100 followers on Facebook
Why are these so small? Because SMART goals are:
  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Action Oriented
  • Realistic
  • Time Bound
But note these aren’t really the goals above, but results. The part I’m currently struggling with is HOW to increase readership and interaction.

This is a work in progress.