So I went to a panel today at lunch titled, "Beyond Blogspot: New Venues and Opportunities for Authors to Get the Word Out"
What I had hoped to learn:
- What can authors do to make their book and themselves stand out among a saturation of 1 billion + blogs
- Does it make a difference if an author uses Blogspot, WordPress or Tumblr?
- What should authors blog about?
What I learned:
- A blog is ___.
- Twitter is ___.
- We can haz book trailers!
- kld;lk3333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
That last bullet point was courtesy of my falling asleep during the panel.*
Seriously, though, I think it's a completely reasonable and intriguing question:
What the heck should an author blog about to make themselves stand out?
Should writers blog about writing?
Should you blog about books you read? Give reviews?
Should you blog about your personal life?
Should you blog about topics relating only to your genre?
That's entirely up to you.
If you just want people to come to you as a source for book reviews, then review books.
If you just want people who are nosy and want a peek into your life on a daily basis, then make a Facebook page and make it public -- with pictures.
Your blog should be comprised of information that will define your platform. One of the panelists stated, "If you can't think of anything to blog about, just talk about other authors and books." Great idea. Until you start doing that on a regular basis. Then guess what? Like *almost* any other topic, there are thousands of other blogs that do that and, no offense, probably do it better.
Give your audience a reason to follow you and read your posts.
Then, the most important part, analyze your audience's involvement. If you have 1,000 blog followers but you average maybe three comments per post, then you're not doing your job as a blogger to engage your audience. I think if you average at least 10% of your followers worth of comments per post (i.e. 400 followers and 40 comments), you're doing above and beyond what the average blogger does for their audience -- at least try to aim for 5%.
Three of my favorite bloggers:
Maureen Johnson -- YA author -- her blog has a little bit of everything and 110% of her personality
Ink in All Forms -- by Laura Fitzgerald -- Publishing from a marketing perspective
Strangest Situation -- by Sarah Fine -- Where Psychology and YA Literature Collide
I follow about 20 different blogs, but these are definitely in my top three. Are there other good examples? Absolutely -- but these definitely strike me as unique yet informative and totally for their audience.
Take a look at the blogs you've subscribed to-- do you read them all? Do you find yourself skipping over a bunch of them in your blog roll? Why? What do the blogs YOU read do to keep you engaged?
~KO
*Ok, not really. But you get the point.
**This is the second post in my SOCIAL MEDIA WEEK blog series. If you've not yet taken my ereader poll, please do so here.
I'm not sure about the link between followers and comments. (Some people appear to click the "follow" button on every site they visit.) I currently have 41 followers--and sometimes have 20 plus comments on a post. (Granted, it's a meme.) Nathan Bransford has over 5000, but doesn't get 500 comments per post. I just checked his post of today and he has 95. By that reasoning, I'm doing a superlative job and Nathan's just eking by.
I'm not sure what really makes a successful blog, but it sure merits a conversation.
(I ♥ your blog, by the way.)
Thanks for the info! I thought I'd add that aside from comments, I evaluate a post's effectiveness on number of hits and the visitors' time spent on the post. Some of my posts are more informative as opposed to sparking a discussion. For me, those posts tend to get a lot of visits, but fewer comments. I love MJ's blog, too!
Oh, irony - today I'm working on setting up a blog schedule, and Word docs with blog posts to come. The blog is new, so it's a blank canvas.
You make some excellent points.
What about frequency? If an author posts one blog entry a week, is that too little? I'm of the Know Thyself camp - and I know it'll be hard to keep up a blog more than once a week. Thoughts?
Thanks very much for this!
@Michael -- as with everything, there are exceptions to every rule -- like Nathan B :)
@Cory -- right! The only thing is that people tend to look at 'page views' and 'hits' rather than 'unique visitors', which is the true number of guests at the blog. Though I agree looking at time spent on the post is most important -- do they just click and leave or do they delve more into the post and read / interact. In the long run, regardless if informative or interactive, the best feedback is the interactive kind. It shows you've sparked enough of a reaction to make the reader take the time to comment.
@Trinity -- I think an author should blog as often as they feel comfortable and as long as they have something to say! :) Though regularity helps, I clearly don't follow my own advice, since at times I blog every day and sometimes a month goes by in silence :)
I blog almost every day (although I try to keep it down), mostly about the things I've been thinking about. I give any relevant updates about _my_ writing, but I try to keep it to speculation, a bit of philosophy, and thoughts.
I think I get slightly over a 10% rate.
Great points. These were the exact questions I had when I started my blog. Also: How do you connect with teen readers?
I love Kiersten White's blog. I don't care if she's blogging about writing or dirty socks, it's always entertaining.
I don't comment often, but then I only comment when I feel I have something unique to say. If I agree with the post -- or an earlier commenter has already made my argument -- I nod and wander off. But I have asked all the questions you had hoped to learn in your panel and enjoyed hearing your ideas on the subject. --Also that I'm not the only one devolving into lolcats speech when considering a guilty pleasure.
I finally had time to check out the three favorite blogs you mentioned. Apologies in advance for a long comment.
My thoughts: Maureen Johnson. Voice in spades. Doesn't blog regularly (lives on Twitter, according to bio.) Might follow if I wanted to live vicariously a published author's life.
Laura Fitzgerald. Found the latest post (about stats) interesting, but doubt I'll do much about it till I'm rich and famous. Again, nicely written. May be another twitter denizen, as blogs very infrequently.
Finally, Sarah Fine. The finest of the bunch (haha, so funny.) Love the insights into psychology; the post about surviving the car crash and what she remembered of it, was tremendous. This sort of knowledge might actually help me in my writing craft. Also, she posts quite regularly and loves her level-headed agent.
Sarah Fine: You're going to Hollywood!!!
Great great post! Thanks for sharing. This question always pops in my head when I'm blogging.