So I have a book out now. I spent the first part of the month promoting it as much as possible while attempting not to be obnoxious. Then the reaction set in, and I had to hermit a bit. (That’s totally a verb. I swear.)
To make my cave-dwelling worse, I had some Bright Ideas for my blog. I’ve been blogging a long time, you see, and I don’t have the following I’d like. I thought I’d do something about that. I read a lot about marketing and branding and all, and decided that I needed to Smarten Upâ„¢ this place.
One aspect of branding is to make yourself an expert in your specialty. Post interesting bits, explain stuff, go to conferences and lecture, et cetera.
Problem: I write fiction all over the spec-fic side of the map. I don’t have a specialty. Especially as the advice warns not to talk a lot about writing, unless you want to only attract writers. Well, no–I want readers too. I love readers, I am a reader, and hey–I wrote a book I’d like to be read and enjoyed.
Need to attract readers.
So I figured, okay. I’ll write an interesting and erudite post every day. (Post regularly: Big Rule)
And then I didn’t blog at all. Sorry. If you want intelligent posts (with intelligent comments and an awesome community!) go check out John Scalzi’s Whatever. (Please don’t start going there instead of here. Or I’ll miss you. There will be tears.)
Truth is, I’m not particularly erudite. I’m a fangirl. I look at things and go “oh cool!” and do my best to shove it into a novel to share the awesome. Sure, I research, but I start at Wikipedia and depending on the depth and plausibility of the article, I may not go farther until/unless I’m ready to put it in a story. And I’m betting y’all know the way to Wikipedia yourselves–you don’t need me quoting it.
I did find things to avoid. No more mopey “why do I even bother?” posts unless I can make them either heartbreaking or amusing. Really, who the hell cares about my #firstworldproblems anyway? (I didn’t read anything about not using random hashtags. >_> )
I read a blog post very much like this one the other day, and I actually yawned. Even though I’m a writer! So I’ll try not to post like that anymore.
Which leaves me the question of what I’m going to add. Still want to increase the traffic around here. Maybe put in a pleasant little park, add a sea lion attraction… What would you like to see? Here are some ideas I had.
- Writing exercises. Not boring ones, but cool stuff from books I’ve read, probably using my characters. If you’re familiar with, say, Taro and Rafe, it would be like outtakes. If you’re not–well, maybe I can hook you into reading about them.
- Book reviews. Like there aren’t a ton of these out there already, but hey–we readers like them. There’s nothing like a thoughtful book review to let a reader know we’re in the right place.
- Fangirl stuff. Not just Adam Lambert, or other things you might think of when you read the word “fangirl.” Stuff like that ice-shelf thing I posted the other day, where a whole flippin’ city of ice is coming at the shore (and I keep thinking of some early-technology girl looking at that and thinking the gods have come). Interesting science-y things you could find just fine on your own, but hey, I got this.
What else? An advice column? (Hee–written by my characters. Life Advice from Eve, anyone?) Guest posts? A water slide? What would you like to see around here?
Please comment on my ideas, even if you don’t have any of your own at the moment. I’m humbly requesting opinions. You don’t want this post hanging out, looking comment-less and pathetic while the other posts mock it, do you?
Ooh, a waterslide! With lots of cabana boys going down it. >_>
Okay, seriously. Outtakes are awesome! For example, I love the beginning of Keen’s story that you’re not going to use, the one where he and Rafe go out dancing. But don’t feel like you have to put them up really often or anything. I’d rather hear from you about other stuff than have silence because you didn’t have time to write an exercise.
Daily posts, while awesome, are ridiculously hard to maintain. I’ve followed a few bloggers who did Blog 365, and one who did it for about 3 years. After a while, it became a chore to post, and they ended up doing memes and the like, when they’d previously said that they hated them. (Not that I mind the occasional meme. But they did.) Blogging 2 or 3 times a week is more than enough to add to most schedules.
Book reviews are always interesting, as is cool science-y stuff. And Adam Lambert, as well. >_> Naturally. Obviously. <__> You already have humor sprinkled around your blog, so I’m just saying Keep it up.
Life Advice from Eve is a scary scary thought. I say try it out. XD
ICE CITY WHERE.
Erm. Pretty much everything you’ve suggested, except possibly the water slide, sounds like something I’d really love to read. If you’re looking for other non-writing things that writers blog about, you might look into Jenny Crusie’s blog, because she talks about a lot of things that aren’t writing as well as the things that are. (Crafts projects, awesome websites (she discovered TVtropes a few months ago, poor woman), weird things her roommate’s kids do…) (She’s the only person I don’t know whose blog I actually read on a regular basis, so she’s clearly doing something right.)
@Kate, here. http://www.kdsarge.com/wordpress/archives/4751 It’s pretty damned cool. Take it if you like, that way I won’t feel the need to distract myself from Rafe-editing. >_>
Ooh, thanks! *clicks to look at Crusie’s blog* I’ve never been there but for the writing advice. XD
@SilverWolf You know, the second I thought of it (as I was typing) I thought I really did have to try it. ^__^ Probably Formspring is the easiest way–I’ll have a look!
@Bea–would I have any other kind of waterslide? XD
I find your advice good. (I, too, love that Keen-bit from Rafe’s POV) Also, I tend to let myself forget that when I do daily posts, they do get really short and boring. Reporting in, as it were. I’ll try to avoid that. Maybe I need to set certain days a week On Which I Will Blog. Hmm.
Thank you all!
I would DIE for “Life advice from Eve.”
Most writers read. If you attract writers, there’s a chunk of them bound to be interested in being readers, too. It was a while that I followed Holly Lisle before reading her stuff, but when I saw what excellent writing advice she put online, I thought, “Huh, I better see what it looks like in action!” and it was brilliant.
Tell us what your strengths are, and how you do it. What do you often get questions about? (As an example – whenever I did the hour word war in #sydnano in November, people would express amazement I’d whack out a good 4K and some’d ask how I did it.) Write about that. Keep your ear to the ground, find out what people especially struggle with in writing – and look for a solution, and write about that. Write about ways you’re trying to find solutions. (“I want to up my typing speed, but before I try out typing lessons I will experiment with Dvorak and tell you folks how it goes” kind of thing.) If you stumble across solutions that don’t seem to have much popularity yet (like Write or Die in the early days), tell people about it. If you do it well enough, people’ll be like me and go, “Huh, she knows so much, her book must be AWESOME.” It’d be especially great if you reference your book occasionally in your blog posts. (“When I used such and such planning method for Knight Errant, it flopped so I had to find a new idea – which ended up leading to an awesome plot twist!” Personally, I also find it fun to find out what could’ve happened – “Originally, Eve was a pink-obsessed, handbag-toting woman who would stab people’s eyes out with the heel of her shoe.”) Also, later on, you could become an affiliate to writing products you like and have tested out – that’ll have a bit of money creep in if people follow the link and buy, and if they know you like them personally, then they’ll trust the product because they trust you.
Also, I agree, don’t do daily posts – even if you could maintain it, it’d be like nanowrimo; little substance, lots of wordpadding. 😉 Twice or thrice (hee, thrice!) a week would be just fine, and some people procrastinate when it comes to reading their blogs and like it to be easier to catch up. 🙂
I love your ideas. Especially the Life Advice from Eve (and now it’ll be better b/c I’ve actually read about her in KE) and the book reviews.
I’ve been struggling with the blogging thing, too. And I tend to write about writing, which I realize now that I shouldn’t do (or as often?) and yeah…could use a few ideas for myself (but won’t steal your cool ones 😉 ).
Cheers,
E.
” I don’t have a specialty.”
“No more mopey ‘Why do I even bother?'”
You’re starting to sound like me. :look: 🙄
But anyway, I don’t blog. Or well, I do but nobody ever reads my stuff. EVER. Tumblr doesn’t count since you can’t really make comments without proper adjustment (Disqus).
This is probably a dumb question, but do you *really* need a /specific/ topic for a blog? I’ve seen very many blogs out there that with every post, whether done daily, or every-other-daily, or every other week, maybe a month before the next post… maybe a year… yeah, I’ve seen lots of those and ALL of them have separate topics. You know, those things called categories? Write about at least one of those – whether it’s about fangirl stuff, music, writing, rest and relaxation, life, other interests, etc etc. Write at least one post for each of those categories. You’ll probably bring in a few more readers. Plus, Twitter is good for exposure, as you already know.
While there may not be very many of us who comment (such as myself), but when we do, we do it rarely – but don’t think that means that we don’t read your posts.
Also, as far as possibly doing daily posts goes – short is good. Boring is not. You know you want to have a long one come around eventually, but don’t make it tl;dr length. (Bah, like I’m one to talk. I make those posts ALL the time).
Dimi
@Dusty–writers read. This is true. Thanks! I especially appreciate the specifics of what writing stuff to write about.
@Erin–take what you like, and modify it for you! Letters from Eve, for instance, would be very different written by one of your characters. ^__^
@Dimi–well, if I want to “brand” the blog, I need to specialize. Which is why I was discussing my difficulties with the concept. 😛
Yes, I know about categories. I have tags, too! What I’m wanting to do is to build community. Get more people here, and get more people to comment. This is part of my professional website, and it’s the only part that isn’t more or less static. So I’m looking for ways to make it consistently interesting.
Question for you–what’s the point in blogging where it’s nearly impossible for readers to comment? Tumblr certainly has its dedicated followers, so I’m guessing there’s something cool there.
I do read your Tumblr when you tweet a link. But I can’t comment, so you never know I was there.
I’ve got Disqus comments on now. Where it says the amount of Comments and Reactions is where you comment. A little square bar thing should come up giving you the option to comment as a guest (or login with social networks (such as Twitter)) and comment through them). But yeah.
I love love LOVE the idea of life-coaching advice from Eve. She’s a bad-a$$ and isn’t afraid to tell less… erm, assertive? folks like me how to handle tough situations. If you can do it right, I think they would be a HUGE draw to your blog and once people fall in love with her advice, they’ll snatch up copies of the books she’s in.
I struggle with blogging, too, as I think most writers do. (when did the advice turn away from writing about writing? I decided I’m incapable of offering better advice than what’s already posted by the hundreds, but I thought that was still an industry recommendation?)
I think you’ve got a good idea here, KD!
(also, a thought: am i missing a comment subscription option, so i can get emails for follow-up comments? that really helps keep a dialogue going)
I love you, you know that, right? ^.^ Okay, just making sure we get that clear first… It’s late, and I’ve got mindmush but a lot of it, so I’m just going to dump everything and hope it makes sense. <_<
I thought about your ideas–which are pretty fun/cool by themselves– but I kept coming back to why I, as a reader, go back to certain author's blogs and/or follow their blog feeds. And really, what I'm looking for is a sneakypeek to who [so-and-so] is. Like, what do [so-and-so] does in a day; who [so-and-so] hangs out with; what funny/thoughtful discovery [so-and-so] had today; [so-and-so]’s progress with her current book, woo! …life stuff that gives me the impression I know [so-and-so]personally, except, not really. >_>
This is kind of hard to explain ’cause I count you a personal friend and feel I do know you personally (to some degree), soo… uh, bloging as an author brand is a whole different ballgame.
But, really, that ‘personal connection’ is why I follow blogs from Crusie, Lucy March*, Wil Wheaton …
For instance, I find I don’t follow any writer, really, for their writing advice (although they may toss one or two gold nuggets, which is fine, but I generally glaze over. When I need wrting advice, I go looking for it specifically). And I’m not sure I’d be interested in reading an author’s review of books she reads. I mean, I wouldn’t follow an author’s blog for that. I want to read her books. A book review that springs up because she’s excited about a book might be fine… (although I’m very discomforted by the idea of an author trashing a book she hated. >_>)
Fangirl stuff = Wheeee! This makes sense to me, because, well, you’re specializng in you. What you like. What you do. What you think about. >_>
As for daily entries, (as a reader/blog reader) I find it sometimes stresses me out. There’s so much out there to read or follow that sometimes I wish some bloggers wouldn’t write so often. I feel that if you do blog too much, it becomes noise. >_>
* formerly known as Lani Diane Rich, Lani/Lucy is re-branding herself with a new pseudonym and some major life changing ventures (divorce, etc). She’s blogging every day until she hits the big 4-0. It was a really gutsy, risky move, but it’s working out for her. In fact, she’s built an awesome community around her blog.
Oh! I never realized you didn’t have comment-notification! Yes, I use that all the time to follow conversations. I’ll get right on that.
Reba, lots of people do say to blog about writing. But I’ve discovered as I moved about trying to engage readers and promote my book, that a lot of conversations end up being several writers, talking among ourselves. Which, while awesome, is not the goal. Most if not all writers are readers–but not all readers are writers, and I’m not reaching readers who don’t write.
Then I stumbled on this lady, who makes serious sense. http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/where-are-all-the-readers-social-media-the-writers-revolution/
*marks down another vote for Eve the Advice Guru, trying to ignore cold glare directed at the back of her head*
Hee… *glomps scribs*
I’m not going to stop doing talking about myself at all. The thing is, the only people hanging around right now are the people who do know me, and care what’s going on in my life. New people who might wander by don’t stay, and I want them to. So I’m looking for ideas on how to entice them into hanging out.
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