So what about blogging?
Blogging is a word that gives a lot of authors the horrors but as you continue on your writing journey, you'll most likely find that you'll want to start a blog. Actually, it's something I'd highly recommend. A blog, alongside your website, will become a method for interacting and engaging with your readers outside of your books. A blog is a way of communicating about your work and promoting your books, but is also a vehicle for giving your readers some insight into you as a person ~ it provides a personal touch that allows you to build relationships.
A blog is a wonderful way to connect with your readers.
Personally, I find a blog is also another outlet for my writing. I can write about the things that are close to my heart ~ the things that I am passionate about. This blog for instance, is nothing to do with my actual writing. I'm not going to be posting about my work in progress or my latest novel. You won't see me posting about cover reveals or any other specific book marketing activity (that takes place on my author site). What you will see is me talking about the process behind my writing, discussing the practicalities and nuts-and-bolts, sharing knowledge and experience.
A blog allows you to be creative beyond the novel you are writing.
This blog is launching in March 2017. I have done a heap of best practice research, built the site, and put the tools in place to maximise the success of the blog. This is a new endeavour for me. Along the way, I'll be recording my journey and sharing the ups and downs of my blogger life. In a previous post, The First Step to Becoming a Successful Author, I touched a little on success and how success if different for everyone, so you might be keen to understand what my goal is with this blog? I'll be determining my success based on a few factors:
- Fun - If I'm doing to devote a good chunk of my time to the blog, I want it to be enjoyable. I want to keep the passion for sharing information alive
- Engagement - I want my content to be interesting and useful so that people want to read, follow and comment on the blog
- Monetisation - I'm adding this to the list although I don't yet have a clear goal in terms of exactly what I want to achieve. But I'm going to be doing activities that will earn some income that I will hope will help fund the cost of keeping the blog up and running
So I hope you'll join me on this blogging journey, and perhaps learn something and have some fun along the way.
Happy writing,
Nicki xx
